Unauthorized Access (3 page)

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“Will you marry me?”

Lesley peered into his dark brown eyes and felt a flush of warmth flood through her. His gaze made her feel loved and safe, like there was nowhere else on Earth she would rather be than with him, now or at any other time.

“Of course I’ll marry you,” she said.

He rose to his feet and took the ring out of the box. Lesley’s hand trembled as he slipped it on her finger. She flung her arms around his neck, gave him a hard squeeze, then pulled back to look at the ring once more.

“It fits perfectly,” she said.

“I borrowed a ring from your jewelry box so the store could size it for you.”

“Mom will freak.”

“Probably. You want to call her tonight? Or we could drive home and show her on the weekend.”

Lesley’s eyes were still on the ring. “I don’t know. I’d rather do it in person but I don’t think I can wait that long.” She looked up at him. “Have you told your parents?”

“I haven’t told anybody. I was dying to tell Tim before I left work today, but I didn’t.”

She looked back at the house.

“Do the kids in the back yard come with the house?” she said.

“I think we have to supply those ourselves.”

She wiped at her cheeks and ended up with black smudges on her hand.

“We better stop somewhere so I can fix my makeup.”

“We can stop at my place,” Rob said, “but we should probably get going. Antonio’s has a bottle of wine chilled for us and a corner table with our name on it.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“It’s a nice place.”

“No, I mean what you just said …
our
name.”

The kiss was long and passionate, after which Lesley’s face wasn’t the only one with smudges.

* * *

Tim looked around the spare bedroom while he waited for Rob’s computer to boot up. He was searching for a suitable place to hide the sheet of paper he had brought in his knapsack.

A sagging ski poster hung on one wall over a set of bookshelves made of one-by-eights and red bricks. Some of the textbooks on the shelves took Tim back in time. Database Design. Rob had made one mark higher in that course but ended up with an A-minus to Tim’s B-plus. It still pissed Tim off to think of it.

The computer sat on a beat-up oak desk. Tim remembered the struggle he and Rob had squeezing the old desk out the front door of Rob’s home back in Worcester when they were both leaving for college.

The desk was probably the best place to hide the paper. He needed somewhere Rob wouldn’t happen upon the page for a couple of days, but where a dedicated search would be sure to find it. Tim wasn’t sure if the bank’s security people would actually search Rob’s apartment. He had no idea whether they had the legal right to do so, or what sort of investigative capabilities they had. Could they check fingerprints? Would they be able to trace the electronic trails Tim was creating? He didn’t know, but he was going to make sure all the evidence pointed in the same direction.

Tim smiled at the thought of a grim-faced crew pawing through all the desks and file cabinets of the bank’s IT staff, and of the moment when one of them would call to his supervisor, “Sir, I think you should look at this.” Tim could only guess which of his bread crumb trails would lead them to Rob, but he was certain of one thing; the bank would keep it quiet. He had seen it before when a First Malden teller named Janeen Colwell was caught helping her friends with a check kiting scheme. She had been quietly fired, with no charges laid and no police involvement. The only long-term consequence was that she would receive no reference from the bank. As Tim understood the policy, protecting the public image of the bank’s security trumped any desire for punishment.

Tim had every confidence that policy was about to be invoked again, in a big way.

He pulled open the top desk drawer and selected one of Rob’s pens. Laying the sheet of paper on the desk, he circled part of the text, drew a happy face next to it, then turned the paper over and doodled on the back. He put the pen away and the paper went in the bottom desk drawer, face down under a mound of junk mail and old bills.

By this time the computer was ready. Tim produced a memory stick, which contained a program he had created to send emails to selected people at First Malden. The first batch of emails would go out right away, after which Tim’s program would wait until two p.m. Eastern Time the following afternoon and then send a second series of messages. The emails could not travel directly from Rob’s home computer to their final destinations, though. That was too obvious. Tim had to insert a couple of levels of misdirection to make the scenario realistic.

He was still amazed at how easy it had been to gain access to the computer accounts he needed. The scripts he had downloaded from the hacker web site had been easy to use. It had taken him less than half an hour to gather IDs and passwords for dozens of computer accounts across the country. Today he needed only two.

The first account was at the University of Kentucky. A few taps on the keyboard and the program containing his email message flew off down the telephone line to land in Lexington. It felt strange to type with the latex gloves on.

From the Kentucky account, Tim signed on to a UCLA computer and the program made another hop through cyberspace. He issued a few commands to create a new email id, then started his program running. In a second-floor lab on the west coast campus, the wait for tomorrow began.

Tim sat back and swiveled his head to release the tension in his neck. It seemed unreal that his plan was finally underway. He reached for the mouse to begin shutting down the computer, but then froze when he heard voices in the hallway outside Rob’s apartment. Adrenaline coursed through his body when he recognized Rob’s voice. What happened to dinner?

Tim didn’t have time to go through the normal steps to shut down the machine. He pushed the power button and held it until the computer shut off, did the same for the monitor, then looked around frantically for a place to hide.

There was only one option. He grabbed his knapsack, ducked into the spare bedroom’s closet, wedged himself in one corner behind some clothes and pulled the folding door shut.

Tim’s mind raced. Any hopes of ending up with Lesley would fly out the window if he were discovered. He had no reasonable explanation for being in Rob’s apartment, especially if they found him hiding in a closet. And Rob would know just where to point the finger when the excitement started at the bank. Tim heard a door open and Lesley said, “I won’t be long.”

Tim slouched further back into the closet. All he could think to do if they found him was run out the door and keep on going.

* * *

Rob rose from the couch when Lesley finally emerged from the bathroom.

“At last,” he said. “I thought you were going to spend the night in there.”

“How do I look?” she said.

“Perfect, as usual.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere.”

Rob slipped his arms around her waist.

“That’s what I’m counting on,” he said, and kissed her.

She pulled back. “We better get going before I have to fix my face for a third time.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t go anywhere.”

He snuggled in closer and went for her neck.

She pushed him away, more firmly this time.

“No way,” she said. “You promised me a corner table at Antonio’s and I’m holding you to it. Besides, I have to show this diamond ring to somebody tonight, even if it’s only a stranger at a restaurant.”

Rob let go with an exaggerated sigh. “Okay.”

“But if we have enough of that wine, you never know what might happen afterward.”

“Then let’s go.”

That’s when Rob’s cell phone rang.

* * *

Tim slumped in the darkness of the closet. His jaw worked in agitation and his breaths came in tiny gasps. He held his mouth open, doing his best to keep his breathing quiet. Being forced to sit and listen while they flirted was almost more than he could bear. And she mentioned a diamond ring! Tim shut his eyes and willed Rob and Lesley to leave so this would be over.

* * *

“Oh, man, I can’t,” Rob said into the phone. “I’m totally busy tonight.”

He paused, and then said, “But I’m already doing something important. Can’t you find someone else?” His face became grim while he listened for a moment. Finally he sighed and said, “All right, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Rob ended the call.

“I’m not going to like it, am I?” Lesley said.

“That was John Kelleher. I have to go in to work right away.”

Lesley groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“There’s some sort of emergency. He wouldn’t tell me what it is.”

“And no one else can handle it?”

“He gave me the choice of coming in tonight or finding another job tomorrow.”

Lesley’s lower lip pushed out in a mock pout. “What a shame. I had such plans for you tonight.”

“Maybe the problem won’t take long to fix.”

“You should be so lucky.”

“Come on, let’s go,” Rob said.

Tim heard the door open and close, and then their footsteps receded in the hallway. Silence engulfed the apartment. The door to the spare bedroom closet remained closed for a long, long time.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

EACH OF THE fourteen branches of the First Malden Bank contained a state-of-the-art, fireproof, walk-in vault with an impressively thick door. Customers visiting any branch could see the vault behind the counter and might reasonably assume the bank’s money was held within.

It was not.

The vaults certainly held their share of valuables, including modest amounts of cash to support day-to-day operations. The vast bulk of First Malden’s monetary holdings, however, resided in a box on the fifth floor of the bank’s headquarters.

The box in question emitted a distinct hum twenty-four hours a day, ran the Unix operating system and was arguably the most important of the several computers in the bank’s data processing center. Bank staff referred to this computer as the account server. Its primary function was to run the Account Management System, or AMS for short. This system kept track of all monetary accounts and the many thousands of deposits, withdrawals, transfers and other account transactions that took place each day.

Security for the account server was multi-faceted and well thought out. The combination of a continuously recharged set of batteries and a dedicated generator on the roof ensured uninterrupted electrical power. In a separate location, a twin of the account server computer maintained a redundant copy of the account database, so bank operations could continue in the event of a fire or other disaster. Both physical and electronic access to all the bank’s computers were severely restricted.

These and other security measures formed a fortress to protect the electronic money from technical breakdowns and human destruction, both accidental and intentional. Unfortunately the fortress had been breached, which was why the people most responsible for creating this particular stronghold had come into the bank on a Monday evening and were gathered in the fifth floor conference room.

Five people occupied high-backed chairs around the long walnut table. Rob sat beside Anthony Finnamore, who fit the prototypical view of a computer geek with his pear-shaped physique, thick glasses and bushy black beard. He also happened to be a gifted database administrator. Next to Finnamore was the wiry AMS system architect, Paul Dees. An avid runner, he was the ultimate authority on how the software worked.

Stan Dysart and John Kelleher had just entered the room and now sat on the opposite side of the table from the other three. Kelleher had graying hair, large round glasses and extra pounds showing out the front of his unbuttoned suit jacket.

“I wasn’t able to reach Tim Whitlock,” Kelleher said to Dysart, “but I left him a message.”

“Do we need him?” Dysart asked.

“He and Rob did the bulk of the programming for the most recent AMS upgrades.”

“Which doesn’t answer my question.”

“We can probably get started without him,” Kelleher said.

Dysart nodded and turned to look at the group. His face was as stern as Rob had ever seen it. “We have an emergency, people.”

Tim entered the room in time to hear Dysart’s words.

“Good,” Dysart said when he saw him, “I won’t have to repeat this.”

Rob raised a hand as Tim sat down, but Tim kept his eyes downcast and gave no indication he noticed the greeting.

“Someone breached the security for AMS,” Dysart said. “It looks like cyberterrorists have attacked our bank.”

Rob’s mouth fell open as he stared in disbelief at Dysart.

“I’ll let John and Paul explain the details,” Dysart continued, “but first I want to impress upon you how imperative it is to treat this information as absolutely confidential.”

Dysart scanned around the table, making eye contact with each person in turn. “This is need-to-know only. That’s why I asked John to call in only you key people. Not one word of this is to be discussed with anyone outside this room. Is that clear?”