Invasion of Privacy: A Deep Web Thriller #1 (Deep Web Thriller Series) (54 page)

“Maybe Mr Brody would like . . .” Stefan couldn’t hold back a chuckle, “ . . . a large white chocolate mocha with a double caramel shot?”

Brody nodded absently, causing the barista to be taken aback. He stomped off, muttering to himself.

Brody connected to his private Wi-Fi network. 

He had loads of open windows from his hacking session into Flexbase. He began closing them down, one by one. After a few minutes, he was presented with his web browser displaying the kitchen webcam feed from the Saxton household via SWY. Brody stopped what he was doing and studied Hilary Saxton, who sat at the kitchen table alone, staring into space. Scrunched tissues lay strewn about the table, evidence of her grief. Surely she couldn’t have forgotten that nearly every room in her house was still being broadcast over the Internet, including the kitchen? She really must be in a state.

Maybe he could help.

And as the thought flew through his mind, he realised that his earlier conversation with Leroy was still working its way through his subconscious. Here he was, for the second time in one day, choosing to apply his skills to help a real person.

Brody still had remote access to the network video PC in the Saxton house. It sat there; permanently capturing the Wi-Fi webcam feeds from all over the house, sending them through the Internet to HomeWebCam. And somehow, from there, they were making their way over to SWY. But, if Brody remotely shut down the network video PC, the webcams would no longer broadcast over the Internet at all.

And Hilary Saxton would at least have some privacy.

Brody remotely logged into the Saxton PC. He quickly hit the ‘shutdown’ command. Brody waited for his remote control session to drop. Without power, the PC could no longer be connected. After a minute, the session dropped.

Brody switched back to his SecretlyWatchingYou view of Hilary Saxton still sat at her kitchen table. She grabbed a fresh tissue and blew her nose. Brody recalled that there was a time lag of a couple of minutes as the video streams made their way over the Internet, via the SWY servers and back to viewers like him. The feed would soon go black.

He waited.

Stefan returned, placing a massive mug down on the table next to Brody. It was full of frothy milk with sprinkles of chocolate on the top in the shape of a lightning bolt. 

“What the hell is that?” asked Brody, incredulously.

“Is what you ordered, Mr Brody,” laughed Stefan, good-naturedly. “Is large white chocolate mocha with a double caramel shot. Lovely, no?”

“I ordered that?” Brody looked around at the other patrons to see if anyone else wanted to claim it.

Stefan shrugged.

“Ah, what the hell. Thanks Stefan. You read me right again.”

Stefan tittered like a child and left him to it.

Brody sat back holding the coffee in both hands. He took a sip. Despite being far too sweet, it wasn’t that bad. He turned to the front window and began to watch life go by on Upper Street outside. 

After a good ten minutes, Brody placed the empty mug on the table. 

His PC had gone into power-saving mode, the screen darkening. He moved the mouse pointer and the windows returned.

The browser window displaying the Saxton’s household in SWY was still there. Hilary Saxton had laid her head down on the table and was frozen in position. Odd. Maybe when the network video PC had shut down, the last image had remained static in SWY’s feed.

He moved the mouse to shut down the window.

Just as he was about to close it, Hilary Saxton stood up and walked out of the kitchen.

Brody’s jaw dropped. That was impossible. The network video PC in their house was powered off. Yet SWY was still broadcasting the Saxton household.

The shock soon receded as his logical brain took over; attempting to rewire everything it had thought about how the webcam feeds made their way through to SecretlyWatchingYou.

Brody thumped his palm against his forehead. What an idiot he’d been.

He knew how it was done. Maybe, he would crack SecretlyWatchingYou after all.

* * *

Further back in the coffee shop, Crooner42 watched Fingal fold up his computer, leave some money on the table and rush out. He crossed the road, jumping back briefly to avoid a cyclist speeding up between the stationary cars. On the opposite pavement, Fingal fished out some keys and let himself through his front door.

When Crooner42 had approached the coffee shop a few minutes earlier, he’d spotted Fingal through the front window, sitting in the same seat as the previous evening. He almost walked past to ensure he wasn’t spotted, but Fingal was staring into the middle distance, completely lost in thought, clutching a massive mug. He took a calculated risk and entered, walking right past the hacker, relying on his peripheral vision to see if Fingal noticed him. Not a flicker.

Most of the tables had been occupied, but he’d found one near the back.

After a few minutes, his order taken by the waiter and Fingal having left, Crooner42 powered up his laptop. 

He connected to the ‘F!NG@L’ Wi-Fi network and waited for the prompt to enter the WPA2 password.

When he’d woken this morning, an email from CloudCracker had been waiting in his inbox containing the clear-text password for Fingal’s private Wi-Fi network. It was ‘St@ffa1772’. At first Crooner42 had no idea if ‘staffa’ was even a real word. Intrigued, he ran a quick Internet search and discovered that Staffa was the name of an uninhabited island in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides discovered in 1772. But more importantly, it was the location of a massive sea cavern, known as Fingal’s Cave. 

Crooner42 pondered Fingal’s behaviour, linking the Wi-Fi password to the actual name of the network. In cyberspace, Fingal was impossible to trace, with multiple layers of security masking his true identity and real-world location. But here in meatspace, his defences were fairly simplistic. He supposed, like most hackers, that Fingal never expected to be tracked down in the real world and didn’t give the same level of focus to his physical security. Crooner42 thought about himself and realised the same was true for him. He resolved to increase his security measures. Just in case.

Crooner42 entered the password. He was connected immediately. 

He fired up Nmap and began mapping the network. 

The waiter brought over his order, an Americano and a blueberry muffin.

From the inside of Fingal’s private network, his defences were minimal. It didn’t take long for Crooner42 to gain access to the two Linux servers Fingal had running. After a few minutes, Crooner42 determined that ‘Brody’, the name he’d heard him being called yesterday, was Fingal’s forename. He knew that because he now also had his surname.

“Gotcha, Brody Taylor.” he sneered.

After ten more minutes, Crooner42 had Brody Taylor’s complete identity. Name, date and place of birth, passport number, national insurance number, bank account numbers, credit card details, mother’s maiden name. Everything.

Crooner42 sat back and savoured the moment.

He now had the personal details of one of the world’s elite hackers. It was what he would do with this information that was important.

An idea started to form in his mind.

Oh, revenge was sweet indeed.

* * *

“Are you sure you’re feeling well enough to talk, Sarah?” concern was etched all over the face of the policewoman who had just introduced herself as DC Fiona Jones.

“What, now?” Sarah McNeil sat forward in the hospital bed. “Can’t we talk later?” She swung her legs out from underneath the bed cover. She had to get back to the office. “I really can’t stay here all day . . .” 

Pain shot through her head. She placed a hand on it, feeling a massive bandage. Suddenly she felt faint. 

“Oh, that’s not good. Perhaps I will stay here for a little bit longer.”

DC Jones helped her lie back down and pulled the covers over her. Sarah waited for the wooziness to pass.

“The doctor says you’ve got serious concussion. You’ll need to take it easy for a bit. Definitely a few days off work.”

Involuntarily, Sarah’s eyes welled up. “But I can’t . . . I mean I can’t afford not to work.” 

She had to pay the Sunnyside Care Home bills.

“Surely your work will cover any time off?”

Sarah shook her head and then screwed her eyes shut at the stabbing pain. When it receded to a dull ache, she opened them again, wiping away the tears that had formed from a combination of hurt and frustration. 

“What do you do?” asked the policewoman.

“I sell advertising space for a magazine.”

“Which magazine?”

“It’s called
Commercial Aviation News
. It’s owned by Maiden Media.”

“Are you based in Windsor?”

“No, Maidenhead.”

“Is that why you went Windsor earlier? To sell advertising space?”

“Yes, I had an important meeting. But before I got to meet my client, that creep attacked me.” 

Sarah felt nauseous at the memory. She hadn’t meant to think about that. She wanted to blot it out. Move forward, quickly.

“Are you sure you’re okay to talk about this, Sarah?”

But despite her misgivings, she knew she needed to understand what had happened earlier. “Who was that man?” she implored. “What was he doing there?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Sarah had the feeling that the detective knew more. “Who were you supposed to be meeting?”

“Francis Delacroix from a company called FCS Software.”

“Had you met him before? Do you know what he looks like?”

“No. And I probably never will now.” It wasn’t fair. The most important meeting of her short sales career ruined by that creep. “If he takes his business to one of the other magazines because of what happened, I’ll . . .”

“Sarah, what if I told you that Francis Delacroix doesn’t exist?”

“What do you mean?” She might be concussed but she certainly wasn’t stupid. “Of course he exists, I talked to him on the phone only yesterday.” 

“Okay, let’s back up. Why were you meeting Delacroix?”

“To discuss his marketing plans for FCS Software. They’re launching a new flight control system to the UK airport market and need lots of advertising space. He was flying in from the States this morning and we agreed to meet at their office in Windsor.”

“How did you first get in touch with Mr Delacroix?”

She thought back to the day before. “He phoned me at work.”

“And who suggested meeting at Windsor?”

“Well,” she hesitated, starting to feel uncomfortable. “He did.”

“And who set the time?”

Sarah spoke more quietly. “He did.”

“And let’s say you’d been late for the meeting, how would you have contacted him?”

“I’d have phoned him . . .” Realisation dawned on her. She gasped, “He was number withheld.”

“We checked FCS Software. They do exist in that building in Windsor. But they’re nothing to do with the aviation industry. They’re a four-man company that develops games for mobile phones.”

Sarah felt as if an abyss were swallowing her up. “Oh God. Oh God.” 

Tears streamed freely down her face. That meant there never was a deal. It had been some kind of trick. Deep down, she’d known it had been too good to be true. When was she ever that lucky? But if it wasn’t true, then she had absolutely no hope of making her target. She’d gambled everything on that deal. At the end of the month, Ashley would fire her, just like all the others. 

She buried her face in her hands and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Dad.”

“At least you survived,” said DC Jones. Sarah looked up at the unexpected sharpness in her tone. 

“Well, yes. He was interrupted before he . . .” She shuddered. She’d told herself she wasn’t going to think about what had happened. Or what very nearly happened. But she couldn’t help herself. “God, it was so awful. He was just about to rape me, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was.” Jones nodded. “Perhaps worse.”

Worse? Her job was as good as lost. Sunnyside would kick her Dad out at the end of the month. And all because of that creep. 

“What the hell could be worse?” The question popped out of her mouth without realising.

The detective eyeballed her. “He was going to kill you, Sarah. He’s already killed two women that we know of.”

That was too much. No way. Not her. Who would want to kill her? She didn’t understand.

“Fortunately for you,” the policewoman continued, “He was interrupted before he could finish what he’d started.”

Yes, she remembered. She’d been facedown on the table when she’d heard a bang in the next room. Despite the knife pressing on her throat she’d screamed out, but the gag had muzzled her. But he’d heard the noise too. Someone was checking the rooms. He stepped away from her. She heard him zip up his flies as he moved to the door. She didn’t dare look back when the door flew open. She heard a commotion behind her and then, after a minute, it all went quiet. The room was empty and the door had swung shut. She’d tentatively slid off the table, blood trickling down from the open wound on her head, retreated to the corner of the room, and crouched into a ball, clutching her sliced open clothes to her body as best she could.

“Who saved me?”

Behind them, the door to the hospital room pushed open. Sarah realised it had been ajar for some time. Someone had been listening.

“That was me, Sarah,” said the woman who entered. “Detective Inspector Jenny Price.”

* * *

“What I want to know,” said Karim Malik, sipping at his pint of soda and lime, “is how this Brody fella knew all about Windsor earlier today. Bit fucking suspicious if you ask me.”

“Yeah, Jen,” added Alan Coombs, “Are you sure he’s not mixed up in it all somehow?”

Jenny leaned back into her tall stool, took a sip of her gin and tonic and studied her two interrogators. Both were stood with one elbow resting on a high wooden pub table. Half empty glasses on sodden beer mats covered the round surface. Empty stools awaited the return of Fiona Jones and Harry O’Reilly, who were at The Dolphin’s busy bar, ordering the next round.

“I’m sure there’s a good explanation. But don’t worry, I’ll get to the bottom of it tomorrow.”