Project Northwest (26 page)

“Yes, it’s a black Tahoe, tag number XRS dash
285.”

“Hold on.”

Mark could hear the tapping of her high heels
as she walked down a hallway, followed by the creaking of an office
door and the scrunch of a metal chair across the floor. The tapping
reminded him of the time he was in her bed and heard the same sound
heading his way down her hallway, the bedroom door creaked open and
there she stood in only her high-heel shoes. All he could say was,
“God bless America.”

“Are you coming home soon?” she asked.

“You have no idea how bad I want to come
home.”

“Miss you, too. Okay, let’s see,” she said as
she logged into the CLETS database and entered the tag number.

“Hmmm, it has four tickets in Seattle, all of
them parking tickets, and two tickets in Denver Colorado. All of
the tickets were issued in the last four months or so.”

“Does it show it’s to be towed?”

“Let me call to verify, hold on.”

Mark listened to Tina’s side of the
conversation and it sounded like good news was coming his way.

“The Seattle officer said absolutely.
Scofflaws have like forty-eight hours to pay their tickets or they
are subject to being booted and towed. If they find it, they’re
going to boot it.”

“Great, that is good news baby, thanks.”

“Okay, you owe me one.”

“I do and you’re going to get it, too.”

“Stop teasing me. When are you coming
home?”

“Soon. I have to button down a plan, but I
think I have an idea now of how I can help James. Love ya, will
call later tonight. Bye.”

“Love you, too.”

Mark was running out of time. He needed to
touch base with Aaron, but he also needed to get in and out of the
bank bathroom before 5:00 and it was almost 3:40. He needed to run
his idea, his plan, over with Aaron to see if it would work. He
didn’t know the particulars. He’d leave that up to Aaron, but the
overall plan seemed possible.

He was back in his truck, heading north on
I–5 toward Seattle when he dialed Aaron’s number.

“Hello. Aaron, I’ve got a plan.”

* * * *

After two hours of searching, Bridget was
downloading the last PDF brochure from the Volvo website. She
passed on the C30 model. It was Euro classy, but she didn’t like
the glass hatch and the taillights weren’t flush with the body, the
entire back end just looked odd. She knew the styling was for the
younger crowd and in a moment of unusual self-awareness began to
wonder if she were getting old already.

She settled on the S40 model, printed all the
information she could find and mentally began preparing herself for
the argument they would have on the Saturday trip to Lynnwood.

She read and re-read the material until she
could almost recite the information verbatim. ‘Best possible score
for frontal and rear impacts, nearly perfect score for
side-impacts.
Side curtain airbags, all-disc antilock
brakes,
the list went on and on and it was affordable and
stylish. This is what she wanted and if she wasn’t happy, no one
was going to be happy. Plus, James owed her one for lying to
her.

She then did her favorite part of road trips,
the planning. Seattle to Lynnwood was really a straight shot on I–5
and would take about forty minutes, but another search on the
internet and she found the perfect spot for a little
recreation—Lunds Gulch on the west side of Lynnwood. She was hooked
the moment she read the website’s recommendation: ‘Hike through a
deep green ravine sliced by a salmon-spawning stream, in Lynnwood
of all places. But there's more. Finish at a quiet Puget Sound
Beach with sweeping views of Whidbey Island and the Olympic
Mountains.’

It would be the perfect place to calm down if
the argument got out of hand.

She stacked the printed information and
called James’s cell. “Hey, baby, it’s me. We’re going on a little
hike tomorrow. It’s short, like two and a half miles round trip,
but it sounds sublime. Love ya and will see you at work tonight.”
She pressed end–call and hopped in the shower, getting ready for
work.

Chapter Twenty

~ Polymorphic Code and O Fortuna
~

Mark was on the
phone with Aaron while sitting in traffic on northbound I–5. He had
a rough outline of the plan and passed on all the
details.

“Aaron, I have a plan, but I need to know if
it would work.”

“Okay, what do you have in mind?” Aaron was
excited to join the cloak and dagger club and his eagerness leapt
through the phone.

“First, I don’t want you to agree to anything
that would come back to you. This is very dangerous.”

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Aaron, you have to promise me that you will
be honest and tell me if any of this can get back to you.”

“I promise, Mark.”

“Well, I guess I should give you a little
background. Remember we were talking about network access
earlier?”

“Yes.”

“You said that if we could get access to my
client’s laptop, then it was possible to get to the network of
those spying on him. What did you mean?”

“Right, it’s just basic network mapping in a
sense. I do it all the time when I bring up new nodes.”

“How could I do it secretly? I hear of people
taking over other people’s computers all the time, how do they do
it? Is it a virus?”

“No, not really. A virus’s purpose is
basically to destroy files. You’re talking about a sophisticated
combination of viruses with mutation capabilities.”

“Hmmm, I think I understand, but wouldn’t
they know you created it?”

“Do I have to be honest?”

“Yes, yes you do.”

“If it were sloppy or amateurish, then, yes,
it could be tracked back. But if I have to be honest, and you can’t
tell mom, I’ve written and executed a number of them in the
past.”

“You’ve what? What do you mean, Aaron?
Nothing illegal, right?”

“Nothing bad, Mark, just jokes I’ve played on
other programmers I know. We do it all the time. It’s kind of like
a game of prowess.”

“Like a practical joke, right?”

“Right, exactly. We don’t hurt each other’s
equipment, that’s the rule.”

“We’re going to have to talk about this.”

“I know, I know. So, I wouldn’t feel
comfortable doing it for your client, but I do have a contact that
would do it for money.”

“Is the contact a teenager?”

“No, he’s been in the hacker business for a
while, very hush, hush. Nobody even knows who he is. Not even sure
he would do it, but it’s your only option if you want to get into
that network without being noticed. I’ll send the only link I know
of to your cell phone and email.”

“Man, I’m in a tight spot. If my client
weren’t in big trouble I wouldn’t even be talking to you about
this. Send me the link and stop doing anything that would be
considered illegal.”

“I will do it right now. I’m not in trouble,
am I?”

“No, you were honest, but we do have to talk
about it.”

“Okay.”

Mark pulled off I–5 onto Boeing Access road
and waited until his laptop linked to an open Wi-Fi connection and
then he clicked the link for someone named wooden_horse.

The website came up and appeared to be a
normal programmer for hire site. He filled out the necessary
fields, entered the job description and pressed submit.

He immediately received an email and opened
it. It contained a request for a chat session and he clicked the
embedded link.

[wooden_horse]: If I understand your request,
you want a program to self-replicate its way through a network and
collect data stored on the machines? And you want to do this
without being noticed?

[mark]: Yes

[wooden_horse]: That is illegal unless you
own the network and are testing the security features of the
network. Is that the case?

[mark]: Yes, we are testing the security of
our network.

[wooden_horse]: Very well. You say you want a
physical capture of the data. How much data are we speaking of?

[mark]: A lot, video and voice recordings and
numerical data.

[wooden_horse]: This will require a dedicated
server build. The cost of the project will be 20 thousand and the
work will be guaranteed. I will create polymorphic code that works
in unison with a polymorphic engine. The engine will do all the
work and modify itself from machine to machine.

[mark]: How would I send payment?

[wooden_horse]: I will send you the payment
information. I require payments be sent in four separate amounts
and you will have to jump through a lot of hoops to make the
payments. Just follow the instructions in the email to the letter
and you will be fine. I will start work immediately once the last
payment is received and will start collecting data within an hour.
I need two pieces of information before I can begin.

[mark]: Okay, what do you need?

[wooden_horse]: Email address of a user on
the target machine and a subject, something that you know he/she
would open in an email.

Mark looked up the email from his laptop and
sent the address. He thought for a moment, what would James open?
He had the answer and entered it into the chat screen.

[mark]: Send an e-mail related to a 1969 Boss
429 Mustang.

[wooden_horse]: You have twenty minutes to
process the payments; a minute longer and I will cease all
communication and you will not receive any payments processed. The
program will be automatic and I will send you the data storage
location for the duplicate files dump. I will not communicate with
you beyond that. If the person does not open the email, I will not
send another and will not communicate with you further. Lastly, the
engine will run until this evening, 9 PM, at which time it will
remove itself. Is this agreed to?

[mark]: Can it run longer?

[wooden_horse]: No. Are we in agreement?

[mark]: Yes.

[wooden_horse]: Very good, Mr. DeSantis, I
see that you’re in the Seattle area. Is the target in the same
area?

[mark]: Yes.

[wooden_horse]: My completion email will
instruct you how to retrieve the data through server hops. Follow
my instructions exactly. Do not access the dedicated server
directly. I will not assist you or answer any questions. I’ve sent
the payment email. Your twenty minutes starts now.

Mark opened the e-mail, processed the
payments and watched his life savings slowly disappear.

He wrote the note for James and pulled back
onto I–5 heading north. If he found a decent parking space, he’d
just make it into the bank’s bathroom on time.

* * * *

Cricket scoured all the on-line databases,
looking for the owner of a Ford Explorer tag number WUK-866. He
threw his arms up in frustration. “Nothing, it’s a bogus tag. There
are matches, but none that would be our guy. Who would be tailing
us? Think it’s Spain?”

Mr. Wright sat on the couch putting to memory
every detail about the man and his truck, “Don’t think so, we’re on
him pretty tight. My guess is it’s the late Mr. DuVall. That’s the
problem with bribes, too many loose ends—dirty money leaves a shit
trail that brings out the criminal Hansels looking for Gretel. They
always forget that the forest birds ate the crumbs. The guy was
under six foot, just under one hundred and eighty pounds, maybe
late twenties, and Hispanic. Does that match any of the known
acquaintances of Mr. DuVall?”

“Checking now. DuVall does have a Hispanic
friend, a Mr. Antonio Alvarez. He works at the bank, too. He’s
closer to forty, too old to be a match and too young to have a kid
in his late twenties.”

“Check the relatives of Mr. Alvarez. I’m sure
someone will come up on the radar. Really, what could the guy have
learned? That we’re here, right? He must have suspected that
already. We’ll hear from Hansel again, probably a greedy bastard
just like DuVall, and when we do, we’ll be ready.”

“Yes sir, I have the image print from the
utility room. Not the best picture, his face is blocked by his hat,
but it should be enough to put our team on alert.”

“Perfect, are we ready for the conference
call at five?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get the picture and description out to the
team. If they see him I want him picked up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you de-register Ms. Davies for her
college classes?”

“Yes, sir.”

* * * *

In Mississauga, Ontario, Vik Tremlay, also
known as wooden_horse, fired up his dedicated code programming
machine. The computer was a specialty build and allowed his code to
appear as system32 type files. The code would hide among the files
that people were just too afraid to mess with.

He opened the application for his Cayman
account on his cell phone, walked out onto the balcony and viewed
the Toronto skyline on the other side of Lake Ontario. The
temperature was a cool 45 degrees, and the CN tower stood proudly
against the backdrop of the blue sky. The first payment appeared
four minutes later. He left the balcony, sat down at the keyboard,
and said under his breath, as he always did before coding. “Time to
make the doughnuts.”

He placed his iPod into the Geneva Sound
Model L and cranked up Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna,” its dramatic dark
notes and lyrics stimulated his sinister spirit. He began creating
the code as he watched the subsequent payments come through on his
other computer.

He brought up his data center program. It
showed all the dedicated data centers in the U.S. and he ordered a
dedicated server at a data center in downtown Seattle. With IP in
hand, he finalized the code and targeted a server in Colorado
Springs, then hopped to an open server at Seattle collocation data
center.

He embedded the code and sent the email from
the host server. Once the email was opened, the polymorphic code
would activate and replicate itself. The engine was designed to
find the storage server and duplicate every file onto the dedicated
server he ordered for Mr. DeSantis. Twenty minutes later, he was
done and sent the instruction email to Mark DeSantis.