Red Rock Island (Damian Green Book 1) (4 page)

Chapter Seven

The next morning, the two cats and Damian were sitting at his breakfast counter. They were eyeing his bowl of milk and cereal, and he was giving them the evil eye to keep them away until he finished. It was like this every morning and he tried giving them just a plain bowl of milk, but they let him know they liked the additional flavor provided by his cereal remnants and so this routine started. He said to them, “We’re going to have a guest this weekend; are you guys going to show yourselves?”

They blinked at him, then Bailey leaned over to clean his leg as though Damian wasn’t worthy of an answer, Bella just looked at him and blinked her eyes, giving him a look that said ‘cut the conversation and hurry up and give me my milk.’ When Natalie was on the island, they stayed out of sight, but she was never there for more than an hour. Trevor would be there for three hours so they might come out of hiding. All three of them liked to hide from the rest of humanity, but it would be interesting to watch them adjust as he interacted more.

On today’s agenda was to see if he could hack into the fingerprint system at the FBI without detection. His money was on his own technical skill. He checked out the news to see if any hacker announced getting into the security system, but all he found was fingerprints stolen from the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management which contained the prints of those employees with security clearances. That wasn’t the system he was after or likely the fingerprint sources. He would hope that none of the employees with security clearances had fingerprints that belonged in a criminal justice system.

Natalie sent the fingerprint request for matching to the FBI in case he couldn’t get into their system, but he loved the challenge. Stretching his arms and cracking his knuckles, he went to work. He could approach the hack a variety of ways, but his first choice was to borrow a username and password from someone with access to the system. His presence would be much harder to detect, and frankly it didn’t feel as criminal as exploiting the fingerprint software. He set to work figuring out who had access to the system. Once he had their names and the username for FBI employees he went to work trying passwords. Two hours later, he found what he was looking for and was in the system. He then sent the fingerprints in for a match that were lifted from the crime scenes of the five cases he selected and Natalie confirmed as being the first cases to work on. In total, there were fifty sets of prints to match. He checked the database, looking for ways to mirror it onto his own computer. Sure it wouldn’t be the most updated as he assumed that new entries are added to the database every day, but given that these were cold cases that they were researching, it should work for most if not all of their cases. 

The first set came back with a match, and he set that information aside for the moment while he looked for a way to copy the database. It was so large that he couldn’t do a single copy and go. He recognized the company that created the database for the FBI and knew how to write queries to copy entire columns of data from their database. The difficulty with copying a column at a time was that it was a relational database, data in one column having a relationship to data in another column. It wouldn’t do him any good to have just a column of fifty million fingerprints, without the corresponding names to match. Even the names were probably not enough given the frequency with which people’s last names were Smith or Garcia.

This was such a huge database he thought his best bet was to implant a backdoor command string into the database that would allow him endless access. The fingerprint data he located in the database would give Natalie a head start on her investigation, while she waited for the same information to come through the proper route from the FBI. Since he understood commands for this database, he had the backdoor access implanted in no time and then he looked at the coding that produced matches of fingerprints. He decided that at some point he would leave an anonymous message with the Bureau of how they could speed up their fingerprint matches.

Their program matched the thirty points of one fingerprint to another. Damian thought it would go faster if you matched the first six points and then moved on to more decisive matching with sixteen points of match which seem to be the criminal justice standard. Mathematically, it would be faster to run a large data search in that manner, than trying to match the first sixteen from the start. Having set up his backdoor and his data run, he walked away from the terminal to look again at the cold cases. He had some ideas that he listed on paper and sent to Natalie along with a summary of what he’d done with the database. Of course the second part of the message was written in code as he wanted no trail to his doorstep of his hacking successes.

He’d let the fingerprint matching program run, and over the next three days, he was able to identify about eighty percent of the prints found at the scenes of the five cases. As it came in, he would send it to Natalie, then forget about the cases as he went back to inventions. In the back of his head was a worry about having Trevor visit the next day. It would be his first social call in seven years, before the death of his family. He decided, when Trevor arrived, he would use his drone to move the beer and then give Trevor the choice of riding his zip line or walking up the hill. His boat captain would let him know when he left the Richmond Marina and then Damian would know that Trevor would arrive in about twelve minutes. He had chips and dip and meat to barbecue. The house was clean and he could offer his guest tea, coffee, or water. His couch had plenty of space for two guys to sit and watch a basketball game.

The Bay was his source of water. Damian had built a small desalination filter that pumped water out of the bay and up to a tank close to his house and he used that for everything but drinking. He had a few more filter gadgets that he put his drinking water through inside the house and the water tasted so good he thought about setting up his own home brewery. Maybe he’d ask Trevor’s opinion on the taste of the water. He had the equipment for a microbrewery as well as yeast, but he’d have to import the hops. He could have his own beer on the island in two months and perhaps if he made enough, he could supply Pete with the brew for his bar. That thought brought a smile to his face.

He checked his satellite receiver, something else he’d built to make sure he could get the station that the game was on. He could lock onto any satellite, but since he wasn’t a subscriber he had no idea what he was watching until the commercials ended and the show began. To move from one major network to another took his computer finding the satellite then locking on it, but he couldn’t complain as it was free. Okay, he was ready for a guest.

It was time to step outside and fish for tonight’s dinner. He opened his door and was shocked to see a package sitting there. Never in his seven years here had there been a package on his doorstep.

Chapter Eight

Could it be a bomb?

He paused and did calculations in his head of what kind of damage something explosive inside the small package could do; and then he shook his head at his negative thought and bent down to reach for the box. 

Then he smiled. It was a rare use of his facial muscles. He hadn’t had much to smile at in the past seven years.

The box was addressed to ‘The man on the rock, whose name I don’t know.’

He was sure he knew who the box was from, the question was how had it arrived without his alarm systems going off? How had she gotten on the island without him knowing it?

He opened the box and found two flavors of tea from a tea shop in Sausalito and a thank you card from Ariana.

He read, “I tried to find out your name but you’ve done a great job of hiding that from the world. No, I didn’t step on your island, instead I matched you for technology. After practicing dropping toys in the bay for my dog to retrieve, I dropped this package close to your doorstep. I appreciate your help with my air tank; it would have been a dangerous and long swim home without your help.”

Cheers,

Ariana

He admired her approach and decided to acknowledge her gesture. He picked up the phone and called the number on the card she originally gave him as she had not included one in the package of tea. The phone rang six times before he heard someone pick up the other end.

“Ariana”

Damian tried to remember if this was the voice from a few days earlier, but he couldn’t confirm it, but since she said her name, he figured he had the right person. Then he froze, what was he going to say? It’d been an impulsive gesture on his part, just wanting to say thanks.

“Ah, hi, it’s the man on the rock.” Wow, Damian thought, ‘aren’t you a brilliant conversationalist’.

“Hello man from the rock,” Ariana replied. “Did you get my package?”

“Yes and thanks. I assume you used a boat and a drone rather than just launching the drone from your house.”

She laughed and replied, “I ordered the drone the minute I got back to my house and practiced the next two days before attempting the delivery to you. No way could I have made it from my home to your island without dropping the package or the drone into the bay. As it was I took two packages with me in case one of them ended up as fish dinner.”

“I don’t think fish like tea leaves. They like to eat each other or kelp or algae. I can’t imagine tea made from kelp or algae being at all tasty.”

Again, Damian thought, always hide behind science rather than asking her about herself. He’d never work up the nerve to invite her to his island. Whoa. He felt like his brain had hit the brakes so hard that it slammed into the bone of his cranium. Where had that thought come from? First he invited Trevor and now he was thinking about inviting Ariana? What about his treasured solitude and privacy? His thoughts were going a million miles an hour, so he tried to disengage his brain and tune back into Ariana.

“These are Silicon Valley fish, so they probably eat sushi or kale.”

He liked her sense of humor and replied, “Did you see any sushi underwater on your swim home?”

“No, Man on the Rock. Do you have a name? I admit I looked you up but I couldn’t find your name anywhere and I’m good at that kind of thing. So in my mind I’ve been calling you Manny as in Man of the rock.”

“Manny?” Damian exclaimed, wincing. “I’ll have to tell you my name just to get away from that awful nickname. I’m Damian.”

“Damian, hmmm. That’s a Greek name. Are you descended from Father Damian who saved the Hawaiian Lepers of Molokai, or are you Dr. Damian, the patron of physicians?”

“I never looked at my name that way. I have a PhD, so I’m a doctor of sorts, but not one of medicine.”

“Okay Damian, call me when you need another order of tea dropped on you. I’ll keep you supplied with tea as long as I have the hang of operating this drone. I really do thank you for the scuba air, I was thinking about my body being hit by one of the ferries crossing the bay and was just going to try and drown myself off of your island to save myself from being chopped up in a boat propeller, so I’m serious about keeping you in tea for a long time.”

“I had the same vision; you take a lot of risks when you don’t pay attention to scuba air. I hope that event made you more aware of that.”

“I’ll admit it did and in fact I haven’t been out for a long distance swim since then.”

“Why do you scuba dive in San Francisco Bay? I wouldn’t think there would be much to see as the water isn’t very clear?”

“You’re right about that, sometimes it's creepy coming upon stuff suddenly, but I have the sense not to go outside the Golden Gate Bridge for fear those currents would sweep me to Japan.”

“Why don’t you fly to some place warmer like Hawaii or the Caribbean? From what I know about you it’s not a matter of affordability.”

“You looked me up?”

“Yes, you left me your card, otherwise I would have looked for you under the title of mermaid, and you were the first person to breach my security in seven years, so I needed to know what you were up to.”

There was dead silence on the other end of the phone, while she thought about his words then she said, “Then I’m glad your first visitor was a mermaid. If you’re ever over in Belvedere, give me a call and I’ll cook dinner for you at my house, where you can just see your island off in the distance.”

“Thanks for the invite, and I’ll do that sometime. Are you a good cook?”

“No. I’d probably fake it and order something from a restaurant around here and throw it into a saucepan or my oven to make you think I’d made it.”

He laughed at her candid response and said, “I’ve got to go and it was a pleasure talking to you, Ariana. Be safe.”

After Damian ended the call, he decided he would do just that, cross over next week and look her up. He liked her adventurous spirit and intelligence. They were kindred spirits in that they were both widows and of about the same age. He’d certainly enjoyed their call.

Now it was back to fishing for tonight’s dinner. He learned years ago, that it was best to fish in the afternoon as sometimes it took a long time to catch fish suitable for eating and he and the cats could go hungry if he failed. There were a variety of fish in the bay but he mostly caught halibut or flounder and the occasional striped bass. If the fish was small, he released it back to catch another time. His cats needed two fish for food throughout the day, while he liked one to two for dinner. Sometimes he fished just for the cats when he had beef or chicken or pasta for dinner. On the rare times he left the island, it was dry kibble for the cats, but they hadn’t starved, nor had he found dead birds on his return.

Fishing was also thinking time. He’d worked out many puzzles while catching dinner. He also depended on the wind direction or current, fished from different spots on his little island and the different views never ceased to power his creativity and problem solving. He had so many things going through his head; the anniversary of his family’s murder, inviting Trevor out to the island, Ariana, the cold cases, his wave powered energy unit. He hadn’t had this much on his mind in years. He decided to focus on the cold cases as all the other emotions roiling through his head would hopefully work themselves out in time.