Chapter 14: Challenging the Enemy

Monday morning, I walked into the office at EFC feeling even more naked than my shaved face. For the first time I could remember in recent years, I wasn’t carrying a computer. The police still had my office under lock and key, much to the surprise of the people who shared the house with me. I’d received a call from Daniel’s counselor, Cora, before I even got to EFC, thanking me for the work I’d done and asking to be briefed on anything I could provide that didn’t breach a confidence. She was stunned when I told her what I’d discovered and why my office was taped off.

“I can’t believe it. I wish I’d sent him to you sooner. I just can’t believe that it was a stalker and not just a bully—not that that wasn’t bad enough.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I calmed her. “Besides, it’s likely that if it had come to my attention earlier, I’d have missed the solution. It just happened that another project I was working on gave me a lead to pursue for this one.”

“Nonetheless, I won’t hesitate to send cases your direction. Anything I can do for you, I’ll be happy to.” That struck a chord with me.

“Say, now that you mention it, there is something I’d like to ask you,” I said. “I don’t suppose you give any classes in dealing with teenagers, do you?”

“It would take longer to teach that kind of class than for the kid to grow out of his teens. Do you have something specific?”

“I’m concerned about a friend—well, the daughter of a friend. Actually, the daughter’s friend.” I explained casually as I could. That certainly wasn’t a great start. It sounded like I was covertly asking about myself. “I’m wondering if certain behaviors that we’ve observed might be indicators of something more significant or if it’s just part of growing up.” Cora encouraged me to tell her what was on my mind, so I plunged ahead. I explained some of what Cali told me about Mel and my own observations. This technically wasn’t part of my contract with Cali and I wasn’t using any names, so I felt secure that I wasn’t betraying a confidence. The counselor then gave me some pointed advice.

“What you’ve described could simply be a part of growing up, as you said. Kids act out all the time. But you’ve mentioned a couple of things that I’d explore if I were counseling the kid. Ultra-strict parents aren’t necessarily a sign that a kid is under duress. We see lots of kids handle the pressure of strict parents without much trouble. But sometimes, when combined with other things, we’d revise that opinion. Your teen sounds like she’s an overachiever. Several sports, straight As, and a party attitude. Her vulgarity could just be her wanting to cut loose—shock people out of their view of her as perfect. But the idea that she has ‘many freaky online friends,’ as you said, makes me think she could be treading on dangerous ground. Sometimes a kid that aces everything and is fully self-assured will expose herself to more risks than other kids simply because she figures she can handle it. It’s definitely worth looking into, especially since she might be leading a friend down the same path.”

I thanked her profusely and said I’d check a few things. If I needed further advice, I’d be sure to give her a call.

When I walked into the office at EFC, I was still thinking about the conversation with Cora. I was going to need to look through Mel’s social accounts. But today, I was going to have to do something about my search for fraud inside a credit card company—a company I’d already grown to dislike. And I was going to have to do it without my own computer and tools.

I started thinking about something Lars taught me back in the Navy. He set up a training drill in which we were to track down an intruder and neutralize the suspect. We—a team of six intelligence trainees—were locked in a room with our backs to each other and told to use the resources at hand to track down the culprit. We were scanning all available files on our network, looking for a breach. We quickly divided up the tasks among us and started our search. It was frantic. Lars hadn’t given us an exact deadline for finding the problem, but alluded to the fact that if we didn’t find the security breach soon, the damage would be irreparable. It was a typical war games scenario and we occasionally tossed information back and forth among us to help the search with others. We were nearly an hour into the search having found pointers, but not being able to locate the problem.

I suddenly became aware that the room was quieter than it had been before. I glanced to my left and right to see four of my team slumped over their computers. I spun around to see a silenced sidearm pointing in my direction. The last of my teammates was behind the gun smiling at me. The door opened and Lars walked in. The other four team members sat up at their computers.

“You all failed to achieve your mission objective,” Lars stated. “All except Ensign Cooper. Why did you fail?”

“We weren’t looking for a physical threat,” I answered. “We were looking for an online threat.”

“Which is why you were vulnerable. You let yourselves believe that because you are computer analysts, the threat you were looking for was computer-based,” Lars lectured. “If at any time, any of you had looked around, you would have seen a physical threat manifested in the room. You cannot ever assume that you are safe just because you are inside a sealed room. The dangers in this game are not only digital. They are real and physical.”

I’d become lax.

I stopped in my office and booted up the laptop just to find out if there were any messages and to check my email. I wasn’t paying much attention to anything that came through unless it was from one of my team or from Arnie. There was nothing on either count, so I put the computer to sleep and left the office.

“Are you done for the day already?” Darlene asked as I passed her desk. “It’s only nine-thirty.”

“Not done, but I need to do a little field work. I’ll be nearby, but might not get back here to the office. Call me if I’m in danger of losing my job.”

“Which job?” she snarked. “Never mind. If Arnie needs you, I’ll call your cell.”

I walked out the security doors past the receptionist and took the elevator down to the third floor. The first two floors of this building were occupied by small businesses and retail. EFC occupied the next twenty-four floors. This would take a while.

There was no receptionist on this floor, corporate offices being on the twenty-third with two floors of executive offices and conference rooms above. The elevators opened into a narrow lobby on either end of which were more security doors. I’d walked the building a few days ago, but I hadn’t tested every set of doors. Third floor contained the company’s computer servers. If they got any bigger, they would have to move to offsite storage at one of the huge server farms in Oregon, Idaho, or Montana that make up what is popularly known as ‘the cloud.’ I wasn’t sure my ID would gain access, but when I passed the card over the security reader, I was rewarded with the click that allowed me to open the door.

Once inside, I wasn’t sure where to go. I clipped my badge to my jacket pocket where it was clearly visible and walked confidently along a row of outside wall offices. These offices were different from those on the upper floors. There were no windows into the hallway. Each office had a solid oak door behind which, I knew, were the dozens of technicians and analysts that kept the servers running and the company network updated. If the offices had exterior windows, as I assumed they did, they would look over an alley or onto the street. No one on this floor would have a sweeping view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains.

There were two doors on the inside wall of each hall, secured with a card reader. I casually passed my card over the reader on the first door I came to. There was no answering click and no green light on the reader. Just as I thought. Either by accident or accidentally on purpose, I was not issued a card that would automatically open every door in the company. I couldn’t imagine Arnie giving me access to executive offices, Human Resources, or the server farm, though my network access had revealed no digital blocks. Technically, I should be able to access any one of the servers here without entering the room. But there were areas in the company that had information that could only be accessed physically.