T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

“Tell me,” she agreed.

“I started hacking when I was twelve. Phreaking when I was fourteen. By then I knew I had to keep this second life separate. I worked hard at the mask called life, made it all the outside world saw. But inside I knew better. After my parents divorced I became a pawn in the battle they’d started before I was born. The outside world was compacted misery, as far as I was concerned. I’d get on a bus, spend an hour going five miles in city traffic, all so I could attend a school where the kids dreamed about dates so they could grow up and argue like my parents, or cars so they could drive and get stuck in more traffic. What kind of life was that? Then I’d go home, tap a few keys, and be exploring the other side of the world. Entering new universes. Building magic kingdoms of my own. Or best of all, sneaking through the enemy’s minefields, killing their dragons, stealing the keys, and entering the secret domains. It was the only life worth living.”

“What were you called? Your hacker name, I mean. Not Boatman.”

“O-zone. What can I say. I was fourteen.” Impatiently he ran his fingers impatiently about the edges of the keyboard. “This download is taking forever. I feel like I’ve moved back into the stone age, using a standard phoneline modem.”

“It’s all we’ve got.”

“Then it will have to do.” He started tapping keys. “We’ll go in through a back door I opened weeks ago, preparing for this. I hacked into the Atlanta federal reserve bank.”

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

“Not the money-control section. That place has guard dogs with titanium teeth. Just the external comm link. These drone machines disperse the daily Fed releases to all the regional banks. I was astonished at how lax their security was. Making entry was a piece of cake.” His calm tone was utterly disconnected from the fingers tapping the board. “But the address is the same, which means any local bank will still recognize us as a signal from on high.”

“This is a terrible idea.”

“Relax. We won’t go in directly. First we’ll phreak our way around the globe, lay out a false trail.”

When she remained standing with her arms clenched tight across her chest, Colin halted and looked up. “In or out. Now is the time.”

“Can I trust you not to get us fried?”

He replied simply, “This is what I do.”

“Okay. Fine.” She pulled a chair over next to his. “I’m in.”

“Right.” He turned back to his boards. “First we need to phreak into a secure connection.” He hesitated again. “Do you want to hear, or should I just go and do?”

“I’m in, I told you. I want it all.”

“Okay. Like all computer skills, phreaking has evolved through a gazillion generations since the early days. We’re not talking about just stealing phone time any more. Nowadays the phreaker is after nontraceability.”

She watched things flicker across the screen as he typed, symbols she had never seen before. “This is Sanskrit you’re writing?”

“Just a little code. Relax. Okay, now I’m dialing an 800 number I’ve already checked out. It’s what we call a high-impact line. High impact means constant access, used by hundreds of people.”

“Do you know who?”

“Sure.” He let a little of his own excitement show through. “As far as the outside world is concerned, we’re just calling the home office of the drive-happy people.”

The computer chimed. He swung back. “Right. Now I’m downloading files I’ve stored on my own secure website. Once that’s done, we’re going to play a prerecorded tonal message using a digitized recording. The tones are actually a series of messages most often used by busy execs given codes to access the corporate 800 number for outgoing calls. Follow me?”

“Maybe.”

“This company has perhaps a couple of hundred execs in the field. Any of them can call the company’s 800 incoming number, punch in a code, and get an outgoing line on the corporation’s trunk line.”

“And save the company the cost of a long-distance call. Smart.”

“Precisely.” The computer screen lit up with the word Linked . “Now just to be certain, we’re going to use this line to call another company.” He pulled up a list, scrolled down until he settled on one, and said, “Hong Kong. Perfect. Right, we’re through. And now one more time, how does Zurich sound to you?”

“Amazing.”

“We’re ready now. Hidden behind three companies’ phone networks, the messages traveling ten thousand miles in each direction. Time lapse, just under five minutes. All while using a nonserver system that operates at a speed barely above snail mail.”

“You’re showing off.”

“Maybe a little.” His fingers were a maestro’s blur. “We’re going to the Atlanta federal reserve now. And. . in. Their drone is excellent at following instructions. We’ll have it call up the Hayek Group’s mainframe.” An instant later, the monitor displayed the Hayek logo, a golden phoenix rising from the flames. “I’ve often thought it would be a nice gesture to mankind if I changed that logo to a buzzard rising off a fresh carcass.”

Jackie leaned over so as to study his face more closely. “Why do you hate him?”

“Suspicions, mostly.” He held out his hand. “Let’s have the code.”

She unfolded the paper from Eric with the password. “Just suspicions?”

“Up to now. Maybe we can change that.” He typed in the code, said, “We’re in.”

“What if they’re monitoring this connection?”

“That’s why we took precautions. We’re on what is called a flashlink, utterly untraceable without raising flags. If they start hunting, the drone has orders that I inserted in an earlier foray. It will instantly sever connections and erase all related files.” He was typing faster than he spoke. “Good old drone.”

“Tell me about you and Hayek.” When he merely kept at his work, she pressed, “This is very important, Colin.”

“I met Lisa Wrede at a conference on computer security. She was a researcher at the Library of Congress. In her free time she worked for Sant’Egidio. At the request of Nabil Saad she began researching international hedge funds and currency traders. When she discovered I worked for Hayek, she wanted to break things off. Perhaps I should have let her. Life would certainly have been tons easier. But it was too late.” His voice grew dim. “We argued all the time. She was constantly warning me that I would be toasted, circling the flame as I did. But I was too hooked on the life and the money and the thrill. Then it turned out she was the one who paid.”

Colin’s fingers slowed, then stopped. “They threw her off a roof. Hayek’s men did. And it was my fault.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I was the one who first mentioned the secret file called Tsunami.” He forced himself to pick up the slip of paper and return to his typing. “We’re in.”

She drew in close enough to see both the screen and the rigid grip he kept on himself. “I’m so sorry about your Lisa.”

“Thanks.” A vein in his neck pulsed in time to her own racing heart. “Now let’s focus on the attack, shall we?”

Tuesday

Hayek’s secretary was already gone for the day when Jim Burke knocked on the chairman’s door. There was no sound from within. He entered, wondering what he would find. The trading floor might be filled with frenetic activity, yet up here the air was usually somehow purified, as if the King had found some way of crystallizing out the sweat and the fear. Today was different, however. The air smelled tainted with a dust so fine it coated his tongue before he even spoke. “Got a minute?”