Ridley Pearson - Chain of Evidence

“Okay, Dart,” Ginny said, “here’s what I want you to do.”

Keystroke by keystroke, Ginny navigated Dart flawlessly through a hole in the upper-level security firewall that she herself had run only an hour earlier.

The Roxin Laboratories ROX NET logo, in gold and silver, sparkled on the screen, followed by a greeting and a cautionary non-disclosure statement warning of FBI investigation.

“I’m in,” Dart acknowledged.

“Enter the following,” Ginny instructed, rambling off a series of entries for Dart to duplicate.

He began typing furiously. Nervous, he made several mistakes and had to start again.

“Hold it,” Ginny said anxiously, now not having to play-act. “I’m seeing some movement within the facility.”

The lookout said, “I copy that. Lights have come on in the box.”

“I think they’re on to you, Joe,” Ginny said, her voice gripped in fear.

Dart took the news two different ways: If they were coming after him, then they knew he had broken into their computer and they knew where to find him-all of which was good, because Terry Proctor was certain to be notified; but he could not allow himself to be caught.

“I’m moving,” Dart announced. Dart left the room in a hurry, his sole mission for the next five to ten minutes to distance himself from security while maintaining the possibility of computer access. Roxin’s security computers were capable of tracking access on an office-by-office basis. The moment Dart had entered the office, the computer had registered that access and alerted the guards. Similarly, every time a security guard used his pass to enter a hallway, or an elevator, Ginny knew about it. The result was a kind of electronic cat-and-mouse-each side able to monitor the other’s movement.

Had Ginny been given days or weeks to override the security systems, she might have been capable of misleading security by creating false electronic clues for Dart’s whereabouts, thus giving him the advantage. But as it was, she was lucky to be able to monitor movements at all, and Dart was forced to keep on the move. Working against the security team was the facility’s all-glass design, for each time a hallway or office light went on, the lookout saw this and warned Dart of his pursuers’ location.

As he ran into the hall, Dart heard the lookout warn, “E-S ascending. Repeat: Eagle-Sam ascending. Copy?”

“Eagle-Sam. Copy,” Dart replied, already running down the hall in a northerly direction. For communications purposes, they had designated the structure’s four imposing elevator hubs east and west, south and north. East-south was the elevator bank nearest the parked car. Dart turned around and ran to the stairs adjacent to elevators E-N and descended to the second floor.

The complexity of the layout worked against Dart and in the favor of those who pursued him: He was a rat in a maze, and the keepers knew the way. Armed keepers, at that. Dart bounded down, pausing occasionally for the telltale sounds of anyone approaching, with a running dialogue in his ear as the lookout and Ginny both advised him of security’s location.

At 2:53 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, November 19, Dr. Arielle Martinson was recorded as logging onto Rox Net from a remote terminal in West Hartford. Ginny was right there with her.

Using a land-link telephone line that connected her to the common van via the only scrambled radio frequency available to HPD, she announced cryptically, “The fish is on the line,” just as she had been told to. “Access password,” she spelled, “is L-E-A-N-M-O-N-T. ”

Ginny studied Martinson’s on-line movement, as her second laptop computer, patched into the high-speed data line by the SNET worker down the manhole outside the governor’s mansion, recorded Martinson’s every keystroke. Ginny divided her attention between the one laptop, monitoring security, and the other, monitoring Martinson. Rox Net’s central interface utilized both graphics and menus, allowing the user to click through desired addresses and functions. Martinson was clearly no stranger to the network. She moved quickly and flawlessly, often clicking her choice so fast that Ginny had no time to read or make note of it, though her laptop did record it.

Martinson’s first choice, selected from the welcoming menu, was for OTHER SERVICES. Ginny missed the names of the next two selections because of Martinson’s speed, but she caught the heading DAILY DIARY because it required a password. Martinson typed in: 1E2Q3T4Z, and Ginny wrote this down, despite the fact that the laptop continued to capture it all.

The CEO chose OPTIONS next, followed by SET DATE FUNCTION, and Ginny took note of it all because Martinson had to slow down to enter a date: June 14, 2000.

Ginny followed her with a computer hacker’s admiration. She had expected her to have used the network’s personal file area, a section devoted to an individual user’s personal storage. It was the logical location to upload information into the server. As a rule, network software restricted user storage to such limited areas, and only such areas, allowing the system operator to predict, control, secure, and maintain a specified amount of storage. Martinson had cleverly found another location that would allow the uploading of files, one that, through a series of passwords and now a date function, installed several secure gates in place, effectively locking the information away so that she, and only she, could access it.

A colorful calendar filled Ginny’s screen with the date, June 14, 2000, highlighted in a small box. There was a To-Do list, complete with Preferences. A time-of-day work space for appointments and calls. A small spreadsheet to track cash and credit card expenses.

The calendar work space was left blank-a particularly clever move. Even if a hacker sleuthed the several passwords needed to reach this location, even if the hacker then arbitrarily landed ahead on June 14, in the year 2000, there was nothing to see, nothing that announced the prized information hidden within. Nothing but a single asterisk at the very bottom of the screen in a box marked MEMO.

Martinson clicked on MEMO.

An information box presented itself in the middle of the screen.

RESTRICTED BY PASSWORD

PLEASE ENTER 8-DIGIT ALPHANUMERIC

STRING

Ginny looked on as Martinson typed: L-A-T-E-R-I-N-5. The letters meant nothing to her.

The screen filled with the first page of a technical report. Ginny was momentarily distracted by the contents of this page. It had something to do with drug testing….

“I’ve got it!” she spoke into the phone. But Martinson caught her off-guard by suddenly selecting EDIT … DELETE. The screen responded.

MEMO IS 76 PAGES.

DELETE CONTENTS

(Y)es(N)o

Martinson moved too quickly. Before Ginny could notify the SNET workman to interrupt the transmission, Martinson sent the necessary “Y” down the high-speed transmission line.

Into the phone, Ginny shouted, “Disconnect!”

But the screen suddenly read:

DELETING CONTENTS IS

UNRECOVERABLE.

ARE YOU SURE?

(Y)es (N)o

This final protection device saved them.

“Disconnect!” Ginny shouted again.

But the blinking cursor, frozen in its position on the screen, told her that the SNET man had done his job. Martinson was disconnected.

“Ready,” Ginny informed Dart.

Although able to access the system’s security functions by modem-a necessity to allow people like Proctor to monitor functions from the field-Ginny had no modem access to this user-area side of the Roxin network. Access was restricted to actual terminal nodes, to prevent the kind of hacking that Ginny had in mind. Where the SNET man had managed to hard-wire Ginny the ability to monitor Martinson’s line, she lacked the necessary software cryptography to manipulate data.