No Time for Surprises (The No Brides Club Book 6)

by Karen McCullough

  “I thought you’d want to know. I talked to Kris last week and asked her to lay off the criticisms,” he said to both her and Maureen. “There’s no guarantee, but I think I convinced her to back off.” He turned to Julie. “I also talked to Jake about your files. He’d like to discuss them with you, if you’re willing.”

  She thought about it, but there were legitimate concerns, so she said, “Okay.”

  “I’ll have him give you a call to set up a time.”

  “All right.” She lowered her voice so only he could hear. “About next weekend. I don’t think so.”

  He froze for a moment, then took a deep breath and nodded acceptance.

  When he turned and walked off, Maureen said, “Oh, yeah.”

  Julie stared at her. “What?”

  “The heat in here. I’m so not believing it’s all over between him and you. Not with the way the two of you look at each other. He isn’t even trying to hide it. He wants you bad. And I’m pretty sure you’re not exactly indifferent, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” she muttered.

  “Oh, yeah, you do. You just don’t want to let yourself believe in it.”

  “Maybe because I did once and that was such a bad decision.”

  “You don’t believe people can change? Or that they make mistakes and learn from them?”

  “I do. But I also believe in ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’”

  “So you’re not into second chances?”

  That gave her pause as Maureen knew it would. She’d benefitted hugely from being give a second chance herself. “Of course I believe in second chances. I guess I’m just super-cautious about it.”

  “Ah, so there is a possibility.”

  “No. Not on my part. But, please, keep it all to yourself. I don’t want the rumors flying all over the office.”

  “May be too late for that. But if you want to keep any more from starting, you better stop looking at him with your heart in your eyes. Tell him to stop staring at you the same way.”

  “Okay.” Julie spent a lot of time musing on second chances and what that meant while she tried to keep her mind on the flow chart she’d diagrammed for how the data the app collected should be processed.

  The only other interruption that morning came when the phone buzzed and Dan asked if she could meet with him, Stan, and Jake at ten the next day. She agreed and set a reminder on her phone to go to the Spieler office the next day.

  JULIE WORKED to repress a shiver as she walked into the lobby of the Spieler office the next morning. On her previous visit, she’d been so preoccupied with what she’d say in the meeting she hadn’t paid much attention to the place itself. The lobby hadn’t changed much since she’d left in disgrace three years ago. The new receptionist looked at her with nothing more than mild curiosity when she entered. Julie identified herself and asked for directions to the IT area, which proved to still be in the same side corner room.

  She passed her old cubicle to get to it. A middle-aged man occupied it. He didn’t even look up as she walked by, concentrating on typing something into the computer. Stan and Jake were already there, and Dan came in before she’d even finished saying hello.

  Jake and Stan were both in their late twenties or early thirties, but the resemblance stopped there. Stan was all geek, from the thick glasses to the unkempt brown hair, scraggly beard, wrinkled shirt, and pen in his pocket. Jake on the other hand had heartthrob written all over him in the neatly cut and groomed blond hair, handsome face, endearing grin, and designer polo shirt and khakis he wore.

  But they were both pleasant, nice guys and appeared to rub along together reasonably well. Julie felt comfortably at ease with both of them.

  There were only three chairs in the room, so Dan stood, hip propped against a table bearing a tangle of cables, stacks of circuit boards and a few random tools. “I’m going to send out a memo later today,” he said. “We’ve figured out how to fit everyone remaining from C&W in the office here, so we’ll be moving everyone over in the next two weeks. And Jake and Stan have worked out a plan for moving all the necessary files from C&W’s servers to ours right before then. I’ve explained to Jake about the special files in your directory and why they need to be there.”

  Jake frowned. “And, as I’m sure you anticipated, I’m not happy with the idea we have files containing malware sitting on the system. No matter how much we try to minimize the risks, there’s always a possibility someone could open one by accident. It’s hard enough to keep crap off the system as it is. To let someone deliberately hide infected files in a public-facing directory is insane.”

  “Insane or very, very clever,” Dan said. “No one but Julie should ever have any reason to access those files. And there are repercussions if someone does. She’s promised that the effect will be non-destructive if they’re opened by anyone inside the company.”

  She stared at him for a moment, moved and elated by his support.

  “And I’ll be happy to show you how I ensure that,” Julie offered. “When the files are moved.”

  “I’ve reviewed what she’s done,” Stan added. “I’ve tested the programs. They work the way she says they do.”

  Jake sighed deeply. “I still don’t like it, but if Dan approves it, then I’ll live with it. You’ll give me a list of files to exclude from the malware scan.”

  “I can do that,” Stan said. “The files have been on our server for over a year and haven’t been touched.”

  Once they were done, Dan stopped her on the way out to ask if she’d have lunch with him. “There’s a quick sandwich place right around the corner or a tapas restaurant a couple of blocks north.”

  She hesitated but there were plenty of reasons to agree. “Let’s go for tapas,” she said. “And thank you for supporting me and my crazy files. Stan thought it was pretty nuts, too, until I told him about my history.”

  “And then it made sense.”

  “Sort of. He only went along with it after I went through a couple of them line by line to show him how they’d work and the safeguards I’d built in to ensure they wouldn’t harm anything on our system.”

  It didn’t take long to get to the restaurant, which, surprisingly, had only a short line for tables. They were seated within ten minutes of arriving. “Benefits of eating a bit late,” Dan said, looking at his watch.

  She glanced at a clock on the wall and started. “Almost one-thirty. I had no idea it was that late. What do we need to talk about?”

  “I promised I’d try to keep you updated on my efforts to identify the leaker,” he said. “So far I haven’t made much progress. I went through a bunch of reports of personnel issues from three years ago and followed up on several. Nothing much to be found there. I wondered if you’d had any more thoughts on it.”

  “Not really. I know Jake checked the logs and didn’t see any unauthorized intrusions. I kept my password to myself and I don’t see how anyone else could have gotten it. How else could it have gotten out?”

  “One thought I did have. We checked logs for around the time when we know it got out. That doesn’t mean that’s when it was stolen.”

  Julie thought about that. “I never actually saw the leaked code so I don’t know how close it was to my finished program. But I work pretty fast. To have a functioning program, they couldn’t have gotten it more than a few weeks before.”

  “I doubt Jake looked at several weeks’ worth of log files. It’s a pain to go through even a few hours’ worth.”

  Julie nodded. “There are tools to help you sort through log files, but they only work if you have some idea what you’re looking for. You think he might have overlooked something?”

  “No idea,” Dan said. “But it might be worth going back and rechecking.”

  “That would be a lot of work.”

  He finished the last of a bit of mutton and rice they’d shared. “I thought I might tackle it on my own time.”

  “That’s
going above and beyond. I didn’t mean for you to give up all your free time to work on it.”

  “I know. But I’m kind of into figuring out who really was responsible.”

  She considered the implications. “Dan… My request wasn’t meant to be a test of loyalty or a… I don’t know.”

  “I get it. I’m not doing it for you, at this point. I’m doing it for myself. I need to know.”

  Julie took a long drink. “I want to know, too. I’ll help in any way I can.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  A buzz sounded from just below the table. Dan pulled out his phone and checked it. “Uh oh.” He pressed a button to view more. “I need to… Crap.”

  Julie waited.

  He looked up and asked, “Are you finished? I need to get back. Jake’s got some kind of problem going on.”

  CHAPTER 10

  J ulie tossed her napkin onto the table. “Let’s go.” As they walked quickly back, she asked, “Any idea what’s happening?”

  “He said an intrusion alarm went off. That’s all I know.”

  “Oof. That’s not good.”

  Pushed by anxiety, they covered the three blocks more swiftly than was usual even for veteran New Yorkers. The large open area seemed quiet, with no one obviously upset until they got near the computer room and Jake’s office. People scurried around there, wearing concerned frowns as they checked printouts or connections on the server rack.

  “What’s happening?” Dan asked, stopping in the doorway. Jake looked up from the screen he was glaring at. “Not sure. It looks like we’ve got some kind of hack. Ransomware attack, maybe. I think I’ve blocked it from getting anything important, but we’re still assessing the threat and potential damage. We’ve bumped everyone off and pulled the main server offline.”

  Dan and Julie crossed the room to where he sat and peered over his shoulder at several screens ranged in front of him. One showed a rolling log file of activity on the network, another a directory listing of server files, and the third a box showing changing levels of file and disk usage.

  “Right here’s where we first got the alert.” Jake scrolled up to show a line that showed file access marked by a highlighted IP address. “The address is definitely not us.”

  “It resolves to somewhere in the Ukraine,” Stan said, staring at another screen in front of him.

  Jake scrolled down showing other lines with the same highlighted IP address. “Looks like it went right to the root and began rolling down the directory catalog. Makes me think it wasn’t looking for anything in particular. We can tell that it rewrote a few files before the alarm went off and we shut it down. Stan took one of the rewritten files to a secure machine to check. It was encrypted.” Stan nodded.

  “Sounds like ransomware,” Dan agreed. “You’re pretty sure you’ve got it stopped?”

  “I think so. Our malware protection blocked it and alerted us pretty quickly. Trying to isolate the intruder now. It planted itself deep. The security system should show us where it—Aha. That. Right there.” He pointed at a line on the screen. I think I’ve got you, you little rat.” He tapped in a few commands, stuck a flash drive into a USB port, copied the identified file to it, and pulled it out again. Then he deleted the intruder.

  Julie’s breath stuck in her throat. “It wasn’t one of my traps, was it?”

  “Nope. Definitely not,” Stan said. “None of your files have been touched.”

  She let out a relieved sigh. “If I might make a suggestion… Do a deep search to be sure there are no replicants lurking anywhere. I’ve heard they sometimes do that, so just when you think you’ve got it handled, it reappears.”

  “Good thought,” Jake answered. “But what do you search for? I’m betting it creates a different file name.”

  “Likely. Check the time the intruder was placed or when it activated and look for anything else written near the same time.”

  “Most of those will be the encrypted files.”

  “True, but they’d be in directory catalog order and saved back over the originals. And once you restore the files from backup, they’ll get overwritten as long as you’re careful to map everything that was changed within the time parameters. You want to look for a new file or files on the drive. Things that wouldn’t get overwritten by the restore because they weren’t there before. Or maybe files outside the sectors we know were corrupted.”

  “Good point.” He looked up at Julie. “Want to help Stan check how many files were encrypted while I run the search for any other bad actors?”

  “Sure.” She sat down in an empty chair beside the man and consulted with Stan to see what he was doing. He showed her the list of files he was checking and she offered to test the next directory in line. They worked in silence for several minutes, until she said, “These all appear to be okay. No problem opening them.”

  “Whoa!” Jake said, sharply enough to draw everyone’s attention. “You were right. There are a couple of replicant files. One is masquerading as an accounts receivable subsystem file. Man, that could’ve gotten ugly. I’m going to do another search with a wider time parameter. Got to be sure we’ve got all of them.”

  “Good idea,” Dan said. He continued to watch the room.

  Julie checked the directory catalog and went to the next batch of files, but found them all clean. “I think the damage was confined to the ones on the rewrite list,” she said.

  “Good. I’ve removed the other two copies of the malware to analyze later and I’m running a full system malware scan. Once that’s done, I’ll get the backup to replace the rewritten files. Can anyone think of anything else we need to do first?” Jake looked around the room.

  “Priority one, stop and eliminate the threat. Priority two, restore system function. Priority three, determine origin and establish future prevention,” Julie recited.

  Dan added, “Priority four, deal with any legal or personnel repercussions.”

  “That’s your part of the job,” Julie said.

  He nodded acknowledgement.

  Jake added, “Once we’ve got the files restored, I’ll force everyone to reset their passwords and run a malware scan on their machines before we let them log back on.”

  “Ransomware attacks usually begin with someone clicking on a bad link,” Julie suggested.

  “I know. And I’ll hunt it down, but it’s going to be a pill.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” she said.

  “We’ll get it,” Dan promised.

  “Now that the immediate crisis is over, I’m going to leave you guys to work on that.” She stood up and headed to the door. “I’ve got things I need to do and it’s after four.”

  Dan walked out with her. “I appreciate your help with this. You didn’t have to, but it made it easier for us out. Jake and Stan are both good, but in a situation like this it helps to have as many experts on board as possible.”

  A sneaky warmth surged through her at the gratitude and implied praise. “I have a stake in this company again now,” she said. “I need it to be around, so I can maybe sell you a lot of high-priced software in the future.”

  He grimaced, and she remembered he feared they wouldn’t buy any more software from her. “Or I can bury you when I sell it to your competitors.”

  Shock crossed his face, then faded into a smile that did dangerous things to her pulse and respiration.

  “Whatever the reason, I’m grateful. I may not see you again until Friday, but I’ll let you know if we figure out how this happened before then.”

  JULIE RODE the subway home but stopped on the way from the station to her building to pick up dry cleaning and a few necessities from the grocer.

  The next morning she got a surprise that started as a call on her cell phone from an unknown number. Because she’d been getting a lot of junk calls, she let it go to voice mail. When she checked, though, she listened to a woman who said she represented a human resources agency specializing in finding uniquely skilled persons to fill high-en
d technical jobs. Frank Worth had sung her praises to the recruiter.

  It forced Julie to consider her position and how unstable it was. Right now, she worked under a contract with Spieler, but that would end in a few weeks when she turned over the completed transaction logger app. And the next project was still very much up in the air.

  She could find herself at loose ends before long and it might be a good idea to pursue other options on the table. Job hunting and customer hunting sat low on her list of things she liked to do, so she returned the call.

  Leona Gallagher didn’t have a specific job opening or position in mind, but she wanted to know if Julie would be interested if something did come up. They had a short discussion about what possibilities Julie might consider and they ended with no promises on either side other than Julie saying she’d email her resume.

  It made her think about the future. Suppose Spieler didn’t offer another contract? She’d have to consider whether to look for a permanent position or test the contract waters with other companies. She hated thinking about any of those options. How could she manage to bring Maureen with her? Unwanted, another sneaky thought came. What would that mean for her relationship with Dan?

  She’d had so many surprises in the past few weeks, her brain reeled just coping with those and wasn’t ready to wrap itself around what the future might bring. She made a couple of updates to her resume and emailed it off to Leona, before she headed for the office.

  She and Maureen worked as steadily as they could on the app, but there were plenty of interruptions. Several times she explained to coworkers why she hadn’t returned the previous day. “They’re lucky they had you there,” one of them said, when she finished relating the attempted hacking.

  “Actually, Jake looked like he and Stan had it in hand. He’s come a long way since he started at Spieler right before I left. I was just another pair of eyes and hands.”