Paradise Crime Series Box Set

by Toby Neal

  Whatever happened, she couldn’t talk about DAVID, or run the risk of losing her program forever—which reminded her that she needed to follow up on the patent application she’d started.

  Sophie did one more lap, sorting through the threads of information and coming to the same conclusion once more. She stopped in front of the ocean view and bent to stretch, exhaling over her knees in long slow breath, and inhaling as she stretched high, filling her lungs with great breaths of moist, salty air warm from the beaches of Waikiki.

  DAVID and the gift horse cases would have to stay her secret for a while longer, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find some way to use a digital can opener to get inside Security Solutions and find out what the connection really was. She couldn’t wait to go to the company’s Honolulu office with Ken and see what she could dig up.

  Sophie jogged on, her mind going back to Dr. LaSota’s observations about her exercise habits.

  “Screw her,” Sophie muttered in Thai. She followed that with a string of other invectives. “Deformed daughter of a pox-ridden whore! Eater of Buddha’s offerings! Demon-hag-witch who kisses the devil’s backside!”

  She was brought up short by Waxman’s voice.

  “You’re pretty angry with someone,” he observed.

  “Sir! You startled me!” Sophie exclaimed. Waxman was wearing exercise clothes. He moved up to flank her.

  “I’m wondering who it is that’s kissed the devil’s backside?”

  “It sounds better in Thai, but it’s Dr. LaSota.” Sophie stopped, put her hands on her hips. “You might as well know, since my psych report probably went across your desk.”

  Waxman threw his head back and laughed. It was so full and rich a sound that Sophie found herself smiling. Waxman was younger than she’d assumed, with his silver hair. He’d always reminded her of the journalist Anderson Cooper.

  “Nuff with the ‘sir.’ Call me Ben.” Waxman dabbed his eyes with the edge of his shirt. “LaSota can indeed, be the deformed daughter of a pox-ridden whore at times. I’ve thought so myself. But she has her uses. Now what are you doing out here?”

  “I needed to ventilate my brain. I’ve got a lead. I think.” She might as well tell him about Security Solutions; he was going to have to know about the visit she and Ken had planned. She filled him in on the Security Solutions connection to the kidnapping case. “We’re doing a scouting mission today.”

  She left off the ‘sir’ but felt it vibrating in the air between them. He was something more than a boss, it was true. He’d given help, encouragement, and support over the years. He was attractive. Sometimes she wondered what lay under his suit. But Waxman was her superior, and she was concealing a lot from him.

  “Okay then. Remember, no more ‘sir’ in private. And let me know right away what you find.” Waxman squeezed her shoulder lightly and she lifted a hand as he jogged on and she went into the sally port.

  Her boss’s hand on her shoulder reminded her how seldom she was touched. Except for Alika, last night. She smiled, remembering, as she stepped onto the elevator.

  After a quick shower and change, Sophie sat down at her desk and donned her headphones. Her rogue program had broken the Security Solutions firewall.

  “Excellent,” she muttered, leaning forward, fingers flying as she surfed through various areas of their mainframe. Data began streaming across her screen, but without programs to define it, it was meaningless gibberish and wouldn’t tell her anything. It was time for phase two of her breach, physical penetration. She hit the intercom button. “Ken? You ready for our field trip to Security Solutions?”

  Chapter Eight

  Ken and Sophie rode up on the elevator of the elegant downtown high-rise where Security Solutions’ Honolulu headquarters was located. She followed Ken into the offices and they held up their cred wallets at the gracious front desk.

  “We’d like a tour of your computer lab,” Yamada told the receptionist, a mixed-Hawaiian woman in a fitted sheath dress with a spray of jasmine tucked in a sleek bun.

  “May I ask what this is regarding?” The woman’s glossy smile twitched like a tic.

  “That’s a matter for your management,” Ken said.

  “Let me get hold of our vice president of tech operations, Lee Chan. Perhaps he can help you.” She depressed a button on the phone and turned away with the receiver of the phone, muttering into it. “He’ll be right out. You may take a seat.”

  Sophie frowned. Lee wasn’t going to like seeing her in this capacity after her fishing expedition of yesterday. The reception area was designed to project wealth and authority, with its curved reception area, keypad door into the inner recesses, and deep-piled, silky beige carpet. Blond Danish furniture and an amorphous metal sculpture added to the modern mood.

  “To what do we owe the honor of an FBI visit?” Lee Chan opened a door that led into the back, smiling, but that smile faltered as he recognized her. “Sophie?”

  “Hello, Lee.” She stepped forward, shook his hand. “It’s great to see you again.” Lee was wearing all black, and a collarless, button-less shirt that reminded her of photos she’d seen of Amish farmers.

  “I take it you aren’t really looking for a job,” Lee said with a touch of acid in his voice.

  “No.” She turned and gestured to her partner. “This is Special Agent Ken Yamada.”

  Ken gave a disarming grin. “Perhaps we could speak privately?”

  “Certainly. I’m eager to hear what brings you here.” He turned and swiped a keycard through the combination door, leading them down a luxurious hallway covered in that beige carpet that didn’t wear well but testified to the company’s willingness to spend money on cleaning and upkeep. “What made you call me yesterday, Sophie?”

  “I wanted a little informal background on the company. I didn’t know, when I called you, that we’d end up having to visit in a formal capacity. I apologize for the subterfuge.”

  Sophie could feel Ken’s vigilant attention on her as Lee came to a halt in the middle of the hall, turning to face her. His nose was shiny with stress. “You didn’t need to lie to me. I’d have said the same thing to you in an official capacity as I said to you yesterday,” the young man said.

  “Again, I apologize. Your company is providing security for a family whose child was kidnapped. We rescued her, but are trying to find out how the kidnappers were able to take her undetected. Perhaps there was some breach they were able to take advantage of?”

  Sophie thought Lee’s color got a little waxy as he turned away. “I can’t discuss individual clients’ services without written consent from them, or a warrant.” He resumed walking down a sound-deadening hallway rarified by classical Muzak piped in from overhead.

  “We don’t have that in hand, though we can easily get it. Can you just—show us around? Orient us on what you provide?” Ken interjected.

  “Okay.” Lee sounded sullen as he ran his keycard at another door and used a thumbprint lock.

  “You were so enthusiastic about the company yesterday,” Sophie said, trying to regain her former classmate’s trust. “Tell us about it.”

  He opened the door for them. Inside, organically curved bays undulated around the room with tech people seated in them, headsets on. The lighting was low and the temperature cool. Sophie felt immediately at home.

  “I imagine you did a little homework on us,” Lee said. “In fact, I know you did.”

  “Just the basics,” Sophie said, trying her most charming smile on the young tech. “You made the Fortune 500 this year. You’re expanding your operations overseas and brought down some significant profits even in a rough year for the economy.”

  Lee gestured to the bays where the operatives were diligently working. “We have a lot of surveillance and alarm systems. We also provide personnel as needed throughout locations in the United States. And you’re right. We’re expanding, going global.” His voice had warmed. He was getting over their initial setback, Sophie hoped. “We have a really uni
que surveillance monitoring system. It analyzes patterns in the home or business and can be set to send alerts wherever desired of anything out of the ordinary.”

  “We heard about that from the family who experienced the kidnapping,” Ken said. “Kind of an artificially intelligent nanny-cam.”

  “Well, that’s one way to put it,” Lee said.

  “All that must take a lot of memory. Where’s your server farm?” Sophie asked.

  “This way.” Lee led them to another locked door, opened it.

  Significant cold bathed them in a douse of refrigeration as they stepped inside. A tall steel rack filled with black, humming computers blinked with tiny red lights. Yards of blue cable wound like arteries around a heart.

  Sophie peppered the IT tech with specifics about load and capacity and the current data storage of their system as Ken poked around. It turned out a lot of the company’s actual data was stored off-site and this was just their backup, local server.

  Which opened up interesting possibilities. If this was just Security Solutions’ “front door,” who knew how far, wide and deep their back door went?

  “I’d like a software tour around one of your workstations.” Before Lee could protest and while he still had to relock the server room, Sophie spun and walked to the nearest computer bay. She sat down, quickly plugging in a flash drive. The computer woke up immediately as she moved the mouse. A spyware program downloaded from the drive as she attached a tiny bug to the bottom of the keyboard to broadcast to her address.

  She had the flash drive back in her pocket by the time Lee Chan had rejoined her.

  “An interesting configuration,” she commented. With Lee hovering at her shoulder, Sophie browsed through various security installations: scrambler satellite phones, encryption software for their clients, surveillance equipment for homes activated by motion or heat and then run through an algorithm for anomalous patterns by software so no human eye had to watch the video. Essentially, the computer watched the video and then alerted the company to oddities.

  “Impressive,” Sophie said. “Almost as good as AI”

  “Our main programmer has a background in artificial intelligence,” Lee said proudly. “He’s out of the country right now, but he’d show you some stuff you’ve never seen before. Course, then we’d have to kill you.” He chuckled nervously.

  “Never threaten a federal agent, even as a joke,” Ken Yamada said sternly.

  “Of course not! Satisfied, Sophie? I mean, Agent Ang?” Lee asked.

  “Yes, I am. Though I’d like a meeting with your programmer. To find out more about this artificial intelligence surveillance program.”

  “I’ll have him call you.”

  “We need to see the records and system our victim’s family had.” Ken hooked his thumbs lightly in his belt, subtly pointing to his weapon and badge.

  “I’m afraid not, without a warrant. Or without their written permission, as I said.” Lee flashed his nervous smile. “If you need further information, please call to set up an appointment to speak with Frank Honing, our VP in charge of client operations.” The tech expert couldn’t show them out fast enough. Sophie didn’t try to pretend they’d be friends again, and felt a twinge of regret as she shook Lee’s hand goodbye.

  In the elevator back down, Sophie watched the numbers change meditatively. Such a surveillance-monitoring program would definitely be a strong selling point for clients. In effect, the nanny-cam program could replace watchmen who tried to pay attention to the same exhaustingly boring monitors hour upon hour and let things slip by. Human error might be eliminated, and how much more efficient that would be.

  Human error, waiting to happen. Her own emotions and needs, in a nutshell.

  Ken Yamada didn’t ask her until they were getting into the black Bureau Acura SUV. “You get in?”

  “Of course.”

  He laughed as he turned on the vehicle. “Wonder what that meeting with their programmer will be like.”

  “Boring, I’m sure.” Sophie reclined her seat a little, rolled her head from side to side. “Engineers and programmers are not usually great conversationalists.”

  “Present company excepted.”

  “Well, I grew up in a different culture and came to tech later than most. I had to learn social skills before I learned computers.”

  “Speaking of, you didn’t tell me you knew Chan and had talked to him already.”

  “I should have. I apologize.” She blew out a breath as they turned onto busy Kalakaua Avenue, the palm trees dotting the sidewalk gyrating in a breeze off the ocean. “We went to school together in Hong Kong. I was poking around the company website yesterday, and saw his picture. I called and fished for info without identifying myself as an agent. I didn’t expect to have a reason to go to the company the very next day.”

  Ken smiled at her. “It’s unusual, your background.”

  “I know.” Sophie didn’t elaborate.

  “So how did that come about? It’s time we knew the basics about each other, now that we’re working together closely.”

  Sophie shrugged. “As you know, I’m half Thai. But I’m also half American. Which part led to all my tinkering and fixing as a child and my attraction to everything technology related, I don’t know. It certainly wasn’t understood well by my mother’s family, but my father encouraged me. When I left for boarding school at age ten, he sent me to an academy in Europe that focused on math, science and technology so I got a strong foundation in tech skills. I ended up getting married early, which was a mistake, but during those five years in Hong Kong, I went to classes in programming, which is where I met Lee. By the time I joined the FBI I had a solid skill set in hard computer science as well as software. You?”

  “Much less colorful background. Grew up here in Hawaii. I went to Punahou, one of our private schools here in Honolulu, did undergrad at UCLA and majored in criminology. Never wanted to do anything but be an FBI agent and come back to Hawaii to work.”

  A short silence. Was disclosure time over? “So, what’s your take on Security Solutions so far?” she asked, to move things along.

  “I think they’re hiding something,” Ken said. “It’s just a vibe I picked up, though Chan gave us the red carpet treatment, considering we showed up unannounced. I’m going to go back with the consent from the family to check on their system. Do you want to come for that?”

  “No. You’re okay at tech; but you can call me if you need me.”

  Ken slanted her an ironic glance. “I’m considered pretty good for a mere field agent.”

  Sophie ducked her head. “I meant no disrespect.” She seemed to be putting her foot in it.

  Ken went on. “We can’t assume it’s anything unusual that they want to protect their client list. Of course they’re protecting their clients, they’re a security company. But that cyber-nanny analysis program could have terrorist implications.”

  “I agree. If you could hack into someone’s surveillance feed and then put the AI to work analyzing the patterns, it could be used to plot an assassination or a heist. A kidnapping. Anything.” Sophie frowned, gazing out the window at the beauty of another downtown Honolulu day streaming by unnoticed.

  “Anything designed to prevent a situation can also be turned against to create an opportunity,” Ken said thoughtfully.

  The Ghost sat down at his home workstation in the martial arts gi he liked to wear around the apartment. He’d completed violin practice, his evening run, and a shower.

  An icon was flashing on his personal alert network. Annoyed, he opened the data stream to check it.

  Someone had succeeded in breaking into the Security Solutions mainframe. As the alert program showed the list of programs that had been deployed to hack in, he frowned. Probably a government agency. He recognized signature coding on the decryption software.

  He activated a backup program that imitated everything but the company’s vital information and deployed that layer through multiple anonymous VPNs.
Next time the hacker tried to get in, he’d be able to see everything of the company’s interior workings—and nothing important.

  The Ghost pushed away from his desk. Darkness was spreading over the city, but he wasn’t ready to settle down to anything. Was it worth it to see exactly who’d broken through the company’s defenses? He was concerned about the hacker’s identity. This afternoon he’d also received a text from Lee Chan notifying him of an FBI probe. The hacker was probably a tech agent.

  He went to his workout room and ran through a quick twenty minutes of strength exercises—stomach crunches on an inversion table, pull-ups, knuckle pushups.

  His brain sufficiently aerated and emotion dispelled, he flexed his hands and sat down at his home rigs. Anubis followed him, intelligent brown eyes monitoring as he imported a video stream from Lee.

  “Relax,” he told the dog. Anubis settled immediately, resting his head on his paws, and the Ghost turned away and opened the security recordings Lee had forwarded of the FBI’s visit to Security Solutions. He settled back with a protein shake to watch the FBI team.

  There were two of them, a man and a woman. The man was Japanese and handsome in an austere way, his gray suit immaculate. The woman was riveting, even in the grainy video. He leaned in to get a closer look, blowing up his view.

  Short dark cropped hair complimented a profile with high cheekbones, large dark eyes, a straight nose, and full lips. Her eyebrows looked like black calligraphy strokes. She wore neither jewelry nor makeup, just a simple button-down shirt, loose black trousers and athletic shoes, with the shiny FBI badge clipped to a small pocket.

  The two of them followed Lee down the hall. The man looked competent, intelligent enough, but it was the woman he watched. She moved like water, and he noticed the darting of her eyes as she took in everything in the computer workroom. He could read lips, a handy skill, and she asked to see the server room. The Ghost cursed the budget choice that meant the surveillance feed lacked audio as he saw only the backs of their heads approaching the locked room.