The Weakest Link

by Anthony Ivins

instantly and he saw that he needed to shift it slightly to the right. He used the cloth to wipe the top of the picture and at the same time adjusted it slightly. He looked back at his phone, satisfied that the camera was in the best position.

  Jack walked around the office and emptied all the trash bins from underneath people’s desks, filling up his garbage bag. The shredder next to the photocopier had a thin layer of dust covering it. Jack knew most staff were lazy and wouldn’t bother shredding the papers they threw away. They didn’t think anything they printed was that confidential. It wasn’t financial or salary information they were working with.

  Often people scribbled notes on pieces of paper and then threw them away. Sometimes these notes had important numbers written on them, even passwords. This was a bonus for Jack who hadn’t imagined getting this information so easily. He was planning on doing a dumpster dive, digging through all the garbage bags outside. Now he had one bag full of information from the developer’s office. If there was a rainbow here, it would end at this bag!

  With the camera now in position and filming the entrance to the server room and holding a trash bag full of information, Jack had to get out of the building. He walked back down the passages he had spent so long cleaning, the trash bag hanging over his shoulder. He walked back through the men’s locker out of the side door and into the parking lot.

  Jack looked around. The empty parking lot had an eerie look and feel. The silence was interrupted every few seconds by a male cricket trying to attract his opposite mate. The temperature had dropped and a thin film of mist formed at Jack’s mouth as he exhaled. The guard at the boom gate was sitting inside the guard house, the door closed to keep out the cold night air. Jack walked towards the boom gate, his head down and his strides slow and deliberate, almost lethargic. He didn’t want to look as if he was in a rush, but rather as if he was doing something he didn’t enjoy.

  He kept his head down as he walked past the guard house. Ten feet to go and he would be out the boom and have a clear road ahead. A voice cut through the silence, sending a chill of fear through his body.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the voice boomed from the guard house.

  Jack didn’t look around but kept his head down and replied, “Boss said I need to put this bag far away. We found some rats in the kitchen.” Jack shook the garbage bag, making a small rustling sound.

  “Rats!”

  “Yea, a few big ones. Want to see?” Judging by the guard’s reaction Jack was sure he had a fear of rats and would decline.

  “No way man. Go. Get out of here. Take those things away.”

  Jack grinned to himself and walked past the boom gate and into the street, garbage bag over his shoulder. The guard pulled up his collar and shivered, not with cold but with the thought of rats.

  The Uber driver looked a bit startled when he arrived to pick Jack up. It wasn’t every day that he picked up a janitor carrying a garbage bag.

  “What’s in that?” he asked as Jack got in.

  “Just some papers.” Jack replied, “Nothing smelly I promise.”

  “Okay, get in.”

  The Uber ride was uneventful and when Jack finally arrived home he was mentally and physically drained. He hadn’t done that much manual labour since his first job packing produce at the local supermarket. He went to his computer and logged into his camera application. It took a few seconds for the video feed from the picture camera to come through. He switched on the record button and went to lie down on his sofa, feet stretched out and hands behind his head. He closed his eyes for a few moments. The few moments became a few hours and when he woke up the sun was already well above the horizon.

  Jack sat up and wiped the sleep dust from his eyes. He had to wait a few seconds for his eyes to focus and he looked groggily around him until everything became clear. Almost there. Just one last push and I should have the data. Jack suddenly felt a surge of energy through his body and he sprang to his feet. The realisation that there was only one more hurdle to get over gave him a boost.

  The garbage bag was on the floor next to the front door. Jack went across, picked it up and emptied all the contents on the floor. He then kneeled down next to the pile of papers and began going through them, one by one. He created three piles, one for good information, one for possible information and one for no information, the latter soon becoming the largest.

  After a few hours, Jack had finishing sorting the three piles. He packed all the papers from the no information pile back into the garbage bag and started going through the possible information pile. He studied each piece of paper in detail but trying to decipher some people’s handwriting was a serious challenge. There were snippets of information here and there but nothing substantial that he could use. When he had finished the possible pile, the documents of no use had to be placed in the garbage bag. His focus then shifted to the good information pile.

  Jack had only gone through three papers when he saw a long list of names. These were not normal names and seemed odd. He studied the list, trying to make sense of it. He looked at the bottom of the page and noticed the number two. There must be more pages, he thought. He scratched through the pile of papers, looking at the bottom of each page for a one or a three. He was almost at the end of the pile when he found the first page. He looked hard at it, hoping it would shed more light on the purpose of the list.

  He could have kicked himself for not immediately guessing what the list was. At the top of the first page was a heading, Server List for Caltech Backup Services. This was a list of all the servers in the computer room that were being backed up. The penny suddenly dropped and he remembered his conversation with Peter: The only outsourcing we do is for our backup tapes. We have a company that collects them and keeps them offsite for us.

  Jack rushed over to his computer and opened the camera application. He went to the beginning of the recording and began playing it back. He increased the speed to eight times faster and sat back watching the images flash past. It must have been in the early hours of the morning when a man walked into the office holding a large plastic box. Jack slowed the playback down to normal speed and watched intently as the man walked up to the keypad and pressed a sequence of keys. The door sprang open and he went inside, the door closing automatically behind him.

  As the video continued playing at normal speed, Jack remained fixated on the screen. He waited, timing how long the man was in the server room for. After twelve minutes the door opened and the man came out, the plastic case in his hand. He walked straight towards the camera, out of the door and then disappeared. Jack put the recording in reverse and paused when the man pushed the digits on the keypad, zooming the picture to the maximum. The picture became slightly blurry but he didn’t need to make out the numbers, he just needed to see which buttons were pushed.

  He started the video in the zoomed mode, slowing down the playback to half speed. He watched as the man pushed the first digit. It was a five. Jack scribbled down the number on a piece of paper. He watched as the second digit was pushed. It was a nine. He scribbled the second number down. Two more to go. The third digit was a bit harder to spot and Jack had to go replay it a few more times before seeing the six being pushed.

  The last digit was easy as the man’s hand went to the top left of the keypad and pressed the one. Jack scribbled down the last number and rechecked he had written them down correctly, five, nine, six and one. He got up, walked over to the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. He had a few options available and was mulling them over in his head. He walked around the kitchen table, circling Scuzzy like a shark, his mind a thousand miles away.

  It would be sad if he got caught now, when he was this close. He almost had that source code in his hands. He was so, so close. But he had to be careful and not rush things. Take his time. Be thorough. Be methodical. Remember Jack, big picture, always think big picture. Jack sat on his favourite sofa, letting his head fall back against the headrest and closing his eyes. As his eyeb
alls fluttered underneath his eyelids a plan began to form in his head.

  He moved back to his computer and opened one of the emails he had received from Angela. Emails carried a trove of information that not many people were aware of. Jack was looking for one particular piece of information, the IP address from which the email was sent. Every internet service provider in the world was allocated a range of IP addresses. If Jack could find the email’s IP address, he could easily find out who Tesla’s service provider was. Jack opened the properties of the email and started examining a section called Internet Headers. There was a lot of useless information that Jack had to go through before his eyes found exactly what he was looking for: the Received From detail. Jack copied the IP Address and pasted it into a Google Search bar. Within a split-second Jack had the name of their internet service provider, Equinix.

  Armed with that knowledge Jack’s plan was unfolding nicely. He walked across to a closet in his spare bedroom and opened it up. Hanging inside were lots of different uniforms that Jack had kept from almost every job he had ever completed. He rummaged through the closet, looking for a black shirt with the red logo and white writing Equinix. He had used that uniform a year or two ago to get inside