Dark Trojan (The Adam Drake series Book 3)

by Scott Matthews

  “Adam, I was told that you were successful helping that defense contractor in Portland last month when his secretary was murdered and it turned out to be more than just a homicide. My gut tells me this is more than just one clumsy hacker. The software we’ve developed to protect America’s energy grid will prevent blackouts that could cripple the nation. I need to be sure this isn’t something like you dealt with in Oregon. Does that answer your question?”

  “Yes, it does,” Drake said. “If you’ve discussed your situation with the senator, then you know how I operate. Alone. If I need help, I’ll bring in someone and put it on your tab. If this involves something big, we’ll discuss it with the senator and let him decide how to proceed. Is that acceptable?”

  “It’s what I was hoping to hear. Let’s go meet my attorney, and then we’ll go to lunch.” Bradford patted Drake on the shoulder and led him out of the office.

  Richard A. Bryce, as Drake saw on the diploma hanging on the wall of the attorney’s office, was a graduate of Berkeley Law, housed in Boalt Hall on the UC campus across the bay. He was tall and thin and looked like an attorney in his starched white shirt and blue silk tie with thin red stripes. When he removed his reading glasses and stood up to greet them, Drake estimated his height at six foot five or six.

  When Bradford introduced the two men to each other, Bryce said, “Bill told me he wanted you to look over our compliance matter. Is that something you do, Mr. Drake?”

  “I’m a former prosecutor, Mr. Bryce. I’ve handled a number of financial fraud cases that involved SEC filings. I’m familiar with compliance requirements.”

  “What will you be doing here?” Bryce asked as he sat back down and left the other two men standing.

  “I’d like to start my review by taking a look at the personnel files of your employees. John Lewiston said I needed you to clear it with HR.”

  Bryce looked sharply at Bradford. “Bill, is that really necessary?”

  The CEO spoke. “If Drake feels it is, then it is. I expect you to cooperate in this review, Richard.”

  “Is there anything else you think you need, Mr. Drake?”

  “I would also like to see the log-in reports on all your systems. And a list of employees with access to those systems.”

  “I suppose you want employee passwords for their social media as well?” Bryce asked with a smile.

  Drake was amused at the attorney’s attempt to embarrass him in front of Bradford. California had recently passed two bills into law that protected the privacy of college students’ and employees’ social media accounts. He smiled and said, “I hope you have already prohibited your employees from using the social media while they’re working, Mr. Bryce. While there’s a right to maintain control of personal information, your recently passed laws have exceptions for investigations. You know I can request content relevant to my investigation. Even the ACLU conceded an employer that right.”

  Bryce bristled at this back-handed swipe at his pet cause, but before he could begin a rebuttal, Bradford looked at his watch and intervened.

  “Richard, we need to be going. I’m taking Drake to lunch. You’re welcome to join us.”

  “I’m meeting someone at my club, Bill. I’m sure you two will get along fine without me.” Bryce picked up a handy file and opened it.

  Bradford walked Drake to the elevator. When the elevator arrived and they were alone inside, he turned to him with a smile on his face. “Adam,” he said, “you seem to have enjoyed that. Is it his law school or the ACLU you don’t care for? I saw you looking at his diploma.”

  Drake returned the smile. “It must be an old habit. When two dogs meet, they sniff out their competition. I needed a whiff of his scent.”

  “Bryce is a good attorney,” Bradford said. “He’s a little stiff, but he’s doing a good job. Now let’s take a walk.” They stepped out into the sunny fall afternoon. “There’s an oyster bar down by my yacht club with the best fish and chips in San Francisco. You probably thought we were headed for a power lunch somewhere, but I try to get down there as often as I can. Hope you don’t mind.”

  Drake said he didn’t mind. They walked across the parking lot where the EIS manager had been abducted two nights before. He was eager to get started with his investigation, but it could wait until he had tried the best fish and chips in San Francisco.

  Chapter 15

  As they walked back from the oyster bar on the pier near the yacht club, Bradford told Drake that his first task that afternoon would be to interview a man to replace his dead manager.

  “I have a place at Lake Tahoe,” he explained, “and a neighbor there is the CEO of a solar company here in the City. He’s the one who called this morning and suggested I see this guy.”

  “That’s quick,” Drake said. “Do you usually see applicants the same day they call?”

  “This will be a first,” Bradford admitted. “I need someone to join our utilities software team as soon as possible. I’m hoping to field test the software next week if we can complete our testing here. I’ll let HR know you want to see all the personnel files, and let’s plan on meeting tomorrow morning.” They entered his building and headed toward the elevator.

  “Where do you want me to work when I’m here?” Drake asked.

  “Use the conference room next to my office. I’ll have the personnel files brought there.”

  With Drake on his way to the conference room, Bradford went to the reception desk to meet his one o’clock appointment.

  The young man sitting in the reception area stood up as soon as Bradford reached the desk. He looked to be in his early thirties, five foot ten or so, with black hair worn long in back. Bradford thought he looked like a young Antonio Banderas.

  “Mr. Capelli,” he said, reaching out for a handshake, “I’m William Bradford, CEO of Energy Integrated Solutions. Come. We’ll talk in my office.”

  When they arrived, Saleem Canaan, aka Anthony Capelli, said “Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mr. Bradford. I’d like to come work for you.”

  “I’m curious, Mr. Capelli. How did you know that I might be hiring?”

  The younger man smiled. “Please call me Anthony. Mr. Capelli was my father. I’ve been working for Ra Solar in its residential solar-powered charging stations division. Bobby Parker, the CEO there, is cutting the staff back until the next round of federal funding comes through for electric cars and charging stations. I didn’t want to wait around on unemployment until that happens, so I asked Mr. Parker if he’d help me find a position and he called his friend, Mr. David Klein, who I believe is a neighbor of yours. He suggested that I come see you.”

  “I see,” Bradford said, looking up from the man’s resume. Masters degree in computer science and engineering from the University of California San Diego, father had been an electrical engineer, and his mother was a pianist. “Does your mother live around here?” he asked.

  “No, sir. Both of my parents are dead.”

  “Brothers or sisters?” Bradford asked, looking for anyone to help, if needed, when they did a background check on this guy.

  “Sorry, I’m an only child. Mom’s career as a pianist didn’t allow for a big family.”

  “I don’t imagine it would.” Bradford kept digging. “Where did she perform?”

  “My mother was Spanish, Mr. Bradford, and my father was Italian. They immigrated here before I was born. My mother played in an orchestra and night clubs, that sort of thing, in Florida. When they died, I finished high school and came to California. I didn’t care for Florida.”

  “Well,” Bradford said, “I’ll show you around then give your resume to HR. They’ll want you to fill out an application, and then we’ll get together and make a decision. If I decide to hire you, are you available immediately?”

  “I can start tomorrow if you need me.”

  “Excellent. Let’s walk this way, an
d I’ll show you what we’re working on.”

  And as they passed, the conference room where Drake was reviewing personnel files, Anthony Capelli, aka Saleem Canaan, just happened to glance into the room. He stopped dead.

  Bradford turned back to see why Capelli had stopped.

  “Sorry,” the younger man said. “I thought that was someone I knew. Is he one of your employees?”

  “No.” Bradford signaled for him to start moving again. “He’s an attorney I hired for a special project.”

  ~

  Saleem Canaan knew he had almost blown his cover when he recognized the man in the conference room.

  A month ago in Oregon he had tried to kill Drake twice; once when he had arranged a traffic accident Drake had managed to avoid and again when he had detonated an IED at a polo match Drake was attending. His failure to kill him had resulted in a failed attack on a mountain dam that would have killed thousands of people by flooding the valley below. It had also meant the death of the leader of the mission for the Brotherhood.

  As he followed the CEO of this company he hoped to work for around to meet the team managers and was then left in HR to fill out his employment application, he silently debated whether he should eliminate the risk Drake presented to him or report to Walker and let him decide how they should proceed. Either way, one thing was clear: Adam Drake had to be taken out of the game if they were to succeed.

  By the time he was finished in Human Resources and was seated in his BMW, he decided that this time he would let someone else decide how to deal with Drake.

  “We have a problem,” Canaan said without any preamble when he called Walker. “Remember the man last month we had trouble with in Oregon? I just saw him at EIS.”

  Chapter 16

  Drake finished reviewing the personnel files. When he stood up to stretch and look down into the EIS parking lot, he spotted a metallic gray BMW M3 pulling out of its parking space. The files had shown him that none of the employees had a connection to EIS’s competitors, and as far as he could tell, HR had vetted each of them pretty thoroughly.

  The file that Lewiston, the security analyst, had sent to the conference room for him to review hadn’t added anything to the puzzle. Traffic analysis of the malicious emails was not successful because the hacker was using software that routed traffic to at least three servers manned by anonymous volunteers around the world, who sent the emails on to their destinations. This shotgun approach the hackers were using—spearing all of the EIS employees instead of targeting just a small group—also didn’t allow Lewiston to reverse social engineer anything about the goal or identity of the hacker.

  Back when he was in the district attorney’s office, Drake had worked with IT investigators who knew more about this kind of investigation than he ever would. That was the kind of help he needed, but they were no longer available to him. Well, he told himself, he knew where he might find help now.

  His former Delta Force partner, Mike Casey, was the president of and major shareholder in Puget Sound Security, one of the biggest security firms on the west coast. The company ran risk and threat assessments for large hi-tech firms, provided personal security protection for VIP’s, and occasional hostage recovery missions when a case involved one of its clients or their families. One of Casey’s star employees was a world-class white hat hacker, the kind that hacked IT structures of companies to locate their vulnerabilities.

  Drake pulled his phone out of his pocket and called his friend at his office in Seattle.

  “How’s the wounded warrior doing?” Casey asked when he answered.

  “Still having a few headaches, otherwise I’m fine. I’m in San Francisco on that thing I promised to do for my father-in-law. I think I need some help.”

  “You need a bodyguard to protect you from young men asking you for a date?”

  “Are you volunteering? I know how much you love this place.”

  “I liked it better in the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ days when it wasn’t in your face. What kind of help do you need?”

  “The CEO of Energy Integrated Solutions, thinks something strange is going on,” Drake said. “His company’s been having cyber attacks over the last three months that don’t make any sense to him. No breaches of any system, and his security analyst hasn’t been able to trace the hacker. I thought this might be something Kevin could look into.”

  “He’s just finished an assessment for a client,” Casey said. “He’s probably got some time. Do you want him to work with their security analyst or do his own thing?”

  “I’ll let the CEO know he’s helping me, but have him work alone. Will he need anything from me?”

  Casey laughed. “If Kevin needs anything, I’m sure he can find it on his own. This is the kid that hacked through Microsoft’s security shield when he was fourteen. How long are you going to be down there?”

  “Maybe a week or so. Why?”

  “I’m speaking at a conference in Las Vegas next week,” Casey said. “I could reroute through San Francisco on the way home and you could buy me dinner.”

  “You’re on. I’m staying at the Marriott Marquis. Let me know when you’re arriving. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “See you next week, and watch your six,” Casey laughed as he hung up.

  Drake shook his head at his friend’s lingering homophobia. Casey had grown up on a ranch in Montana. Brokeback Mountain wouldn’t have fared well in the local theaters when he lived there.

  There wasn’t anything else that Drake could accomplish at EIS that day, so he told Bradford he was leaving. He drove the borrowed Audi TTS back to the Marriott. Monday night football in the 4th Street Grill at the hotel would satisfy his entertainment and nutritional needs that night. It would also eliminate the need to drive in a city he wasn’t familiar with when he’d been drinking.

  With a couple of hours to kill before kickoff, he decided to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and see if the TTS was as good a car as it was reported to be. Its engine was smaller than the one in his Porsche 993, with only two liters of displacement, but with 265 turbocharged horsepower, it was almost as powerful. With zero to 60 speed in 4.9 seconds and Quattro all-wheel drive, the car was a rocket on rails.

  Drake was having fun using the paddle shifters behind the steering wheel as he ran the direct shift six-speed gearbox through its paces. So much fun that he didn’t notice the metallic gray BMW M3 following three cars behind.

  As he drove north on Highway 101, the Redwood Highway, past Sausalito and Marin City before he detoured onto Highway 1, the coast route, he let his mind slip into neutral and just enjoyed the drive. Driving with some old, familiar rock and roll playing in a car like the TTS, which was meant to be driven fast, was one of his favorite things to do.

  When he reached Stinson Beach, he turned around and headed back to the City. The afternoon sun was in his eyes when he made a U-turn. This prevented him from getting a good look at the driver of the metallic gray BMW M3 that drove past him. The M3 seemed to be popular in San Francisco, he thought. He also thought it would probably give the TTS a good run for the money. A shame it was continuing on north, he thought a minute later. He and the driver of the M3 could have had some fun on the road back to the City.

  Chapter 17

  Saleem Canaan turned his BMW M3 around and followed the black Audi TTS coupe back to the Marriott Marquis in the City, where he watched Drake hand his car keys to the parking valet, walk to the corner of Fourth Street and Mission and then enter the 4th Street Bar and Grill.

  When he was sure Drake wasn’t coming back out, he drove toward his condo in the Mission District. Keying his cell phone in its cradle, he called Ryan Walker for instructions.

  “I followed Drake on a drive to the coast and back to the Marriott Marquis, where he might be staying,” he told Walker. “He’s in the hotel’s 4th Street Bar and Grill on Fourth and Mission.
What would you like me to do?”

  “We can’t take a chance that he saw you at EIS this afternoon,” Walker said. “Go to your condo for the night. I’ll send someone down to the Marriott and find out if he’s staying there. Call me tomorrow and we’ll decide what needs to be done.”

  Canaan knew how he would handle this. San Francisco didn’t have as many drive-by shootings as they had in the East Bay, but a little gang violence might work. Or they could knife him in an elevator. That had worked for him in San Diego, when an FBI agent had gotten a little too close to one of their operations. His choice, however, would be a sodium chloride induced heart attack like he had administered to the EIS manager. Two heart attacks would be a little suspicious, but he thought Drake deserved a painful death for interfering in Oregon and now turning up here.

  For tonight, though, he would have to be satisfied with Walker’s promise that Drake would be dealt with. He’d have to find another way to satisfy his blood lust. He had an evening to kill. Two favorite possibilities came to mind. He could pick up a prostitute no one would miss tomorrow, or he could watch mixed martial arts on TV, with a little hashish to relax with until an order of takeout Chinese could be delivered to his condo. He decided it was better to play it safe and chose a night of mixed martial arts and food.

  When he was eight, the mosque where his Lebanese father had worshipped offered classes in Pencak Silat, a traditional Muslim martial art developed in Indonesia and taught in mosques and Islamic centers in America. Even as a boy, he had excelled in the art, and when he was in high school, after being identified as a future jihadi warrior, he had traveled to Iran each summer and trained in Hezbollah’s hand-to-hand combat training center. He loved both the sense of power his martial skill gave him and the opportunity his secret life provided to use it. Tonight, he would have to vicariously enjoy watching the cage fighters doing what he knew he could do better.