Divine Night

by Melanie Jackson

  Normally, Harmony did not damage the computers she took data from. She was not a vandal. That didn’t mean that she was completely unaware of how such things could be done. There were several options. After a long talk with Miguel, she decided that what was needed was to obtain privileged access to the clinics’ data servers. So many more things were possible with root access. It was her belief that in crime, just as in life, the simplest plan was often the best. She decided to use a security-breaching technique she’d used to play tricks on friends in college.

  Using a copy of Visual Basic she had installed on her portable, she could write in advance a simple Trojan horse program that would steal administrative access to the servers. Adjustments to the look of the program would probably be necessary, but the software’s simple drag-and-drop feature would let her mimic the look and feel of any program the clinic happened to be running.

  Alex was still not convinced that this was possible, so she took him through it step by step and even gave a live demonstration so he could see how quickly she could work. In minutes, she knocked off a program that mimicked a standard computer time-out screen at a site Miguel had selected for their test assault, prompting the user to enter his user I.D. and password to log back in after leaving the terminal for any length of time. It proved that all she needed was the briefest of access to the system administrator’s computer, and then the program could capture and send the password information to any other terminal she designated. Once she had privileged access, everything else would fall like dominoes. All that was needed was that she have access to a computer inside the building.

  Once she was sure that she could handle things from a technical standpoint, Harmony contacted her people in the States and asked them to get her admittance into the Johann Dippel clinic in Peru. It was where Ninon believed they had taken Dippel’s hand for cloning. That might mean extra security at that particular clinic, but if Harmony crashed their network at some other site and made them aware that they had been attacked, security would be even tighter. It might be that the organization would get only one crack at both getting the hand and finding all of Saint Germain’s dirty secrets.

  While they waited for word from the United States, Miguel helped Harmony with the front-end and back-end portions of her Trojan horse and then loaded them onto a USB flash card. The front end would run on the server console spoofing the time-out screen, and the back end would run on the terminal in her office—an office it looked like she would have. Her boss called two days later with the news that they had managed to get her—or a woman called Selena Calderon—a job in accounting inside the clinic. This corporation had already come under suspicion for improper handling of nuclear materials. Saint Germain had also taken over a wildlife sanctuary when he remodeled the clinic, and the organization was happy to send in The Spider to see what environmental damage had been done. Harmony promised to do what she could to find out about their waste-disposal program and the local avian population’s general welfare.

  How the others coped with waiting for the offensive to begin, Harmony did not know, since they mostly disappeared during the day, but Alex wrote feverishly. He worked on his own story but also finished edits on hers. He didn’t say anything, but she sensed his throttled-down rage. Whether it was for the danger they all faced, or the memory of what had happened to Thomasina, Harmony couldn’t say. He was always gentle with her, supportive and loving even, but he kept his thoughts masked and didn’t spend much time with her except when they were sleeping. Harmony didn’t know what that meant about their future and didn’t ask. Saint Germain had to be their focus for the time being.

  They left Cornwall on a Sunday. They took different flights on different airlines from different airports. It all felt a bit paranoid, but Miguel insisted on these precautions and Harmony backed him up. As the days progressed she had slipped back into her role as The Spider. The identity was confining, not one she wore comfortably anymore, but she realized that this might very well be her last caper. Certainly it was her most dangerous. Before, she had faced the possibility of jail; now she faced death.

  Peru was probably lovely, but Harmony didn’t notice. Lima seemed like any other big city. The cottage where they stayed was small but pretty. It sat at the edge of Miraflores and not too far from the famous Parque del Amor. Harmony doubted that it was the warm terra-cotta hues that had attracted Brice so much as the relative privacy and the wrought-iron bars—albeit attractive ones—on the windows and around the property itself, rendering it almost ghoul-proof. The others went out often, but Harmony stayed in the rented house Brice had arranged, until the morning she reported for work at the clinic.

  Her dossier said that the dress code at the clinic was old-fashioned, so Harmony wore a linen suit, stockings, and low-heeled pumps. Her hair was dyed a dark brown, and she allowed herself to speak nothing but Spanish from the moment she arrived in Peru and assumed her new identity as Selena Calderon, childless widow of forty-one.

  She and Alex also began to rebuild their mental bond the day before they went in to the clinic. It would play an important part in her plan. She probably wouldn’t be able to use any sort of cell phone or walkie-talkie inside the building, which was likely shielded. Also, technology tended to fail around Alex, Ninon, and Byron. Miguel and Brice were still able to use computers but were also beginning to have trouble with cell phones and watch batteries. That meant that her only lifeline to the outside was her ability to communicate psychically with Alex. Under other circumstances, she knew that neither of them would seek to strengthen this already strong mental bond, but since this was literally a matter of life and death, they lowered their guard and let the mind-mingling begin.

  Whatever Alex had been feeling in Cornwall, he had managed to shake off, or else had compartmentalized it in some lead-lined room she couldn’t detect. In turn, she did her best not to be afraid, and it was easier to cope when she thought of herself as Selena.

  The day finally arrived when Selena was to report for work.

  The clinic was located in the swampland of Chorrillos, and as Harmony already knew, it had been a migratory bird sanctuary situated about thirty minutes from downtown Lima. Saint Germain had taken over and expanded Morro Solar, the old astronomical observatory at the top of a small hill. How he had managed to persuade the government to turn over one of their historic landmarks, Harmony could only guess, but it doubtless involved a lot of money changing hands under the table.

  The garua, a strange mist that blanketed the city May through October and rendered the area rather dreamy in the daylight—and creepy at night—was much thicker that morning as they drew near the swamp. It was possible that this was a natural condition, but Harmony rather suspected otherwise. It smelled too much like the fog that had surrounded them in Cornwall. She didn’t mention this to Alex, though. Clearly he had already considered this possibility, and there was no need to pass her attack of nerves on to him. Fear wasn’t something she usually felt, but this time they were fighting on Saint Germain’s turf, and dread was lurking, a corrosive apprehension that could be bad enough to make her chest bulge as it swelled her heart with terror—if she gave in to it. Instead she concentrated on the hum of the car engine and silently chanted her favorite yoga mantra.

  The area near the clinic was deserted except on the beach where there were a few tourists doing their best to achieve a proper post-vacation charbroil to take back home, but failing on account of the gloom. If her people were right about the stuff being dumped on these beaches, these people might have more than skin cancer to worry about.

  Alex traveled with her but got out of the car a block from the clinic. He too had Latinized in the last few days, crossing the race barrier with the help of a flash bronzer.

  “Have a nice day, honey,” he murmured in Spanish and then kissed her for luck. The brief brush of his lips was enough to contract the muscles of her abdomen.

  “Vaya con Dios,” she muttered back. Go with God, and she meant it. They had to
do this thing, but it was crazy dangerous. They needed divine help.

  Feeling alone, as she almost always did when working, but comforted by the part of Alex that was in her head, Harmony drove the rest of the way to the clinicin a state of relative calm. She pulled up to the gate where she gave her name to a heavily muscled guard in a blue shirt. He checked her name against his list and then let her into the parking lot.

  The grounds and building had been explored beforehand by Ninon and Byron and pronounced clear of ghouls. But Harmony sniffed carefully at the conditioned air in the clinic lobby, not certain if she could smell a supernatural ambush, in the unlikely event that one had been laid on, but hoping she would recognize danger if it lurked inside the tan hospital building. There was still time to warn Alex and the others away if things looked risky.

  This particular “clinic” was actually an upscale hospital that didn’t look as if it did a great deal of charity work with the underprivileged classes. It had lots of thick rugs made of wool shorn from exotic Andean species. They were arranged tastefully on the terra-cotta tiles of the floor in the lobby for visitors to rest their imported Guccis and Pradas on. It was also chockablock with weighty furniture carved from wood harvested from genuine, endangered rain forests, worked by hand by highly skilled, probably enslaved, craftsmen centuries before. There wasn’t anything plastic in the place, discounting the computers on the desks and the smiles of receptionists.

  There were security cameras everywhere, including hiding near the floor beside giant clay pots of purple orchids that served no purpose that Harmony could see other than looking up women’s dresses. She hoped that Alex would be able to short them out, or at least get past them unnoticed if he had to come in through the lobby.

  Of course, there were the expected guards near the doors, but they were reassuringly human and low-key. They were also proof that the Johann Dippel Corporation was not interested in promoting equal rights for women. Every one of them looked like a former Mr. Universe. She wondered if they had benefited from some kind of treatment, and whether they had been informed of possible side effects.

  The elevator was slow, but the ride gave Harmony time to take a last few preparatory breaths. She didn’t worry about looking nervous for the cameras. A show of nerves was to be expected in a new employee.

  Her boss was Hernando Torres—married, four children, fifty-three years old. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to be interested in anything except Selena’s computer skills. Fortunately, those were good. Selena was modest and quiet and worked efficiently all morning. She did not visit with coworkers except on a very brief coffee break. She knew that security might be watching her and made herself as uninteresting as possible.

  She was pleased to find that the office used a standard Windows-based computing system, and had no trouble with her assigned tasks. Her boss was at first inclined to check up on her every few minutes, but as she completed every chore without error and didn’t seem inclined to take long bathroom breaks, he finally left her alone. She became wallpaper.

  Lunchtime rolled around and the office emptied. Being discreet, she turned her back on the camera and then, dropping her pen on the floor, she bent down and removed the portable flash card from her bra. Then, pretending to check the printer cable, she attached the portable drive to the USB port on the back of her computer. Her sleight of hand was perfect, thanks to Miguel’s daily dress rehearsals.

  Harmony sat back down and pretended to consult the stack of forms beside her, then selected the preference “preview” button on the computer and got a look at the time-out screen she needed to match. No surprise awaited her. It took only a minute to customize her Trojan horse into a perfect duplicate of the one on the screen.

  Her office was near Hernando’s and she was able to keep an eye on his door while she worked. There was no knowing how long it would take to get a chance to visit his office. It might not happen that day or even that week. She was patient and prepared to wait as long as she needed to, but also ready to move if the opening presented itself.

  Opportunity was not laggardly that day. Her boss was in a hurry to go to lunch and obligingly left her in an empty office. The proverbial coast was clear, but she made herself wait before taking action until several minutes had passed, just in case someone came back to the office for a forgotten jacket or umbrella. A part of her wanted to rush in immediately. Though there was absolutely nothing to suggest that danger lurked nearby, Harmony still felt the weight of dread pressing on her nerves. But she knew the rules. Deviating from the plan meant added risk to the operation. Rushing the plan would be even worse.

  Since her screen could not be seen by the security camera, she took the opportunity to open the new-hire web page. Harmony almost laughed aloud and wondered if Alex felt her rush of pleasure and excitement. The corporate data center was on the third floor of the building. This was better than she had hoped for.

  Harmony exhaled slowly. Attacking the data center directly was a risk—but a calculated one. If she covered her tracks, she’d be out of the building before anyone realized the attack was happening, let alone that it was coming from inside. If they were very lucky, no one would ever know that someone had managed to copy their data files before bringing the system down.

  Gathering up a spreadsheet, she walked deliberately to the boss’s office. It was time to break into the corporate computer.

  And let the games begin.

  Harmony?

  We just caught a break. I’ll explain later. I’m good to go.

  Already?

  Yes. Can you finish up your end today? I need to know how long a fuse to put on my little cyber firecracker.

  Yes. We’re on our way now.

  I’m installing the device. Wish me luck.

  Good luck.

  Alex withdrew a bit, and Harmony turned her attention back to her next task. From here on, things would get tricky. If she was caught now, there was no innocent explanation for what she was doing. Not allowing herself to glance at the cameras that watched her, she carried her files to the boss’s office.

  Hernando had left his door open and obligingly left a small metal placard on his desk proudly announcing that he was the administrator for System 27. Again, this was as expected.

  Though she would have preferred privacy, Harmony left the door open for the sake of whoever was watching the security monitors. A quick glance told her that there was no obvious camera overlooking the desk, just one monitoring the door. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a hidden camera in the office, but she would have to take the risk.

  Harmony went over to the computer console keyboard and quickly entered the full directory path name of the Trojan horse she had installed in her home directory of the shared network drive. She allowed herself a small smile of relief when the screen went blank and the log-in window appeared. It was an exact match.

  The temptation to poke around the desk was strong, but she didn’t press her luck. Having completed her task, Harmony picked up her file and left her boss’s office, being careful to leave everything as she had found it.

  Though there was no need, she ate lunch at her desk so that she could keep an eye on the administrator’s office and know the moment he came in. After she finished her apple, she logged back into her system and pretended to work on a complex Excel spreadsheet while monitoring the small window in the top right corner of her screen.

  Her boss returned promptly at twelve-thirty. He wasted no time logging in.

  Admin: 2B,|!2b

  Harmony almost laughed, but didn’t because it wasn’t something Selena would do. It was a cute but dumb password—to be or not to be. Her boss obviously liked Shakespeare. He seemed like a nice guy. It was a pity that he had chosen to work for the spawn of Satan. They would never have the chance to be friends.

  Again prepared to wait, she didn’t have to. A moment later, Hernando came out of his office and disappeared into the men’s room.

  Gracias, Hernando.

  Letting ou
t a pent-up breath, Harmony unhurriedly opened a telnet window to “sys27” and entered the user I.D. and password requests as soon as they came up. The computer did as expected when given this information, and obligingly presented her with an administrative shell prompt.

  I’m in. It’s a go.

  The world was her oyster—until someone noticed that something was wrong. It would depend on how good their tech-support staff was.

  She worked fast, but, always mindful of the security cameras, she kept her movements calm and her expression bored. Her first task was directing the bulk of the clinic’s computer resources to finding the data she was after. Response times were slower than she liked, and she wondered if the science people were gobbling up assets for some big project—like cloning the clinic’s namesake.

  Harmony looked around casually. The room was mostly empty. It was unlikely that anyone would recognize what she was doing, but she didn’t want to take chances. Working as swiftly as she could while the office was relatively empty, she copied the tool kit of utility programs she had smuggled in on her flash drive into an innocuous directory containing the bulk of the clinic’s records and backups. Then, to determine which servers were directly attached, she ran a shell script Miguel had made for her that scanned the network drives recognized by System 27.

  “Have you had lunch yet, Selena?” The question was annoying, but Harmony forced herself to smile politely at the only other woman who worked in the office. She was older, perhaps in her fifties, and had a kind face.

  “Yes. I ate at my desk. It’s the first day and I want to make a good impression.”