Cyber Genius

by Patricia Rice

  “That’s what I call working within the system,” she said with almost a hint of admiration. “Just don’t let any of them go near politics.”

  We both knew that politics was a ridiculous impossibility for our family. We clashed with authority too often to be useful in public office. But “going near” had many connotations—undermining being our expertise.

  Magda didn’t bother sending her warm wishes to her offspring. She shouted directions at a cab driver—or a cart or rickshaw driver—and hung up. I’d long ago decided that Magda—whose mother had died young—had never been hugged as a child. I barely knew my grandfather, but I suspected my mother was a chip off the non-sentimental old block. We knew she loved us, because she looked out for us. Sort of. When she could.

  It was nearly dinner time, and after that call, I didn’t have the will to dig back into musty files. Time to wield the family whip. I texted Tudor that he was expected at the table promptly at six.

  He texted back that he wasn’t hungry.

  I might not know how to program software, but thanks to Tudor, I have an arsenal of juvenile hacking and worming devices, and I’m not afraid to use them.

  I hit the intercom. “Boot him out, Graham, or your computers are hash.” I happily pictured the noisy intercom blaring through Graham’s concentration.

  It was Saturday night, and we were having a family dinner, even if Graham refused to descend from his lair.

  ***

  Nick actually showed up to join us. He was dressed in a suit and tie, so he was either going out or on his way home. EG glanced up from her tablet to study his sartorial elegance. “Get tired of noodles?”

  He tugged her hair and took his usual seat at the head of the table. “I miss Mallard,” he told her in a manner that indicated he hadn’t missed EG.

  She grinned, knowing he didn’t mean it.

  I was already sitting at the other end of the table when Tudor arrived with his frizzy red hair slicked back and wearing a school blazer over his black t-shirt. “Thank you for taking time out from your busy schedule,” I said without sarcasm.

  “Where’s the bolt hole if the cops come?” he replied sullenly.

  “Basement stairs, just the other side of the swinging door. Or the dumbwaiter on the far side of the buffet,” Nick answered cheerfully.

  We’d been trained at an early age to always locate the exits. “Didn’t Graham show you his?” I asked innocently, fishing for information. I knew one of his bolt holes. I was betting there were others, but I had no excuse to explore the third floor.

  “Yeah, one, but I don’t think anything will help me. Now that the feds are involved, it’s all over but the handcuffs.”

  So, Graham was keeping him informed. I hoped that was a positive. I got itchy when I wasn’t in control, but I accepted my limitations. The NSA had probably been very unhappy to find a worm bearing Tudor’s signature eating through their data. But after the State Department debacle, we’d known they’d find out sooner rather than later.

  Tudor eyed the vegetable soup warily but tried a spoonful.

  Mallard’s cooking was one good reason to never leave this house. I made certain the kid was digging in before I replied. “That’s your inexperience talking. Once we have the evidence that government computers have been systematically corrupted by sophisticated data thieves, and you adapt your software to look like a new kind of virus protection, you’ll be a hero.”

  “We’re not James Bond,” he said gloomily.

  “Au contraire, mes enfants,” Nick took up the family banner. “We are better. Only peasants use blow-’em up cars and laser guns. We simply need information. The FBI is looking for you, yes. You stupidly used your US passport to enter the country, and I can’t erase that. But if you choose to leave using your Brit passport, I can arrange your disappearance. So quit worrying.”

  Fortified by the rich soup, Tudor looked a little more hopeful. “The FBI went to the embassy looking for me?”

  “Naturally. They have quite an entertaining dossier on you.” Nick stopped talking to admire the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding Mallard presented, presumably in honor of Tudor’s appearance.

  I’m not a vegetarian. My upbringing included a lot of rice and noodles, beans and insects, not much beef. I have adventurous tastes as a result, but I’m more appreciative of greens and fruit. I’d seen real carnage and didn’t need blood on my dinner table. So I didn’t simper over the beef as the men were doing.

  I concentrated on the deliciously spicy roasted broccoli and cauliflower and let Nick play role model.

  “They probably have a dossier on all of us.” Tudor said with a shrug. “My father is both English and Australian, and I was born in London. My mother is American. So I have three passports and a dossier. Can I leave here on the Brit one and arrive elsewhere on the Aussie one?”

  “Stop it,” I scolded. “You’re not going anywhere except to MIT. Just give us time.”

  “My worm ate the NSA!” he cried in frustration. “Don’t you take that seriously?”

  “Nope,” Nick and I said in chorus. Anarchy had been our upbringing.

  EG flashed her school tablet that shouldn’t have Wi-Fi but now displayed a news headline: GOVERNMENT DATABASES DESTROYED. GOP CANDIDATES DEMAND EXPLANATIONS

  Oops.

  Eleven

  Sunday morning, I did laundry. EG had gone to her father’s house for an outing. For whatever reason, EG idolized her adulterous, pompous dad, Senator Tex Hammond. Letting her get to know him had been one of the reasons for my settling in D.C.

  Tex had lost his conservative halo after EG turned up as product of his adultery, but his wife and other daughter were gradually accepting her existence. I tried hard not to judge EG’s paternal family, but it involved a lot of tongue biting and assuring myself that she needed a well-rounded social education.

  The feds might be after Tudor and the cops after Graham, but we still needed clean clothes, and I wouldn’t stick Mallard with our undies. So I did laundry. Pondering whether we could hire a maid if we were rich, I wiggled out of my work bra, added it to the wash, and tugged my sweater back down.

  Only then did it occur to me that Graham probably had a security camera even in the basement laundry. I raised my middle finger in salute in case he was watching and sauntered off to my office.

  Bored with reading other peoples’ research, I started an analytical search of my own. Under Graham’s instruction, Tudor had adapted his cookie monster program to deliberately locate all systems containing the spy hole in the betaware. He’d sent me a list of the contaminated websites that he’d found to date.

  I took his list a step further. I sorted out the government systems by server, and using one of Graham’s illegal programs, infiltrated their computers through the holes in their operating system firewalls. I didn’t wipe out anything. I just ran a systematic search through the documents of two dozen government agencies, looking for similarities. I was operating under the theory that whoever had arranged to spy on these computers had a motive other than general nosiness. Data mining this extensive would be worse than NSA’s phone files. No human could reasonably process it—unless they had strict search parameters.

  Almost all the government computers connected to the server I’d chosen were used by boring financial committee personnel. There was no point in hunting for common word similarities because “money” or “funds” would come out on top—not useful. The key to a good search is to be specific.

  I started just by comparing all proper nouns. Senator Paul Rose—the leading presidential candidate—cropped up in a statistically abnormal number of instances. But a megabank, a stock brokerage, and their related executives also appeared high on the list, so Rose’s name wasn’t unusual in conjunction with the others. They were all filthy rich and powerful and had interests in banking.

  I’d first run across Rose and his cohorts in tracking my grandfather’s stolen funds—and developed a pretty extensive database on the senator a
nd his pals. Know thy enemy and all that.

  A quick search revealed Rose’s trust fund owned substantial numbers of shares in both the bank and brokerage ranking highest on my list. He also owned a large piece of Goldrich Mortgage, which was being examined for various fraudulent sales of bad loans to the government. The banking committee appeared intent on blocking sale of Goldrich to the megabank—yawn. Nothing new there.

  Further down my search list was a number of other large financial institutions. With a little work, I could probably tie all of them to Rose’s supporters, but this wasn’t leading me to murder.

  I sent my findings to Graham with the ungrammatical question: “Ya think maybe Rose likes to monitor banking legislation?”

  I could almost hear his snort in reply. If anyone could pay to add corrupt operating systems to government computers, it would be Rose and his old-boy Top Hat network. The shadowy connections between politicians, bankers, and powerful corporate executives had first landed on my radar in my grandfather’s dying message mysteriously mentioning Top Hat. Later, I’d caught glimpses of the alliance when they’d tried to influence EG’s dad over an infamous textbook deal. People who thwarted them tended to die, but the Top Hat cadre was always clean.

  If this powerful group had planted the spyholes, they might have reason to kill Stiles to prevent discovery of their spying, but motive was nothing without evidence.

  I’d let Graham and Tudor figure out if Rose had corrupted MacroWare to keep an eye on banking regulations—and why. Legislation made me snooze. In my world, laws were made so the crooks knew which way to dodge. I just wanted to get back to my life.

  My goal was to find the bottom-feeders who had actually killed Stiles and company. I’d leave it to people better trained than I am—like Graham—to follow the money.

  I was nose deep in MacroWare crap when the intercom sputtered. With Tudor upstairs, I was afraid to shut it off as I often did. I waited expectantly.

  “The feds have added two and three and developed a logarithm leading to you,” Graham said solemnly.

  “A joke, he makes jokes,” I answered, still waiting for the ax to fall.

  “They no doubt have your family tree tacked on the wall,” he retorted. “You might give Nicholas and Patra a head’s up. In the meantime, it might be advisable to take Tudor to the movies.”

  “How much time do we have?” I was already messaging my siblings and shutting down systems. I knew cut and run. Would EG be okay at the senator’s house?

  “The feds have no grounds for a search warrant,” Graham continued ominously. “They only wish to speak with you about your missing half-brother. I’d give them an hour to post spies in the bushes.”

  “Sweet. Get Tudor bundled up. What about you?”

  He chuckled. He actually chuckled. The madman was enjoying this. I wanted to be a fly on the wall up there. Naturally, he didn’t answer.

  I don’t know why I worried about Battyman. I’d stick to keeping Tudor out of jail until he could figure out how to fix the software or kill his multiplying worm.

  I removed my external drive, dropped it in one of the many canvas totes kicking around my desk, and ran upstairs to collect my coat.

  I cursed Nick for talking me into buying the totally inappropriate leopard boots. They were much too glamorous for my overalls and heavy black sweater. I pulled on combat boots and my army coat instead, new plans formulating as I did. I tied on the hood to hide my braid.

  Tudor met me in the upper hall looking pale but determined. I yanked his knit hat further down over his distinctive hair.

  “Graham said there’s a better way out through the coal cellar,” he said, twitching away from my mothering gesture.

  “I was going that way anyway. Lead on.” Ha! I’d known the spider in our attic had more secret exits. I gloated that I was finally about to learn another.

  We clattered down two flights of stairs to the basement. Tudor headed to the windowless cellar that had once housed coal, and I raised my eyebrows. The coal cellar, really?

  I flicked on my LED flashlight—my army coat was well equipped—and we noted the rusted coal chute. The room was entirely underground. I didn’t know how we could get out through here. I double-checked to make certain I couldn’t be locked in, but the old wooden door into the chamber was rotten. Even a baby could smash through it.

  Tudor took the light and ran it across the back wall. “There. Brill.” He ran his ungloved fingers along the edge of a crack around the chute.

  To my utter amazement, the concrete block wall opened.

  “Why the friggin’ heck didn’t he tell me this was here?” I muttered as I followed my baby brother through a six-foot-high cement tunnel.

  “I think he likes watching you on the security monitor when you sneak out through the back yard,” Tudor said with a male shrug. “You trigger an alarm every time you go out the kitchen door.”

  “Remind me to wear a sheet over my head and give him the finger from now on.” That was attitude speaking. I actually got off on knowing that Superman was watching me—as long as I had control of the situation. Yeah, hormones aren’t rational.

  “He’s a boffin, but if he’s got our backs, that’s what matters,” Tudor said sensibly, examining the recessed lighting in the tunnel walls—presumably looking for their source of power.

  I wouldn’t call Graham a nerd, precisely, but the latter part had been my conclusion—he had our backs. I still didn’t fully trust an unknown cipher in the equation of my life.

  The tunnel didn’t seem to run further than the length of the back yard, maybe a little more. At the end, we climbed a short flight of stairs to a metal door. I had a pretty good sense of where we were and really wanted to smack our uncommunicative landlord. I slammed the door open instead.

  Gaping at the vast open space we entered, I swore. Well, at least I now knew what the warehouse/churchlike building was on the block behind us. I’d stupidly thought it abandoned.

  Men who kept secrets like an enormous carriage house suitable for hiding limos—and possibly helicopters, tanks, and an arsenal—ought to have their heads chopped off. You had to know men like that were up to no good.

  I examined the gleaming antique Packard Phaeton I’d once seen Mallard drive. Then I studied the empty concrete floor that could have held a private plane had there been a runway and uttered a few more choice words that I tried not to use around the kids.

  “You didn’t know this was here?” Tudor concluded, whistling as he examined the gleaming classic. “Is this ours?”

  “Like, I know?” I glanced overhead, wondering if the Mansard roof would hold a helipad. That would explain Graham’s magical disappearances and appearances. Cops, doctors, Google Earth, newspapers—all had helicopters around here, so I wouldn’t have noticed one extra drone from my basement hideaway.

  “A Phaeton isn’t exactly invisible, is it?” Tudor said wistfully. “Maybe I could buy a motorbike and keep it in here.”

  He was talking about our pattern of travel, learned at our mother’s knees. When we wanted, we could be very, very inconspicuous.

  “Should we live long enough for you to get a license, a bike works for me. But that Phaeton screams ‘Look at me,’ so very not Graham. It may be our grandfather’s.” I scouted around for the exits and decided on a small door at the side.

  “There’s a good film in Georgetown,” Tudor said, following me and punching the door lock with a code that I memorized. “How difficult is it to get there?”

  Leave it to a kid to have a show already picked out. “I don’t suppose you mean The Three Musketeers,” I said in disgruntlement.

  “Monsters, in 3D,” he suggested with relish.

  I politely refrained from rolling my eyes. “How about we do some sleuthing instead?”

  “Sleuthing?” he asked in incredulity. “Who says sleuthing?”

  “I do. While Graham is covering your ass, we can help cover his. How about a ride to our part of town?” Tightening m
y hood, I headed for the street.

  “I thought this was our part of town,” he grumbled.

  “Did you earn the money to live here? Do you have money for your own place?” I asked as we aimed for the Metro. I liked the kids to stay humble.

  “No. Dad gives me just enough allowance to buy games.” He glared at my gloved hand when I held it out for money for the Metro. He didn’t offer any.

  “Exactly.” I slid my card through the ticket machine. “On our own, we don’t even have enough money to travel by subway. So we’d be living in the working man’s part of town.”

  “That’s where you’ve been living until you got here?” he asked with curiosity.

  Worse, but he didn’t need to know that. It had been my preference at the time. “In another city but similar housing, yup. And it’s where we’ll end up if our lawyer doesn’t beat Graham and our grandfather’s lawyers into submission. The law is on Graham’s side on the house. All we can do is hope he’ll do the right thing once we have the funds to pay him back. He laid down over a million in cash.”

  Tudor didn’t like that answer. A silent Tudor was a dangerous Tudor, but I let him stew for the train ride down to the apartments I’d visited a few weeks ago for different reasons. I knew the neighborhood and the police district. I’d feel right at home if we ended up renting there.

  “Who are we looking for?” he finally had the sense to ask as we got out at a station well past the usual tourist areas.

  In the November gloom, the apartments looked dirty and tired. At night, they were worse, I knew.

  “Maggie O’Ryan.” I checked my phone directions and aimed down a main thoroughfare.

  Whereas Kita, the hotel’s fish chef, had found expensive lodging in fashionable Adams-Morgan, the hotel’s best server lived two steps above a slum. I’d done some cursory research into Maggie, knew she had grown kids, an ex-husband, a bad credit record, and her last house had been foreclosed on. Kids are hard to raise on tips.

  “You going to just walk up to her and ask if she poisoned Stiles?” Tudor asked.