The Downside

by Mike Cooper

  A gust, almost a gale, buffeted the skyscraper. Nicola’s nose ran from the cold, but she had to keep both hands on the beams. The adjacent roofline still seemed far, far below them.

  Emily laughed. “I love climbing!” she shouted up, over the wind.

  Nicola muttered and looked for the next foothold.

  “Sorry you couldn’t get in,” Emily said.

  “Yeah, well, on to plan B.”

  “You have a plan B?”

  Nicola’s hands were going numb from contact with the icy metal. Was that snow falling? She gritted her teeth and kept moving.

  Finally, dropping the last meter to the roof, she bent to put her hands on her knees, breathing hard. Emily was right—the exertion had warmed her up. After a moment’s recovery, she straightened.

  “Yeah,” she said. “There’s always a plan B.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Finn got back to the warehouse midday, feeling like he’d never left.

  They’d returned with the rock drill well after midnight. It might have been sooner, but Finn was feeling extracautious, so he had Asher and Corman drop him off nearby and drive away. He then lurked at the end of Caleb Street for half an hour, watching an occasional vehicle go by, before calling them back. By the time the truck returned, he had the bay open—Asher drove right in, Finn immediately rolled the door down, and with luck, no one at all saw a thing.

  Hopefully, they’d all gotten a good night’s sleep after that.

  Asher had already arrived and begun to assemble the jacking frame. Two wrenches and loose bolts cluttered the floor around him.

  “Good morning,” Finn said, shucking his snow-dusted coat. He was cheerful: refreshed and energetic. “Afternoon? Nice to see the Christmas decorations going up everywhere.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I hate the fucking season.”

  “Right.”

  Finn thought Asher might have been sleeping here: a pile of blankets and coats in the corner looked suspiciously like a nest. But it wasn’t his concern.

  Nicola showed up next, face glowing, perhaps from the brisk, sleety wind.

  “Awesome day!” She cleared the table of tools, fast-food Styrofoam, and a heavy loop of copper, then set down her laptop. She bumped the table leg by accident and something toppled. “Feels like winter for real.”

  “Yup.” Finn picked up the rock chisel she’d dislodged onto the floor. “It’s going to help, too—if the ground’s frozen, that might make the drilling easier. Mud and sludge are the worst.”

  Asher finished the strut he’d been working on. His pipe wrench clanged to the floor. “Fuck,” he said. “Gonna take a break.” He headed out the back door, pulling a cigarette box from his pocket.

  Finn pulled out a chair and sat across from Nicola at the table. “So how did it look?”

  “Physical bypass is out,” Nicola said. “That office is locked down tighter than the fucking vault.”

  “We’ve got to have you controlling the Stormwall monitors. The whole thing is impossible otherwise.”

  “I know, I know.” She tapped at the keyboard, then pushed the computer aside. “I made an appointment for later this afternoon.”

  “An appointment? At Stormwall?”

  “If you want to go through the front door, it’s easier when they’re expecting you.”

  “Huh.” Finn looked at her. “That seems a lot simpler than climbing the outside wall.”

  “It’s right before the holidays. Most of the staff will be on vacation or halfway out the door—usually it’s the deadweight who get stuck on duty while everyone else is on their ski trips. Makes it a little easier for me.”

  “Why didn’t you try it that way the first time?”

  “Risk management.” She leaned back in her chair. “I’d rather not have them capturing video if I can avoid it.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Whatever. Part of the job.”

  “And once you’re in?”

  A smile glinted. “Then I improvise.”

  The back door banged open. Asher kicked snow from his boots as he tromped in.

  “Fucking blizzard out there.”

  “Long as they keep the roads cleared,” Finn said.

  “No shit.” Asher shook out his coat. “You gonna help me bolt this motherfucker together or what?”

  “In a few.”

  Muttering, Asher went back to the rig, clicking on the radio. Aerosmith blasted in, nice and loud. Like anyone after a couple decades roughnecking, Asher’s hearing was none too good. As he began to uncoil a hose from the TBM’s sedimentation unit, Finn leaned back in his chair, running down mental checklists again. His eyes drifted shut.

  “God damn it!” Asher yelled, and a sudden gush of water sprayed around the room. He lost control of the hose, pressure kicking it like a lunging snake.

  “Fuck.” Finn jumped to his feet, as Nicola slammed her laptop shut and spun around, clutching it to her chest to shield it from the water. The lashing torrent knocked the radio off its perch, the music ending abruptly. Metal clanged and tools were blasted across the floor.

  “Piece of shit.” Asher wrestled the nozzle to the ground, pointed it away from all their equipment, and twisted the spigot handle. The flow trickled, then stopped.

  “Jesus.” Finn looked at the soaked floor. “Make sure it’s tight next time, okay?”

  Asher grumbled and looked for the fitting wrench. Nicola glanced at the wet table and rolled her eyes.

  “Think I’ll do this somewhere else.” She began packing up again. “Oh, meant to tell you: I figured out what’s happening at the railroad on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Oh?” Finn put down the copper tubing he’d just retrieved from the floor. “What?”

  “A special shipment. An open-pit mining excavator. I have emails and internal messages talking about the cutting blade, which is apparently huge. It’s coming in on special railcars from a factory in Pittsburgh.”

  “That doesn’t sound too unusual.”

  “Well—”

  “Special trains can screw up the scheduling, but they’re not uncommon.”

  “I don’t know. They’re expecting protests. Keegan’s been telling his officers they all have to work that night.”

  “Who’s Keegan? And—wait, extra police?”

  “Keegan’s their security chief. I found an internal directory.” She got back to the point. “Listen, riot police are going to be there.”

  With the radio silenced, Asher must have been listening in. “Riot police? What the fuck?”

  “There was talk of coordination between Newark and New York.”

  Asher started to sputter. “Any details?” Finn said.

  “Just that they’re locking down the yard, and police are going to be there. How many depends on how big the crowd is.”

  “Lockdown? Police? This is fucked,” Asher said.

  “Hmm.”

  “And I’m wondering about coincidence. The very same night we’re planning to go in—”

  Finn cut him off. “Let’s get the story before we start making assumptions.” To Nicola: “Can you get more details?”

  “I’ll try. Not until after I visit Stormwall today, though. Right now, I need to get ready for that.”

  “Right. Good luck.”

  She waved one hand, like, No problem. “Riot police, though?”

  “I don’t know,” Finn said. His mind was off and running, considering options and possibilities. “But maybe we can work with it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Heavy eyeglasses with light-sensitive lenses, the same dark gray suit she’d worn to Gladco but a different blouse and shoes, winter overcoat and scarf. Nicola went through the door looking down at her phone, tapping something out b
efore she arrived at the reception desk. Not exactly a disguise, but she’d seen the cameras inside Stormwall. If they had them in the back, there’d probably be one or two in front, too.

  The plan was to gain access, after which she could erase whatever was necessary. But it didn’t hurt to be careful.

  The receptionist was a man about Nicola’s age with an extremely short haircut and what appeared to be a very fit build under his own charcoal suit. He sat straight in the chair, a stance no doubt drilled into him at Fort Benning.

  Some companies put attractive young women out front. Stormwall was selling a different set of not-so-subliminal impressions.

  “Here to see Kevin Jayne,” Nicola said. “One thirty appointment.”

  “Certainly. I’ll show you to the conference room.” He stood, nodding politely to the corridor behind the desk.

  She gave him a bright smile and paused long enough to put the phone away. When her hand came out, she held the tiny USB drive in a magician’s thumb palm. Small as it was, the device nonetheless contained the sharpest, most lethal malware she was capable of coding. Plug it into any computer for just twenty seconds, and a razorfish would be loosed into the network, burrowing deep into its heart, erasing all traces of its passage as it went.

  Any logged-in computer, that is. Stormwall’s systems were protected by some of the most impressive external barriers she’d encountered. But inside …

  All she needed was a half minute alone with someone’s workstation.

  “I’m a little early,” she said as they walked back into the offices.

  “Not a problem.”

  They entered the same cubicle warren she’d seen through the window, and Nicola scanned the desks as they passed. Fewer than half were occupied—maybe four or five people. Empty or not, all the cubes had screens and keyboards, sometimes more than one set. She glimpsed black and beige PCs under the desks, mostly towers.

  Pretend to scuff her shoe? Ask for a bathroom? Her guide gave her not the slightest opportunity, and then they were at the meeting room, him ushering her through the door. Nicola hid an annoyed grimace and slipped the drive back into her pocket.

  On to the next option, then.

  “Mr. Jayne will be with you shortly,” the man said. “Do you need anything?”

  “No, thank you.” She dropped her bag on the table.

  “I’m afraid Wi-Fi and cellular won’t work inside.”

  “I’d expect no less.”

  He smiled back. “The power outlets are available for use, of course.”

  When he’d gone, Nicola examined the room, trying not to be obvious about it. No cable jacks visible anywhere.

  She sighed. Next option?

  Nine minutes later, the door opened, and the tall, broad-shouldered, silver-haired vice president Jayne came in. He shook her hand with exactly the right pressure and duration—not too strong, not too long—and waved to the chairs. If, like most men, he was disappointed by her appearance, he covered it completely.

  “A pleasure,” he said.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

  He made a not-at-all gesture. “You came very highly recommended. Paul Fincarlo at Gladco said you’d done an absolutely stellar job for them.”

  “I’m flattered.” Nicola had called the interim CFO directly one week earlier. The international bribes-and-payoffs scandal had finally begun to disappear from the business pages. Mark Kells was still on the payroll somewhere, which was no surprise—either they feared he knew too much, or he’d gone ahead and blackmailed them outright. The new CFO had probably expected something similar from her and had been surprised when she’d merely asked for an introduction to Stormwall.

  “That’s all you want?” he’d said.

  “Your check cleared.” Nicola grinned, though he couldn’t see her over the phone. “I like doing business with straight shooters.”

  He laughed. “It happens Stormwall does some monitoring work for us on the West Coast.”

  Which Nicola had already known, having seen the name in Kells’s files.

  “Maybe I can do something for them,” she said.

  “Uh-huh. I’ll let Kevin know you’re networking.”

  And now she had Kevin Jayne in the room, as suave and pleasant as any top business development executive she’d ever met—which was saying something.

  “My specialty is penetration testing,” Nicola said. “Full-spectrum external audits. If there’s a weakness, I’ll find it.”

  “Paul didn’t say what you’d done for them.”

  It was a question, but she only shook her head slightly. “I can’t tell you, either, of course. The only reason I continue to get business is that I honor absolute confidentiality.”

  “I believe we’re in good shape here—it’s basically our specialty, too.”

  She ran through her usual pitch—the adult version, leaving out the shiny stuff and dumbed-down metaphors necessary with people who didn’t report to a CIO. Jayne was a professional, same as her, and she treated him that way.

  Not that he was buying today.

  “I really think we’ve got a handle on our own security,” he said. “No offense intended, but you’re trying to sell snow to Eskimos here.”

  “Perhaps.” Nicola nodded. “On the other hand, maybe a simple demonstration? Just to show you what I can do?”

  He couldn’t help a moment of smug. “You tried hitting our network already?”

  “More or less.”

  “And did you get anywhere?”

  Nicola picked up her bag and stood. “Why don’t I show you?”

  Back down the cubicle corridor. The same people were at the same desks. She stopped at a vacant one.

  It was clearly in use: papers and binders piled not very neatly, pictures of a dog and a child tacked on the cube wall, screen saver bouncing on the screen.

  An LED glowed on the PC box below—the key indicator for Nicola. It wouldn’t work without power—nor without being logged in.

  Which was impossible to check, though. That was up to luck.

  “Okay, let’s see if it’s still here,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Hang on. It’s in the back—”

  She knelt on the floor and reached behind the computer. It was pushed under the desk, so she had to reach awkwardly around, moving it so Jayne could see the connector bus.

  On her knees, facing away from him, the position put her ass square into his field of view. She was no supermodel, but in her experience, men were men. They couldn’t help themselves. For good measure, she shifted her weight from one side to the other, flexing, giving him a nice look.

  “Check it out.” She backed away slightly and tipped the box forward. Numerous cables were hooked up—power, speakers, monitor, network, the usual rat’s nest, concealed in the dusty reaches behind the humming equipment—and they made it difficult to move the computer far. Jayne had to kneel, close to her, to see.

  “There.” She pointed vaguely at the box.

  The head of the flash drive was about the size of a dime, gray and shadowed, plugged into a jack at the bottom of the frame. Most people would never have noticed.

  Jayne saw it immediately.

  “Shit!” He leaned forward. “How did you get that in there?”

  Nicola beat him to it, plucking the drive out of the computer. Her shoulder knocked the desk’s edge and the entire cubicle rattled. Backing out she stepped on his foot.

  None of it intentional, but the distraction was just sufficient.

  They stood up and Nicola handed him the drive.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s dead. Not just wiped—I burned the memory beforehand.”

  He glared at the drive, holding it a few inches from his eyes. “We have an absolute rule against any—any—foreign hardware.”
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  “That’s a good rule.” Nicola slung her bag across her shoulder, resettling it. “Seriously, don’t worry. It’s nonreactive junk. You can have it.”

  “I’m going to check this immediately.” He closed it into his fist. “I’ll ask again. How in hell did you place it?”

  “After-hours social engineering.”

  “What—?”

  “As a demonstration. I’d be happy to write it up, in a full and detailed report.” She paused. “I mean, as part of a contract, right?”

  He hesitated, and Nicola handed over a business card—a throwaway email and an IP address where she’d placed some promo material on a one-off webpage. Setting the hook, exactly the same as if Jayne had been a genuine lead.

  “I’ll be in touch,” she said. “Thanks for the time.” She left him still staring at the drive.

  In the elevator going down, she moved the duplicate, genuine flash drive to a safe, metal-lined pocket sewn inside her bag. She’d plugged it in when she first reached behind the computer, of course, Kevin staring at her glutes. Then she took her time shifting the computer so he could see the jack panel, and as she reached in to pull the drive out, she swapped it with the fake she’d kept hidden in her hand.

  Kevin got the fake. Stormwall’s network got the most beautiful razorfish she’d ever written.

  Twenty seconds.

  Nicola owned them now.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Corman didn’t use electronic maps. He found smartphone screens to be impossibly small for his blocky, work-roughened hands. Just dialing a call was a long and irritating exercise, let alone maneuvering through online directions. But he wasn’t the sort of technological dinosaur who persisted in treating his phone like a walkie-talkie. You still saw guys all the time at worksites, too cool to put the damn phone to their ear. Corman at least tried to keep up with the world.

  But he figured that if he could use his phone to follow a route, somebody somewhere could use the phone to follow him. Nicola confirmed this one day while they were sitting around the warehouse. In considerable detail.