2 Executive Retention

by Maria E. Schneider

  I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Derrick walked me to my car and signaled the cop car, which dutifully followed me home. Derrick's final instructions were to come again anytime and report the Lincoln immediately if I saw it again.

  I know the Lincoln didn't follow me home; the police presence saw to it. I waved my thanks after I was safely inside.

  The only problem was that the goons already knew where I lived. I found that out for certain when the Lincoln fell in behind me right after I pulled onto Spittle road on my way to work the next morning.

  Chapter 14

  If the guys in the Lincoln were trying to intimidate me, it worked. Spittle Road was at the back of my subdivision one block over and three back from my house. It was far enough from Derrick's house that I didn't think they had found a way to connect the dots on their own.

  They were also much more confident this time. As if they wanted me to know they could find me anytime, the car followed me all the way to Acetel before veering off at the last minute when I pulled into the parking lot.

  I sat for a while, reluctant to get out of the car. I had nowhere safe to go. I wasn't driving to Derrick's house again. He might not be home this time. Besides, there were a lot more people around Acetel than in any subdivision at eight o'clock on a Friday morning.

  There was only one thing to do, and it was time I met with him anyway. I waited patiently until someone else showed up to work. Hoping they would call 911 if necessary, I jumped out of my car and scurried across what now seemed like a large expanse of parking lot and huge hill with stairs leading to the door.

  Once inside, I looked back out, but there was no Lincoln in the lot.

  Good.

  In my office, I paged Huntington. When he didn't respond, I left a message at his condo.

  By the time I finally managed to get down to the lab, another surprise was waiting. "Jonathan," the IT guy, was sitting at my console. I was still deep in thought about being followed, so it took a few seconds to register that Jonathan wasn't going to run the minute he saw me. When he didn't leap over the workbench, I finally stopped my forward motion and stared at him. The situation apparently called for a good old-fashioned greeting. "So. Jonathan. How are things?"

  He winced. "Radar."

  "What?"

  "You can call me Radar."

  "O-kay. What are you doing?" I got a little antsy when anyone started playing with my equipment, especially if he was really stupid or really good. If a guy was really stupid, it could cost hours of time. If he was really smart, he could make it impossible for me to ever get the system running right again.

  "You seem to know what you are doing here," Radar said amiably, turning away from my console. Without missing a beat he added, "I was looking through old newspapers and saw this." Carefully he reached into his back pocket, extracted a wallet and from within produced a printed piece of paper. There I was in all my glory, just after the break-in at Strandfrost, plastered on the front page of the newspaper with a fat lip and a bad hairdo. He had printed the article right off the web.

  "I'm flattered that you recognized the likeness," I said, not pleased in the least. "Or did you break into the driver's license bureau and compare it to my license picture, one that is almost as good?"

  "Nah, you had makeup on for your driver's license." He grinned. "I wouldn't have made the connection except that you didn't look so good the other night."

  Hmph. Now that he was willing to talk to me, I had no idea what to say, especially since he was suddenly so at ease.

  He scooted his chair over and made room for me to check the test. I sat down since I couldn't think of anything else to do.

  "Where did you say that Chinese place was?" he asked.

  "Tinnet. Happy Family Chinese. What do you really want?"

  "Just one or two small things. What were you doing in my computer room? Who you were with, if anybody."

  I actually didn't know the answers. Well, I did know why I had gone in there and who was with me, but I didn't know what had happened to start it all in the first place. "I have no idea."

  "Yes, you do."

  I looked around. I didn't see anyone, but then he had probably been following me, waiting for an opportunity when no one was around. I checked my watch. Too early for lunch. "No, I don't. I noticed the server had gone down. I don't know why it went down."

  He considered my answer. His hair was tied back with some sort of leather braided thing, which made it a little easier for me to read his expression.

  "You a gamer?" I asked, hoping to get him started on a hobby and off the subject of my nighttime scurry.

  "Yeah, sometimes. Why?"

  "That your gamer handle, Radar?"

  He chuckled. "No, it's a nickname. I fly helicopters."

  See what I mean about these guys and their hobbies? "Oh. What is your gamer handle?"

  His eyes narrowed. "I have several. Mostly I use Mangusta."

  "Mangusta?"

  "It's a European attack chopper."

  "Oh." Making small talk with gurus was hard work.

  I stared at my computer, wondering how I was going to get anything accomplished today.

  "Cameras," Radar leaned over and said succinctly.

  "Cameras?" Puzzled, I looked up from my computer. "What cameras?" I didn't see anything camera-like in the lab.

  He moved from his chair to the edge of the worktable and crossed his arms. "That is what you were doing in the storage center. Putting in cameras."

  "I was?" He'd have to forgive me for sounding surprised, but I had never figured out what Mark was doing in there. "How many did I put in?" My brow furrowed. "And why?"

  Radar rolled hazel eyes. "I was expecting you to tell me."

  "But why would…" I stopped myself before saying "he," and had to start again. "Why would anyone want cameras in there? I assume that no one ever goes in there except you or Art. And don't you live in San Jose? So you aren't even here that often."

  "Art? I don't know why anyone would point cameras at that troll." He watched me carefully and then added, "except me. Sometimes he screws things up royally, and I'd love to catch that on tape."

  What could Mark have been after? "What else happens in there?"

  "Do you think if Art screws up again, you could get me a copy of the camera file?"

  It was my turn to roll my eyes. "I didn't put cameras in there."

  He smirked. "I didn't say you did. I just asked you for a copy. You didn't deny they were there."

  I wasn't certain he was on the right track. "How do you know they weren't there before?"

  "I have to run cables through the ceiling from one rack to the other in order to connect the equipment. There's a lot of empty space behind the ceiling tiles. It's cleaner to run cables through the ceiling instead of across the floor. There weren't cameras in there when I ran the cables originally."

  I knew about the nearly empty space behind the tiles, but I wasn't going to admit it. "When did you run the original cables?"

  He folded his arms and glared at me, tired of the conversation. "I had to replace a bad cable yesterday, and that is when I noticed the cameras. I would have seen the cameras if they were there when I first installed the cables. It's obvious that the reason someone was in there the other night was to install cameras." His eyes accused me.

  I blinked innocently. "I still don't know what anyone would hope to catch on camera." Unless Mark thought the equipment was going to disappear, what in the world was he hoping to see?

  "I have a pretty good idea, and I wouldn't mind catching the guy either."

  "Oh?"

  Maybe if Mark wouldn't tell me, Radar would.

  He stared at me for several moments and then gave up in disgust. "You really didn't know about the cameras did you?"

  I shook my head.

  "You don't have any idea what is going on, do you?"

  "No."

  Radar got up, spun his chair around and sat on it backwards with his chin propped
on the headrest. "Okay." He pointed his finger straight up as if he were a lawyer about to make an important revelation. "I don't know what your guy is after, and I don't know what good the cameras are going to do, but recently I've noticed that someone hacked into the system with administrator privileges. Whoever is doing it can look at any file he wants using the admin ID or a fake one he sets up for the purpose." He studied me, Exhibit A, closely while he told me this.

  My heart skipped a beat. Was Radar about to tell me that he had discovered someone plundering Acetel accounts? Or was it Mark that had been thumbing through the files? "How do you know this? And what is the guy looking at?"

  Radar shrugged. "I don't know everything the guy does when he is on the system. I've set over a hundred tags to log files that he might be accessing. No files seem to be damaged. Nothing major even gets opened--at least not when the guy is logged in as administrator. I figured it was some cracker that got the password and did some exploring, just because he could."

  "But," I said, "the guy could be stealing valuable information, couldn't he?"

  "Doesn't seem that way." His reassurance was disappointing. "I'd be worried if he were accessing the names of customer accounts or the amount of money we charge. If he was doing that he could go after the customers for himself, but those files are never touched." He sat up straight and shook his head. "I've never seen the important stuff messed with. Same thing on test results--no one looks at the files that indicate whether the tests are passing or failing, so the guy isn't after selling that information. Those files haven't been opened or looked at by anyone other than test engineers."

  My heart went from thinking that Radar was going to make me a hero to flat line. "Nothing?" This wasn't going to fuel Huntington's idea about customer accounts being charged on the side. The hacker would want the names of the customers. Or at least the test results to sell to customers under the table. Or maybe Radar's problem had nothing to do with Huntington's problem.

  Radar said, "The only thing I ever caught being touched was employee lists and some salary information. And I'm not positive it was the same late-night guy. It could have been Art logged in as administrator trying to add new employees." He shook his head. "But I'm not sure Art is smart enough to use the administrator account."

  Thinking of the great "Elvis" twisted my face into a grimace.

  "What, you thinking he's going to get your user name backwards or something?"

  "It's possible."

  He chuckled. "Don't worry. I entered your account information when you were hired." He spun his wheeled chair around and stared at the locked door that housed the servers. "Art rarely, if ever, enters new employees. He sends me an email and says how busy he is, doesn't have time because someone's computer is down, can I do whatever it is that needs doing. That's what bothered me about whoever has been snooping through files using the administrator privileges--it probably isn't Art. He's too lazy."

  "And since you've been doing the accounts for Art in order to avoid a bigger mess later, it is doubtful that he suddenly got the skills to hack into the main system," I concluded.

  "Bingo. I'm not even sure Art knows how to set up a new user account. The one time he tried, the name was already in use in the database, so he screwed it up. The zonk created a duplicate name with an email address already in use. The system bumped the first name off. Then he swore up and down that he checked for duplicates, and it couldn't have happened that way."

  It took me a second to remember that "zonk" was a gaming phrase that meant a stupefied character. "Meanwhile employee number one is climbing up the management chain making your life a lot of fun?"

  "Yup. There's actually a couple of griefers in upper management that like to make a big deal out of nothing. But I don't sweat that stuff much; I just stay out of their way."

  "Did you ask Art if he is the one who has been logging in as administrator and why he would bother?"

  "We're talking stupid twink. You ever ask the guy for details on what he did yesterday or last week? Or in the morning if it's one in the afternoon?"

  "No, but I'd really rather not ask him anything. Ever."

  "Asking him a question is like listening to a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. He assumes he did something wrong so he starts with the excuses before you can get any information. Most of the time, it becomes a denial thesis on how it couldn't have been him because he was on the first floor in the john or something. Total zero."

  I laughed and then apologized. "Sorry."

  "So," he accused me, "you still denying you were in the server room?"

  Oh great. Now if I made excuses or denied my involvement, I would sound like Elvis. Clever how Radar had manipulated me into either looking like an incompetent fool, a liar or someone at the top of the guilty list. Wow, what great choices.

  Bill must have overheard us talking because, bless him, he chose that moment to appear from behind the racks. He was wearing the same burned pants from the other day. "Yo, Radar! Are you guys talking Everquest?"

  I grinned. "I don't play, but Radar does."

  Radar said, "Bill knows. We're in the same tournament at least once a month."

  Bill rubbed his hands together happily. "You should join us. My handle is Wildebeest."

  Come to think of it, wildebeests had beards and although Bill wasn't particularly cow-like, he had a sort of wild, beast look. I could picture him standing out on a prairie all wrinkled and casual, mowing down some grass.

  I did my ultimate, social best to keep the chat going by thinking up as many inane questions as possible. "Who else plays?"

  "Jacques played with us a few times," Bill said. "Right after he first got promoted. Picked the name Toucan. Can you believe it? How hard can it be to kill off a Toucan?" Bill chuckled and rubbed his belly.

  Radar shook his head. He gave me a last piercing glare before strolling away. I'd probably been too obvious that I wasn't going to make myself readily available for more questions.

  The minute he disappeared, I excused myself. I really needed to talk to Huntington.

  Chapter 15

  The phone was already ringing when I arrived in my office. I snatched it up, but it wasn't Huntington. Craig Yumen, the engineer from Kronology, identified himself. I must have entered the twilight zone sometime between the first and second floor, because Craig acted like he had not received my report or read it, but he called to talk about it.

  "What do you mean you want me to run a test?" I interrupted. "The report I sent isn't a proposed test, it's a test I ran already!"

  "We aren't clear on whether you pulled the power cord from the back of the computer, cut it with scissors, or whether you pulled the plug out of the wall."

  "Pulled the plug out of--!" My voice was so tight, I squeaked. It took me a few more seconds to grasp that he was implying that the machine would somehow work if I pulled the power cord correctly. "The computer will fail whether you unplug the power cord from the wall or the machine. The other power supply should keep the machine working."

  There was a disbelieving snort from the other end. "Does the server come back on if you put the plug it back in?"

  "Yes, but the point of having two is so that if one fails, the other takes over."

  "Of course. I'm not stupid."

  "I hadn't noticed." I spoke away from the mouthpiece so he probably didn't hear me.

  "Do you know if the bit is being set that detects that the power went missing?"

  The best way to know if bits were being set was for him to run the test himself and look in his code and find out. I mentioned this fact. "That information would be in your code now wouldn't it?"

  "We're not sure."

  "Well, buddy, I didn't write any code, so we can be absolutely positive it isn't in mine."

  "If you're going to be that way about it, I don't see how we can help."

  Now that I had clarified that I hadn't written any bad code, he was going to blame the failure of his machine on my attitude. I took a de
ep breath and started over. "The point is, all you have to do is run the test. You'll then be able to look at the code and see what is wrong. We can get this solved, and we'll both be happy."

  "I'm not certain we have all the information we need. I'll call you back when I get a list of questions."

  Unbelievable. I knew from Bill's warning that Kronology wasn't going to be eager to help, but the guy could have lied and said the test passed in their labs. It would have made a better excuse than to try and discuss how to unplug a power cord from a wall socket.

  I called Huntington. He didn't answer. I left a message.

  Since the day was in the toilet, I used the remaining time to finish up Jacques' survey.

  Before leaving for home, I called Huntington again and left another message.

  I drove very carefully, checking behind me all the way home, but I saw no one suspicious in a black Lincoln or any other car.

  Since he hadn't answered his phone, and there was no car in the driveway, I was not expecting Huntington to be waiting for me when I got home. I was inside my little patio home when his disembodied voice came out of the dark. I panicked and nearly screamed. In the dark Huntington didn't notice. He kept talking.

  "The trouble started when the Lexus was in your driveway," he said from somewhere inside the dark region of my living room. "Mark didn't know you had been seen with me, and he left it in your driveway for me to pick up. He didn't know he was followed, but he must have been."

  I quickly hit the light with my free hand. It was several more seconds before I could talk. I had to wait for my heart rate to slow. At this rate I was going to have to start carrying my gun. "You're telling me that you led them to my house?" Huntington had quite possibly put me in danger before, but he had never brought my home into it. For the last case, he had provided a nice, impersonal condo, a condo that had not been mine. If someone wanted to spy on it or blow it up, it wouldn't have been my personal loss.

  "Sedona…I'm sorry."