A Better Life

by Liza O'Connor

  When she looked up from reading his response, she noticed Tom was frowning at her tablet. The man had eagle eyes. Reading upside down at three feet away was no problem for him. She hoped Sinclair’s comment didn’t get him in trouble. It didn’t flow with Tom’s declaration they would all be one happy team now.

  “Today, we are going to focus in on the companies receiving payments from Astervak Limited. On this we divide and conquer. Each hacker will be given twenty-five companies.”

  “Twenty-five!” Another Team Two guy complained.

  “With the change of protocol, you should be able to work much faster. You are not being asked to hack all their accounts. Just locate and enter the backdoor.”

  The guy glared at Angel, evidently holding her responsible for their higher expectations now.

  She lifted her pen, but Sinclair wrote ‘Conrad’ on her pad. This time he didn’t add any further comments. Either that meant he had nothing bad to say, or he’d realized Tom had read his last comments.

  “If there are no other questions, let’s get to work. While we won’t be harvesting today, I expect everyone to pitch in and help anyway they can. Success will be judged on the number and quality of the rogue companies we locate. We believe only five percent of these companies are legit, so what you do today could make you rich tomorrow.”

  She smiled at the change in attitude. These guys were all strongly motivated by their bonuses.

  Despite being told they were all one team, the remnant members of Team One buddied up with Team Two, while Team Three made no request for an additional hacker. And even without Leon, they were the first one to enter a target.

  Angel took the first and walked Sinclair through the process. She invited the guy from Team Two over, but he refused. “These guys will have one opened soon, and I already know how to do my job.” He flashed Sinclair a look of contempt as he said it.

  “That’s Theodore,” Sinclair muttered softly.

  She talked through her thought process as she evaluated the accounts. “My first assumption, which may turn out wrong, is this is the end of the money trail. From here it will go to buy weapons, bribe officials, and such. However, given the cleverness in this set up, they could have more layers of money transfers before the final one, so we’ll start with the easiest and if that fails to pan out, we’ll dig deeper.”

  She moved to the financials and evaluated the cash flow. She pointed to the Accounts Receivable line. “Ten bucks this is our last stop.”

  Sinclair frowned. “How can you tell?”

  “It’s too small for these revenue claims. Sloppy work. If this group was going to go to the trouble to put in another layer, they’d do it better than this. This just screams come investigate me.”

  Sinclair chuckled. “May be screaming to you, but I just assumed it’s a cash upfront operation.”

  “Well, it is. The revenue is all coming from our fake company. But truly clever people would create a proper size buffer of unpaid receipts, because no large corporation pays immediately these days. At least thirty-days worth of payments should be hung up in accounts receivable.”

  Sinclair thumped the side of his head. “You’re right.”

  “So, let’s see what they are buying with their ill begotten gains.”

  As they assessed the various companies, Tom came over. “Sinclair, Scott has another company hacked.”

  “I know. But what I’m learning from watching Angel will speed my audit significantly. Just let me go through the entire process. I promise you, it will make a huge improvement to my normal time.”

  Tom sighed. “All right, but if you fall behind your quota…”

  “I won’t, I promise you.”

  Angel smiled at her worried Tom the manager. “Sinclair is helping me go faster by logging the suppliers to this company.”

  “Why do we care about suppliers?”

  “Because this fake company may be buying ingredients for building a bomb.”

  Tom’s focus snapped to the screen. “Show me what you have.”

  She had just finished explaining how they were using the supplier websites to determine type of products that might be sold, when Davenport entered and joined them.

  Sinclair showed the products that the various suppliers sold and might have been bought by this company.

  The company they were assessing claimed to be a landscaper. Angel pointed to the large purchases from a well-known fertilizer manufacturer, then another company which sold among its products chlorine.

  “But it’s a landscaping company,” Davenport stated.

  “A landscaping company with only one customer that is a fake company with no property to landscape.”

  A short burst of air burst from Davenport as he squeezed her shoulder with affection. “Well done. Keep on this company.”

  “Honestly, I’d prefer to move on now and assess others. What Sinclair and I are doing now, could be done better by agents outside. What we really need is not speculation about what they bought but going to the suppliers and seeing exactly what they bought. I just needed to obtain sufficient justification to warrant sending agents out to investigate, and I think we have that.”

  “I agree.” He looked at Tom. “My apology for intervening. Carry on.”

  When Davenport left, Tom squeezed her shoulder as well. She tilted her head back and smiled at him. “Sinclair has created a list of all suppliers for this company. Can we move on to a new company getting cash from the fake company?”

  “Yes. Sinclair, you need to do your own searches now.”

  He held up his hands. “How about a compromise. I’ll go after a different company getting money from the fake company.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Angel stated.

  “Proceed,” Tom stated and walked over to Team Two and a half.

  She heard him ask “What’s the holdup here?”

  Astoundingly, they were blaming the change in protocols for their inability to work.

  “This hit and miss tactic is just a waste of time.”

  “You are supposed to be going after the backdoor,” Tom reminded them.

  “There is no backdoor to this stupid company.”

  “Bullshit,” Scott muttered. “Companies always have a backdoor.”

  Tom leaned over. “What have you tried so far?”

  “We don’t know what we’ve tried.”

  Tom returned to Team Three and stared at Scott and Bob. “What are you two doing?”

  “Waiting for Black Hole to break through the passwords.”

  “Will one of you please come over and help your teammates to locate the backdoor.”

  Scott and Bob did a quick play of rock, paper, scissors. Bob lost and went over to Team Two. They immediately yelled that they didn’t need his damn help.

  Tom intervened. “You are one team, so your failure is Bob’s concern as well. Let him help.”

  Bob paged down the potential entry points. “Try that one.”

  “I already tried it,” Conrad snapped.

  Before Scott could respond, Tom interceded. “Try it again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when I asked which ones you had tried, you said you had no idea. Thus, we are starting over, and your teammate, who has successfully identified a backdoor before, thinks this might be one.”

  “Freakin’ waste of time.”

  Tom leaned down and spoke softly in his ear. “This attitude stops now. The game has changed, and the expectations have risen. If you can’t step it up and work as a team, then you can sit on the side lines for five long years.”

  Conrad paused and then typed furiously on his keyboard. He then threw himself back. “Nothing, I can’t get in.”

  “Get up and let Bob try.”

  “He’s not doing anything on my computer, that’s against protocol. God only knows what he’d screw up.”

  “Then shut down your computer.”

  “Are you crazy? We’re already short-handed.”

 
“And still, I’m taking you off the team.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you lied to me and appear to be deliberately preventing your team from getting any work done.”

  “That’s not true. I’ve been working my ass off.”

  “With no results.”

  “Because you changed the protocols!”

  Davenport stormed into the room, gripped Conrad by his arm, and yanked him out.

  No one was working now. They were all staring at the door.

  “Bob go on back to your computer,” Tom advised

  Angel smiled at the speed of his return.

  “Team Two, you have three hackers, one forensic who has refused Angel’s help, and two money movers. Get to work.”

  “So we’re back to separate teams?” Clark challenged.

  “Yes, none of you seemed interested in being a team today. I find that very odd, given yesterday most of you were very helpful.”

  Several focused on their feet. Angel sensed fear, not rebellion from them.

  Davenport remained at her side when everyone else left for lunch. The moment the last person left, she spoke.

  “I think someone got to Team Two last night. I think they’re afraid to succeed.”

  He nodded. “Give me facts, not speculations.”

  She smiled. “You’re starting to sound like Braddock.”

  His brow furrowed. “This is serious, give me facts.”

  “Have you assessed everything that happened during our party and afterwards? Three of those people were terrified today.”

  “Names,” he stated in exasperation.

  “I can’t remember their names. So, let me talk about those I do know. Clark’s anger over the other protocols not being removed this morning was a red flag to me.” She then sighed. “And I do not believe Leon is involved in this. I would like to know your evidence.”

  “It’s black and white. He was the person who went in as an admin and approved Tyler’s movement of money.”

  She shook her head. “Except for early this morning when he set up two of the computers to break passwords, which we had permission to do, Leon was sitting by me, the rest of the day.”

  “He was in the system later in the day.”

  “You have this place monitored, right?”

  Davenport nodded. “We see Leon typing and we see the approval.”

  She gripped his hand. “He was working with me the whole day. Most of the day we were using the same— That’s my proof. He worked on the computer using my password.”

  “That’s a serious breach of protocol.”

  “No. It’s teamworking! We would let whoever had the best skills do a task as the other two watched. If Leon, Sinclair, and I had used three computers, it would have taken us forever to get anything done.”

  “I’m going to have to report this. The consequences may be severe.”

  “I understand, but at least don’t miss my proof as you focus on my harmless crime. My monitor should show Leon beside me the whole damn day. I don’t know when this admin approval occurred, but I am positive it is not Leon. I think whoever got to Team Two today purposely set Leon up, because he is, by far, the best hacker you have.”

  Davenport sighed heavily and nailed her with a warning glance. “If you’re sending us on a wild goose chase, it’s just going to make things worse for you.”

  “I reserve the right to argue that sharing a computer in this situation was just good team-working and well-supervised, because whatever one of us did, the other two watched. But I am thrilled to death I can prove Leon’s innocence. So please, check my computer at the time of that admin login, because I’m positive you will find Leon right beside me on the camera.”

  He returned her to the lab. “Stay here. I’ll be back shortly.”

  Having no idea how long or short ‘shortly’ would be, she sat down at her computer and continued to work.

  When Davenport returned and gripped her arm, she grew worried. “You need to come with me.”

  “May I log off?”

  “Yes.”

  She logged off and followed Davenport out of the room. They headed in the opposite direction than the cafeteria. She wasn’t surprised, because he sounded like she was going to the gallows.

  When she arrived at the conference room, Braddock and Hamilton looked up, but neither smiled. Davenport was dismissed at once.

  “Sit down,” Hamilton ordered.

  She sat, trying to hold the fear back so she could rationally think about what was happening. However, it was impossible to stifle her fear. She and her children were totally at the mercy of these two men. They could do anything they wanted, and no one could stop them.

  “Explain yourself,” Hamilton stated.

  “I am positive Leon did not log in and approve that transfer. He was seated beside me and Sinclair all day. We were sharing a single terminal.”

  “Which is a serious breach of protocol!” Braddock barked, making her jump an inch off her chair.

  “Perhaps you should have provided a book of protocols for me to study while I was stuck in the medic room. While I would never do something that I know to be wrong, sharing a terminal with two other experts so we can work as an efficient team does not seem wrong in any conceivable way.”

  “You ceded control of your computer!” Hamilton yelled.

  “To an expert, but we all watched what the other was doing. I would have noticed and questioned matters if he was approving money transfers. Sinclair would have said something as well. It didn’t happen. It would have never happened. Get my monitor recording and we can go through the whole day. What you’re going to see is six pair of eyes on that keyboard and monitor the entire day. That computer was the most secure computer you had in there.”

  She glared at Braddock. “You must have teams of soldiers with different expertise that work together. You don’t demand them to work alone if you know they’ll do the job faster working as a team.”

  He blinked once, and his jaw tightened.

  She sighed and buried her hands into her hair. “I am scared to death for my children right now, because I know you could remove us without even the inconvenience of paperwork. I would never risk my kids by knowingly doing something to piss you two off. It never occurred to me that you would think three people working in unison are a security risk. I would never leave my computer and let someone get on it, but as long as I’m aware of everything they are doing, I don’t see the risk in teamworking. And in this case, I’m glad I did share my computer, because it can prove Leon is innocent of what you think he’s done.”

  The phone on the wall rang. Braddock walked to the wall and answered it. “What?”

  His brow furrowed as he listened. “Bring that section in for review immediately. I’ll want to see the entire day of Angel’s monitor as well. Also bring the other two in.”

  He returned to his chair and studied Angel. His pissed off glare left her uncertain as to what the analysis had showed.

  “Well?” Hamilton asked.

  “Angel’s monitor does show Leon’s image on it. And she’s typing, not him.”

  “So you think it’s me? Despite the fact I have no clue how to approve anything, nevertheless login as…Hold on. I’m signed in under my name. You’re system’s got to show that.”

  Hamilton looked at Braddock. The man cursed beneath his breath and returned to the phone. He spoke too softly for her to hear his question, but he reamed out the person when he got the answer. “Damn it, I needed to know that. What the hell is wrong with you? We’ll discuss this later.”

  He slammed the phone upon the receiver and returned to the table. “It appears, either the entire world has become incompetent, or someone’s reach is further than we anticipated. My analyst failed to mention that all typing on the pc was under Angel’s id for the entire day.”

  “And Leon is definitively with Angel?” Hamilton asked.

  “Yes,” Braddock and Angel stated in unison.

  �
��Damn you, Max,” Hamilton cursed as he rubbed his face with both hands.

  His words shocked Angel. “You think Max did this?”

  “I think Max will do just about anything to see this facility fail.”

  She didn’t want to believe that. “Do you have any proof?”

  He uncovered his face. “Nothing that would satisfy Braddock here. But I find it telling that the backdoor flaw in Carnivore was repeated in this one, with money shipped out in almost an identical manner. Only the protocol had to be overrun, before the computer allowed the theft to occur. That left a trail until someone went in as an admin and approved it.”

  He looked at Angel. “These are lifelong, dedicated agents. They go through a battery of psychological tests which will weed out those with hidden inclinations to steal from or harm this country. However, there is no way to detect a man following someone else’s orders if they believe they are saving the country by doing so.”

  Angel tensed as she realized who Hamilton would first suspect working for Max. “If you think Tom is involved, you’re wrong.”

  “Give me proof, because he is my number one suspect,” Hamilton admitted.

  “I know how he thinks. I know him better than anyone. He hated the way Max’s facility was run. It would kill him if my children and I had to return to that hell. He is trying his best to make this succeed. Not just for me, but for Tommy who is his son, and this child inside me, who is probably his as well.”

  “Does he even know that?”

  “We’ve never talked about it, but he’s always shown a preference for Tommy.”

  “That’s not proof.”

  “But it proves incentive. He loves that boy with all his heart, he would never do anything to harm him, and Max’s facility was incredibly harmful. To be honest, I would give my children up if I had to return to that hell. And I probably wouldn’t live more than six months. It was that horrible.”

  “If Tom wants you to succeed here, then why didn’t he stop you from breaching a serious protocol?”

  Angel had no answer for that.

  Davenport knocked on the door and then brought in a frightened Sinclair and an angry, exhausted Leon. Angel feared he hadn’t been allowed a moment of sleep since he left the party last night.