Nest

by Terry Goodkind

  “It’s certainly frightening,” she said. “But what about this hack you wanted to tell me about?”

  He took a drink out of a diet cola can before going on. “So, besides the sophisticated software tools we use, I also have honeypots set up.”

  “You said that word before.” Kate cocked her head. “Honeypots?”

  Brian gestured with the cola can toward the server room. “In our case we have servers that are there solely to be attacked. Whereas Norse has a galaxy of sensors set up around the world, I have a honeynet set up in-house. By mimicking vulnerable systems, they draw in zero-day exploits and newly created malware. I get alerts when they’re attacked. They have a lot fewer false positives than the regular intrusion-detection systems and are a lot simpler than the complex firewalls we use. They’re a great early-warning system.”

  “Okay, so you’re using sticky traps to catch the cockroaches.”

  Brian smiled at the way she’d put it. “In one of them—the server in row B, rack twelve—I use decoy password vaults. It’s a tar pit. That’s how I picked up on this intrusion. A honeypot is great for capturing this kind of activity. Since there are no legitimate connections on that server, once activity popped up I knew about it immediately. It was a very small intrusion. Lone criminals like this are extremely rare anymore. Like I explained, it’s almost always a criminal syndicate or foreign government.”

  He clicked a few keys, bringing up a window.

  “This was the only thing they got into. They weren’t interested in anything else. That’s what is so weird about it. It was a relatively unsophisticated discrete intrusion, not an APT. This was the sole target. One of the files in here was the only information they stole.”

  “I’m listening,” Kate said as she frowned more closely at the screen and saw a list of a few dozen names she recognized.

  “This is a specific folder with our top executives. It has their personal information—Social Security numbers, cell phone numbers, home addresses, all that kind of sensitive information. It also has their work and travel schedules.”

  Kate met his gaze. “If they were identity thieves they would have gone after the entire employee list and all their data, not a small list of executives. Executives would be a different kind of target.”

  Brian nodded as he tapped a specific spot on the screen. “Your name is on this list.”

  She looked where he was pointing. “So they got into the files of all of our top executives?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn,” she whispered.

  Brian smiled. “Not exactly.”

  Kate frowned. “What do you mean, not exactly? You just said they did and all that information is in there.”

  When he merely smiled, Kate leaned back as she used a thumb to glide her hair back over her shoulder. “Okay, Brian, what’s going on?”

  “These are internal corporate files, not something used for paychecks or tax reports or anything else. It’s a list that I use to keep track of executives. You know, so I know where they are if I need them, or if someone comes and asks where so-and-so is if they’re out of town, or needs a phone number. This is just a file sitting in the honeypot—a worm on a hook.”

  Kate was bewildered and more than a little irritated. “So you’re offering up our personal information as bait to see if someone will steal it?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She leaned in, then, and looked more closely at her own information. “Hawthorn Street? Brian, I don’t live on Hawthorn, and my Social Security number and phone number are wrong.”

  “Of course they’re wrong,” he said with a sense of pride.

  “What the hell good could it do you if it’s all wrong?”

  “It’s not really wrong,” he said. “It’s encrypted. Well, obfuscated to be precise. It’s a substitution cipher.”

  Kate blinked. That made sense.

  “But encryption doesn’t look like that. Encrypted files aren’t in a simple English form like this.”

  “That’s because this is my own encryption. Security by obscurity. I created my own obfuscated code.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Brian pulled open a drawer and took out a cheap, yellow tablet. He folded back most of the pages, then set it on the desk. A graph, written out by hand, took up most of the page.

  “It’s this kind of encryption. One character is substituted for another, but without this key, the data in the file is meaningless.”

  Kate pressed her fingertips to her forehead as she took a breath, trying to control her sense of confused frustration.

  “Brian, we have the most sophisticated encryption available, provided by the government.”

  “Yes, but encrypted information isn’t targeted in this way. Remember, this is a honeypot, designed to draw attacks. This folder contains the most important people in the company, people who could be kidnapped and held hostage or bribed or whatever. That’s why the home addresses, travel schedules, and phone numbers are wrong. This is a decoy. This is sensitive information hiding in plain sight.”

  “I don’t understand how it works.”

  He started pointing to horizontal and vertical lines on his table. “This is how the information is decoded. I invented the code myself. You would need this graph to decode the information in the file—”

  “And because the information in the file looks real, no one would have any reason to suspect that it’s not correct, so they wouldn’t realize it needed to be decoded.”

  He grinned that she was finally starting to understand. “It’s my way of protecting all of you.”

  Kate felt a chill of icy realization. “So this means that someone was trying to get information about these top executives, but what they got wasn’t correct.”

  Brian nodded. “They lifted your file, specifically. The others were untouched. That’s what set off the alarm on my honeypot. Someone is looking for you, or possibly looking for your schedule to know where you are at any given time.”

  “Or maybe they simply lifted one random file to see if they could and then they intend to come back for the others.”

  “Could be.”

  Kate took a deep breath. “I’ll call security and let them know that there has been an attempt to get personal and travel information about upper-level executives. You may only have gotten a hit on my file, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t after information on other people.”

  He nodded. “They could be intending to come back after the other names on the list. I wanted you to come down here so I could let you know that it was your file they lifted. Even if, coded, it’s full of mumbo jumbo, it had your name on it, and that’s the one they took. I thought you should know.”

  Kate let out another settling breath. “Yes, of course. Thanks, Brian. You notify the rest of the department about what’s going on. I need to get security involved. It could be anything—kidnapping, ransom, terrorists.”

  “Or just someone fishing for information to sell.”

  When her phone vibrated, she lifted it partway out of her pocket, tilting it, so that she could look at the screen.

  It was AJ.

  “I need to take this.”

  Brian nodded as she stood. She went out into the hall, where she leaned back against a wall as she answered the phone.

  “AJ, did you find out something?”

  “Nothing yet, I’m afraid.”

  There was a brief pause. Kate’s heart sank a little. She had thought AJ would have news that they had found the killer.

  “Kate, I need your help.”

  “My help? What do you mean?”

  There was another pause. “I need you to look at some photographs.”

  Kate let out a sigh. “Is that really—”

  “A twelve-year-old girl disappeared. I have over a dozen people I’m looking at. One of them may very well be the person who took her. Girls abducted like this are usually dead within short order, but it’s possible that she’s still alive. If we
can find her in time …”

  Kate could read the tension in AJ’s voice.

  She glanced up at the clock at the end of the hall. It was already getting late in the afternoon. She needed to order security details for Theo and the other executives, but that wouldn’t take long. Brian would get other people in on the breach to see what they could find, but knowing a little about how those things worked, she figured that the chance of them learning anything helpful was about zero.

  “On one condition,” Kate said.

  “Condition? What condition?”

  Kate paced a ways down the hall and back. “AJ, I don’t know if what I did last night was real. I don’t know how it could be. Maybe it was some kind of fluke. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Last night it kind of did, but today …”

  “So what is it you want?”

  “I want you to test me—like you did with John. You know, with photos of convicted killers mixed in with normal people. I need to know if what I did last night was real or if I’m imagining things.

  “I don’t want to point someone out for you unless I’m sure in my own mind that I’m not imagining that someone looks guilty. I want to know for certain that what happened last night wasn’t only real, but that it’s reliable. I’m willing to help, but first I have to be convinced myself.”

  “Of course,” AJ said immediately.

  “When and where?”

  AJ was silent for a moment as she considered. “I have a small office at home. I didn’t keep any of this kind of stuff at the station for fear that someone might come across it and start asking questions. That could have exposed John. Come over to my place. I gave you my card. My address is on it.”

  Kate had already pulled out the detective’s card and was looking at the address beside the printed badge.

  “I have to do a few quick things here at work, then I’ll be on my way,” she said. “But rush-hour traffic has already started, so it will take me a while to get there.”

  “I’m still at work, too. My husband is home making a big pan of lasagna. Have dinner with us. After we have a quick bite to eat, you and I can go in my office, lock the door, and look into the eyes of the devil. All right?”

  “All right,” Kate said, smiling a little at the way AJ tried to lighten what was a dark and serious subject. “As long as I know for sure that I’m not just guessing.”

  “I need you to be sure, too—the same way as I needed to be sure about John. If you aren’t sure then it just sends a lot of officers and resources off on a wild-goose chase that lets the real killer get farther away.”

  “That’s my fear. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  “Perfect timing,” AJ said as she opened the door. “I just got home myself and my husband says his specialty is done to perfection.” She rolled a hand in invitation. “Come on in.”

  The aroma of the lasagna filled the air and reminded Kate that she’d only taken the time to eat a protein bar for lunch. With it being a chilly night, the warmth that enveloped her when she stepped inside felt welcoming, too.

  It was a bit jarring to see the detective in jeans and a sweater. They showed off her shape better than the suit she wore for work. Kate hadn’t taken the time to go home and change, so she felt overdressed.

  “Sorry to be asking you to do this before I help you,” Kate said.

  “Don’t be.” AJ glanced back over her shoulder. “To tell you the truth, I could use the reassurance myself.”

  Kate nodded in relief as she followed the detective through the entry hall. A stairway immediately to the right had a varnished handrail that looked to have been restored with care.

  The living room opening up from the entry had a couple of comfortable leather couches and chairs on a beautiful area rug that was mostly black with gold patterns flecked with green. The heavy glass coffee table had an arrangement of white silk flowers along with several colorful plastic toy trucks. A big TV, now dark, sat at the far end of the room. To the right, a broad archway in the living room opened to the dining room beyond. The small dining table was set and there was already a salad bowl in the center.

  “You have a lovely home,” Kate said.

  “Thanks. It’s a good castle to come home to.”

  A big man, holding a pan with oven mitts, came in through a swinging door from the kitchen.

  “Kate, this is my husband, Mike. And that shadow behind him is Ryan.”

  He smiled over at them as he set down the pan of lasagna, then pulled off the mitts as he came over to shake Kate’s hand. She didn’t know what she had been expecting, but he fit the bill of a husband for a woman like AJ. Mike Janek was a wall of a man, a formidable force moving through the house that almost seemed too small for him. His dark blue T-shirt had trouble containing the bulk of his muscles, especially his neck, shoulders, and arms. His powerful upper body narrowed down to a trim waist. He was a big, broad force looming over her.

  “I’m sorry about your brother,” Mike said with sincere concern on his well-defined features.

  He wasn’t handsome the way a male model was handsome, or the way TV stars were handsome. He was handsome in the way that a big, intimidating, powerful-looking soldier was handsome.

  But it was his brown eyes that held her breath in. She had never seen eyes like his.

  They were the eyes of a killer….

  And yet they weren’t.

  She wondered if maybe she thought his eyes looked like those of a killer because he was so physically intimidating. It was a bewildering mixed signal. It made Kate feel unsure of her ability to actually know the truth about the guilt of a person from their photograph. The night before, with a relatively small sampling, it had seemed to work. Kate was rattled, seeing in his eyes that he had killed people. She couldn’t understand it.

  “Thank you,” Kate said.

  Her hand felt impossibly small in his big fist. She was thankful he didn’t squeeze too hard.

  He tilted his head. “Come on and have a seat. Dinner is served.” He put a hand on his boy’s head of sandy-colored hair, the way one might grasp a basketball. “Ryan, say hi to Kate.”

  Ryan smiled and said, “Hi,” from the safety of his father’s shadow.

  “You left your trucks on the coffee table,” AJ told her son. “Is that where they belong when you’re done playing with them?”

  “Yes,” Ryan said with open mischief in his grin as he twisted his fingers together, but it was only a brief moment before a look from his mother had him running off to collect the trucks.

  On the way to the table, Kate said, “So, Mike, do you cook professionally?”

  He let out an easy laugh. “No, I’m afraid my family would have to live in the car if they had to depend on my cooking ability to earn us a living. I have a few specialties I like to make from time to time when Kate is going to be home late, but they’re the limit of my cooking talent. I’m a personal trainer.”

  AJ gave him a friendly slap on the back on their way toward the table. “A personal trainer to the stars. He earns enough at it for me to be able to afford to be a cop. He used to be an Army Ranger, so he gets retirement from that as well.”

  “Ancient history,” he said with a sigh. “Now I get to tell other people what to do—not that they listen. I have to admit that I miss the days when I could shoot my customers.”

  Kate wondered how much truth there was to that, and if maybe that was what she saw in his eyes. A lot of soldiers had killed people in the wars in the Middle East. It was a different look than in the photos she had seen—not as frightening.

  As Mike dished out lasagna and salad while Ryan commented on a stream of subjects from TV programs to the tooth that recently had come out, Kate couldn’t help but think how much she missed a family around the dinner table.

  She asked Ryan what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said he wanted to be a police officer and arrest bad guys. And that he wanted to have teeth. He pointed out two m
issing front teeth. His mother told him to put his remaining teeth to good use and eat.

  Dinner was filled with small talk and easy conversation about the incidental things in life. It felt good. Kate could tell, though, that AJ wanted to get on with the important business at hand. Ryan, busy chewing, quietly looked back and forth between the adults as they talked about work and traffic and the price jump in coffee.

  Kate had trouble thinking about anything but the task ahead, of looking into the eyes of murderers. She didn’t know if she was more afraid of seeing murderers in the photos, or not seeing them. In her job any edge over bad people was an asset. Any kind of information was a weapon to get to the guilty party. She liked having an edge over people who didn’t see her coming, didn’t know what she knew. So, from that standpoint, she was hoping it worked.

  When dinner had finally ended, Mike offered to make some coffee.

  AJ stood and laid her napkin on the table. “How about you bring us some in a little while? We have some work to do.”

  Kate stood as well. “Thanks, maybe later, like AJ says.”

  Mike shrugged. “Okay, Ryan and me will clean up. Right, partner?”

  “Right,” Ryan said with a firm nod and a grin. Kate had to smile at the way he looked like a perpetually happy kid.

  Kate couldn’t help thinking of the contrasts of a happy kid, good parents, a loving family, a soldier who’d had to kill people, and a police officer who dealt with dead bodies and murderers all day long.

  It was a struggle between good and evil in uneasy balance.

  She also couldn’t help thinking that AJ had asked her to come to see if she could recognize killers, and she had already seen one.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  Down the hallway, AJ used a key to unlock a room on the right, opposite the bathroom. When she pulled the key out of the deadbolt lock, she gestured farther down the hall.

  “The master bedroom is down at the end. Ryan’s room along with a guest room are upstairs. I have to keep this locked to keep a certain curious little boy from messing things up in here.”

  The detective flicked on the light switch. It looked like a spare bedroom that had been made into an office. The walls had been painted a deep, dark brown, giving the room a serious, professional cast. There was a tall gun safe in the corner—tall enough for long guns. Boxes of ammo were lined up across the top of the safe. This was not a cheerful place. It was a place that meant business.