4. Weston
WESTON
Using one of the random employee computers, I pulled up the records and schematics of the building.
The server room was on the nineteenth floor, but there also seemed to be a smaller one on the top floor.
It would be wise of them to keep separate records of the legitimate business and the illegal if they needed to wipe it before anyone could get into it.
While this computer was on their network, it was a looped circuit that didn’t go out of a certain predetermined limit.
Whoever set this up was good, but let’s see if they’re as good as I am.
Shoving back from the desk, I headed for the elevator and took it to the top floor, bypassing the larger one. The things I was specifically wanting wouldn’t be out in the open. They would want it buried under so much stuff you’d overlook it at first glance. At least, that’s how I’d do it.
What I wouldn’t kill for my laptop right now.
I seriously needed to invest in something I set up to take with me on jobs like this.
Although, in theory, shit like this would be over once we take down Marco, and the world knows we’ll happily burn them down, too, if they fuck with us.
Part of me felt like it would be kind of boring to go back to what we considered normal life.
Dax would laugh her ass off if she knew I thought that after all my nagging for her to slow down.
Glancing on my phone at the map I took a picture of, I stopped where there should be a door.
Frowning, I looked at the hall, not seeing a door anywhere.
As in not a single door at all in this whole hall, like it was some escape-room bullshit trying to find the hidden entrance.
According to the building records, this floor should have a few offices, a conference room, and this small server room, yet I was seeing none of it.
The hall was way wider than it needed to be, almost like you could drive a truck down it with room to spare.
Slowly, I walked to one end, then the other, and back again, looking for any seams or breaks in whatever material the walls were made of.
Then I spotted something with the way a shadow fell across it, showing a crack.
Lifting a hand, I ran my finger along the stop feeling what I couldn’t see.
“What’s this, some James Bond movie?” I muttered aloud as I pressed on the section hearing the snick of something releasing.
Removing my hand, the panel was now more visible as it wasn’t locked in place.
Flipping up the cover, I found a keypad requesting a nine-digit code.
Fuck, what are the chances that Tommaso would know what this was?
If it were me, I’d give two, maybe three chances to get it right before locking down and wiping the drives.
Better to lose what could be used against you than end up in jail for life or on death row.
Gritting my teeth, I knew I would need to make a call I didn’t want to. Scrolling through my contacts, I hit the number I needed and waited. I was never going to live this down.
“Please tell me you have something interesting for us to do. I get we need to lay low but damn, this isn’t the life I was meant to live,” Ghost said dramatically as he answered the phone.
“Harper is my everything, and we need to end this fast so we can get back to some sense of normal and find a real place to live. We’ve stayed in some interesting places, but this isn’t it, my friend. ”
“Are you done yet?” I cut in.
“Right,” Ghost cleared his throat and sounded more professional. “What’s up?”
“If you ever repeat what I’m about to say, I’m going to hang up and not tell you the rest,” I said through clenched teeth.
“You have me riveted to your every word. Lay it on me, Wes.”
I took a deep breath and sighed. “I need your help.”
“Hold, please,” Ghost requested calmly.
There was a muffled noise like he was trying to cover the mic on the phone as he yelled, “You guys, Weston just called to ask for my help.”
I could hear the other two asking something, but they were too far away for me to hear.
“He hasn’t told me yet. Let me ask him. I’m sure it’s not going to get me shot again, Harper,” Ghost assured her. “If it will, then I’ll tell him no, I promise.”
More muffled sounds and some panting, and Ghost was back on the line. “Sorry about that, continue.”
“I hate you so much,” I grumbled, rubbing my hand over my face.
“Wait, I have to ask, will this get me shot? Harper laid down the law, and I can’t do something dangerous, or I have to sleep in my own bed alone for a week.
She didn’t say it, but I’m also guessing that means I can’t pet the kitty either, and she knows I hate her to use sex as a weapon,” Ghost rambled.
God, I need a valium to deal with this man.
“I’m here at the headquarters for the De León Cartel, and their whole upper offices are sealed off.
There’s a keypad looking for a nine-digit code, but I don’t have the right equipment to pull this off.
Plus, this kind of hacking isn’t my strongest skill.
You, however…” I trailed off, letting the compliment be implied instead of something I had to say out loud.
“Go on,” Ghost encouraged. “I, however?”
Fucking bastard.
“Can’t you just take the fact I called you as a win? Are you in or out?” I demanded.
“Okay, okay,” Ghost relented. “Give me five minutes to check with the missus, and I’ll get back to you.”
Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I decided to head back down a level and see if the server room down there had things I could make do with.
Knowing Harper, I wasn’t sure if she’d let Ghost out of her sight, having been hurt.
It was just a graze, but she never liked it when Dax or I came home busted up.
At least now we didn’t need to make up shit when that happened.
Thankfully, the nineteenth floor was normal with office doors and everything where the map said they would be.
I had to break into the server room, but that was way easier popping the control panel and splicing some wires to short-circuit the thing.
An alarm went off which I shouldn’t be surprised about, but once in the server room, I found the control terminal and cut it off.
Just to be safe, I texted Dax so she could tell Tommaso it was just me.
She sent back a thumbs up so I continued.
Since I was already at the terminal, I started to root around, looking at how it was set up and what firewalls and other security were in place.
It was high-end stuff I don’t see done all that often, and some I’d created myself, making me wonder who the hell they had doing this.
As I searched, I kept an eye out for a signature.
Us tech nerds couldn’t help but slip our name into the program so no matter who was using it, they knew who built it.
“What’s this?” I mused aloud, then jumped when my phone started buzzing. I’d been so focused on the coding that I forgot it was in my back pocket. “Yeah,” I answered without really looking.
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” Ghost informed me. “It’s gonna take me a sec to gather what I need. What can you tell me about the system, or are you completely locked out?”
“They have it split into two different server connections. One runs and backs up everything the business does then the other is locked in the room on the creepy floor. Whoever set this up is good, but thankfully, I’m better, and they didn’t skimp when it came to this shit,” I explained.
“The keypad I saw upstairs is way more complex than the one down here, like something I feel I’d see in military bases or government buildings. ”
“That all helps,” Ghost muttered distractedly. “Do I need to let you know when I’m here, or can I come right up?”
“Let me know unless you can hack an elevator keycard sensor on the fly,” I teased.
“I mean, I could, but they would have to replace it when I’m done, and I’m not sure that’s the tone we want to set with our new friends,” Ghost reasoned. “I’ll call you when I arrive. See you as soon as I can get there.”
Hanging up, I leaned back in the chair and stared at the code.
It was bugging me that I knew who this felt like, but it didn’t make any sense.
That was back in college when I’d written some of this code for a contest. It’s what caught the eye of some of the biggest three-letter organizations to recruit me.
The thing is, the only people who knew this level of detail about the code were the organizers I gave it to and my roommate at the time.
He’d also been going for computer science, but he flunked out of one too many classes, and his parents stopped paying for him, so he dropped out.
There’s no way an idiot like him could write something this detailed.
But he did have a wicked good memory when he found something interesting.
My project he absolutely found interesting, and I’d catch him looking at my shit when I wasn’t in the room.
That’s when I started keeping it all with me whenever I left the room.
The contest would help pay for the last year of college if I won, and I fucking needed it more than he did.
I wouldn’t have put it past him to sell my work if he thought he could claim credit and make a buck.
Of course, he wouldn’t be able to back up the work, but at that point, they had my code, and in someone else’s hands, who knew what they were doing? It could be bad.