Alex
Even if Eric Bayer has just treated me to a twelve-hour break from reality, his brother’s appearance does the opposite. First, he searches my apartment for a second time just to make sure there aren’t any bugs or other detection devices.
That alone is enough to freak me out. But now he wants to talk.
After I make myself presentable, I sit down on the sofa beside Eric, who reaches for my knee to give it a comforting squeeze. “What did you learn?” I ask.
“First things first.” Max sets a shiny K-Tech phone down on the table.
I eye it the same way you’d watch a venomous snake. “Is that mine?”
“It is now. It’s a new one, Alex. Nate’s team didn’t have time to entirely reverse engineer the hack. So—just to be safe—Nate kept your old one and sent you this one. The passcode is 911, but you should change it immediately.”
“Thanks.” I take the phone with a sigh. “I want to catch this asshole.”
“Trust me, we will. And there’s some good news, okay? Nate’s operating system has some unadvertised security functions. And when the hacking software began copying all your files, it got spooked and locked the phone.”
“Wait. I thought the hacker locked me out.”
Max shakes his head. “No, that was a safety mechanism. These guys only got about twenty percent of the data on your phone.”
My heart leaps. “Do we know which twenty percent?”
“Mostly recent emails from your ECM account.”
I groan.
“But no texts were compromised before the shutdown,” Max says. “So that’s something.”
“Who did this, Max? Could it be Jared Tatum?”
“We’ll rule him out today,” Max says. “But my suspicions lie in another direction.” He sits back in his chair, absently tapping one knee. “I’m working on an espionage theory.”
“Oh goody. How much danger am I in?” My hand is already rubbing my belly. I’m already apologizing to my baby and she isn’t even here yet.
“The good news is that nobody wants you dead. Probably.”
“Max,” barks Eric as a chill runs through me.
“I’m only being honest,” Max says. “But my gut says the culprit is after a financial gain. That said, his methods so far are risky. So we’re maintaining extra vigilance.”
“Of course you are,” says Eric through clenched teeth. The two brothers have a brief stare down. “What about those license plates from the other night? Did you get anything?”
Max shakes his head. “They were both faked. Neither plate is registered to a real person.”
“That’s slick,” Eric says.
“Everything these guys have done is slick,” Max agrees. “The phone charger in Alex’s bedroom was a nice piece of engineering.”
“Made where?” Eric asks, getting up from the sofa.
“Probably China. But the software has Ukrainian origins.”
Eric makes a noise of displeasure. Then he gets up and leaves the room, and I miss him already.
“So I have a grand theory for why you’re suddenly a target,” Max says. “And it’s the Butler’s fault.”
“Wait, what? Why?”
“Did someone address me?” Bingley chimes in. “Can I be of assistance?”
“No, Bingley,” Eric calls from the kitchen. “Not unless you can make coffee.”
Max leans forward in his chair. “Humor me for a second with this exercise. If you could spy on any ten thousand people in the world, who would you pick?”
“Heads of state? CEOs? This isn’t a tricky question.”
“Right,” Max agrees. “Though heads of state typically don’t buy and install their own internet hardware. So I’m with you on the CEOs. And if you couldn’t pick and choose your ten thousand people, but you had to pick a geographic region, what would it be?”
“Washington, DC? New York City. The Bay Area. London. Hong Kong…”
“Exactly. Alex, this is your problem. New York was second on your list. You have a monopoly over cable internet access in the tristate area. You control the internet connections of some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. And now you’re launching an expensive hardware that promises utter security and privacy. ”
“But…” I don’t like where this conversation is headed. “The Butler is not an easy hack, Max. You’d need to hack each device individually. Or hack the entire network and find the encrypted node belonging to the home you wanted to breech…”
Max holds up a hand to silence me. “Your software is as secure as anything on the market,” he says by way of agreement. “And the Butler’s privacy safeguards are exquisitely designed. But what if the hack weren’t a question of software.”
I blink. “That leaves hardware. But nobody could hack the hardware unless they do it during—” I gulp. And now I understand where he’s going with this.
“Manufacturing,” Max says quietly. “It was that fire at the motherboard factory that got me thinking.”
“But—” And now my mind is bounding along after Max’s. “So you think someone wants to take over the manufacture of my motherboards. So they can change the design and modify my hardware?”
“With a tracking device,” Max says.
“But we’d notice,” I argue. “We have rigorous quality control.”
His eyebrows lift. “Do you? Can you honestly say that your current workflow inspects each motherboard before it’s installed in the device?”
Damn it. I flop back against the sofa. “No. You’re right.
The testing happens when the unit is complete.
If the device boots up normally, there’d be no cause for suspicion.
” Which Max knows. “But still. This is the craziest idea I’ve ever heard.
The Butler is smaller than a salad plate.
The motherboard is the size of my hand. How would you hide all the electronics you’d need to control the unit? ”
“Easily. And I can prove that it works, because somebody has already done it. Do you remember a news item about a major hardware hack of a server manufacturer?”
“Sure. Crazy story.” I must have read it a year or so ago. “But that story didn’t pan out. Nobody would go on record, and both companies denied that it ever happened. Besides—those servers are big.” I spread my hands to indicate the size of a server. “You could hide a forest creature in there.”
Max grins. “A forest creature?”
“You’re the one here with the crazy tales,” I grumble. This conversation is terrifying. If someone—or some nation state—is trying to hack my products, there will be no end to this war. There’d be far more disruption than a simple factory fire.
Max reaches in his pocket and pulls up a small box—the size that might hold an engagement ring. But when he opens it, there’s no ring sitting in the velvet crevice. Instead, there’s a silicon object the same size as a pencil eraser.
“What is that?” I ask. As if I even want to know.
“This was removed from one of the hacked servers.”
“And you have it because…?”
Max grins. “I bought it for my collection. And my guys verified that it’s all you’d need to perform a rudimentary takeover of the privacy functions of a server. Or, say, a modem.”
“You’re kidding me.” I’m a computer programmer, not an electrical engineer, so this isn’t my area of expertise. But that thing is tiny.
“No, it’s true. The only good news is that you can’t just plop it in there anywhere. It needs to be integrated in just the right spot to do its job.”
I sink a little further into my sofa as my anxiety meter approaches the red zone. “Shit, Max. I believe you. But why are you so sure I’m the next target? It’s a big leap from factory fire to zombie hardware.”
“It is,” he says. “But you’re making a device which promises to have robust privacy features.
And rich dudes in New York are going to scoop them up.
If I were a hardware hacker, I’d choose you.
And furthermore, the hacked servers carrying these—” He picks up the chip from its special box and balances it on his fingertip.
“—Were manufactured in a factory controlled by Xian Smith.”
“Oh, shit.” Oh, shit. Oh shit.
He nods. “If it helps, you’re probably not his only target. You’re merely his favorite.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t say. You’re eventually going to have to explain this scenario to your board of directors. And I have to protect my source.”
Board of directors. My poor, overwhelmed brain hadn’t even reached that grizzly conclusion yet. But I’m already sorry I got up this morning.
That’s when Eric walks back into the room with a coffee mug and a plate, setting both down on the coffee table. The plate bears both halves of a toasted bagel that’s been smeared with cream cheese and decorated with smoked salmon, onions, capers, and cherry tomato halves.
“Please tell me that half of that is for me,” I squeak.
“It’s all for you,” Eric says, laying a hand on my head. “Do you want coffee? Or are we saving the daily caffeine boost for later.”
“No thank you. If I have coffee right now, I’ll probably start firing people again.”
“I’d take coffee,” Max says.
Wordlessly, Eric points toward the kitchen.
With a disgruntled look at his brother, Max gets up and heads that direction. “Mugs are over the pot!” Eric calls, sipping his cup.
I pick up the plate and take a big bite of bagel. “You are a prince among men and please let me know how I can return the favor.”
“Oh, you’re already in my good graces,” he says in a sultry voice. He skims a hand down my hair and gives me a sexy wink.
I just want to climb into his lap and be somebody else for a day. I really do.
But Max is already back with a cup of coffee and a determined expression. “Let’s talk about your options,” he says.
“Who is Xian Smith, anyway?” Eric asks.
“I wish I knew,” Max says. “It’s probably an alias. I can’t find anyone with that legal name anywhere in the world. He seems to have popped up in 2013, selling cheap cameras to drone manufacturers.”
“What passport does he hold?” I ask through a mouth full of cream cheese.
Max shakes his head. “I can’t find anyone who knows.”
“Let’s invite him to a meeting and frisk him,” I say, shoving a tomato in my mouth. God, espionage makes me hungry.
“I like a good caper as much as the next guy. But he’s so slick you wouldn’t find anything,” Max says. “So let’s talk about your options. I can think of three, in order of easiest to hardest.”
“Let’s hear ‘em.”