Chapter 43
Ifloated a few ideas, but Piper came up with a good plan. It was relatively simple and seemed like it would work.
I drove Piper around the island until we found an open Wi-Fi network. I parked at the curb around the corner from a coffee shop and made sure there were no cameras that could capture our license plate.
The signal was just strong enough for her to log onto the network. From there, she used a VPN, then went to work on the Zonatrex network. The blue glow from the laptop illuminated her face as she hunched over the keys, frantically tapping away.
I kept my head on a swivel and the engine running.
After a few minutes, Piper said, "I'm in."
She continued typing, her eyes darting about the screen, taking in all the information. With a few keystrokes and the swipe of the trackpad, she had full access to their security screens.
Piper turned the laptop’s screen toward me. I surveyed the black and white footage with an impressed face. "Not too shabby."
Piper grinned. "Not too shabby at all."
She pulled up a camera feed of the lobby. The camera was on the wall behind the front desk. The wide-angle lens caught a view of the back of the security guard’s head, the desk, his computer screen, and the large atrium—including the glass entry doors.
Piper zoomed in on the guard's computer screen.
On the side of the monitor, there were several Post-it notes with important information—passcodes, the phone number for the IT department, authorization codes.
Typical stuff. Stuff you shouldn't put on Post-it notes stuck to a computer.
Fortunately for us, it was common practice.
"Here's the deal," Piper said. "I'm going to glitch the system.
I'll bring down the camera feeds. The security guard will freak out and call IT. They contract out to a third party. If you can have your intel contact intercept the call, we can handle the situation. We’ll show up and save the day.
They'll be happy to have anyone there to fix it.”
"I can handle the outgoing call," I said.
"Good.”
I made a phone call to Isabella and filled her in on the situation.
This kind of thing was child's play for Isabella. She'd be able to route any outgoing calls from Zonatrex directly to my burner phone.
Piper left malware on company servers that would run a script at a set time.
We headed back to the Avventura, filled the others in on the plan, and started preparing for the mission.
Piper mocked up fake badges for the tech support company and printed them out.
We took them to a 24-hour copy shop to have them laminated while JD commandeered a plain white cargo van from the department.
At least, that’s where I think he got it.
"Don't we need some kind of uniform for this?" Dr. Malcolm asked.
Piper scoffed. "When have you ever seen tech support in uniform? Jeans, T-shirts, and hoodies seem to be the appropriate attire. Trust me, these guys will be so panicked when they call, they’re not going to think twice about anything.”
We spent the rest of the evening prepping and going over the plan.
Piper had set the script to crash the Zonatrex system at midnight.
At 12:06 AM, I got a call from a frantic security guard. Isabella had routed it to my burner. I answered the phone and said, "Quantum Technical Solutions, can I help you?”
“This is Officer Haskins over at Zonatrex Pharma. We’ve got a problem.”
"No worries. We'll get you taken care of. Can you give me your security code?”
Haskins hesitated for a moment. He stammered, "Uh, I don’t have a security code. You mean my username and password?”
"I’ll need that as well, but I'm looking for your passcode so I can verify that I'm actually talking to someone at Zonatrex. We get a lot of phishing attempts."
He gave me his username and password, then continued to fumble for the security passcode.
I didn't really need it. I just wanted to make him jump through hoops. The more invested in the process, the less he'd scrutinize us when we showed up. Besides, we had seen the security passcode on a Post-it note taped to his monitor.
I helped him out. "Look around for an alphanumeric passcode. It's probably written down somewhere or on a Post-it.”
A moment later, Haskins said, "Is this it? A-245-6D7X?”
I hesitated for a moment. "Yep, that's it. What can I do for you?"
"The entire system went down. The screen is glitching. All the camera feeds are down. I can't access anything. Nothing works,” he said, his voice growing ever more panicked. “I tried turning off the computer and rebooting it. Nothing’s working.”
"How long has this been going on?"
"It just started.”
"Have you contacted anybody else?”
"No, you're my first call.”
"Good. Can you tell me what you see on your screen now?”
"Just junk. Some kind of glitch."
"And the reboot didn't work?"
"No," he said, frustration creeping in.
"Look, I'm going to send a recovery team to your location. Just to confirm, you’re at 112 Research Lane.”
"Correct.”
"I don't want you to do anything. Any further tampering could make the situation worse. This could be some kind of software glitch, a virus, or we could be dealing with some kind of ransomware."
"Ransomware?”
"Has anyone made any demands?"
"No. Not that I'm aware of.”
"Okay. That's a good sign.”
"Should I call the police?”
"No. I don't think that’s necessary at this time. Just hold off until we get there. Don't do anything. Let's not jump the gun.” I paused. "Does your central computer system control any mission-critical operations?”
"I'm sure it does. That's out of my area, but I think it controls and monitors just about everything.”
"Okay. No problem. We'll get this sorted.”
"How soon can you have a crew out here?”
"We can mobilize our emergency response team in 15 or 20 minutes. In the meantime, sit tight, don't make any additional phone calls. In case this is a ransomware situation, they could be monitoring calls. Some of these dirtbags have been known to delete all data when agitated.”
"Okay.”
"We'll see you shortly.”
"Fantastic," he said.
I ended the call with a smile and said to the group, "We’re on.”