Infinite Exposure (29 page)

Kathryn didn't even notice the slight. She got up and walked out to get one of the skirts. Kent did notice it though and said,
“Margret, there is no reason to insult people, they are trying to help us.”

“They are the ones who got us into this situation Kent. This should have all been fixed on Sunday. We are now less than six
hours from the FDIC showing up at our doorstep asking for full accounting of the situation. Are you going to be the one waiting
for them at the doorstep?”

“It's not so bad. We have a system startup problem.”

“We have a 24 hour recovery period per the FDIC regulations. After that, we are no longer insured. I'm certainly not going
to be in the room when the board of directors gets that little bit of news.”

Invoking the board of directors, Margret now had Kent's complete attention. “What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to talk to Carol and let her know we have a situation. Then I need you to ask her if she wants to be in here while
it happens or if she wants plausible deniability.”

Kent's eyes went wide, but he got up and left. Kathryn returned with one of the skirts who sat with the guys. Margret looked
at her and said, “Send me an email so I can reply with the link to the information they are going to need.”

With the emails exchanged and the person at the data center on the speaker phone, the team set about getting the system started.
They used the boot option to avoid starting the banking application automatically.

“Pete,” said Marget, “I need you to copy the security file off to your laptop. Is the internal network stuff still running?”

“Within the lab it is. I'm using a terminal emulator from my notebook to monitor the system.”

“OK. The others here are going to tell you what file to find keystroke by keystroke. Once you have it, ZIP it and they will
give you an email address to send it to. Is the cable modem still working there?”

“I don't know. I only have one network port and there isn't a wireless hub on that thing.”

“I know, we didn't want them surfing the Web in a manner that wasn't monitored. Is there a modem compatible phone jack?”

“There is a bank of modems over here. I can just keep hooking up until I find one that works.”

“Good, you have the remote VPN software on that notebook don't you?”

“Yes, it is how I do support at night. I will be able to send the email once I have the file. Is that all you need me to do?”

“Sadly you are going to have to stay there until we get the system in India up and running.”

“In that case, you are buying me lunch. Send someone over now so they can answer the door. There is nobody here, not even
a receptionist. FedEx already showed up to drop one set of backup media off and collect another. I had to tell them we didn't
have an outbound today.”

Kathryn looked at Margret. “Do you have a link with directions and a street address on that site?”

“I'm looking for that now. Here it is.”

“Good. Send it to her,” Kathryn said looking at the skirt. “Once you get it, forward it to both of the others out there with
a message to print it out and get in here now!”

Five minutes later both of the other skirts cautiously crept into the room.

“Pete,” said Kathryn, “I have two girls here who will be coming over to answer the door, phone, and help you any way they
can. Do you want them to pick up lunch on the way there?”

“No, they could pick up a plain bagel with regular cream cheese and a bottle of iced tea though. Too early for lunch. Do they
know how to get here?”

“They have the directions from the Intranet in their hot little hands. Is there an extension where you are sitting that they
can call when they get there? I'm assuming they can't walk right in.”

“Yes, x5491. If they can't get through, have them call one of you there in the conference room on your cell. I don't know
if the PBX is working here.”

Margret scratched her cell phone number down on the paper for the girls as did Kathryn, then they sent them on their way.
“Save the receipts if you want to be reimbursed,” Kathryn told the girls.

There was the sound of a modem dialing in the distance. A few minutes later there was a some muttering on the end of the phone.
Finally Pete spoke. “The email is on its way to India. They should have it in another minute or two. You know, I'm looking
at the system startup files an the application startup files. It looks like about six of them were changed last week. Did
we have something that went into production then?”

“Yes,” responded Margret. “A bunch of changes for the board of directors with respect to how things were reported. Those changes
should have propagated out to the Indian site, too, since it was running in unison with this site.”

“In theory they should be there. Tell you what, I'm going to do some cutting and pasting between windows on this thing and
send another email to that same address with instructions for them to verify the dates on these files on their end. These
files are on a local drive here. That is why I'm concerned.”

“Sounds like a plan, Pete,” responded Margret. “Can't hurt to be certain before we pull the trigger on application startup.”

Kent returned to the room. “Carol says she won't join us in the war room, but would like to see the three of us in my office
if we have a moment.”

“Pete,” Margret called out. “I'm going to leave the room with Kathryn for a quick meeting in Kent's office. If I'm not back
and you need me you have my cell phone.”

“That's fine. It will be about half an hour before they can get things verified and send back an email.”

With that, the three walked out to Kent's office where Carol was waiting.

“I don't want details, but how bad is it,” Carol asked.

“They needed to get an updated security file over to the new system in India and didn't do it. Once it is there we will probably
have to run the program to update the system ID in it. There might be a couple of startup scripts which need to be copied
over as well,” responded Margret.

“Thanks for not giving me any details,” remarked Carol.

Margret gave a faint smile. “It is not a train wreck, I just don't know if we can sort it out within the time frame we have
left.”

“That's why I want to talk with you. We have some severe legal exposure here. I need to find out exactly what happened this
weekend. If this goes on much longer someone is going to have to answer to a board of inquiry.”

Kathryn didn't really believe this “end of the world” stuff she was hearing until she heard it from a lawyer. This was just
a system outage to her. Embarrassing yes, but with legal implications? She hadn't thought it possible until now.

Margret started, “When I came in this morning I had email from everyone working at the data center tendering their resignations
effective immediately. It appears when the migration team showed up Saturday morning it honked off the data center workers.
They sent me their resignations, logged out, and went home. The data center was completely unstaffed from around 9:30 AM Saturday
until now.”

Kent actually paled when Margret issued the last statement.

Kathryn continued, “I have not gotten a full report from my people. The two I need to speak with are in the room working through
this. They were supposed to notify me if there was any problem. I never got a call.”

“I would think all of the staff from the data center walking out would qualify as a problem,” said Carol.

“So would I,” continued Kathryn. “They don't know it, but once they have filed what happens in writing they no longer have
jobs.”

“Now for the ugly question Kent,” Carol continued. “Why didn't we have any staff overseeing the migration?”

“I had the data center manager and the entire staff of the data center. I had no idea they were all going to quit at the same
time as some form of protest.”

“Do we know what they were protesting.”

Kathryn interjected, “From what I have heard, they were under the impression the data center was going to be expanded, not
migrated.”

“Where the hell did they get such an idea!” Kent exclaimed.

“Probably from doing the leg work for a report the board requested. They wanted to know the currently available floor space,
cost per kilowatt hour of electricity, and additional floorspace available in the building should a center need to be expanded.
They also asked for a list of all employees working there who have undergone security clearance in accordance with FDIC regulations,”
said Carol.

“Why was the board asking for that?” Kent piped up, confused.

“It is part of an annual audit for insurance purposes. It is more important now that we aren't far from having a regulation
that all data centers be staffed by personnel having a government security clearance of SECRET. It is the lowest level you
can get from the DOD, but everyone with significant access to the banking systems must have it if the regulation goes through,”
continued Carol. “Right now it is something that dramatically reduces our insurance rates. If everyone with privileged access
to the system has this security clearance our insurance rate is one-twentieth what it would be with personnel who don't have
such a clearance background check.”

Kent was really paling now. Nobody had told him the insurance rates would go up 20 fold. Kent didn't have the common sense
God gave little green apples, which means he didn't have sense enough to ask when the project plan was being put together.
He was quietly hoping this wouldn't happen until after his promotion so his replacement could take the fall. He also made
a note to start looking for a new job once he got his new title, assuming he wasn't on the board.

Kathryn, sensing the fickle finger of fate heading her way, asked, “What is the process for getting this clearance?”

“It's a standard DOD clearance check. Fingerprinting, criminal background check of yourself and family, credit check, in some
cases a polygraph is required. All applicants must be sponsored by a company either doing business with the DOD or in an industry
having this regulation. All applicants must be U.S. citizens, either natural or naturalized.”

“Right now that is not our concern,” Carol continued. “The regulation may not become mandatory, and the insurance rates will
be what they will be. Our concern right now is piecing together a timeline of what transpired so we have it all documented
for the federal regulators when they arrive. Yes, I'm assuming a worst-case scenario of us not getting the system operational
in time.”

Carol looked at Margret and said, “When you have your next lull in there, I need to come in and get statements from those
two guys. We can mute the phone so Pete doesn't have to hear.”

“Statements?” stammered Kathryn.

“If for any reason our systems aren't running at the start of business, we have to run a mid-day audit to ensure all funds
are accounted for. Not fixing this on Sunday caused a shit load of work for a lot of people. On Sunday, nobody would have
known and nothing would have to happen,” Carol told Kathryn. “Now we have to comply with the letter of our insurance agreement
or nothing will be covered.”

“Fine. Do you mind if I have some counsel from Big Four in the room as well?”

“Not at all. Just be sure they are skilled with depositions.”

And I
thought my cramps were bad this morning,
thought Kathryn.

***

Hans strolled into the room they were using as the meeting room and general room for those not stationed here to work from
time to time. He was shocked to see the Brit in the room, but not surprised the man in the suit hadn't made it yet. For a
man who did international operations, he was picky about what countries he set foot in.

There wasn't much to this meeting. It was a “Hello and thanks for coming” meeting. Really just to ensure everyone knew where
the new temporary headquarters was, the satellite phone numbers it was using, and who else was on this team.

Hans looked at the Brit and said, “The man in the suit not coming?” He knew he was punching a button, but best to punch it
in front of the others so they would all be aware of this guy's temper. It took a lot to set him off, but when you finally
did, he went off like a fuel-air bomb, burning long and hot.

“No,” responded the Brit. “The little bugger is not coming! He is still in Pakistan waiting for Pakistani intelligence to
get done picking up all of the body parts they can find at the other communications hub. They are never going to find anything.
Satellite photos show a crater roughly 15 feet wide. Anything inside was scattered half a mile down the hillside if it wasn't
incinerated at time of detonation. He just doesn't want to bloody come here.”

Some of the other team members had never met the Brit. The ones who had sat there with smirks on their face. They knew what
he said was true and they knew he was just getting started. This kind of anger would brew in him all day. If you didn't suddenly
become a focal point for it, the spectacle could be entertaining.

Hans interrupted, “For those of you who don't know him, we call this man 'the Brit.' He will be assisting you in processing
the email communications. Those who know him know he was instrumental in our previous email hub operation.”

The Brit gave a distracted wave to the room.

Hans began passing out slips of paper to everyone. “These are the sat phone numbers to this place. We only have two. I don't
expect we will be here that long.”

The Brit piped up, “Inside of three weeks we will know if this is a long haul or a short grab.” Everyone looked at him, so
he continued. “If they send someone new to the trainer, then the thinking is that this is really all they have left for whatever
reason. We will take it out and blind them for a while. We won't have enough on the new hub operator to try and turn them
as we did before. We couldn't get lucky enough for al-Qaeda to choose someone that spineless again.”

“What if they do send someone?” asked one of the team members.

“Then we have to grind this one out, taking down every cell they lead us to and searching for some link across communications
networks. Other than the first hub we worked in Pakistan, we haven't found another hub handling cells in America. The cells
these two are handling seem to have all come from that first hub in the mad dash to restore communications lines.”