Invasion of Privacy: A Deep Web Thriller #1 (Deep Web Thriller Series) (24 page)

Come over to my office at 8pm. Make an excuse to you know who. 

Wear the red coat and the black high heels I bought you. 

NOTHING ELSE!

I mean it – nothing else!!

I want to imagine you travelling naked under that coat.

Take a taxi to my office at 37 Clarendon Road in Watford. I’ve got a meeting room booked. Ask for me by name at the reception. They’ll call me and I’ll come get you.

Don’t ring me today. I can’t take any calls.

We’ll have so much fun tonight.

I can’t wait!

D.

“Bloody hell,” Jenny said, falling back into her seat. She read the letter out loud to the group, trying to maintain a monotone voice.

“Fuck me sideways,” said Karim.

Da Silva either hadn’t heard him or simply ignored him, clearly perturbed by what the letter contained. 

The door opened and DS Hamid walked back in. He was about to say something but sensed the stunned silence in the room and paused.

Fiona gave voice to her thoughts. “That’s way beyond the lure that was used for Anna Parker. Hers was completely fabricated, playing on her dreams. This one seems to be based on an existing affair.” 

“D stands for Derek, then? Derek Saxton,” proposed Alan.

“It reads like they’re having an affair under the nose of the wife,” suggested Jenny.

“Are you sure these two cases are linked?” asked Selby. “Seems like a simple case of the husband finishing an affair. Terminally.”

“I’m not sure now,” said Alan. “Well, not one hundred per cent,” he said quickly, spotting Da Silva’s look of annoyance. 

“The individualised lure of both victims to different Flexbase meeting rooms is far more than a coincidence. We will proceed with the two cases being linked,” stated Da Silva. 

“Right, first job is to track down an address for this Derek Saxton,” said Jenny.

Hamid finally spoke up. “Yeah, got that. Found the taxi driver. Said he picked her up last night about 7:30 p.m. He said she was completely naked under the coat. Made his month, he reckoned.” Hamid looked around, expecting them to laugh. Receiving no reaction, he hurriedly finished, “The pick-up address is in Bushey. The taxi driver knows the house. Usually he picks up the bloke who lives there. Apparently, he’s an ex-professional rugby player. Used to play for Saracens.”

“Derek Saxton,” said Alan.

* * *

Opposite Number 85 was the entrance to a cul-de-sac. Brody steered into it, turned the Smart car round at its dead-end and then reversed up, parked so that he was facing towards the Saxton household. In his rear-view mirror, he could see an old grey SEAT Toledo, the cheap car out of context with the well-to-do surroundings. Next to him was a corner green with a bench.

The bushes in front of the house had grown much higher in the few years since Google’s car had driven down this road, capturing its 360-degree images, but he still recognised the ostentatious property. From one gated entrance, a long horseshoe driveway led past a detached garage block with three double doors towards the main house, and then curved back towards a separate gated exit. The house was more glass than brick: an architect’s fantasy home. A massive porch protected the huge double doors set in the centre of the front of the building. Brody knew from the satellite image on Google maps that the rear garden was massive and backed onto woodland.

It was one of many large detached residences in a particularly affluent private road, just a few streets behind Bushey’s main thoroughfare of local independent shops, pubs, post office and cafés. He had even driven past the Forget-Me-Not Flower Shop owned by Hilary Saxton.

Inside this house was his target: a computer that received the feeds over the local network from the webcams installed in most of the rooms in the house. If he could hack into the network video recorder PC, then he could determine how it connected to the SWY site. No doubt, it would have a target address for where to send the live video footage, along with a username and password. Armed with these credentials, he should be able to gain access to SWY via a less protected entrance. It would be like attacking the site via its flanks, rather than head on as previously.

Now that he was physically here, he would be able to pick up the home’s Wi-Fi network signal. But to obtain access to it, he would need to crack its secure password, which, although relatively easy to do — even with WPA2 encryption enabled — would take him a good few hours. Hours he didn’t have. But there was an alternative: he could social engineer his way in.

He had come prepared. In the small boot of his Smart car, he had his fake BT engineer uniform along with a tool box, clipboard and mocked up BT security pass with his photo on it. Even if BT were not the Internet Service Provider that delivered broadband to the house, he could still pretend there was a telephone line fault and that he needed access to all the telephone sockets in the house. He knew the names of the inhabitants, so was sure he could confidently bluff his way in. Once inside, he would physically plug his PC into one of unprotected network ports on the broadband router and hack into the network video record PC via the home’s Local Area Network.

It occurred to Brody that, in all of his many social engineering exploits, he had never physically cheated his way into someone’s private home before. He’d occasionally hacked into someone’s home remotely via an Internet connection, but that was virtual rather than physical. His in-person hacks had always been about finding a way through the secure facilities of large organisations — offices, factories, data centres, shops, warehouses, distribution centres, and so on. To Brody, these targets were faceless, corporate institutions and were fair game. Conning his way into a private home felt like he was stepping over a line. This was more personal,  a full-on invasion of privacy. 

He thought of SWY, and realised that the inhabitants of Number 85 had long ago given up their right to privacy when they had agreed to broadcast their lives to the world via the Internet-connected cameras all over their house. He recalled naked Audri stepping out of the bath and staring straight into the camera, as if communicating with her audience. If the au pair knew about the cameras, then surely they all knew. 

Well, maybe not the baby. 

Brody realised he could use SWY to help him see what was going on inside the house, just to make sure there would be no surprises. He took a moment to reflect on the irony that the site he was trying to crack was going to aid him in doing so. That was a first.

He connected to the Internet on his tablet PC via its in-built 4G SIM card. He brought up the SWY site, logged in and selected the
Au Pair Affair
location. He scanned all seven webcam feeds. He only spotted movement in the kitchen and clicked on its thumbnail to display the full video feed. Hilary Saxton was loading the dishwasher while talking on the phone. The baby sat in its high chair, playing with some plastic blocks. Brody clicked for audio.

“You’ve done all ten wreaths already! Oh well done Amanda . . . Yes, tell Joan I said thanks as well . . . No, no sign of her yet. I’m actually starting to get worried now. She’s never done anything like this before . . . It just goes to her voicemail . . . No, I don’t have Ornetta’s number . . .”

Brody considered that if she was still on the phone when she answered the door to him, perhaps she’d be distracted, making it easier for Brody to convince her he really was a telecoms engineer from BT. Brody stepped out of his car and opened the boot. He looked around to check for anyone watching, but the road was deathly quiet. He swapped his coat for a navy blue fleece with an embroidered BT logo. Over the top, he pulled on a yellow hi-visibility vest. The vest didn’t have the BT Openreach logo on the back like the real thing, but the logos on the fleece and the fake security pass should do the trick.

He grabbed the toolbox, shut the boot and, crossing the road, walked purposefully towards the house. As he neared, he saw that both gates were shut. He noticed a video intercom next to right hand one. Damn, an extra line of defence to navigate past. He thought it through quickly and concluded a winning smile followed by holding up his fake pass to the camera should do the trick. After all, intercom resolutions were typically fairly low, which should play to his advantage. Hilary would be able to make out the familiar and trusted BT logo. He should be fine.

He pressed the button and waited.

He thought he heard something, but not from the intercom. It was the sound of a distant car downshifting then accelerating. He turned his head in the direction of the noise. The road gently curved to the right. Nothing.

“Hello?” It was Mrs Saxton’s voice, tinny through the intercom. 

A small Audi flew round the bend. The silver car screeched to a halt right behind him. Car doors flew open and its occupants began to exit. He heard more noise and looked to the left to spot two other cars approaching at speed. One of them was a police patrol car. They pulled up right behind the first car. 

The driver of the marked police car looked straight at him. 

Brody froze.

* * *

You lock yourself away in an air-conditioned room. It’s cold, but you know that no one will disturb you in here. They all think you’ve gone out for lunch, but really you’ve come for one more look before you make your choice. 

You examine the images you’ve captured. You study their pretty faces. They’re all bewitching. You recall the last two encounters. After the overly hurried experience with the cellist, you had vowed to take it much more slowly with the babysitter. After all, you’d set the whole thing up perfectly. So that you could take your time. Allow perfection to be rediscovered once more.

But you failed. Totally.

In the heat of the moment, you allowed yourself to get carried away. The bitch was just too damn provocative in that raincoat, naked underneath, wanting you so badly. You were aroused long before you even walked into the room, even when you stood next to her in the lift. Just the thought of her following your instructions had been overwhelming. 

She must have known that too. That’s why she had followed them to the letter, the slut. She had wanted you to be quick. To get it over with. Just like all the times before. 

You’d spent your teenage years being rushed. “Hurry up,”
she
had always said to you. “Hurry up, you stupid boy. I haven’t got all day, you know. Hurry up.” But it was never something you could control, was it? If you didn’t feel aroused, how could you finish quickly? But you always tried to oblige. You closed your eyes and conjured up the pornographic images of naked women you’d stumbled onto on the Internet. Just women, though. Never men. No, that wasn’t allowed.

So why did you allow yourself to fall into the babysitter’s trap and be rushed all over again? You know you should have walked away. Calmed down. Breathed. Let it subside. And then returned in complete control. Then you could have enjoyed hours of delirium, pleasure and pain, followed by the ultimate climax. 

Next time you’d get it right. And the time after that.

You study the photographs in front of you. 

Who would be next?

They’re all different to look at. But underneath, you know they are all the same. They are all just different manifestations of
her
. Like all sluts are.

It really doesn’t matter whom you choose next. The same ending is coming to all of them. In time. What’s the difference? 

Choices, choices. 

You need to choose. 

Thumbs-up or thumbs-down?

And you realise it doesn’t matter. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. 

When the rhyme finishes, you smile. Your index finger was pointing to one a lot like
her
.

This time you’d get it right. But first you have to organise things. And for this one you’ve concocted a truly irresistible lure. You know her motivations. You know she’ll come to you willingly. Desperately.

Like a moth to a flame.

* * *

The last ball shot past both flippers before he had time to nudge the machine with his hips. Damn, he had been caught out
again
by ‘The Power’, a mode in the
Addams Family
pinball game that employed rotating electromagnets under the board to send the metal ball in unpredictable directions. He watched the end-of-ball bonuses tot up, taking his score just over two hundred million, woefully short of his own high score of three hundred and ninety-six million. One day he’d crack a five hundred. Then he’d be happy.

Crooner42 looked at his watch. The game had taken him nearly an hour. An hour to fail, yet again.

He fished his iPhone out of his pocket and brought up the Remote Home app. A few taps later and the bookcase on the other side of the penthouse apartment silently swung open. He entered his secret room. 

At his desk, he logged into CrackerHack. The SWY creator checked for any recent posts about the get root battle he had spawned between Fingal and Matt_The_Hatter. He scanned the chat logs.

Nothing.

Crooner42 couldn’t decide whether to become concerned or start to congratulate himself. They were now over twenty-four hours into the contest and, so far, SWY had held up to everything Fingal had thrown against it. And, he chuckled to himself, Matt_The_Hatter. But, right now, there was no system activity from the usernames Fingal had registered under yesterday. He was also completely silent on the forums. How was Crooner42 supposed to interpret this? Was Fingal taking a break? Had he quietly given up? Or was he trying something else that Crooner42 hadn’t anticipated?

If Fingal failed to break in then no one could. Which was important, because Crooner42 had no idea how many laws he had broken by launching SWY. And one of the main objectives of this whole exercise was to prove conclusively the site was totally impregnable. The side benefit was to completely ruin Fingal’s credibility. In the unlikely scenario that Fingal somehow found a way to obtain root level control, Crooner42 would be made aware of an unknown weakness and could then block it, making SWY even more secure. And if that happened, he still had a backup plan to deal with Fingal. It was a win-win situation.