Termination Man: a novel (52 page)

The next morning I brought a CD into work that contained an executable file for a software application called Netbit Sniffer. The software was created with corporate security analysts—and hackers—in mind. It was capable of installing itself on a network, simultaneously bypassing most of the firewalls and security checks that are common in a corporate setting. Once installed, the program would give me the ability to monitor the activity on any networked computer that I selected.

The installation itself, however, would be problematic. As viruses, security breaches, and other dangers have proliferated, corporate network security has grown ever more vigilant and sophisticated. I knew that TP Automotive was especially advanced in this regard, so I could only assume that the company was implementing uniform IT security protocols at its many subsidiaries. I dared not make any inquiries about this to my TP Automotive contacts, though. This would immediately arouse their suspicions. Shawn hated me; Kurt Myers half suspected my treachery; and Beth and Bernie knew the code that governs all large corporations: As a paid consultant, I was fundamentally an outsider—and no outsider is trusted with the company's inner
most information, beyond what it absolutely necessary
.

My chief problem, I knew, would be the fact that Netbit Sniffer hogs network resources during its installation process. In other words, while Netbit Sniffer was implanting itself on the UP&S network, all other activity on the network would slow down. This would not go unnoticed.

Nor could I conduct the installation at night or on the weekend. The IT department had earmarked all of this time between now and the end of the year for various backup and maintenance projects. The network would either be shut down or loaded down with backup operations during those times when the installation would have otherwise gone unnoticed. That meant that I had to activate Netbit Sniffer during the workday, when all eyes and hands were on the company network.

I placed the Netbit Sniffer CD into the CD tray of the computer assigned to Craig Parker at UP&S. I copied the executable file from the CD to the PC’s hard drive. Then I removed the CD from the tray and buried it deep inside the attaché case that I carried to and from UP&S each day. I had to complete all of these steps carefully, ever watchful of the many eyes that were watching me. Mary Lou Hicks and the rest of the accounting staff had been particularly aware of my actions and routines lately, so I inserted and removed the CD when they were otherwise occupied.

Now came the hard part. I double-clicked the icon for the Netbit Sniffer program. The software came to life on my PC, then began to spread its tendrils slowly throughout the network. This was a laborious process, and one that might end with my being caught.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before the accounting staff began to grumble among themselves about the speed of the network.

“I’m trying to send an email,” one of them said. “And Lotus Notes is crawling.”

A few minutes later, the IT manager emerged from his lair, an enclosed rear office that housed his personal desk and files, plus the company’s servers. He was an overweight man named Chip Morris, who smoked like a fiend during his frequent breaks in the outside smoking area. I had often noticed him huddling against the outer wall of the UP&S building with the other smokers, sucking on a cigarette with the intensity of a serious tobacco addict.

Chip stood in the front of the room. “Is anyone doing anything that would slow the network down?” he called out.

About half of the office looked up at him. There were some annoyed faces. People were shaking their heads.

This was only the beginning, I knew. Chip next began to walk around the office, inquiring with each person and department.
How much longer would the Netbit Sniffer installation take
, I wondered. I risked a look at the program’s progress bar. I estimated that it had twenty or so minutes to go.

Chip stopped by the accounting department.

“Are you guys running anything on the network right now? Any programs?” he asked. The accounting department was the logical place for Chip to start. They regularly ran software programs that hogged network resources. This was especially true when the bean counters were working on the month-end closing.

Penny Hartfield, one of the assistant managers in accounting, gave Chip a puzzled expression. “No,” she said. There was just the slightest trace of indignation in her voice. 

“Well, because the network is slowing down. But I’ve looked at the activity monitor, and I can’t find any processes that would explain it.”

“Why do you always assume that its something we’re doing?” Penny gave him that smile that was not a smile, a facial expression so often perfected by corporate mid-level managers and ladder climbers.

A similar smile in return. “Because it usually is.”

Chip resumed his patrol of the office area. Confounded by the situation and unable to rely to the network activity monitor, he was determined to ferret out the root cause on a person-by-person basis.

Finally he arrived at my desk, as I knew he would.

“There aren’t many people left in purchasing,” he said. “So I guess I’m going to have to ask you.”

I couldn’t tell if this was an attempt at humor or not. After what had happened to Lucy, I sincerely hoped not. But I was mostly concerned about making sure that Chip didn’t take a close look at my computer screen. As he approached, I had opened a window that contained an Excel spreadsheet, a many-lined, many-columned file that was guaranteed to give a headache to anyone who examined it too closely.

But in the lower right-hand corner of my screen, there was also a little icon that showed the progress of Netbit Sniffer. This telltale icon was the program’s salient flaw—and one that the developers of the software had apparently overlooked. If Chip’s current state of puzzlement could be taken as proof, Netbit Sniffer was indeed invisible to the administrator of the network on which it was running—save the unexplained drain on bandwidth and processing power. However, the program was not invisible on the PC from which the program had been initiated.

“I’m working in Excel right now,” I said, giving him an innocent shrug. “That shouldn’t be slowing the network down, I wouldn’t think.”

“Well, it’s theoretically possible that an Excel file could slow down the network—if it was large enough.” Chip was willing to consider any possibility at this point. He leaned forward to examine the spreadsheet on the screen of my workstation.

I shifted my body a bit to the right, praying that he wouldn’t notice the Netbit Sniffer icon in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.

“Is that file on the share drive?” he asked.

“It sure is,” I said.

This was an unnecessary question. UP&S mandated that its employees keep all essential files on the corporate share drive, organized into folders by department, functional category, and project. The rule predated the TP Automotive takeover. And the rule made sense: The share drive, with its nightly backup routine, prevented data loss in the event that an individual employee’s hard drive crashed.

“Hmm.” Finally Chip left. I watched him go back to his office. He was probably going to make another attempt to unravel the mystery using his many network diagnostic tools. I beat him, however. A few minutes later, the Netbit Sniffer installation process was complete, and the icon disappeared from my computer screen.

The only evidence of the program now was a less conspicuous icon that Netbit Sniffer had placed in the My Documents section of my hard drive. I double-clicked this icon and launched the program. Netbit Sniffer gave me a graphical layout of all the PC workstations in the office. I quickly identified Shawn Myers’s computer in the layout and selected it. Netbit Sniffer scanned Shawn’s Lotus Notes account, his hard drive, and all of the data that remained in the history files and cache of his web browser.

This had been a risky move, but I now had what I needed: The passwords to Shawn’s email accounts. The corporate Lotus Notes was a given; and I was also in luck in regard to Shawn’s private mail: He had indeed accessed his personal email account via the company network, just as I had suspected. In the Netbit Sniffer query results queue, I saw a Yahoo account that contained Shawn’s full name and a string of numbers.

Shawn’s choice of password chilled me. It was a combination of “Alyssa” and the current month and year.

Chip emerged from the server room once again and called out to the office area: “Hey folks, the network is functioning normally again. Everything’s okay.”

“Couldn’t he have sent a mass email?” I heard one person say. “I mean—the guy is our IT manager, after all, and he communicates by standing at the front of the room and shouting.”

Early the next morning, as I was settling into my desk at UP&S, my desk phone rang. Kurt Myers’s gruff voice greeted me.

“Craig? I need to see you. Meet me in the boardroom.”

When I arrived at the boardroom, Kurt was alone. No Beth, no Bernie.

“Have a seat, Craig,” he said, motioning for me to sit. “This morning I received a letter from a group that calls itself ‘Citizens for Corporate Truth.’ The letter was addressed to me personally.”

Kurt extended a folded, typewritten letter to me. “Here. Take a look.”

I had heard of Citizens for Corporate Truth. This was one of those self-styled watchdog groups. As their name implied, they had taken it upon themselves to serve as the public conscience of corporate America. There were many such groups out there; they had proliferated in recent years, as the Internet made it easier for like-minded crusaders to rally around particular causes. Most of these groups focused on environmental causes and worker safety related issues—the low-hanging fruit. What exactly did this particular one want with Kurt Myers, Vice President of Strategic Planning?

I unfolded the letter and began reading. The first paragraph contained a perfunctory greeting and a bit of legalese. They say that no one reads long business letters word-for-word, and to a certain extent, this is true. But I stopped skimming when I came across the name of Tina Shields, and a vague reference to her connection to Shawn Myers.

“Shortly before her untimely and
still
unresolved death, Tina Shields was in contact with Citizens for Corporate Truth. Ms. Shields informed us of multiple allegations against a member of the UP&S/TP Automotive management team. Ms. Shields further stated that she believed her life to be in
grave
danger
, due to unspecified threats
of
retaliation
from
senior managers at TP Automotive
…
”

Citizens for Corporate Truth, as I now recalled, was somewhat unique among the sundry watchdog groups. They specialized in digging up corporate scandals that had a personal edge: an administrative assistant who was ushered out the door after accusing an executive of sexual harassment, a CEO with a penchant for cocaine or high-priced call girls. That sort of thing.

But the letter in my hand insinuated that someone among TP Automotive’s corporate management team had been involved in murder. This represented a new level of escalation. The final paragraph of the letter demanded answers, with the threat of a media campaign against TP Automotive as an inducement.

Apparently Tina Shields had decided to wage an all-out war against Shawn and Kurt Myers. Having been denied her own justice in 1997, she must have been waiting all these years for an opportunity to extract vicarious justice through others. No wonder she had appeared in New Hastings almost immediately after the incident between Shawn and Alyssa. Then she had decided to hit Shawn and his father from another front, by enlisting the help of Citizens for Corporate Truth.

Tina Shields had been a tragic figure in life; I feared that she might remain one in death. A group like Citizens for Corporate Truth would do nothing to alleviate or resolve the situation. I had seen their variants at work before; and I knew that all of their moves would be clumsy and self-serving. They would not compel Kurt and Shawn to make a public confession of their sins. They would, however, heighten the Myers’ vigilance, making them even more suspicious.

I realized that the task of protecting Donna and Alyssa had just become exponentially more difficult. Now TP Automotive would be looking for betrayal everywhere. And who would be more likely to betray them than an outsider who had recently had a physical confrontation with one from among their ranks?

I heard the door click open. I glanced up and saw Shawn Myers step into the boardroom. I nodded briefly at him—no more than the minimal standards of professional courtesy required

“I see,” I said neutrally. As I spoke my next words, I made a point of ignoring Shawn. “But as I’ve already told you, Kurt, this sort of legal problem would really be better handled by Bernie Chapman or another qualified attorney. What does this group—and this letter—have to do with me?”

Kurt sighed. “I think you might already have some idea regarding the answer to that question.”

Shawn sat down beside Kurt. I was now alone in a meeting room with a man whom I believed to be a murderer, and a father whom I believed to be in some form of cahoots with his murdering son. Was honesty the best policy in a situation like this?