The Inside Passage (Ted Higuera Series Book 1) (32 page)

Pendelton
C. Wallace

12/20/2013

On
board the sailing vessel
Victory

La Paz, Mexico

Coming Soon . . .

Continue to follow
Ted and Chris’ adventures in
Hacker for Hire.

Hacker for Hire
takes place immediately after Ted and Chris return to Seattle from their
adventures on the
Inside Passage
.

Hacker for Hire
is a story of corporate greed and industrial espionage. Computer security
analyst Ted Higuera is hired by a large corporation to find a leak in their
corporate boardroom when the previous investigator is found floating in Elliot Bay. Can Ted find the killer before the killer finds him? Will he be free to find the
killer when the DA presses charges for felony computer trespass in the first
degree?

Enjoy a preview of
the first chapter.

Hacker for Hire
will be available in the summer of 2014.

Hacker For Hire

By

Pendelton C. Wallace

Chapter 1

Justin McCormack
pulled his long brown hair back into a pony tail, curled it on top of his head
and secured it with hair pins. He gently lifted the blonde wig from a Styrofoam
form and fitted it to his head. He fussed and fretted with the wig for a
moment, then reached for a jar of spirit gum. After slathering a layer on his
upper lip with the applicator under the jar’s lid, he pasted a blonde Fu Manchu
mustache into place. Finally, he spirit gummed his chin and added the goatee.

He felt a tingling
in the pit of his stomach. Nerves or excitement? It didn’t matter. The
adrenaline would kick in any minute.

He stopped and
took a breath, then looked around his bathroom. He had worked hard to afford
this expensive condo overlooking Seattle’s Pike Place Market. He arranged his
bathroom like the rest of his life, everything in its place. Thick white towels
hung from brass racks, the few medications and cosmetics neatly stored away in
drawers and cabinets alongside protein powder and vitamin supplements.

He washed the
spirit gum off of his hands and gazed into the brass-rimmed mirror that matched
the art deco theme of the building. He removed his bathrobe and liked what he
saw. His muscles bulged, his six-pack abs gave him a little thrill. He had
worked as hard for this body as he had for his profession.

Stepping back,
Justin admired his handiwork.
Not perfect, not good enough yet.
Although
he hoped that no one knew what he looked like, he had been on enough TV shows
and magazines that he couldn’t take the chance.

He leaned close
into the mirror and inserted blue contact lenses to cover his brown eyes.
That
should do it.

This job could
be a life changer
. He already had all the money he needed, but if he pulled
this off, he'd be famous. No, not if he pulled it off,
when
he pulled it
off.

Justin stepped
into his bedroom where blue coveralls laid neatly on his king-sized bed. A pair
of shinny black work shoes rested on the floor.

Justin reached for
the coveralls.
Damn that Bear.
The coveralls were a size “L.” Could he
squeeze into them? The legs weren’t a problem. A little tight, but not too
short. The top was another story. The fabric strained against the buttons. His
chest and shoulders were just too massive for this outfit. He would be lucky if
he didn’t pop the buttons loose when he breathed.
I’ll kill the little
bastard for this. After seven years he knows damn good and well I’m an XL.

He sat on the bed,
carefully bent over and pulled on the shoes.

If this is the
worst thing that happens today, I’ll be lucky.

Butterflies
fluttered in his stomach while he waited for the elevator. At the front steps
of his building, a white van with a Rainer Office Supply sign painted on the
side pulled up to the curb, exactly on time. A short stocky man with a
reddish-blonde beard and unruly hair got out of the driver’s seat.

“Coffee?” The man
handed Justin a Starbucks cup.

“Get in, Bear.”
Justin took the cup and slipped behind the wheel.

Justin glanced
back over his shoulder. “Good morning, Irena,” he said. A tattoo-covered blonde
woman with a crew cut, wearing a baggy blue jump suit sat in the back seat.

Their eyes met and
without answering him she covered her head with a New York Yankees baseball
cap. They drove the few blocks to the Millennium Towers in nervous silence.

Are we out of
our minds?
One of the largest computer companies in the world, Millennium
Systems security was world class.
And that, my friend, is the challenge.

Justin steered the
van into the underground garage and parked in a reserved stall, his hands
sweaty on the wheel. He climbed out of the van, took a deep breath and wiped
his palms on the seat of his pants. His heart pounded wildly. Using the old
actor’s trick, he tensed every muscle in his body, then slowly released the
tension, bit by bit. First his toes, then his feet, then his calves, then
thighs and up his body. He breathed deeply several more times, letting his
diaphragm do the work.

This was it: 
Showtime.

****

“Hey, hero.” The
husky, gray-bearded bus driver turned and shouted over his shoulder. “Your
stop’s coming up.”

“Thanks, Garry.”
Ted Higuera folded his newspaper and stood up.

“Good luck, hero.”
The bus driver held his hand out, palm up.

I wish he’d
stop calling me that.
Ted slapped his hand. “
Gracias
.”

Stepping down from
the green and yellow Metro bus, Ted entered into Pioneer Square. He turned his
jacket collar up against the light mist. In East LA, where he grew up, they
would call this rain. In Seattle, the natives hardly even noticed it.

 The Square was
full of families and late-season tourists milling about. Business people
hustled back and forth. Tonight, after the yuppie crowd took over, Pioneer Square would become Party Central.

Caramba.
Ted thought, not for the first time, that he’d rather be heading to one of the
Square’s famous night spots. It was his first day at his first job out of
college. He should be excited, but something held him back.

“Mom, look!” A
small boy, maybe nine or ten years old pointed at Ted. “It’s him. The man from
TV who saved that cruise ship.”

“Charlie,” his
hatchet-faced mother admonished. “You know it’s not polite to point.”

“Hell, Shelly,
Charlie’s right.” The father, a short, round, bald man in a leather jacket,
reached his hand out to Ted. “I want to shake your hand.”

Ted hated all the
attention he was getting. Too polite to refuse, he took the man’s hand.

The man pulled him
close and clapped him on the back. “It’s about time somebody stood up to them
damn terrorists.”

“Oh, my.” A heavy
gray-haired woman saw Ted. She stood eye to eye with him and probably
out-weighed him by forty pounds.

Her eyes
immediately teared up. She threw her arms around him and pulled him into her
ample bosom. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Ted wanted to
break away, to run.

“My grand children
were on that boat. You saved their lives.”

“I really didn’t
do anything,” Ted said.
Yeah,
he fought back tears of his own,
except
get my friends shot up.
He managed to extricate himself from the death hug.

A crowd gathered
around him, a phenomenon that happened more and more these days. Well wishers
patted him on the back and introduced their children. Smart phones were shoved
in his face as pretty girls posed for a selfie with him. This was the full
rock-star treatment.

I gotta get
outta here.
He broke free. “Thank you, everybody. I gotta go. I’m late for
work.”

Breaking away from
the crowd, his steps echoed across the cobbled square as he passed under the
iron pergola. He picked up his pace. His admirers fell behind.

Crossing Yesler
Street, he made his way to the restored nineteenth century brick building that
housed YTS Digital Security, his new employer.

What the hell,
I’m about to join the workforce.
Isn’t this what the last four years had
been all about? Graduate, get a job, get ahead. It was the American dream.

What every kid
from the
barrio
wanted, right? So why did he feel so damned disjointed?

****

Showtime!

Justin and his two
helpers pushed wooden carts stacked with cubicle components through the service
entrance. They took the service elevator to the thirty-second floor. Bear’s
fingers drummed on the cart handle.

“Schtop it!” Irena
spoke for the first time. Her voice was just below a shriek.

The elevator doors
opened unto an immense sea of cubicles. Justin knew that surveillance cameras
in the ceiling watched his every move. He timed their visit for mid-morning.
The day had begun. An army of drones moved about busily, with purpose, a hive
of orchestrated activity.

Justin could feel
his pulse in his ears. After a brief surveillance, he found what he was looking
for. He pushed his cart towards an empty office along the wall. He looked
around again. No one seemed to notice them. Bear sullenly pushed his cart
behind Justin, trailed by Irena. 

Irena entered the
office first. Justin held his breath. She looked around then gave a slight nod.
He entered, followed by Bear.

Irena and Bear
pushed their carts in front of the office windows and began piling boxes on top
of the carts, screening off the view from the outside. Justin sat down behind
the empty desk. He looked around nervously even though no one outside the
office could see him.

It took only a
moment for Justin to orient himself to the strange desk. He cracked his
knuckles, reached down and turned on the computer. While it booted up, he found
the number for Millennium System’s help desk taped to the computer monitor. It
really didn’t matter. Justin already had it memorized.

Last week, when
his team cased the building, they learned all they needed to know. Bear
discovered the company’s login ID convention was first initial, middle initial
and the first four characters of the last name. Irena found out the
department’s manager, John Potter, would be on vacation in Hawaii this week.

That tidbit of
information led Justin to do a Google search on John Potter, middle name Allan.

On the screen,
Justin typed in “JAPOTT” and hit the “enter” key. As expected, an “incorrect
password” message appeared. He tried the login twice more. The screen said:

Access denied.
Your account has been locked.

Please contact the
system administrator.

 Justin took a
deep breath, forced a smile onto his face, picked up the phone and called the help
desk number.

“You have reached the Millennium
Systems Help Desk,” the recorded voice said in perfect English. “We have added
several new menu options to improve our service. Please listen to this entire
message before making your selection. For password re-sets, press one. . .”            Justin
pushed “one.”

“Millennium Systems Help Desk,
this is Hamsa, how may I help you?” Her accent was thick, but understandable.

This is it.
The most critical part of the job. He had to sound casual, at ease.

“Good morning
Hamsa, this is John Potter in Seattle.” Justin knew that a help desk agent in Bangalore had never heard of John Potter. “I just got back from vacation and I don’t
remember what I set my password to before I left. Can you help me?”

“Of course, John.
I need first to ask you a security question through.”

Justin forced a
smile. He had learned long ago that his voice was more likeable when he smiled.
“Sure, go ahead.”

Irena had attended
the International Help Desk Institute’s seminar in Seattle last month. In a
long blonde wig, short skirt and tight sweater it was child’s play for her to
learn about Millennium Systems’ security questions from their Help Desk
manager.

“I guess a week on
the Big Island is worth a little hassle, huh?” Acting friendly with the help
desk agent was a big part of social engineering. Justin had to put her at ease
so she was less likely to question his identity.

“John, what is the
name of your wife?” the voice on the phone asked in its heavy Indian accent.

“It’s Sandra.”

In his Google
search Justin found all sorts of interesting information about John Potter. He
thought back to a picture of Mr. Potter and his wife at a fund raiser with the
caption “John and Sandra Potter dance the night away at the Black and White
Ball.”

“OK, John. I’m
resetting your password to ‘Wednesday’ with a capital ‘W.’ You will need to
re-set it as soon as you log on.”

“Thanks, Hamsa.”

That was it. He
was in. He had the keys to the kingdom.

From John Potter’s
account, it was child’s play for Justin to shell into the operating system. He
had spent a lifetime stalking Windows vulnerabilities. In five minutes he set
up a system administrator account for himself. Now, as far as Millennium
Systems was concerned, he was God.