Chapter 5:// Icarus-Seven

Jon Ross raced his Audi A8 sedan onto the Alcyone Insurance corporate campus, then quickly slowed down as he noticed several police cruisers and unmarked cars near the lobby doors. He turned down his music—a relentlessly pounding techno track—and motored at a more civilized speed past the squad cars. Interesting. No flashing lights, though.

Ross headed for the parking garage.

In a few minutes his voice was echoing across the granite-floored lobby as he approached the security desk. “Hey, Alejandro.”

Alejandro smiled. “Jon, my boy. How’re you doin’ tonight?”

Ross swiped his consultant’s badge and signed the after-hours access list. “What’s with the police cars?”

“Oh, there was a computer break-in. The cops are down in the data center.”

Ross stopped writing. He looked up. “A break-in?”

“Yeah. It’s something, what these people can do. It’s all computers nowadays.” Alejandro leaned closer to Ross. “Ted Wynnik was askin’ about you. I won’t tell nobody I saw you if you want to clear out.”

Ross finished signing in. He smiled. “Thanks, but not necessary. It was probably some twelve-year-old kid.”

Ross headed down the clean white corridor of B2. Soon he reached the accounting department’s data center and slid his badge through the reader. The door clicked open, and he moved briskly toward his office at the far wall. Then he slowed. The lights were on in his office. He forced himself not to stop and instead resumed a normal walking pace.

He opened his office door and was greeted by the sight of two severely groomed men in inexpensive suits and comfortable shoes sitting on the edge of his desk. One was a Latino, the other Caucasian, but they shared the same humorless expression. Hadi Sarkar, the night-shift data center supervisor, sat at Ross’s keyboard, pecking away behind them. He turned somewhat sheepishly to face Ross.

One of the clean-cut men reached into his jacket and withdrew credentials, which he flipped open. “Jonathan Ross?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Special Agent Straub. This is Special Agent Vasquez. We’d like to ask you a few questions about last night. Your colleague, Hadi here, has been able to shed some light on things, but he tells us you’re the real expert.”

Ross glared at Sarkar and put his laptop case down on the desk. “I’m happy to help any way I can. What’s all this about?”

“You were present in Alcyone’s data center last night?”

“I was working under contract for another department, but Hadi requested my help. His development servers had become infected with what appeared to be a kernel rootkit.”

“And you have experience with computer viruses?”

Ross paused. He had to be careful here. “Look, I’m a database consultant. Computer security is part of my job. I know what I need to know.”

“Why did you make Hadi and his coworkers promise not to tell anyone about your help?”

“Because I was breaking the rules to help Hadi. That endangered my contract here. I made that clear to him.”

“So you were asking Hadi to lie on your behalf?”

“I was asking him not to tell people that I was doing his job.”

Sarkar jumped in. “I was requesting advice merely, Jon.”

Ross folded his arms. “Hadi, your exact words were that you had tried everything you could think of and wanted my help.” He turned back to Agent Straub. “A rogue process somewhere in his data center was broadcasting packets to the Web last night. Hadi couldn’t find it. The process was incredibly stealthy—possibly a kernel rootkit.”

Sarkar shook his head emphatically. “There is no way to hide the source of network traffic, Jon. I told you this.”

“Well, the test bed servers were definitely involved. Test servers are usually the weakest on security. They have beta software and they’re frequently reconfigured. So I had Hadi kill Icarus servers one through ten, and the packet broadcast stopped—even though it wasn’t supposed to be originating from there.”

Agent Straub nodded, taking notes. “So you knew right where to look, then….”

“That wasn’t my point.”

Agent Vasquez ignored the discussion and picked up the phone. He dialed while Ross glanced at the computer screen. Sarkar had the Event Viewer maximized. “I see we’re starting the hunt on my machine.”

Straub slid his credentials back into his suit pocket. “We haven’t ruled out an inside job.”

“Of course. Forget the fact that I was the one who advised Hadi to shut that system down. Hardly something I’d do if I was the one running the exploit.”

“You might, if you realized it had been discovered. It seems convenient that due to your involvement, the hard drives were erased.”

Ross was poker-faced. “The rootkit destroyed the machine when I tried to shut it down. In any event, FBI forensics can reconstruct data from a wiped drive.”

Vasquez hung up the phone. “They want us in the main data center.”

 

As they moved down the hallway, Sarkar kept groaning softly and shaking his head. Ross didn’t take the bait. Sarkar finally muttered, “Jon, I had no choice but to tell them.”

“Hadi, I’ve been in this business long enough to know better.“ Ross knew that no good deed goes unpunished, and though he hadn’t technically done anything wrong, helping Sarkar out with his little problem could result in the loss of his contract with Alcyone. Or worse, he thought, eyeing their FBI escort.

“They were asking questions about what we did. This is the FBI, not human resources. They talked to us separately, and I knew that Maynard would mention you. Jon, what was I supposed to do? I do not wish to get deported.”

Ross grimaced. “I should have known better than to get involved, Hadi.”

“I am not a Muslim. I am a Hindu. You will tell them, won’t you?”

Ross didn’t respond.

Sarkar looked genuinely pained. “I am sorry, Jon.”

“Ted Wynnik probably called the Feds in to force Accounting’s hand and have my contract canceled. He doesn’t like having people down here who don’t answer to him.”

“Ted didn’t call the FBI, Jon.”

“Then who did? You?”

“No one did.”

Ross stopped walking. “What do you mean?”

“They came here on their own. Because of what the Icarus-Seven server did.”

Ross looked back to the FBI agents. Straub motioned for him to keep moving.

Just what have I gotten involved in here? Ross wondered.

 

There were a lot of people in the data center. It was almost acceptably warm as a result. Sarkar’s boss, Ted Wynnik, leaned against a counter, glowering beneath thick eyebrows as he listened to two techs Ross hadn’t seen before. This was probably the A-team—the daytime shift. They looked at Ross with the special contempt reserved for young consultants.

Half a dozen uniformed Woodland Hills police officers were in here along with more FBI agents. They were talking with a network admin—a pear-shaped guy with bad skin. He was probably Maynard. Pear-shaped pointed at various server racks enthusiastically. At least someone was enjoying this.

What happened?

As soon as Ross entered the room, everyone stopped talking and turned to face him. The sudden silence was almost embarrassing because Ross knew he had none of the answers they were looking for. He decided to ask the obvious question. “Anybody want to tell me what’s going on?”

All eyes turned to someone behind Ross, so he spun on his heel to face a trim man in a crisp suit. The guy looked like a fifty-year-old varsity quarterback. A leader of men.

“Mr. Ross. I’m Special Agent Neal Decker, L.A. Division. Do you know why we’re here?”

“Because of last night?”

Decker sized him up. It unnerved Ross that no one was talking.

But Decker was in no hurry. He finally placed his hand on a disconnected rack server sitting on the nearby counter. “They tell me this computer killed two men earlier today.”

The shock took a while to work through Ross. He had expected some sort of child pornography ring or a credit card scam. “Killed? How?”

“I was hoping you could help us explain that.”

“Why on earth would you think that?”

Decker smiled good-naturedly. “A lot of people are suspects right now. But once we get the people in here to help us interpret the evidence, we’ll know more. In the meantime, we’d like to take you gentlemen in for questioning.” His gaze spanned the room to include all the men who were present during the incident.

A wave of dread washed over Ross. “We’re not under arrest?”

“No. I’m asking you to voluntarily come in for questioning.”

Ross wondered what would happen if he said no. Of course, he couldn’t say no. What about a lawyer? “I must tell you, I’m just completely floored by this.”

“I’m certain you are.”

This guy was disconcertingly calm. He gave the impression that he knew more than he was letting on. Goddamnit.

Just then a man appeared at the glass data center door. He was the linebacker to match Decker as quarterback. His casual confidence seemed to indicate he wasn’t FBI—the agents here were all keyed up in Decker’s presence. No, this guy was an outsider to them. The man rapped on the glass, and a Woodland Hills patrolman opened the door for him. The newcomer showed a badge and was let inside.

“I’m looking for an Agent Decker.”

Decker and the FBI agents turned and moved forward, hands extended. “Detective Sebeck. We spoke on the phone.” They shook hands. Decker turned to some of his crew. “Agent Knowles, Agent Straub, Detective Sergeant Peter Sebeck, Ventura County Major Crimes Unit. Detective Sebeck was heading the murder investigation up in Thousand Oaks.” Handshakes all around.

Then everyone turned back to Ross.

Sebeck pointed at him. “Who’s this?”

Decker leaned against the counter. “This is Jon Ross, one of Alcyone’s independent computer consultants. He designs their corporate data systems. Isn’t that right, Mr. Ross?”

“Certain systems, yes. Not this one.”

“Is he a suspect or a witness?”

Ross thought it was a good question.

Decker was calm as ever. “That depends.” He looked to Ross. “Tell me, Mr. Ross, why is it that no one at your home address has ever heard of you?”

Damn it to hell….