She leaned over and kissed him. “You’re cute when you worry.”
“Why are you so calm about this? When Kook and Cyn and Adam and Tank and I were doing this, we never figured out how to crack the Doubt Factory. Never. We figured out how we might have gotten inside, but after that Kook needed some way to get on the network, and for that we needed security keys.… It was a mess.”
“But we’re already further along than that,” Alix pointed out. “Anyway, I’m sure we’ll work it out. Dad knows I’m coming down to DC for vacation with Denise and Sophie, seeing the nation’s center of political gridlock and all that, and letting Denise check out Georgetown for the millionth time. He’s not going to even see this coming.”
Moses scowled. “You know what the problem with amateurs is?”
“Too much confidence?” Alix asked brightly.
“That’s right. Too much confidence.”
“You told me that last week.” She kissed him again. “I think you’re forgetting something, though.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“This time, you’ve got me.” She smiled so dazzlingly that Moses was almost fooled into believing their scheme would work.
“Mr. Banks? Your daughter is here to see you.”
Alix waited at the front reception, tapping her fingers on stainless steel. In her head, Moses’s instructions kept repeating themselves.
“Look at the tags for the security people. Pay attention to their uniforms. Watch how they make your visitor pass.”
The man smiled at her and said, “Elevator four.”
She went in and the doors closed. She’d never thought about how infuriating it was to have no buttons on the elevator, but right now it felt like a serious crimp. She could only swipe a building pass and then get on an assigned elevator and finally ride up to the preprogrammed floor.
So the first hurdle was to get inside the building, which was owned by some other company. Then to get access to the elevators, then to ride up to where Banks Strategy Partners was located on the tenth floor. Alix had grabbed Dad’s swipe card and office key at home, but they had no way of grabbing his computer password. Hence the keystroke logger.
“I can get us into the main office building, but after that it’s all on you. You’re the one who has to get passes for the elevators and keys for your dad’s offices,” Moses had said.
“How, exactly, do you break into an office building where you aren’t invited?”
“Don’t worry about it. I just need to bump into the right worker.”
“How is it that easy?”
Moses had laughed and held up her keys. Somehow, he’d gotten them out of her purse, while it was on her shoulder.…
“That’s amazing!”
“Here, let me see your bra.…”
That had led to a pleasant distraction.
Focus, Alix.
She rose up through the levels, fighting a feeling of claustrophobia in the button-less elevator.
This can work. This isn’t crazy. This can work.
She had the USB key in her pocket, loaded with the little virus. A simple keystroke logger. Nothing fancy. Not like the Stuxnet-modified worm that Kook had created before and taken with her when she left. Just something simple that most anyone could use with a little training. All Alix needed to do was get the logger onto the computer. Just a few mouse clicks on the right computer and she’d be done.
“Will it set off an alarm?”
“Kook wrote it before she left. It’s not something that’s out in the wild, so it’s got a good chance of sliding past their alarms.”
“How good is a ‘good chance’?”
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want.”
“I’m just asking.”
“It doesn’t report to anywhere else. It doesn’t try to get access to networks. It just wants to sit and listen right on the computer. It’s pretty innocuous, as far as viruses go. It’s the best chance we’ve got.”
“It just wants to listen,” Alix muttered to herself, trying to master the jittery energy that was popping just beneath her skin. “No one will notice.”
The elevator door slid aside and Dad came out to greet her, pushing through BSP’s emblazoned doors.
“Alix! Great to see you!”
He won’t see it coming from me. He won’t even know it’s happening.
Alix went into his arms and let him hug her while she checked for where the swipe cards unlocked the main office doors.
Hug him back, idiot.
Alix made her arms tighten around him, remembering how it had used to feel to be hugged by him, how safe and happy she’d felt. Now it felt more like being hugged by rose thorns. It was all she could do not to show how her skin crawled.
I know what you do.
She smiled brightly at him. “I thought I’d surprise you. You want to go out for lunch?”
“I’d love to! Just let me finish up an e-mail.”
He sounded so pleased and happy that Alix felt herself faltering, even as she followed him past reception and down the hall, past conference rooms and offices to his own corner office, looking out across DC toward the Washington Monument. She couldn’t really do this, could she?
The next kid like Tank is on you, she reminded herself.
She steeled herself for the next step.
“Oh, Dad, I almost forgot! Denise needed to print out some essays for her Georgetown interview. I told her I could print them here and get them to her. Is that okay? It’s just a PDF.”
“Sure, Alix.”
Alix hugged him and gushed. “Oh my God, you’re a lifesaver! Denise is going to love you forever.”
She fished the USB key out of her pocket. Smiled innocently. “Can you just print it?”
He didn’t even blink. He took the key and popped it into his computer.
Of course he did. He trusted her.
The file opened up.
Political Innovations in Cluny, France.
“Looks dry,” Dad commented.
Alix’s mouth sure felt dry. “Yeah. That’s the one.” She suddenly felt horribly and completely transparent, standing next to him, staring at the computer’s screen, wondering if Kook’s virus would work.
“Just one copy?” he asked.
“Um… I think she wanted two.”
Alix was sure he could hear her heart drumming out warnings of betrayal. She stared at the screen, trying not to look suspicious and feeling flagrantly so.
Nothing telltale happened. Which was good, Alix hoped. The virus was supposed to be stealthy. While they were looking at medieval European power in the church, Kook’s program was slicing through Dad’s computer defenses and setting up shop.
As least, that was the idea.
Either that or it was all a fantasy, and Kook wasn’t the hacker who had successfully rewritten a Stuxnet virus, and she wasn’t the girl who spent her late-night hours hacking Chase Manhattan for Eastern European credit card thieves. Maybe she was just a crazy girl in over her head, with a boy who wasn’t all he was cracked up to be, and Alix was about to set off every single alarm in the whole damn building.
Alix licked her lips, waiting for alarms and red flags. Sirens. Security guards. German shepherds. SWAT.
The printer began spitting out paper.
“I’ll just print out one more,” Dad said. “Just in case Denise spills coffee or anything.”
Alix looked up at her father, her heart thudding with wonder as everything went exactly as planned.
“You’re the best, Dad. Thanks.”
When she came out of her father’s building after lunch, she saw Moses. He was in jogging clothes with an ostentatious Bluetooth headset on his ear, and he was stalking back and forth on the far side of the street, doing stretches and pretending to be one of those pretentious people who liked to believe that everyone wanted a sampling of their oh-so-important conversation.
Alix crossed the street. He looked different. He’d done somet
hing with makeup to make himself look older. Small lines. A bit of gray at his close-cropped temples. It was amazing how makeup reshaped a person. It was a trick Adam had known how to do, Moses had said. That boy could make anyone look like anything. Give him a wig, a uniform, a little greasepaint, and a little foundation, and people’s faces changed.
And that was without even adding any latex. None of the real makeup craft of the theater. Adam had made Moses look legitimate enough as a driver of an eighteen-wheeler that they’d been able to hijack an entire shipment of rats, and drive it right out of a testing facility without raising alarms.
And now Moses was using Adam’s tricks again. Moses looked almost distinguished, except that he’d pulled his socks up on his calves, making himself look intentionally dorky. And that headband. Alix shook her head. Nothing like the Secret Service–style agent of cool who had whispered in her ear outside of Widener Hall when they’d first met. Nothing like the boy she was falling in love with.
Slow down, girl.
Moses turned away from her as she passed, ignoring her entirely, saying something into his headset—“don’t care who you have to get on the wheat-subsidies study group”—and then she was past him.
Amazing. His whole body language was different.
Alix kept walking. Moses would stay a little longer, making sure she wasn’t being followed. She’d protested that it wasn’t necessary, but Moses had just given her a bored look. “How about you trust the experts on this, huh?” And she’d subsided.
If everything went well, he’d be joining her soon. She abruptly turned around and flagged a cab. Another thing Moses had told her to do. Do something surprising, see if anyone gets startled.
A few minutes later she was sipping a skinny latte on the steps of the Library of Congress, looking across at the arrogant rise of the Capitol. The white dome stood against the blue sky. It was hot. She kept an eye out to see if anyone seemed to care about her, but, of course, no one did.
A half hour later, Moses ambled down the street and joined her. Relaxed in a suit jacket, no tie, looking like any one of a million other government workers.
“Well?” He leaned against the concrete wall. “How did it go? Did you figure out which computers we’ll need to install this on?”
Alix grinned and tossed him the USB key. Moses grabbed for it and barely caught it.
“It’s already done,” she said.
She couldn’t help laughing as Moses gaped in surprise.
“I told you. I’m your secret weapon.”
39
IN THE HEART OF THE DOUBT FACTORY, a series of alerts began popping up on the company’s central servers.
One by one, notifications appeared on cell phones and workstations in a variety of offices around DC, and people whose job it was to pay attention began paying attention.
At Williams & Crowe’s regional office, a nondescript building in Arlington, Lisa Price checked her phone as a message arrived.
Five minutes later she was pushing through glass doors emblazoned with the words Data Integrity Monitoring. A Williams & Crowe computer-security technician was staring at a slew of warnings and alarm messages.
“What do we have?”
“Not sure yet. Something running on the servers at BSP. Cerberus flagged it and sent the alert.”
“Do we know who did it?”
“Cerberus diagnostics says it came from… a Mr. Simon Banks’s workstation. It’s also under his login.” He pointed as a new window opened up. “Now Portcullis just flagged it, too.”
“Call and get me a rundown of everyone who’s in the building.”
The technician picked up his phone and started making calls as Lisa scrutinized the rest of the diagnostic information their security alert had sent.
“This is a pretty sleek virus,” Lisa said.
The tech hung up from his calls. “Sneaky as hell, for sure. We’re running pattern matching now. It looks a little like code that was used to go after online commerce sites a couple years ago. Estonian, we think.”
“What did we ever do to Estonia?”
The tech smirked. “Decided not to use the chip-and-pin system?” He popped open another screen. “And here we go.… Beltway Properties is sending us their K Street building’s access data now. Let’s see who went up to Banks Strategy Partners… tenth floor.”
They both scanned the names. Lisa frowned. Under VISITORS…
“Oh, Alix,” Lisa murmured. “What have you gotten yourself involved in?”
“Do you want me to shut this down?”
“Yeah. Kill it.”
The tech nodded. “We don’t have remote access—all we’re getting is the radio SOS from the system. I’ll have to send a team to go over everything.”
“No! Wait!” Lisa gripped his shoulder. “Don’t do anything yet. Let it run. Send someone over to pull a copy, but let it run for now. There’s no way Alix is working on her own. Maybe there’s a way we can use this to our advantage.”
“What about BSP?”
“Get a team to analyze just how bad this is. After that, I’ll talk to Banks myself. With his daughter involved, he’ll need some convincing.” She grimaced. “But call George Saamsi. He’ll understand the client situation. Bring him up to speed on everything. After that, I’ll decide how to talk to Banks.”
Lisa wasn’t looking forward to the conversation. Banks would have to be notified that he had a serious breach and that his daughter was the source. And that there were more interests involved than just his personal family issues. He’d be in denial.
Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone, Alix? Lisa thought. You had such a bright future.
“You’re sure we should let this run?” the tech asked.
“The system’s cut off from the outside, right?”
He nodded reluctantly.
“Then it’s harmless as is. I want to talk to people higher up first. Until we have a strategy to protect our clients permanently, I don’t want to frighten off our little secret mole. Let her think she’s succeeding. If we play this right, we have a chance to wrap up 2.0 once and for all.”
Tonight, she’d need to talk to Mr. Banks and explain to him the situation with his daughter. Maybe Saamsi could help him understand the gravity of the situation.
Lisa paused. Or was it Banks himself? Could he be compromised as well? She considered the possibility because she was trained to follow paranoia down to the worst possible outcomes, but she decided it was unlikely.
Banks wouldn’t need a sneaky little Estonian program to grab anything he wanted. The man could do whatever he liked and cover his tracks easily. No, it was his daughter who was the security threat. And behind her…
“Hello, 2.0,” Lisa murmured. “This time, I’m not going to miss.”
40
“JUST FOLLOW MY LEAD,” MOSES murmured as they rode the elevator from the parking garage level.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Alix asked as she tried to keep her mop and yellow bucket from banging against the elevator doors. They were both dressed in good approximations of the gray jumpsuit uniforms that Beltway Properties cleaning staff wore, purchased at a supply store in the city that afternoon. “This feels risky.”
Moses smiled conspiratorially and for a second the seriousness that he’d been carrying lightened. “Trust a uniform, Alix. People love to trust uniforms.”
“Then they shouldn’t make buying them so easy.”
Moses lifted the security badge that he’d pickpocketed off another custodian in the parking garage. “They also trust badges.”
“Well, they better not look too closely, or someone’s going to notice you’re not the same black dude as the one on the tag.”
“They won’t look,” Moses said. “They’ll know they can trust me.”
“I hope you’re right.”
The elevator doors opened, revealing the polished lobby of 609 K Street. Across the lobby, a security guy was sitting behind the central desk
pulling his own night shift.
They pushed their mops and buckets across the open lobby, ignoring the guy. Alix suppressed an urge to whistle innocently.
Just two custodians pushing their mop buckets, just two people getting their job done and heading home. No need to think about us. No need to worry.
As they got close to the elevators, Alix had a horrible urge to look over at the security guy.
Moses seemed to read her mind. “Try looking sleepy and bored and like you wish you weren’t here. And keep your head low. You don’t want the cameras to see your face,” he advised quietly.
“I know,” Alix whispered back. “I’m the one who told you where the cameras are.”
“My girlfriend thinks she knows about surveillance.”
“Your girlfriend knows how to study up.”
She realized what he’d done as they reached the elevators. He’d completely distracted her as they made their way across the lobby. Forcing her to forget the audaciousness of what they were doing.
She swiped her father’s key card in the elevator, and the doors opened. “Floor ten,” she breathed. “Going up.”
To Moses, it felt claustrophobic, standing in the elevator without any buttons or controls. Just polished stainless steel, a little prison box like the one his uncle had ended up in. Their reflections were distorted, both of them looking bloated and alien in their uniforms, with their yellow plastic mop buckets. He reached to hold Alix’s hand and felt a jolt of comfort from the contact. He stared at their polished steel reflections, trying to calm himself and stay focused on the job.
As the elevator rose, carrying them to the place that had become his obsession, Moses wondered if he was making a mistake by risking Alix in this way.
Is that where this ends? Moses wondered. Am I going to jail?
Even if it worked, what was supposed to happen next? Another heist? Was he supposed to go all WikiLeaks and end up as a hunted whistle-blower? The FBI already wanted him. How long before the wrong people decided to devote real energy to finding him?
Or maybe he was just going to end up in a box, six feet under. Another number in all the statistics of black men that his father had warned him about and that his mother had feared. Don’t end up like your cousin. Don’t end up like so-and-so’s nephew—