Something Wicked

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
—Macbeth IV.i

It was ten after seven when I called Andi. It wasn’t a happy call.

“Hey! I cooked. When are you going to be here?” I loved the sound of her voice.

“Um, I got a little tied up at work,” I said. “I’m not sure I’ll make it.”

“Tied up?” I could hear the disappointment in her voice and it broke my heart.

“Well, it’s more like locked in.”

“Can’t you call someone to let you out?”

“I’m locked into a room that I’m probably not supposed to be in.”

“Probably?”

“Definitely.”

“Dag, what do you do for a living?” Andi was trying to make light of the situation while hiding her disappointment.

“I guess there’s nothing for it but to tell you. I’m a spy.”

“And the government has sent you undercover in a credit card company because they are suspected of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.” She was taking it well, but I had to be truthful with her. I wasn’t planning to make a practice of getting locked in places I shouldn’t be, but it was pretty likely that in the course of my career I’d be unable to keep personal appointments. It was just the nature of the business.

“Andi, you know I got a contract here, and that I’m not an employee, right?”

“Yes. I thought you were troubleshooting a computer network glitch.”

“More or less, that’s the story they gave out. I’m investigating ways to improve network security. But the truth is they sent me in here to find out who has their fingers in the till. I’m trying to track down someone who’s stealing from the company.”

“It’s never going to end, is it?” she said softly. “I thought the thing with Henderson was just because it personally affected you.” It was true that the Henderson case was personal. My retirement funds were part of the money that was missing. But the deeper into computer forensics I got, the more likely I’d be dealing with cases like this.

“Well, when it looks like you’re an expert in a field, then others line up to use you, I guess.” What’s an expert anyway? As far as I could tell, it’s just a guy who guesses right twice in a row.

“What can I do? Can I bring you dinner? No I suppose that won’t work unless you’re just locked in the women’s restroom. You aren’t are you? I didn’t think so. Is there an outside latch I could open? Should I call someone for you? I could create a distraction outside the office if you need.” Andi had suddenly shifted into Cali mode. I understood now that it was a method of coping with information that was flooding her brain. I became just a little more aware of how her daughter’s mind worked.

“Andi, I’ll find a way out of here. It just might take me a while. I don’t do a dangerous job, I just got stuck. I’m sorry I can’t join you for dinner.” I really was sorry. Right now I couldn’t imagine what I was thinking in doing this before I went home tonight. It’s that single-mindedness that takes over when I start working on a puzzle.

“Me too.” I could hear the hurt in her voice and it had to match my own. I couldn’t ignore the way she made my heart race, even over the phone.

“Andi, is this serious?”

“Oh no. I’ll eat my share of dinner and the rest I’ll refrigerate. Cali always comes home from rehearsal hungry.”

“I don’t mean dinner, Andi. I mean us. Are we really more than friends? Because I think I’m falling in love with you and if you think I shouldn’t, I’d like to know that before it gets worse.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you said that before we had sex. I mean, not that we’re going to have sex. Yet. It’s just nice to know that you feel that way before, or without, or… I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time,” she blurted out. That surprised me. Then again, maybe it shouldn’t I’d been feeling closer and closer to her for months. I could feel my face stretch into a grin.

“I’m really sorry I’m not there for dinner now.”

“If you get lonely, all locked up there by yourself, you can call me anytime.”

“Thanks. I should get started figuring out a way to get out of here. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Yeah. Later.”

Oh yeah. Later.

***

I needed to get out of this room. I was almost willing to crash the doors and let the alarm sound. Almost, but not quite. It was just that the thought of Andi saying she’d loved me… I really needed to get out of here.

I could see the setup pretty clearly. As with most robotic manufacturing rooms, this one was extremely clean and the air conditioning kept it at about 68 degrees if I judged the temperature correctly. Some of the equipment generated a lot of heat. The robots were controlled by their own set of computers in a room on one side that I guessed was probably kept even colder. These computers were not on the company network or a part of the cloud. In order to keep customer data protected, the secure computers had no connections to the Intranet or Internet. The workstations in the offices on the 12th floor were slaves to these powerful computers. I’d have to do some investigating to find out how information on customers was eventually connected to billing and customer service. There had to be a physical medium involved since these weren’t connected to the network.

The room room with the computers was also secured behind a door with a keypad lock. With the information that I now possessed, I knew that if I had the keypad code, I could steal all the customer data I wanted from the company and it was unlikely it would be detected for weeks or even months. Unfortunately, I lacked the keypad code, so it was a moot point.

I had few options. I was sealed in a locked room.

I went back to observing how the equipment worked to see if there was a way I could use any of it. There was a freight elevator that had a door on this floor, but the call buttons had the same keypad lock on them that the doors had. Apparently all raw materials came up in that elevator and all finished letters went down in it. There were no apparent robotics for moving the boxes of finished mail that were stacked on palettes as they came off the conveyor belt. That meant that workers had to enter the room at some point to load the material in the elevator and actually do the shipping at the post office. The palettes were nearly full, so I began to wonder what time the night shipping crew arrived.

I looked for all the usual ways to get out of a room. The heating ducts and air vents were twenty feet overhead. The few places where the ceiling was only one story high were behind locked doors like the computer room. I sat in a corner near the door and pulled out my tablet, connecting remotely to my company laptop in the office. From there I began searching for access codes in the manufacturing center. Wherever they were located, they were well-guarded. It looked like I’d found the one truly secure place in the company.

So I started thinking about how a thief could capitalize on this security. I’d always thought that a thief would try to spot the least secure access to what they wanted. But perhaps that was the wrong attitude. The most secure part of a system could become the weakest simply because of its impregnability. With access to this room, I could have access to any credit card being created on the system. If I waited until the card was packaged and ready for mailing, I could have the card, the cardholders address, and the security information. Technically, it was a postal offense since the last machine in the line stamped postage on the sealed envelopes. If I was stealing credit cards, I don’t think I’d hesitate at robbing the postal system.

But there were other options as well. I could launch an attack on an entire range of cards, in fact, essentially make cards that appeared valid, by just taking one good card off the conveyer belt. It was called a BIN attack. The Bank Identification Number is contained in the first 12 digits of a credit card. With one card, especially a newly released card, I could simply change the last four digits of the card, keep the same expiry date, and advance the CCV code. Five sequential cards would show me any variance the system had put in place to keep customer codes and CCV codes from advancing at the same pace. I could sit at a computer and order cash advances on each of my dummy cards for an hour, close my accounts and strip my computer of all records, then fly to South America with the cash.

I’d always held that if I was in the same room as a computer, I could own all the data on the computer. This was a step up. Being in the same room with the manufacturing equipment for bank cards, I could own a slice of the banking world.

Back on the tablet, I changed my search parameters for the log of who went through the security doors into this room. I assumed that it was limited to the technicians who did maintenance on the equipment and the shipping clerks who moved the raw materials and finished products in and out of the room. But there was always a chance that someone else was helping themselves to untraceable credit card information. I concluded my search parameters by having the results emailed to me at one of my POP accounts and erase the search spiders from the network. I didn’t want to leave evidence on the company laptop.

Before I got results back from the search, I heard the electronic lock on the door next to me click. I flattened myself back behind the frame where I was partially sheltered from a direct sightline. Two technicians in white lab suits opened the door and headed straight for the shipping area. Before the door snapped closed, I’d squeezed out through it and was in the hall. I scraped my miniature RFID reader off the bottom of the card reader and got out of Dodge.

***

I didn’t stay around to see if the cameras had picked me up. As long as I hadn’t tripped any alarms, the video would never be looked at. I went to the main lobby, switched elevators and flashed my ID at the elevator’s after hours reader to head to my 23rd floor office. It should look like I had just come back to the office to pick something up. Tomorrow was my day to work remotely, so I needed my equipment.

I closed things up, took the laptop and headed up the hill. On the way I called Andi.

“’Lo?” Her voice sounded groggy and I glanced at my phone. Damn! It was nearly midnight. She’d been asleep.

“Sorry, Sweetheart. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Dag? Are you okay?”

“Yes. Just wanted to let you know I got out and am on my way home.”

“Okay. Stop by before you go up.”

“You don’t need to get up. You can just go back to sleep.”

“No. I really want to see you. Don’t knock. I’ll watch for you at the door.”

“Okay. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. By comparison, my time in the manufacturing room had flown by. I was panting up a storm by the time I’d walked up across the freeway on Olive and turned onto Summit to get home. I passed the giant sequoia in front of my building and practically ran up Andi’s steps. I was huffing and puffing like crazy after the fast walk uphill.

True to her word, Andi opened the door as soon as I stepped up on the porch. She was wearing a plush bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, but it looked like she’d just brushed out her hair.

“You really didn’t have to wait up for me,” I said as she came into my arms.

“Shh. I don’t think Cali’s asleep. I didn’t wait up. I was a sleep. But I wanted to see you.”

“Not that I object, but why so urgent?”

“Because I said something on the phone that I shouldn’t have.” My heart fell. There was only one thing she’d said that I could think she might regret. I braced myself for the worst. She looked me straight in the eyes and I nearly fell into them. “The first time you tell someone you love them, it should be face to face, not on the phone. I love you, Dag Hamar.” With that, she closed the distance between us and pressed her lips against mine. I was lost in her kiss. When we parted, I caught my breath for a moment then started to speak.

“Andi…” She pushed her finger against my lips.

“Shhh. I don’t want any ‘me toos.’ When you tell me, I want it to be first.” With that she kissed me again and pushed me toward the door. “Sweet dreams, Dag,” she said, brushing my ear with her lips. I stumbled across the lawn to my own back steps and looked back in time to see the porch light go out.

Sweet dreams, indeed.