"Love on the Run"

[Alexander Tau]

Chapter 15



It took the Bank 8 hours to close the hole and kill our virus. All traces of what we did were buried in a rather clever way. We had dumped a whole lot of transactions into their system along with the ones we actually needed. Most of their business accounts had money flipped around as if we were playing a prank.

For example we took 10,123 from a gas station account and put it in the drug store account. Buried in hundreds of things like that were our 10 money transfers. Many of the harmless transactions involved over one million dollars.

Not a single personal account was touched. I just feel like I should mention that. Frank picked the accounts we stole from. Mostly they were investment funds the Bank maintains. All were covered by insurance. We committed a major felony I freely admit it. But we did not hurt anyone.

Robin Hood I am not but there was no reason to cause any one problems. The Bank would sort it out and everyone would be find in a couple of days at most.

All of the money transfers went to cities west of us. Frank had explained how there were ways to move money around that we could use. If the amounts are big enough you can get anything done. So our transfer goes to a Bank that produces a cashier's check. Along with the transfer is a code. Anyone with the code can get the money. From temp services and courier companies Frank arraigned to have the money move towards PO Boxes in other cities.

We made the first two pick-ups in the next two days.

'So this is what it feels like to be a successful criminal.' As I sit and look at over 1 million dollars in a small set of piles.

I suppose most people would have been pleased. I was pleased with my team. They had done well to get us this far. Mostly I did want to let them down. Money gives you choices and I hoped I was making the right ones.

We dumped all the vehicles except the big truck. That we had repainted. This time we went with a large minivan and a 2 door sedan. More upscale this time as both of the vehicles were almost new. The big truck got a very slick although not dramatic paint job. Now we looked like a successful dirt racing team.

When Mark wanted to get some riding gear I agreed. I was a bit worried about my buddy. Most of my friends had some sort of experience in high stress situations. Mark was a dreamer and more of a big kid than he would ever admit. So far Frank and Kat's attempts to teach him to shoot were.. let's just say not going well how about that?

He has skills I can use. But if I can find a way to get him out of this cleanly I should take it. But will I?

Heading north Frank and Kat got to work setting up some meetings. They would cross over into Canada and get some things that are hard to find in the US.

Guns of course.

Most of what we bought went into a little cabin we also purchased. I did not want to have an armory on wheels with us so we took what we needed for the time being. Fully auto MP5s and an array of pistols for everyone who could handle them. Kat got some special autoloading shotguns for Sonya and Abby over my objections.

At least I tried to object. The three girls had formed a tight unit already and their arguments were fast and well coordinated.

“Hey people are shooting at us too!” Abby objects.

“I know how to handle a gun just as well as you mister.” from Sonya

“They are staying boss and they can handle the weapons.” tosses in Kat with a sly smile.

I threw up my hands and said, “Fine!”

We got a few other little surprises for later use as well. As a former cop I was distressed to see what could be obtained if you only had the money. The price tag was well over $300,000.

They asked us if we wanted a tank. T-72 Soviet made, one owner. I'm not kidding.

I said no.

[Alexander Tau]

Chapter 16


I had all the pieces I needed now. Money, weapons, people and enough data to start doing something.

We needed to know more than we did. To find out what we needed I had two plans. The first was simple. I was going to hand Mike, Wyn, and Neal more computer power than they had ever seen and set them to hacking the crap out of some specific places. I felt certain that the effort would yield quite a bit but even the most optimistic assessment was not going to be enough.

We were going to need more and that could only come from a person. One of them. The models that my team was using to identify potential alien families seemed to be pretty good. But without a way to test it we could not be certain.

What we did know was that Isabelle's family as one of our targets. They were east of us and I did not want to go after them, yet. But her father had a brother and he lived in Seattle. His family matched the profile exactly. Even better the man had a son who was about 26 years old. He had been arrested twice for beating up two different women.

Just perfect. Maybe I am just old fashioned but men who beat on women make my trigger finger itch.

I hoped the guy did not run with a lot of security. That could get messy. But he was the perfect target so we were going to look for a way.

Days roll by...

Life has settled into a sort of normal. Sonya had pulled Kat into her domestic web along with Abby. The three of them laid claim to the truck. It was my command vehicle any time I said so but otherwise it was their little mobile house. Mark was sort of their mascot. He treated Abby like a sister and Kat mellowed towards him.

Wyn, Neal, Frank and I became 'the guys' although Mark was includes sometimes. Kat and I spent a fair amount of time together. But other than her when nothing was happening it was Frank I found myself talking to.

We had been friends for a long time. He got married then he got divorced. Only 3 years separated the two events and the were both very dramatic times. I was there for him for both.

I knew he was my friend but it was not until I just asked that I found out why he was with me now.

“Buddy you discovered a whole aspect of life that I knew nothing about. When I was a kid I picked up a pistol. Less than a decade later I was the best in the State. Top of my class, always. Went into investment banking and made serious money. In a specialty it takes 10 minutes to explain I was one of the best.” he explained over drinks in some tiny motel bar.

There were 4 other people in the place. All looked local and none gave a damn about us.

“I thought I had won the game of Love. But you know how that went. Since Sherry I just cannot get attached. Love women but just never connect. Shrink says I am fine and I just have to wait to meet the right woman.” he continues.

He snorts. “I do not think I have another 10 million that I want to give away.”

Frank pauses and considers.

“Well I guess I have nothing now. But I don't care. Honestly. It was always about the challenge. Find 'em, Meet 'em, Master 'em. That is my motto.” he says before taking another drink.

“You my friend handed me a challenge... one so big that I cannot even put words to it. I have spent the last couple of years wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life. 30 years old and jaded already. But hey now I know. I am going to stand by you and shoot anybody who tries to shoot you. I. I am sorry about that first time. That won't happen again.” he says with the booze on the edge of his voice.

“One thing I have to ask. I know it was necessary. But does this feeling of guilt ever go away?” he asks hoping for the answer he knows I won't give.

I slowly shake my head, “No. You just get used to it.” and he nods.

“Yeah. I knew that.” he says.

We drink some more.

[Alexander Tau]

Chapter 17


Clark. Isabelle's name. I had never seen it on a building before. Clark Enterprises was only a holding company but a very active one. Corporate umbrella company might be a more correct term. But to me it was the center of our current target. Sitting in the car looking at the place I considered our plans.

This wing of the Clark family was involved in a wide variety of businesses. One was a major Internet provider. The one that the city of Seattle made some use of actually. My cyber team felt that if we could compromise that and get inside we could then access anyone. Hacking when you are a person's Internet provider is considerably easier I was told. Made sense to me.

No idea how we were going to do this yet. My more immediate concern was where we would settle for the duration. I was expecting at least a week and I had one special requirement. Wyn and Frank offered to go out and find a place north of the city. A good 2 hour drive away at least.

They took cash with them. 12 hours later they came back with the deed to a property. Middle of nowhere been empty for a while. Huge farmhouse and buildings. They were not asked for id and used a set of fake addresses we had set up.

We settled in getting the vehicles into one of the large barns. The power had never been turned off so that worked. Water was from a private well and there was a septic tank. I liked the location. Surrounded by hills and there was forest nearby. The house was well back from the road. If we had to defend it we could do it from the house and the fall back to the barn to escape.

Except there was no way out besides the road. At least at first.

The fields that surrounded this farm were covered in grass and weeds. But it was early enough in the season that most of it was not that tall. The driveway came in from the south. Straight north and west were some pretty steep hills. But there was a light forest to the east. At one point it was only a quarter mile in width. On the other side was a blacktop road. The highway was not far.

Mike suggested we rig explosives and blow a path if we needed it. “And just drive right out.”

Wyn explained why that would not work. “If you use enough explosives to remove full sized trees you turn the ground into mush. Huge soft craters that only a tank could drive over. Sorry sounds cool but not feasible.”

Mark made a sour face and asked, “Burn it down?”

“Sure if you want to do it today. Takes hours to destroy big trees. And even here people will show up to investigate.” Wyn counters again.

“I have a solution.” I say

I explain. They hate it. We do it anyway.

Recon.

Some say the most important part of any campaign. Know thine enemy. Considering how close to that enemy we were getting I could not send any of my people inside their offices. We bought a large video camera and 2 steel cases. Took a suite at a nice hotel and put out a little set dressing.

A call to an acting agency brought us a dozen people willing to help us with our 'Reality Show'. We put cameras on them and sent them to a few random places. Just for testing we told them. It really does not take a lot to fake something like this. Mike and Abby printed up a bunch of crap and we turned a hotel suite into our 'offices'.

Then we sent a couple to wander around the area of Clark Internet. One was told to apply for a job and we gave him Neal's basic background. Neal coached the guy. Everyone was thrilled to carry a camera. We lied shamelessly about the 'other locations' we had camera crews in. But it was easy.

Good news. Computers were everywhere. Bad news. Armed guards kept out of sight. We only got two glimpses of them in a whole day of watching. They look professional. Not rent-a-cops. I am also handed an option I had not expected. Neal's guy had gotten an interview the day after tomorrow. He was going to turn down the job at the end but he would be in an office with just one person for a while.

Trying to find a way to make use of this kept most of us up until 3am that night.

“No. And I mean no. We are not going to tell him anything.” I said emphatically.

The suggestion that we tell our actor had kept coming up. He had a wife and a teenage daughter. I was not going to involve him, and them, in this.

“Family or not he is human. He has a right to know.” Sonya suggests.

“That argument is never going to fly Sonya, sorry. No matter how many times you say it. The odds are that telling him is giving him the right to die.” I say flatly.

Sonya looks away. She knows what she wants to do but I know she feels guilty about Abby. That is not my problem right now. One dragon at a time.

“But if we are smart as we think we are there is a way to use this interview.” I say.

“Give him a launcher and tell him to slip it in if he can. At least that is something.” Kat suggests.

“Almost no chance of success. Without training you cannot do things like that in front of people's faces. And what if he gets caught? We can cut and run but what happens to him? Those guards suggest people who run things their own way. They might not turn him over to the police.” Wyn offers.

Nobody likes that thought.

“Then you suggest something dammit” Kat spits at Wyn.

“Stop thinking about what he could do. Think about what is going to happen at the interview. Is there any way we would use those things?” I ask because I have the germ of an idea.

“What things exactly? Never been interviewed.” Sonya asks.

“Simple really. You meet the man or woman who will be interviewing you. Make a little small talk about the weather. Then you discuss your resume the list of what you have done in the past. They usually have questions and sometimes you do too. Interviews can include a tour of the business.” Wyn explains stopping at the end a little abruptly.

“Yeah. First one there. Put a camera on him and have him ask for a tour if one is not offered” I say with a smile as the idea starts to bloom.

“They will scan anything he gives them. So a virus or other attack that way is not going to work. But they will investigate what is on the document. They will go to any of the places you list. He is being offered a fairly major position. Neal, Mark, if you can sucker someone into a specific spot on the Web can you hit them with a stealthy virus?” I ask.

“Well you can try but normally they are going to get filtered. Just browsing the web you can be pretty secure. I think we can count on these people being fully protected.” Neal explains.

“So how do people get hit so often with viruses?” I ask. I almost have it.

“Most people have sloppy security. But beyond them usually it is people allowing programs to run for what they think are legitimate reasons.” Neal says as Mark nods in agreement.

“Porn.” says Mark and we all look at him. “You want the player to see the video. Gets a lot of people.”

Bingo.

“I have a plan. Kat you are gonna love this one.” I say with a smile.

[Alexander Tau]

Chapter 18



I needed to know at least a little about the person who would be doing the interview. So we had... I am going to call him Orson. His performance was never anything less than stellar. We had Orson call back and ask for the name of the interviewer.

It was a man in his early 30s. He gained a few new friends over the next 48 hours. One of our actresses was only too happy to intercept the guy and get him to a bar. Drinks were shared. We listened of course. She got him to talk about things he was only to happy to discuss with a hot woman. And she was.

We had not actually discussed what she would do when she got him to the hotel room we rented for her. Before they got ready to leave the bar she went to the bathroom and called me.

“Everything cool?” she asks.

“Yeah. We need his keys and he has to stay with you for at least an hour. Ah... think that will be a problem?” I ask.

“You want me to screw him?” She tosses back to me.

“Well...” I say.

“$1,000” she says.

“Done.” I say with relief.

She gets him back to her place and minutes later we have his keys. His apartment is miles away but we make good time. Our interviewer had told his new friend that he lived alone, no pets. Thinking back we did not really have our actress ask about house guests. But the place was empty.

I had Frank and Wyn with me and we went through the place carefully. It was not hard to locate his reading material. Wyn hit his computer and dumped the whole thing to a portable drive. We had what we needed and got out of the place.

That was the first time I thought I saw them. A long black car turned a corner just as we exited the building. Not sure why but it caught my attention. They would start to turn up here and there but always just barely seen.

We got the keys back and prepared for the interview.

[Alexander Tau]

Chapter 19


After all the work we had put into it the actual interview was dull. Sure Mike and Neal went ooh and ahh over the racks of servers and massive memory cores. Other than that it was just long. Orson played his part to perfection and I was happy to see him walk out the front door.

He and his family were about to go on a nice long vacation courtesy of the 'Show'. I felt bad hearing him talk about looking forward to watching. Plane tickets and 50 thousand dollars made me feel better.

Too much? What he did for us unknowingly could possibly get him and his family killed. I think I was cheap.

Now we waited. There were 3 web sites listed on the resume. Two were harmless but impressive. The third was more personal and contained our trap. We have time to have some lunch before the guy finally started to poke around.

He hit the safe ones first spending enough time to get a sense of what they contained. Frank commented that he was doing a good job. Then he hit the personal page. It starts off normally enough. Big name and some basic info but then it leads down to one picture.

Orson with a buxom blond we will call Gloria.

Under that picture was a set of picture page links. Our boy wasted little time going to them. Of the three pages each got a little more racy. Orson was not even on the last one.

No actual porn mind you. The guy was at work and probably had enough sense not to look at that sort of thing. But she was hot. And based on his reading material and web history this guy liked his women just like her. Big boobs and lots of blond hair.

At the bottom of the last page was one final link. It was to a Video and one that was touted as 'One of the hottest moments I have ever seen.' by Orson.

He hit the link.

“He is looking at a request to download an Active-X applet. This is the tricky part. A lot of companies will block these. But if he hits the button we are in.” Mark explains as we sit.

The guy hits cancel. Crap.

What we have been watching is a simulation of what our target was seeing. As information came in from the web site our screen shows us what was happening. The guy went back and looked at a few of the pictures on the last page.

We all exchanged worried looks. If he did not take the bait then we would have to find another way to get inside their system.

“He has it open again.” Mark exclaims.

In case you were wondering the part of the plan Kat loved was the taking of the pictures for the site. She has some skill with a camera and she enjoyed Gloria quite a bit. For the final bit of bait we wanted to do something special.

Sonya made the suggestion and Kat agreed.

“Got him!” Mark yips!

On our screen the video began to play. Gloria winks at the camera and gives it a big smile. A figure is seen walking into the shot. We can only see her back but she is female. The two embrace and then we see them from an angle. The kiss is quite pretty.

“Neal go!” Mark calls as the real drama begins.

“I am in but not for long unless you can set up an account.” Neal explains as his fingers dance across the keys.

Seconds pass.

“Boss I am looking at government level security here. Damn. This is not going to be easy.” Neal says.

“Piece of cake. I have a root account already. Get ready to become a legal user Neal.” Mike laughs.

“Woaw. Impressive.” Neal mutters.

“Good?” Mike asks.

“Golden buddy.” Neal replies.

“Abby, Wyn, Kat, fire up. Accounts are online and you know what to do.” Mike orders with a beaming smile. He does not get to be boss often.

Each of the three open a laptop and connect to the Internet provider that for the moment belonged to us. We had a lot of searching to do and time would be short. Mike was going to try and break into the most secure spots he could find. Neal would take over creating new accounts in a number of places. If we were successful many of these would escape notice for quite a while.

Home networks of our target families were high on our list. We got to quite a few.

Abby and Kat each had specific information they were looking to uncover. Wyn was free forming his way to doing something. The specifics had been a little vague but he was working hard already.

Minutes ticked by. Questions flowed between the members of the group. Someone would ask and the answer would come back. No chit-chat.

“Oops” mutters Mike.

Neal looks up. Mike says, “Tripped something. I shut it down but the timer has officially started now.”

“Bound to happen.” is all Neal says and they are both back to work.

I try to give them time. I wait. I tap my fingers. Nothing changes.

“So are we finding anything?” I finally ask.

“Yes.”, “Yep.”, “Oh yeah” & “Hell yes” are my answers.

“Fine call me when you are done.” I say and exit.

We got shut down in a couple of hours. But we got gigabytes of info. We also left back doors in almost 40 computer systems. Each one a place we suspected we could learn more.

So I turned my attention to part two of this phase of our operations.

The dirty part.