Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan (beach read txt) 📖

don’t already know how to sell. Raff set up the payday first and then the crew started the hard part – delivering on the goods. They’d just begun this part of the process when Chloe and Paul got back from the beach house and now Chloe took over telling the story. 

“As you know,” she said, “I took the news of Raff’s little plan pretty well.” Everyone laughed at this, which Paul figured meant that she hadn’t been pleased at all. “After a little…discussion…” more laughter, “We started the hard part – actually getting the fucking data out of Gondry’s company.”

Chloe was the self-proclaimed bitch queen of organization. She got everyone into gear, building on the research Raff and his sub-crew had already done. She quickly decided that a frontal hack assault on Gondry’s network from outside wasn’t feasible. “The guy might be a prick, but he’s smart and his security is top notch.” The odds of them getting in and out with the data they needed without being noticed were practically nil, if indeed they could get in at all. “Besides,” said Chloe with a smile in her voice, “You know me, I prefer the human touch.”

And so they started working the employees for weak links. It didn’t take them long to find one. Gondry liked to run his company mean and lean and put all his resources into software engineers and equipment rather than those he referred to as “useless idiots.” Thus there was very little non-programming oriented management, such as personnel directors or the like. “Just one part time office manager who paid the bills and, joy of joys, a part time Chief Financial Officer,” explained Chloe. Gondry uses a service called CFO On The Go, which provides very competent and experienced CFO’s to smaller companies that don’t need a full time financial expert. Since Gondry made most of the important decisions about money himself, the On The Go CFO only had to make sure they did all their tax and financial stuff according to the law. 

“This was our guy,” interjected Raff. “As soon as I saw the file on him, I knew he was our guy. Fifty-six years old. Divorced with two kids in college, just a few grand in the bank account and an under performing IRA. Like most of these Silicon Valley money guys, he’d been burned badly in the 2000 bubble burst and he was still trying to make up the losses. We just had to find the right lever, and I knew we could tip him.”

Paul listened as Chloe briefly went through the details of how they dug through every inch of the CFO’s personal and financial life. Credit card statements from the trash told them where he liked to eat and shop. Records from the video store’s computer clued them into the kinds of movies he watched and his phone records told them about everyone he talked to. They even knew his golf handicap. 

“He’s a pretty normal guy, all things considered. But like most of us he could use a little extra cash. But he’s also a decent sort, not at all the type who’s likely to steal from work just to make things easier on himself. No way this good citizen would buy into the typical win/win set-up where we both make money on the deal. Sad but true, we had to go win big/lose big for the CFO du jour.”

Paul didn’t know for sure what “win big/lose big” meant, but he guessed that it wasn’t pleasant. He assumed that the man with the red tie he’d met earlier that day had been the CFO, and he certainly hadn’t seemed happy with how things had turned out. 

As Raff explained things – with helpful interjections from the other Crew members who’d been involved in specific aspects of the shakedown – while Gondry had great security, the CFO did not. And he often took his work home with him and left his files wide open on his home computer. And while he didn’t have anything particularly useful on his machine about Gondry, he did have more than enough private info about his clients to put his job in jeopardy if those files ever became public. And going public was exactly what Raff and company threatened him with. 

From there it had been pretty straightforward. They contacted him anonymously and proved to him that they knew more about his computer’s files than he did. If he played ball, the information remained private. If he didn’t, he’d lose his job and maybe his whole career. All he had to do in return was copy some files from Gondry’s network. The mark resisted at first, but eventually broke down. Now only one problem remained – he didn’t actually have access to the parts of the network they wanted data from. Like Chloe had said, Gondry’s security was tiptop.

“Which is where my team comes in,” said Bee. It was the diminutive engineer’s time to shine and she sounded like a proud school kid describing her prize winning science fair project. 

Their mole was, at best, uncooperative and unwilling to take much in the way of risks on the crew’s behalf, even with his career on the line. Chloe had explained that an unwilling co-conspirator was always dangerous. You had to know just how far to push him. Too far, and the whole con is blown. They needed him to do something that didn’t seem too dangerous. 

“We wanted a modified camera array covering four different departments,” Bee explained. “Gondry’s security was tight enough that any kind of unauthorized software or key registries we put in place might be detected. However, the human security was pretty laughable. The employees are really driven, hard working types, like me. And since they’re like me, you know just what that means – they’re totally oblivious to the world around them while they’re working. Certainly too oblivious to notice something as boring as a new carbon monoxide detector installed above their desk.”

Chloe and Bee had decided to make the CFO’s job simple. All he had to do was tell Gondry that they needed new detectors for their insurance and then schedule the appointment. Then Kurt and Filo went in and installed four hidden cameras in the right offices. Each detector had a small camera inside it along with a connection to the phone lines that provided both power and a conduit for the video feed. Installation took place over the lunch hour when all but one of the offices were empty (the large group lunch being a Silicon Valley tradition that’s almost as reliable as sunrise and sunset). They also picked a day they knew Gondry would be out of town, just to be safe. 

“The number three camera never really gave us much,” said Bee. “We placed it at the wrong angle and when the programmer sat down he was taller than expected and blocked the view. But the others worked great! We got them typing their passwords and saw how they navigated their networks and file systems, everything we needed to access the system at will.”

From there it should have been pretty straightforward. The CFO had everything he needed to get whatever data they wanted. Now all they had to do was wait until he went into the office again. This was actually a risky time. Everything was in place, but nothing could get done. The CFO only went in once, maybe twice a week and while they waited for his scheduled day he had plenty of time to get cold feet, which, of course, he did.

They’d given him a number (a disposable cell phone) that he could call and leave messages for them at. Two nights before the big day, they left an envelope in his mailbox containing the passwords and file directories they wanted copied, along with instructions to buy a couple dozen flash drives to download the information onto. They’d followed him from a distance to make sure he bought the gear, and monitored his calls and e-mails to make sure he didn’t contact the police or, worse, Gondry. He had dinner with a friend, but other than that everything seemed to go as planned. 

“And we all know what happened next,” said Chloe, taking the meeting over again. There was a communal groan from the crew. Paul perked up in his shadowy perch in the kitchen and opened up another beer. Maybe this would explain why Raff had suddenly called him in at the last moment. 

Chloe described how the CFO had called and left a message saying the deal was off – that there was no way he was going through with this, damn the consequences. Raff and Chloe had half expected this was coming and they were ready. They had to use the only other lever that they had over their asset: his kids. More specifically, his oldest daughter who, judging from the man’s phone calls, was a bit of a wild thing and a constant source of irritation.

Two days earlier, Raff had called the daughter in her dorm on campus at San Jose State. He told her that she’d won a contest through her cell phone provider, which included a new free phone and a three night trip to Hollywood. Like most college kids, she wasn’t one to pass up a good time, especially if it was free, and the daughter squealed with delight. Raff Fed-Exed her the phone (which already had her new number programmed in it) and the tickets – which were for that day. She and her boyfriend barely made it to the airport on time and certainly never bothered to call and tell her parents where she was going. 

When the CFO tried to call things off, Raff called him back and explained that they had kidnapped his daughter and that she’d only be returned safely once he’d done as he was told. He hit the ceiling – started yelling and screaming and threatening to call the police. Raff calmly told him to call his daughter and see for himself how serious they were. When he called, instead of his daughter’s usual outgoing message he heard a strange voice (disguised by a gadget Bee whipped up) warning him that she was in safe hands for now, and that she would be returned to him when his job was done. A couple more quick calls revealed that no one else seemed to know where his daughter was either, including his ex-wife. Fortunately he didn’t tell her or anyone else that she was missing for fear of panicking them. He called back and said he’d play along. 

Hearing Raff relate this particular bit of nastiness made Paul sit up in his chair. He’d known that they were up to something hard core, but threatening an innocent man’s daughter, even if she wasn’t in any real danger, made Paul realize just how nasty they could be. A part of him wanted to just sneak out the back door and never look back. But the desire to find out how the story ended and why they’d involved him made Paul stay put and listen to Raff as he continued the tale.

The next morning the CFO woke to a message taped to his front door – instructions on where and when to drop off the flash drives and fake carbon monoxide detectors. That only left him a few hours to copy the files and go. After he made the drop off he’d receive a telephone number to call and find out where his daughter was. 

“And it looks like everything worked as planned,” said Chloe. “Raff, how did your meeting with the target go? I heard he tried to pull some shit. You look ok, though. Must not have actually tried anything, otherwise I know he would’ve beat your skinny ass.” Everyone laughed