Geek Mafia: Mile Zero by Rick Dakan (reading tree txt) 📖

PAUL didn’t even own a tie until he became a con man. As an artist and then videogame designer, there’d never been a need for much in the way of formal wear. And when occasion called for dressing up, a button-down shirt and maybe a sports coat were usually all he’d ever needed. But once he and Chloe had arrived in Key West, he’d soon found that a tie could be a necessary evil. In the ultra-casual Key West culture, wearing a tie was a sure sign that you were either a stuffy-ass businessman or some kind of government official, and any simple article of clothing that could make people jump to such immediate conclusions about you was a valuable tool.

Wearing a crisp, white shirt, dark blue tie with deep red stripes, and navy slacks with loafers, Paul marched with officious determination into the lobby of the Hyatt and straight to the front desk, cutting in front of three people who were standing in line. He heaved his briefcase up onto the counter and popped it open saying, “I need to speak with a manager right away.”

“Excuse me?” said the handsome, tan young man behind the counter in a light Spanish accent.

Paul flipped out a business card from inside the case, presenting it to the receptionist as if it were a badge. “Mike O’Conner, Verizon Wireless Security Services Department,” Paul said, which was exactly what it read on the business card. He also had an ID to match it in his wallet, both made by Bee several months earlier as a cover for him to help set up the camera and RFID network. “I need to speak to your manager about a computer security issue,” he said.

“All right,” the man said. “Please hold on a moment.” He picked up his phone and dialed a number, turning his back to Paul as he spoke into the phone in a low whisper. Then, to Paul he said, “She’ll be right out. If you could wait over there?” he asked, pointing to a nearby potted plant.

“Thank you,” he said, and moved over to his assigned location, which was too near the elevators for Paul’s comfort. The worst thing that could happen right now would be for Eddie to come down that elevator, followed in close second by Raff walking in the front door. Two tense minutes passed before he saw an attractive, middle-aged woman with dyed blonde hair come out from the back room. The receptionist pointed her toward Paul, and she came over, a wary smile on her face.

“Can I help you, sir?” the woman asked.

Paul held out his hand and read her name off the tag on her blouse. “Mike O’Conner, Verizon Wireless Security Services Department. You’re Ms. Jawolski?”

“I am,” she said as she shook his hand. “The assistant manager.” She seemed surprised that Paul knew her name. People tended to forget they were wearing name tags, especially since few people actually paid much attention to them.

“Great,” said Paul, “Just the person I need to see.”

“What’s this about?”

“We’ve been tracking a series of network security breaches over the last twenty-four hours. There’s been a rash of virus and hacker attacks on area networks and local ISP’s and we’ve been doing our darnedest to sort it all out.” Paul looked around the lobby. “Is there somewhere we can sit for just a moment? How about over there?” He pointed to some chairs and a coffee table that were out of line of sight from the elevator.

“Of course,” the manager said, playing the perfect hostess and ushering him to a seat. As soon as he sat down, Paul opened the briefcase again, producing a stack of papers covered in complicated graphs and spreadsheets with columns like “Transfer Rates” and “Unknown Server Contacts” and even more technical terms like “TCP/IP.” They were meaningless of course, but he was betting she didn’t know that. Hell, if Paul didn’t know they were fake, he wouldn’t have been able to tell himself.

“As you see here,” said Paul, “There’s been a great deal of unusual activity in the area. And we’ve had several reports of unauthorized access to some very secure networks near here. You haven’t had any problems with your wireless network here at the Hyatt have you?”

“No,” said the woman, scanning the papers as Paul handed them to her, trying to make some sense of them. “As far as I know, we’ve had no complaints.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Paul said. “We have reason to believe that the attacks are originating from your network here.”

“One of our guests?” she asked, real concern in her voice.

“That’s a possibility, of course,” said Paul. “But we think it’s an outside hacker who’s hijacked your network for his own purposes. An all too common occurrence I’m afraid.”

“Do we need to shut it down? Are our computers ok?” she asked. “I should get our IT guy down here.”

“Your own internal network should be still secure. But we do have a list of room numbers where the hacker has used open access points for his own purposes, and any computer users in those rooms might have had their personal systems compromised, so you should probably warn them.” Paul handed her a sheet of paper with twenty room numbers on it, including the one they’d identified as Eddie’s.

“Ok,” she said, looking up and down the list. “You know security is Verizon’s responsibility. We’re only…”

“Don’t worry about liability,” Paul interrupted. “You’re absolutely right. This is Verizon’s problem and our liability issue, but we’d like your help nipping this little bit of trouble in the bud.”

“Of course. What can I do to help?”

“Using some pretty advanced tracing techniques, we’ve managed to develop a suspect.” He reached into his briefcase one final time, and drew forth a stack