I didn't like the idea of somebody spamming our server or crashing our e-mail server or worse yet slipping some worm or virus into our system. That would be a disaster. I called Ralph, our outside IT guy. He answered his cell on the first ring. 'Hey, Ralph, Mike Nolan.'
'Hey. What can I do for you?'
'How secure do you feel we are? Could someone cram a virus or worm or something into our system and ruin our databases and the like?'
'Anything's possible. If there's somebody out there malicious and smart enough. They can ruin pretty much any computer system, particularly those that aren't hardened against attack, which yours isn't.'
'Set us up. I want to make sure no one can sabotage us.'
'I can start doing some things. I'll check out the whole system.'
'This morning. I want you over there within an hour.'
'I've got stuff backed up to two weeks from now.'
'Within an hour or I'm gonna get somebody else. I've got to get this done, this is not negotiable.'
'Mike, come on.'
'I'm serious as a heart attack. You've got to be there in an hour or I'm going to get Dolores on the phone and get the next best guy. I don't have any time to mess with this. If somebody is going to attack our computer system, if I don't stop them now, when I know there may be something coming-'
'All right, all right, I'm on my way. I'm going to forward all the hate e-mails I get from other clients to you.'
'Please do. See you there.'
When I walked in and closed the door behind me, Dolores was startled. 'Good morning, or rather afternoon, Mr. Nolan. You don't look so good, did you get some lunch?'
'Actually I didn't. Would you mind having the deli deliver a turkey sandwich for me? Whole wheat.'
'No problem, sir. Anything else?'
'No. Messages?'
'There were two or three reporters sitting here in our waiting area all morning. I finally told them that you weren't coming back all day and they took off.'
'Where'd you hear that?'
'I made it up. I was tired of looking at them.'
'Well done.'
'Thank you.'
'Is Ralph here?'
'Yes, sir, he's back in the server room.'
'Thanks.' I left my briefcase and jacket behind her at the reception area and walked to the back of the office. I went into the computer room, which was across from the coffee room, and found Ralph sitting on a folding chair with his laptop in his lap and a cable hooking him up to our server. He seemed to be running two or three software scanners at the same time. I looked at his screen and had no idea what he was doing.
'Hey.'
'Hi, Mike, how's it going?' he said without looking at me. 'Good. So can you upgrade our security?'
'Sure, but something's going on here.'
'Meaning?' I asked, still staring at his baffling screen. 'Look at this.'
It meant nothing to me. It could have been a finger painting. 'I have no idea what I'm looking at.'
He pointed to the lower-left corner of the screen. 'This is a graphic representation of your e-mail and Internet traffic. It's sort of like looking at a galaxy in the distance through the Hubble telescope, where they look at certain invisible light ranges and make them visible?'
'Not sure what that means. What you got?'
'Well, this area right over here should be symmetrical.' He took his mechanical pencil from his pocket and pointed. 'See this thing right here, this little dent?'
'Yeah. What of it?'
'It's a tunnel.'
'A tunnel? To what?'
'Well, every server, yours included, has a system set up to channel access to and from the Internet, control access to e-mail accounts, etc. This line over here represents the symmetry that should be on the screen, but there's this one section that's missing, like a piece that has been chipped away. Or actually a better way to look at it is sort of what it is. It's like you have a country with borders set up, and somebody has built a tunnel underneath the border. It allows people and things to go in and out through the tunnel without being noticed. They don't cross the border, they don't go through the firewall or the virus scan or the other security software.'
'What does it mean?'
'Somebody who really knows what they're doing has access to your server and has built a tunnel.'
'Can you tell what it's been used for?'
'Not really. It's like a real tunnel. Things go through it coming in, and things go through it going out. And unless the things are actually in the tunnel when you're looking, you won't be able to trace them. But…' He raised his hand and pointed his finger toward the ceiling as if he had one piece of information that was much more significant. 'Sometimes there are wires through the tunnel, just like in a real tunnel. They have to sometimes have air and light, and they need wires or things that you can follow. This one has a wire. It may be traceable.'
Ralph worked on the keyboard for some time, then turned toward me with the laptop still perched on his knees. 'It's a tunnel, like I said. Somebody has attached a stairway from your e-mail to the tunnel.' He could see my puzzlement.
'What it does'-he thought-'what it does is take every e-mail that you send or receive and duplicates it and sends it through the tunnel.'
'So I don't get them?'
'No, you get them. What you'd see is just what you'd always see. But somebody else sees it too.'
'Somebody else is reading my e-mail?'
'At the very least.'
'Who the hell is doing this?'
'Impossible to say.'
'How? Would they have to get into the firm physically? Has someone broken into the firm?'
'No, they wouldn't have to be here physically. I said it's
'Shit, Ralph. Can you fix it?'
'Sure.' He started typing away on his computer. 'Are there any others? Would this be like an individual's e-mail site or log-in address?'
'Yeah, it is individual, but I checked all the others. Yours is the only one that has this.'
'Does it have access to my computer? Can it get in and see my outlines and my Word documents and the like?'
'Only if you send them as attachments in e-mail.'
'How sophisticated is this? Is this hard to do?'
'Top one percent of computer geeks might know how to do this.'
I jammed my hands in my back pocket and started pacing back and forth in the room. I stared at his screen for a minute or two, considering. I said, 'Tell you what. I've got another idea. Just leave it like it is.'
23
IT HAD BEEN a long day. Too much going on. I was the only one left at the firm, except of course Rachel and Braden, who were always there. My eyes felt like sandpaper, and I found myself taking deep breaths for no particular reason. As I got up to leave and shut down my computer, my phone rang. It was a D.C. area code, but it wasn't Tinny. I answered it.
'Evening, Mike. You're working late.'
'Who is this?'
'Thompson.'
'My good friend from State. What do you want?'
'I'm just outside. Why don't you come down and talk to me here.'
'Why should I?'
'Because I'm a suspicious type, and sometimes I don't like places that are fixed, like offices. Sometimes I like to be outside.'
'You can be outside by yourself. You don't need me.'
'I need to talk to you. Actually… you need to talk to me. I'm in the gray sedan.' He hung up.
Well, shit. That's all I needed. I grabbed my suit coat, closed my briefcase, turned out my office lights, and headed downstairs. I checked my watch. Ten thirty pm. What did this asshole want? He was nothing but trouble. He was probably the one who had screwed with my computer system.
I closed the front door of my office building behind me and looked for a gray, government sedan. I didn't see one. It suddenly hit me that I had been lured out of my building at a predictable time with no one else around. I stepped off the porch and walked to my car. I unlocked it and put my briefcase on the floor behind my seat. I closed the door and looked again. I saw a car parked on the side street down the block. The headlights flashed briefly. So I was supposed to walk over to him in the dark. Not a chance. I leaned against the driver's door of my car and shook my head. I motioned for him to come to me. Nothing happened. I waited. Still nothing. Fine. I
