The Broken Window (Lincoln Rhyme 8)

"Yes and no. I'll only test the 'walls. It's not a crime if I don't actually get into their system and bring it crashing down in a really embarrassing media event that lands us all in jail." He added ominously, "Or worse."

"Okay, but I want the trap first. ASAP." Rhyme glanced at the clock. Sachs and Pulaski were already spreading the word about the case down at the Gray Rock.

Szarnek pulled a heavy portable computer out of his satchel and set it on a table nearby. "Any chance I could get a . . . Oh, thanks."

Thom was bringing around a coffeepot and cups.

"Just what I was going to ask for. Extra sugar, no milk. You can't take the geek out of the geek, even when he's a cop. Never got in the habit of this thing called sleep." He dumped in sugar, swirled it and drank half while Thom stood there. The aide refilled the cup. "Thanks. Now, what've we got here?" He was looking over the workstation where Cooper was perched. "Ouch."

"Ouch?"

"You're running on a cable modem with one point five MBPs? You know they make computer screens in color now, and there's this thing called the Internet."

"Funny," Rhyme muttered.

"Talk to me when the case is over. We'll do some rewiring and LAN readjustment. Set you up with FE."

Weird Al, FE, LAN . . .

Szarnek pulled on tinted glasses, plugged his computer into ports on Rhyme's computer and began pounding on the keys. Rhyme noticed certain letters were worn off and the touchpad was seriously sweat-stained. The keyboard seemed to be dusted with crumbs.

The look Sellitto shot Rhyme said, It takes all kinds.

*

The first of the two men who joined them in Andrew Sterling's office was slender, middle-aged, with an unrevealing face. He resembled a retired cop. The other, younger and cautious, was pure corporate junior exec. He looked like the blond brother on that sitcom, Frasier.

Regarding the first, Sachs was near the mark; he hadn't been blue but was a former FBI agent and was now head of SSD's security, Tom O'Day. The other was Mark Whitcomb, the assistant head of the company's Compliance Department.

Sterling explained, "Tom and his security boys make sure people on the outside don't do anything bad to us. Mark's department makes sure we don't do anything bad to the general public. We navigate a minefield. I'm sure that the research you did on SSD showed you we're subject to hundreds of state and federal laws on privacy--the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act about misuse of personal information and pretexting, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Drivers Privacy Protection Act. A lot of state laws too. The Compliance Department makes sure we know what the rules are and stay within the lines."

Good, she thought. These two would be perfect to spread the word about the 522 investigation and encourage the killer to sniff out the trap on the NYPD server.

Doodling on a yellow pad, Mark Whitcomb said, "We want to make sure that when Michael Moore makes a movie about data purveyors we're not center stage."

"Don't even joke," Sterling said, laughing, though with genuine concern evident in his face. Then he asked Sachs, "Can I share with them what you told me?"

"Sure, please."

Sterling gave a succinct and clear account. He'd retained everything she'd told him, even down to the specific brands of the clues.

Whitcomb frowned as he listened. O'Day took it all in, unsmiling and silent. Sachs was convinced that FBI reserve was not learned behavior but originated in the womb.

Sterling said firmly, "So. That's the problem we're facing. If there is any way SSD is involved I want to know about it, and I want solutions. We've identified four possible sources of the risk. Hackers, intruders, employees and clients. Your thoughts?"

O'Day, the former agent, said to Sachs, "Well, let's deal with hackers first. We have the best firewalls in the business. Better than Microsoft and Sun. We use ICS out of Boston for Internet security. I can tell you we're a duck in an arcade game--every hacker in the world would like to crack us. And nobody's been able to do it since we moved to New York five years ago. We've had a few people get into our administrative servers for ten, fifteen minutes. But not a single breach of innerCircle, and that's what your UNSUB would have to get into to find the information he needed for these crimes. And he couldn't get in through a single breach; he'd have to hit at least three or four separate servers."

Sterling added, "As for an outside intruder, that'd be impossible too. We have the same physical perimeter protections used by the National Security Agency. We have fifteen full-time security guards and twenty part-time. Besides, no visitor could get near the innerCircle servers. We log everybody and don't let anyone roam freely, even customers."

Sachs and Pulaski had been escorted to the sky lobby by one of those guards--a humorless young man whose vigilance wasn't diminished one bit by the fact they were police.

O'Day added, "We had one incident about three years ago. But nothing since." He glanced at Sterling. "The reporter."

The CEO nodded. "Some hotshot journalist from one of the metro papers. He was doing an article on identity theft and decided we were the devil incarnate. Axciom and Choicepoint had the good sense not to let him into their headquarters. I believe in free press, so I talked to him. . . . He went to the restroom and claimed he got lost. He came back here, cheerful as could be. But something didn't seem right. Our security people went through his briefcase and found a camera. On it were pictures of trade-secret-protected business plans and even pass codes."

O'Day said, "The reporter not only lost his job but was prosecuted under criminal trespass statutes. He served six months in state prison. And, as far as I know, he hasn't had a steady job as a journalist since."

Sterling lowered his head slightly and said to Sachs, "We take security very, very seriously."