A simple string of numbers and letters that, for me, meant everything.
Another grouping of numbers appeared beside mine.
06050900.
Toxicwrath’s signature.
I stared at it for a long time, trying to make sense of it. What did those numbers mean?
I wouldn’t ask. A signature was personal. It didn’t require explanation.
But I felt strange seeing it there beside mine.
We were intertwined now.
A partnership.
A shadow ready to take on the world.
Rowing a boat toward a far-off destination.
Together.
I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that.
Chapter 5
Mason
I had been up since two in the morning.
I had gotten called into the office after a DDoS attack on a local law firm was attributed to my favorite pain in the ass.
Freedom Overdrive.
The string of letters and numbers, the cracker’s signature embedded in the targeted website, taunted me the longer I stared at it.
Just as he had every other time before, Freedom Overdrive had covered his tracks.
We couldn’t trace IP addresses or pinpoint a location. Whoever he was had used at least a dozen proxy servers. The DDoS attack involved over a thousand computers owned by unsuspecting citizens who had no idea their systems had been compromised. Each of those computers had been used to overload Ryan Law’s website, crashing it momentarily. Then the hacker had brought it back up with very specific changes.
The firm had scrubbed the website clean, but not before the information plastered all over the home page was broadcast for all the world to see.
The allegations were serious.
It seemed Dominic and Jared Ryan had been very, very bad boys.
Freedom Overdrive wasn’t the only one who now had the FBI’s attention. A full-scale investigation would be launched against Ryan Law.
Extortion. Witness tampering. Money laundering across state lines.
It seemed my least favorite cracker had done the Bureau a favor by exposing some nasty people.
That didn’t change the fact that his tactics were illegal. And dangerous. So as much as I wanted to pat Freedom Overdrive on the back, I also wanted to catch his ass and throw him in jail for a long, long time.
If not just to get Agent Derek Sanders off my nut sack.
By about seven this morning I had been ready to bang my head into the wall. Agent Sanders was breathing down my neck and making my eye twitch every time he looked my way. He had shown up around the same time I had, if for no other reason than to drive me insane.
