‘Go ahead,’ Kaiden replied.
‘Bingo!’ Ezra said a few minutes later. ‘There it is. Your hacker placed a digital tracker on the Sian Fox-Carnell equipment, which means that the GPS data was being sent to a third party. They also shut down the system, placed the shutdown on a timer and installed malware that made it look like you had exceeded the data storage system.’
‘Are you saying the systems were still monitoring the offenders?’
‘That’s exactly what they were doing. Look, all the reporting information from Tuesday morning at 3 a.m. until 9 a.m. on Friday was being diverted to this encrypted folder which was then sent to a virtual drive.’
Kaiden crouched down and scrolled through the data on the screen. ‘Can you tell where the hack originated from?’
‘It’s the usual rerouting the IP address and bouncing it around,’ Ezra said. ‘I could tell you, but you know how it is.’
‘It would take a while.’
‘Exactly and me and the boss have another appointment we have to get to.’
Henley raised her eyebrows at the sudden revelation of their second appointment, but instead of questioning it she asked, ‘Ezra, were you able to download all of the reporting information for Fox-Carnell?’
Ezra removed the memory stick from the computer. ‘It’s all here,’ he said. ‘And I’ve decrypted the file that contained the monitoring information for everyone on tag and moved it to your main server.’
‘Thanks for that. Is there anything else you need?’ Kaiden asked, taking Ezra’s place at the screen.
‘Nope,’ Ezra replied. He turned to Henley and pointed at his watch. ‘We’re going to be late.’
‘Why did you want to get out of there so quickly?’ Henley asked once they were out on Cannon Street and a safe distance away from the Soteria offices.
Ezra blew out his cheeks and headed to an empty table outside a café. ‘Ok, those lot up there were hacked but the weird thing is that the hack originated from within that building.’
‘I thought you said their servers were accessed externally. You also said that it would take you too long to find out that information.’
‘Boss, seriously, it’s me and I’m not an amateur. The hacker rerouted the IP address and made it look as though it originated from San Francisco. They bounced it all over the place, China, Japan and Brazil, but I tracked it back and guess where I tracked it back to?’
Henley turned around and looked up at the building that they’d just left. ‘Someone in Kaiden’s team hacked the system?’
Ezra shrugged. ‘Could have been Kaiden or it could have been Ada from reception for all I know.’
‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ said Henley. ‘Why would anyone go through all of the trouble of hacking the system and diverting all of Fox-Carnell’s reporting information. Why not just shut the entire thing down?’
‘They wouldn’t be able to find her if they shut the entire thing down.’ Ezra picked up a menu. ‘It makes sense to me. Track her movements. Follow her and grab her. And by the time the police are called no one knows where to start looking because to you she’s disappeared into the wind.’
‘Pellacia was right. You really should think about joining the force.’
Ezra smiled. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Hmm,’ Henley leaned back, processing it all, ‘I’m just thinking, what if Fox-Carnell wasn’t the only offender they put a digital tracker on?’
‘I’ll start looking as soon as we get back to the SCU, after you buy me lunch.’
‘It’s not even midday.’
‘Call it brunch then.’
‘You’re worse than Eastwood,’ Henley laughed, picking up a menu. ‘Anything else I need to know?’
‘Remember when I said that some hackers like to leave a tag?’
Henley nodded as she beckoned a waitress over.
‘This hacker – or Soteria employee – did exactly that. It’s like they couldn’t help themselves, boss.’
