P1ut0 continued, “Someone there failed to notice that the print routers were set to admin/admin. Check your devices, people! That’s just plain lazy.”
Valerie jolted. The print routers had most definitely been on her report. The company had left the administrative username and password set to the defaults of “admin,” a common mistake, especially with peripheral devices like routers.
“When was the P + F attack?” she typed, using her primary chat room handle SPYDRCH1C4. It was an angry teen’s break from the screen name her papá had bestowed on her as a kid: CrackerJill. He was proud of her for being a girl in a world largely populated by boys and men. And, sadly, proud of their villainy. Whilehackersattack for the fun and challenge—or to protect their clients—crackersare malicious.
She and Papá had been crackers. And both of her dads had paid the price.
“Last week,” P1ut0 replied.
She sagged back into the soft cushions and stared at the popcorn ceiling, its dark and light gradations reminiscent of M.C. Escher’s most abstract artworks. Would P + F really have ignored her recommendations? Maybe they’d purchased new print routers and set them up in the same, dumb fashion as before, but that would be the height of idiocy.
A little chill went through her. Had any of Aggressor’s other clients been hacked after she ran a pen test—a penetration test—on them?
Three hours later, she’d managed to confirm five more attacks on former clients through various sources. And forgotten to eat dinner.
“Shit.” Heedless of the time, she dialed her boss. “Sorry to bother you at home, Duncan, but we have a problem.”
CHAPTER TWO
Chantilly, VA
Tuesday, 7:15 a.m.
HOLY SHIT, SHE DID IT.Scott Kramer was parked across the street from the Janus Aerospace satellite office in Chantilly that Valerie had entered ten minutes earlier with a handful of baby shower balloons and a cake box. He sat in the SUV he’d been using to surveil her for the last few days and tracked her progress as she left the building, now empty-handed.
The poor guard hadn’t stood a chance against her decked out as a full-throttle hottie in that body-hugging red dress and heels. Scott had about swallowed his tongue when she removed her jacket. Through his zoom lens she appeared close enough to touch, and God did he want to get his hands on her smooth skin and glossy brown hair.
Not that he ever would.
Instead he snapped photos. With the wind whipping her dark hair around her face, the self-satisfied smile on her lips, her shapely legs displayed to perfection, she turned more than a few heads on the way to her car. It’d be a shame to waste the chance to capture the moment, even if she’d never have a clue.
Even if she might be a traitor.
Damn.He lowered the camera and sighed.
Palming his cell phone, he dialed his boss at Steele Security.
“How’s it going?” Kurt Steele asked.
“Uh, fine.” Scott was momentarily distracted by the tantalizing reveal of Valerie’s upper thigh as she slid into the driver’s seat of her dusty Prius. “She’s boring as ever.” At least where his assignment was concerned.
She sure as hell wasn’t what he’d expected when he’d taken the job.
“Hollowell wants you to hang in for at least another week. Can you do that?”
“I’m game,” Scott said. “But I think the man’s wasting his money. If she’s not at work, she’s at home or at the indoor rock climbing gym a few miles away. She lives well below her means, doesn’t give off any disgruntled vibes, doesn’t hang out at Internet cafés… I don’t know, I’m just not feeling it.”
Having a drunk dad whose moods changed with every tick of the clock had made reading people a necessary survival skill, and Valerie struck Scott as a straight arrow.
“What about the offshore account?” Kurt asked, referring to the reason her boss had hired Steele to watch Valerie twenty-four/seven.
Investigators performing a routine security audit had tipped off Hollowell that Valerie had a nice chunk of change that hadn’t come from her personal funds sitting in a recently opened account with some Caribbean bank. He wanted to know what she was doing to earn the money.
“There are other reasons to have secret accounts,” Scott said.
“True. But itissuspicious. And you might not be seeing anything, but all her clandestine communication could be happening online.”
“Jay Suresh is supposedly keeping track of her online activities. So far, nothing.”
