“Still waiting for that good news.”
“If you want to go after Phipps and the hard copy of the information, that’s on you. I don’t do humans. However...”
Jeez, the drama. Roman was about to scream when Cataclysm broke the suspense.
“As I explained, a hack on a financial institution is a risky proposition, not to mention the mountain of data, so I began with peripheral measures—penetrating aspects of their tech that aren’t as closely protected or monitored: systems upkeep, human resources, employee internet usage, that sort of stuff. I also installed a program that alerts me when Van Gent’s terminal is accessed. Last night at 10:08, this woman logged on.”
Roman held out his phone and examined the image that Cataclysm had texted.
“Now bear in mind, I was only alerted to system use. However, Van Gent’s personal computer is a different story. He has almost no security—not that he needs it for his expansive collection of fetish porn and online gaming. That laptop sits in his office, so I accessed that computer’s webcam. I could clearly see the woman sitting at Van Gent’s desk, working on his office machine. She poked around for about half an hour then she must have tried to download a file that executed the failsafe. Now it gets good.”
Roman counted to ten in his head. Losing his temper would not help.
“She got a phone call while she was nosing around. After speaking with the caller, she shifted to take a picture of something on the actual desk, but the cell phone detector on Van Gent’s computer monitor prevented her from getting too close or she risked setting it off.”
The hacker paused as if assuming Roman Block could put two and two together. He did not. Cataclysm huffed a parental sigh. “I think she backed up far enough that the document up on the screen was in the shot—the document that triggered the shutdown when she tried to download it. Without even realizing it, I think she photographed a document that contains information so sensitive that Van Gent was willing to torch Gentrify’s internal transaction history to prevent someone from accessing it. She inadvertently photographed the file that triggered the system purge.”
Roman’s phone pinged again, and he examined another photograph Cataclysm had captured from the webcam; this one of the same woman, about three feet back from the monitor, holding up a cell phone.
“Why would Van Gent do that? Why crash the whole system over one document?”
“Because all roads lead to Rome. This probably wasn’t the only file that would trigger the failsafe. The system was designed to implode when any unauthorized user attempted to access any incriminating information. Van Gent knew he would eventually get caught, so he designed a system protocol where he could disappear without a trace.
“Whatever she photographed had to be so vital, incriminating, and top-secret that attempting to download it triggered a massive system shutdown. That document is your golden goose. What’s more? That is information that no one, no one, can access now because it no longer exists.”
“Who’s the woman?”
“I ran the photo against employment records. The information in her file is copied in your inbox. She’s a temp.”
Cataclysm continued, “She’s not with law enforcement; she’d need a warrant. Could be she works for a competitor, corporate espionage bullshit, but my guess is she’s just a temp who does what every secretary does when her boss is out of town, snoops.”
Roman wiped his face with his palm and blew out a breath. “Okay. Okay, good.”
“Find that person and I’ll find your money. But…”
Roman heard the sputter of a straw sucking the remnants of a drink.
“That being said, the photos wouldn’t have been uploaded to the cloud because there is no accessible wifi at Gentrify for security reasons, and, if you look closely at the surveillance photo of her I sent from the webcam, you can see the phone she used is most likely a burner. That’s good and bad. Bad because I can’t access the photo remotely. Good because no one else can either. So I’ll need the physical phone—again, human shit.”
“I’ll get you the phone.”
What Roman lacked in IQ points and brawn, he made up for in ruthlessness and resources. He scrolled through his contacts. All he needed was to recover one cheap cell phone, and he knew just the men for the job.