Page 36 of S.O.S. Perk

Clearly, Tertia had decided that therewassomething going on between Sloane and Perk, hence the “your boy” designation.

“Not mine.” Sloane pinched Tertia’s thigh playfully to shut the other woman up, and when Tertia snorted, Sloane rolled her eyes, ignored it, then sat back waiting for Baskins to start talking.

If the boss had noticed the exchange, he didn’t let on.

“I’ve been briefed by all of you and have your full reports. So now I’m going to ask each faction to lay out—for the rest of thosehere—exactly what you’ve found,” Baskins stated. “Perkins, why don’t you start.”

Perk didn’t hesitate, consummately professional. “Tonight, I went to the home of one of the kids I met at school. Without much difficulty, I got the name of the teenager they believe is behind the thefts and the disappearance of Ms. Jefferson. The suspected perp is Jeremy Nelsin, and he lives at…” Perk rattled off the address.

“Jeremy Nelsin,” Baskins repeated, looking down at his notes. “He’s indicated in your findings as well, Agent Vessers?”

“Yes sir,” Sloane answered. “His is one of the names that kept popping up as someone recently connected to each of the theft victims,” Sloane confirmed.

Damn, what a great team they had here. Only a day had passed and they were already closing in on solving this case.

Baskins continued reading. “Nelsin is a computer nerd and not very popular, but he’s been making incongruous inroads with a few A-listers at school lately. Word is, he has those new friends mostly because he’s developed an addictive computer game/contest which he’s sharing with the rest of the student body, via what he’s told them is an app they can only access thru him.”

“Don’t tell me,” Sarge piped up. “He’s ‘sharing’,” Sarge emphasized the word with air quotes, “but he’s most likely imbedding malware into his freebie which infects the recipients’ phones, and or computers.”

“That’s what we believe. But Sarge, we need you to make certain,” Baskins supplied. “The timeline of the thefts works with the app he released weeks ago, which is called…” He squinted down at his papers again. “…Poppin’ Fresh Pets. Its appeal is that once you’ve downloaded it, you can then upload pictures of your pets to the site, and everyone votes each dayon which ones are the cutest. The winner gets some worthless, virtual prize, and their name on the site’s champ-board.”

“And for those hollow kudos, Nelsin gains access to the contents of everyone’s devices with whatever Trojan Horse he’s hidden, earning easy pickings from a lot of idiots who don’t disguise their passwords.” Sarge shook his head in disgust. “Hence, his backdoor into grabbing their money.”

“We’ll know soon enough.” Perk had his burner phone out, and was tapping at it. “I downloaded the program, Sarge, and I’m sending it to you now.”

Sarge’s laptop, which he was never without, pinged, and the man immediately tuned everyone out, his fingers flying over his keyboard almost faster than Sloane could see them move.

Baskins nodded his approval. “While he’s at that, Smalley, why don’t you tell us about your progress with the money trail.”

Smalley appeared dour, but that was nothing unusual.

“We’ve been able to trace the stolen funds to an offshore account with the name of some bogus LLC listed as principal, but the money disappears almost as soon as it hits the account, being converted quickly into crypto currency before it goes off our radar. Sarge and I have yet to break into the codes that are keeping the crypto-trail secure, but we embedded some AI bots this afternoon, so hopefullyourlittle Trojan Horses will be able to trace the next big transaction when it happens.”

“Unfortunately,” Baskins spoke up, “just after the girl went missing, whoever is behind this—and I don’t think Jeremy is the mastermind—must have temporarily shut down their operations. No more funds have been purloined since the disappearance. The perps must have figured things were getting a little hot, and they’re laying low for a while.”

Sarge paused and looked up. “I have something.”

Everyone went on alert.

“The malware is here all right. It’s simple, but effective,” Sarge informed them.

“But since they’ve stopped stealing for the time being, it’s also moot for now,” Smalley said,almostsmiling as he had one eye on Sarge’s ever-layering computer pages.

“Go ahead. Tell them,” Sarge urged. It was clear that despite Sarge’s initial reluctance to work with Smalley, the two had bonded over shared nerd-dom.

Smalley nodded. “Thanks to Sarge, we now have another way into their money trail. While we were all talking, my partner here not only broke open Nelsin’s program coding, he hacked into Jeremy’s bank account. Cross-referencing the timing and amounts of the thefts with deposits into his account, it’s obvious that each one perfectly aligns with the stolen money. And get this. Every influx of funds into his pocket isexactlytwenty-percent of the total amount taken with each heist.”

“Good work,” Baskins praised, then addressed Sarge again. “Which means whoever is pulling his strings, is getting a clean eighty-percent. It’s time to look into everyone the boy is close to. Teachers, parents…”

The pair who Sloane worked with, agreed to jump on that.

Baskins continued. “In the meantime, Sarge, will you be able to backtrack from those deposits to the king-pin?”

“Give me some time,” Sarge muttered, but instantly went back to work. “This could be tough, since the point of origin is encrypted.”

Sloane huffed. “Uh, we might be able to afford an extra day or two, hell, even a week to solve the bigger picture of the money,” she reminded them. “But Kaelyn Jefferson’s disappearance is a different story. Time is ticking on her safety, and we have to locate her as soon as possible.” She turned to Perk. “Did your new buddies have anything to say regarding her whereabouts?”

“The kids I hung with were full of suppositions,” Perk replied with a shrug. “They believe Nelsin lured her away and has her stashed somewhere.”

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