Page 36 of Tear Me Down
“Didn’t you guys say Hugo is Russian?” she asks me, and I nod, quickly glancing and grinning at her. “What if that’s where he met Avery?”
“I’m not sure why an American politician would be in Russia,” Zeke adds, but I cut him a intense look, telling him to shut the fuck up and let my woman finish.
“No, I get that, but he wasn’t always a Senator, and even if he has been for a long time, that doesn’t mean he’s never been. Is there a way to track Dranan through Russia?”
“Not really,” Carter points out. “The only way we could do that is if we knew what territory Hugo was in and what time he was there so we could go through each database, and that’sifwe could even get in.”
Ashia has a point—if we could run these photos through the international database, we might get more hits. If Hugo is from another country, there’s a good bet that the others are as well, and I guarantee that if they’re committing these acts here in this country, they have in others. With only a moment of hesitation, I navigate to a different website and start to weasel my way through to the employee login.
“D, what the fuck are you doing? You can’t seriously be thinking about hacking into Interpol.”
“Of course I am,” I reply to Carter as I go into the website's backdoor and plant my program code, allowing it to multiply and take hold.
“What’s Interpol?” Ashia asks in a cautious voice, eyeing my screen.
“The International Criminal Police Organization. Think of it like a hub for police databases worldwide.”
“Yeah, and one of the most secured agencies on the planet, D, what the fuck?” Carter shouts, obviously getting more aggravated by the second.
“Are you going to help me out or are you just going to sit there with that dumbfounded look on your face?” Ignoring my dangerous look, he immediately swipes his laptop from the other side of the table and starts typing with me.
“Alright you crazy motherfucker, what are we doing?”
“I need you to throw up bullshit servers, all bouncing off of at least ten different towers. They can loop for all I care, I just need them to be convincing.”
“Piggybacking?”
“Yeah but let me handle that one.” We both continue to type away, planting more and more threats, some more concerning than others. I have an idea—one that kind of makes me an asshole, but I can apologize for it later. I need a strong enough connection to make this count, and once they see the fake origin of the cyber threat, it won't matter where else it bounced from. I direct one of the proxies to Kade's server, thinking that it wouldn't be long until he saw it anyway—but to my surprise, when I go to access it, it says he's offline, and Idon't mean temporarily. His signal is completely gone, and while that raises a huge red flag for me, I know there's nothing I can do about it right now.
“What are we doing, D? We need to be quicker than this,” Carter throws out in a worried tone.
“Just give me a minute.” My brain starts to conjure another plan, running around in circles in a chaotic storm. I continue to work and throw bait into the system, trying to buy some time. Their security is going to go off regardless, but it’ll be so busy tracking the proxy servers that are bouncing off so many different towers at such a fast rate that they won’t be able to keep up—especially while multiple points are trying to access it at the same time.
Another light bulb sparks in my head, a way to ensure that we stay one step ahead and hopefully eliminate at least one of our problems. I adjust one of the connections, making it appear stronger and faster than the others, needing them to consider that one the biggest threat. Carter, who fortunately is now more intrigued than pissed, stands up and leans over the table, focusing hard on the large screen while I wait for Interpol to take the bait.
“You’re going to let them pinpoint it?” Carter yells and slams his hands on the table, thinking I’m getting caught on purpose, and in a way, I am.
“Yep, and when they lock onto the signal, thinking it’s the city’s police department, I’ll kill two birds at once.” I want to look over at Ashia to see the look on her face. To witness the moment it all clicks for her, but I can't, needing to be ready at exactly the right moment. The connection immediately overlaps with the one at the police station, and it all falls into place.
That’s when they take the bait, seize the connection, and immediately put their system on lockdown, showing their own code for just a blip, but long enough for me to tag it. I slide my real program into the mix just before they secure it, cloning their own code and pasting it to mine as I slip through—immediately opening up their database and giving me access as if I’d had it all along. A relieved breath escapes my mouth with surprise that it actually worked, and that I didn’t just land myself in prison for the rest of my life.
“Holy shit, D.” Carter stares at it in disbelief, his eyes wide and his mouth dropped as the screen fills with brand new windows, menus, and content, all filled with other shortcuts to their databases and search parameters. Ashia tangles her fingers in mine and squeezes.
“You’re in?” she asks softly.
“We’re into fucking Interpol, baby, and now they’ve been notified that the city’s police department just tried to hack into their system. It’s going to bring so many fucking red flags, the Feds are going to have a field day.” I sit back in my chair and wrap my arm around her shoulder, keeping our fingers intertwined and draping her arm across her chest—half relieved and half feeling like a badass on cloud nine. “We’ll need to wait about a day to run their images through the system’s facial rec, so we don’t raise any immediate alarms.”
“Yeah, you got it,” Carter says as he starts to navigate through their database, teaching himself to use it so when the time comes, it doesn't look like he has no idea what he's doing. I pull out my phone and dial Kade, worried thatsomething is wrong. It rings a few times, each one pushing the paranoia along. The call finally clicks, and I straighten a little.
“Now isn’t a good time, D…” Kade says quietly, almost like he’s whispering.
“Your signal wasn’t pinging, I got worried.”
“I…I can’t talk now.” He hangs up, worrying me even more, but I know Kade is a big boy and can take care of himself. Hopefully, he knows that if he’s ever in any real trouble he can call me, but obviously now is not a time to push him.
“Everything okay?” Ashia asks me, nudging me softly.
“Yeah, baby. Just checking on Kade.” She lays her head on my chest, and I rest mine on hers, enjoying the small victory and waiting for the chaos to ensue.
