Page 3 of Deadly Hacker

“Just some recording from the neighbor’s door camera. It’s a quiet street. Your guys have a heavy presence over there,” said Finley.

“It happens around nine thirty-eight,” Welch added.

Rad immediately understood how the program functioned. He rewound the footage manually until he noticed a shiny new SUV abruptly park at the end of the driveway.

Not long after, Mr. Rudavin walked outside to get the newspaper in his pajamas and robe. Rad watched as a tall, lanky man in a black hoodie darted out and grabbed the older man around the neck and shoulders. Stepan struggled and clawed at his attacker, but it was all happening too quickly. His wife, Sonja, rushed out of the house onto the lawn after him. The man in black whipped around and jabbed her in the head with his muscular forearm.

Sonja toppled over into the grass, unmoving.

The hooded attacker stuffed Stepan into the backseat, slid behind the wheel, and gassed it out of the neighborhood, leaving tire marks on the asphalt.

“Absolutely unnecessary,” Rad sighed angrily.

“Evil,” Officer Finley added.

Rad sped up the recording until about five minutes later, when the neighbor, Mrs. Forsyth, came outside. Even in the pixelated footage, he could see the pure alarm on her face when she noticed Mrs. Rudavin lying motionless on the grass. She paced around in a panic for a few seconds, rushed inside the house, and came back out with her cell phone pressed to her ear.

“That’s where she calls 911,” Welch explained.

“And then the Rudavins’ daughter,” added Finley.

An ambulance pulled up to the scene, the EMTs jumping out to examine Mrs. Rudavin. Welch and Finley arrived, followed by Luka and Kira. Rad watched it all unfold, the events made even more eerily dramatic by the blurry imagery and lack of audio. But it didn’t faze him. He’d seen worse. And not only through a computer screen.

He simply rewound the footage to the tableau of the fancy SUV fleeing the scene.

Even through the pixelation, he could make out the license plate number.

“Run that plate for me, boys,” he ordered, moving aside so Officer Finley could sit at the police computer. “Something tells methatguy doesn’t drivethiscar.”

Rad slid off his jacket and perched his laptop in the crook of his muscular arm. He delved into the intricate web of connected programs he had assembled through his own hard work, research, and ingenuity many years ago when he was still a student at Harvard. It felt like a different reality to him now, but he remembered what he’d learned. And what he’d created.

He soaked up information like a sponge, whether it was a new face, name, number, or formula. From a young age, he had been fascinated with computers. He’d grown up taking machines apart and putting them back together, devouring code as ravenously as books.

He’d taught himself how to hack. To unravel the bits and pieces of someone’s life, usually through the web of devices tied to their modern identity.

Rad had a knack for picking locks and zeroing in on a target in the digital realm at first, then in the material world. He knew how to find the patterns. He could count cards. He could decipher passwords. He could memorize pages of script at a time with nearly photographic accuracy when he chose to. And he could hack into just about anything if it was attached to the web in some way.

He just needed a target.

“The car was stolen,” said Finley.

“From some high-roller at your casino, looks like,” said Welch. “He reported the car stolen from the parking lot of the Shining Star late last night.”

“There’s the connection,” muttered Rad. He leaned over to confirm the make and model. “And there’s my way in. It’s a damn smart vehicle. Brilliant.”

“We could call the owner of the car, see if he’ll bring in his cell phone or whatever he used to program his settings,” offered Welch.

“Not necessary,” Rad said. “I have what I need. That car is an IoT device.”

With a few quick inputs, his program slipped through the flimsy rings of security around the vehicle owner’s social media. From there, his web spread deeper, to the more private details of the man’s life. Things only those close to him would know.

Birthdays, anniversaries, photos, academic and legal documents—and passwords. Within minutes, Rad was holding control of the vehicle in the palm of his hand, miles away from where it sped down the interstate with Mr. Rudavin in the backseat.

He could see the navigation system in the dash. The black dot was moving along a prescribed path north of the city toward the desert. “This idiot was even dumb enough to put his destination into the GPS of the car he stole,” Rad scoffed. “Send a couple of your guys to that location.”

“Just a couple?” asked Finley. “This guy could be dangerous.”

“Don’t worry; he won’t even make it that far,” said Rad.

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