Cyber Genius Read online

  If this had been our half-brother Nick, I’d call him an arrogant idiot for thinking he’d personally destroyed the internet with one website crash. But this was Tudor. He hadn’t told me the worst.

  “Okay, I’m back off cloud nine now,” I said in resignation. “What did you do, decide to experiment more with Scotland Yard’s operating system?”

  “No, I was simply accessing the U.S. Department of State,” he said with a sigh. “My monster went on a search-and-destroy mission for ISPs and wiped out entire government data files before I could break the connection. That’s when I bought the plane tickets.”

  Two

  I shivered in the cold November wind as Tudor and I strolled toward the Victorian-era neighborhood that I called home. Towering painted ladies and enormous brick edifices lined narrow residential streets, now occupied mostly by embassies and foreign ambassadors instead of families.

  Our grandfather’s house was substantial, taking up almost the entire footprint of a large lot. An antique wrought iron fence lined the front walk. A foot of green grass separated fence and foundation. It would be warmer inside, out of the wind.

  We did not turn in that direction.

  With the buzz saw of fear whirring in my gut, I steered Tudor around the block and down a less fancy street of deteriorating old homes. Tudor glanced at me worriedly, especially when I trespassed on the broken concrete parking lot of an enormous abandoned building that looked part church, part warehouse.

  “We don’t live here, do we?” He studied the high block walls and eccentric mansard roofline.

  “I have it pegged as someone’s half-remodeled carriage house,” I said as I trotted across the parking lot to a gate hidden among the brambles along the property line. “Let’s not lead anyone tracking you straight to the front door.”

  I didn’t know if the State Department was capable of tracing incredible inedible worms back to Tudor, but I was betting infuriated roars had federal techies around the world scrambling to find the creator of destruction. And I didn’t like any of the possibilities of what they would do to Tudor when they found him.

  Tudor’s eyes widened in surprise as I opened the rusty gate to reveal a fantasy land of vined arbors, herb and rose gardens, complete with haunted house. Accustomed to the damp cold, he halted to gawk at the gables and towers of our newly acquired sort-of home.

  “What did you do after you ate the state department?” I prompted before we went any further.

  “I shut down my computer as soon as my alerts flashed, but it’s not my fault that there’s a hole in their security,” he said defensively. “We really live here?” he asked in awe, averting the painful subject. “Is there a dungeon?”

  “Yeah, and the dungeon’s mine.” I let him get away with the diversion while I explained the lay of the land. “Our landlord has spyholes all over the house, apparently left over from our grandfather’s regime. How much of your problem do you want known?”

  “None, if possible.” He looked like a little lost boy.

  “Tell me how bad this hole is in the firewall,” I demanded, lingering by the gate. “Will a patch fix it?”

  He hesitated and looked longingly at the tower. But Tudor had known he’d have to pay the price of my curiosity if he showed up here.

  “The website’s program was stored in a MacroWare operating system. I tore apart the MacroWare code on my computer,” he said, “and I couldn’t find the source for a security breach. I thought maybe the flaw was in the firewall of the website. But that doesn’t explain how my worm was able to get past the website program and continue destroying files in a government server.”

  I had only learned enough code for basic hacking. I lacked Tudor’s expertise and grappled for terms I could comprehend. “You’re saying there’s a spyhole—a backdoor—in the state department’s computer, possibly in their operating system—not their website program—that isn’t in a normal computer?”

  He nodded miserably. “That’s what it looks like without more experimentation. MacroWare operating systems are used by most government and commercial organizations because they work with the majority of computers. Most cookie blockers work with them, so I designed my software like a virus that went one step further. It’s supposed to eat through dangerous cookies and any data containing my ID. It works perfectly even on Chinese and Russian websites.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes. “In other words, you created illegal malware that infects websites.”

  “It might be technically illegal, but it was never designed to act as a Trojan horse to open doors directly into computers—that’s way over the top dangerous and requires that someone on the other side let it in. I didn’t program limits into my software for going beyond its intended target, because I never expected it to go any farther. For all I know, it somehow got corrupted and started multiplying and hunting ISPs one digit different from mine, then two digits... But unless there was an open back door, my worm shouldn’t go further than the website address directory. It shouldn’t have been a problem.”

  “Evil minions,” I muttered, thinking aloud. “In your scenario, wouldn’t the hole have to have been built into the State Department’s MacroWare system? If MacroWare can plant spyholes in one government computer, how many others can they be spying on?”

  Tudor glared at me. “Stephen Stiles wouldn’t do anything like that. He’s a genius who doesn’t need to spy to get rich. He’s a hero who gives fortunes to the poor and to medical research. He wouldn’t deliberately plant holes in a system that practically runs the world.”

  “Don’t be naïve,” I said scornfully. “For all you know, that’s how he gets government contracts, by knowing what his competitors bid.”

  Tudor looked me fearlessly in the eye. “He’s not that kind of creep. I sent him and his top staff a message warning of the problem before I left, and they acknowledged it immediately. You’ll see, they’ll fix it. I just need to wait it out.”

  “Which is why you ran like hell, got it,” I said, proceeding toward the house, trying not to reveal that the buzz saw in my stomach had been joined by a jackhammer at this latest news. Tudor had notified Stiles of the flaw? The Stephen Stiles who was just hospitalized for poisoning?

  I feared I would pass out at any moment as numbers added up in my head. Coincidence didn’t happen in my world. “When did you send the message?”

  “Tuesday evening, my time. Guess that’s Tuesday morning, your time. I’m wiped. Can we talk about this later?”

  I led him to the kitchen entrance, but I was already formulating the timeline—Stephen Stiles and company went to the dinner on Wednesday night, a day and a half after Tudor had sent his frantic e-mail warning. If whoever had received that email—and Tudor was crafty enough to have private corporate email addresses—gone directly to Stiles, there had been time before the dinner for a whole lot of techies to get their panties in a twist.

  Another scenario—I didn’t know how likely— was that someone at the State Department had been smart enough to blame disappearing data on an operating system malfunction and not an attack from North Korea. They would have come down hard on Stiles.

  Either way, I didn’t like the coincidence of MacroWare learning of a huge security breach a day and a half before five of its executives were poisoned—but food poisoning? That didn’t even begin to make sense. Stiles and company would be up and whupping ass in twenty-four hours.

  So someone wanted them out of the way for a day?

  My mind kept replaying the image of Graham entering the building where Stiles and company had been poisoned. That had been Wednesday. Today was Friday. I had no idea what he was doing at any given time, so I couldn’t say where he’d been that day.

  I wanted to trust a man who had helped rescue my sisters. But I knew our mysterious landlord was nose-deep in political guano that was well over my head. I was almost afraid to show Tudor to a room in the mansion. Maybe I should have hidden him in a hotel.

  But Tudor was clear
ly exhausted, and I didn’t know any cheap hotels. I dumped him in one of the spare second floor bedrooms, then headed to the backyard to call my brother Nick, out of range of Graham’s hearing. I needed to know what Nick had wanted me to see on the news.

  I hoped Graham hadn’t bugged the arbor. It was danged cold with the wind tossing the gnarled vines, but I didn’t trust my basement office to be unbugged. There had been a time when I’d mistakenly thought Graham was a cripple who couldn’t infiltrate my private space. I’d been wrong too often about that man to take any chances.

  Nick answered at once. “Was that him?” he asked without preamble.

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “Was what whom?” I asked, stalling. I knew what he was asking.

  “Graham!” he said impatiently. “You’ve seen him. I haven’t. We’re monitoring the Stiles situation. The ambassador’s security staff swears that was Amadeus Graham entering the building on Wednesday, the day of the conference. Was it?”

  “What difference does it make?” Since I promise my clients privacy, I couldn’t tell Nick anything until Graham gave the go-ahead. “I’m pretty certain he didn’t cook their food! What’s this really about?” I started running my hands over the arbor posts, looking for anything that might be picking up my voice or my cell signal.

  “The ambassador thinks Graham’s been running a secret security operation for years, spying on the embassy and who knows who else. They want proof that he’s not only alive, despite reports otherwise, but that he’s not the broken cripple everyone else assumes.”

  I snorted. At least I wasn’t the only one he’d hoodwinked. Amadeus Graham had deceived the entire world, including top notch, high-tech security staff of powerful governments, into thinking he’d died or retired after he was injured during 9/11. No wonder I sometimes liked the alpha jerk, or at least respected his hermit tendencies.

  “Why ask me? I am not proof that Graham exists,” I retorted. “Are they trying to prove he’s incompetent at safeguarding his clients?” And since Tudor had only just told me about his faux pas, I assumed Nick and the Brit embassy knew nothing about MacroWare’s possible software problem. It was the food poisoning they were focused on—why? I really shouldn’t have the suspicions I did, so I added jokingly, “Was Graham supposed to be a taste tester?”

  Nick sighed in exasperation. “Do you want me to advance in my job or not? Inside info is my reason for existence.”

  I knew that. I adored Nick. He was the closest sibling to me in age, and we’d grown up together in the rough streets of a dozen foreign slums. He’d survived, gone on to Brit public schools with his dual citizenship, and wasted his education gambling for a living while chasing male tail. But now that we had a place to stay, of sorts, and EG to look after, he was settling down. He had a good job as an aide in the British embassy and had just leased a new apartment so he could take his boyfriends home.

  I owed Graham some loyalty. I owed Nick more. “You don’t really think the ambassador hired you because you were living in Graham’s house, do you?” I asked. Nick has a few self-esteem problems to sort out.

  “Yeah, I really think that’s part of the equation,” he agreed sullenly.

  “Then they’re full of crap and you deserve better. If I tell you it looked like Graham, and I have no idea where he was on Wednesday, what happens?” I’d have to look at my computer to remember where I’d been two days ago.

  “Nothing happens at this point, except speculation on what MacroWare will do now that its entire executive staff is dead or incapacitated. The market is likely to follow MacroWare down soon unless the company shows someone powerful—or someone with powerful connections—is in charge. According to the staff, Graham was once considered a world-class technical and security wonk with massive political clout. If it can be verified that he is actually alive and possibly taking over the company, the whole world would sit up and take notice. There isn’t any chance that he might be in line for an executive position, is there? He wouldn’t break secrecy for anything less, would he?”

  In panic, I pushed aside the hilarious scenario of reclusive Graham leading a public corporation and focused on what mattered most. “Dead?” I asked. “Of food poisoning? I thought all they needed was their stomachs pumped.”

  I clung to an arbor post and tried not to let my suspicious mind take over, but I’d seen too much in too few years. What would be the point of killing execs over a stupid software problem? CEOs couldn’t solve anything.

  The food poisoning had to be accidental. The faulty operating system and Tudor’s warning... totally coincidental. Unfortunately, my spy mother had taught me how the bad guys made things look coincidental.

  “Stiles and one of the other execs is dead,” Nick said. “Three are in comas, on life support after they quit breathing. The dead pair apparently ate more of the fugu chiri than the others. Theirs was the only table that requested the soup, probably the only table that was granted special requests. The chef is being interrogated, but puffer fish is inherently poisonous. If the chef wasn’t trained in preparing it—” He let the sentence trail off with a shrug I could almost hear.

  Remembering Tudor’s idolization of Stiles, I grimaced and rubbed my temple. A philanthropist and geek genius deserved better than puffer fish poisoning, although if his goal had been to get high on the toxins, maybe he deserved to be slowly paralyzed from the feet up for consuming one of the most lethal poisons in nature. But well-prepared puffer fish was a perfectly safe gourmet delicacy.

  With a sigh, I gave Nick as much as I honestly could. “As far as I’m aware, Graham has been in his office all week, but he comes and goes as he pleases without telling me. It looked like Graham in the video, but I was in a hurry and only caught a glimpse. We were at the airport picking up Tudor. We have more problems than Graham. We need a family confab somewhere safe.”

  Nick practically growled in irritation. He knew I wouldn’t call a meeting unless it was important. “Patra won’t have time to make it,” was all he said.

  “We’ll leave it to you to pass on the info to her. I just need to talk somewhere safe, which isn’t here. Tudor has major news, not all of it good, and some of it possibly related to Stiles.” That was an understatement, but I wasn’t trusting cell phone waves.

  “Okay, tonight, about seven.” He named a restaurant half way between our places.

  I didn’t want to drag EG into this, but it was Friday, she didn’t have school tomorrow, and she’d want to be part of any family gathering. I was rapidly learning the problems my mother faced when raising a herd of small children while spying on enemies. I didn’t have a mini-me to leave EG with, as my mother had, and even at nine EG was too smart to be fobbed off for long. She’d just investigate on her own if we didn’t tell her what was happening. I had been just like her at that age.

  I agreed on the restaurant and clicked off, then stared up at the towering fortress I wanted for my own more than I wanted anything else in the world. I hadn’t been entirely truthful about saving our funds for college. I was hoping we could buy our house back from Graham if the lawsuits didn’t work.

  I had never owned more than my computer. I despised our nomadic life while growing up. I longed for a solid foundation for EG to thrive on.

  I was terrified that my mother was right, and we needed to keep moving to be safe. The world is not kind to people who are different, and my family of weird prodigies couldn’t get any more different. We couldn’t cook or clean but we all excelled in trouble.

  ***

  Chilled to the bone and shivering after talking with Nick, I crept down the stairs into the warm cellar where Mallard, Graham’s butler/spy, resided. Heavenly smells drifted from the kitchen. For all I knew, he was cooking puffer fish soup.

  That Graham had the ability to serve poison soup, I had no doubt. I wanted to believe he wouldn’t do it unless the victims were intent on violent world domination. MacroWare had already managed commercial domination, so that horse was done gone, as
my pappy never said.

  Besides, it still wasn’t proven that the poisoning hadn’t been anything except pointlessly accidental.

  I hurried down the tiled corridor to my office on the front side of the basement. We’d moved here in the heat of summer. At the time, my office had stayed blessedly cool. I liked rooms insulated by earth.

  But I needed a space heater to get warm today. I turned it on and rubbed my hands together, trying to warm them up enough to tackle my keyboard.

  “Upstairs, now,” the intercom on my desk gargled abruptly.

  Now that Nick had made me think about it, Graham had been sending me documents to work on these last few days—so he’d been in his office—but we hadn’t really talked.

  Was it my imagination, or did he sound... weary?

  Graham was grouchy 24/7.

  I sat up and punched the intercom button. EG was right. Intercoms were so yesterday. “Do I bring my sword or a king’s ransom?” I asked, just because I hated being bossed around.

  Graham never verbally invited me to his lair. Something was very wrong.

  “I’ll have Mallard hogtie you and haul you up,” he threatened, but it was half-hearted and not up to his usual standard of intimidation.

  Realizing this day wasn’t getting any better, I made my own amusement. I popped an antihistamine—Graham had a cat and I’m allergic. Then I scooted a chair beneath the trap door in my ceiling.

  A few weeks ago, I’d discovered Graham’s treachery in installing this secret passage. Now I used it to annoy him—and because it was faster than following the elaborate winding public staircases to the third floor.