The 6:20 Man

Chapter 30

As Devine was leaving that evening a man in a dark suit and a blood-red tie and sporting a self-important demeanor approached him in the lobby of the building.

“Mr. Devine. I’m Willard Paulson, special assistant to Mr. Cowl.”

“Okay.” Devine recognized the man as being part of Cowl’s official harem. He was thin, narrow-shouldered, and in his late thirties, already balding, and as bland and innocuous as Cowl was showy and pretentious.

“Mr. Cowl would like to meet with you.”

“Okay, but I’m surprised you’re conveying the message. There’s a chain of command here that rivals what we had in the Army.”

“Normally this would go through your immediate supervisor, but Mr. Cowl preferred to go outside the normal channels.”

“And why is that?”

Paulson bristled at this response, obviously not expecting any reply other than Yes sir, thank you, sir, for this gift from Heaven to meet with Emperor Cowl. “He didn’t say.”

“Where and when?”

“At ten this evening. Here’s the address.” He handed him a slip of paper.

Devine took it but didn’t look at it. “Is this really necessary?”

“You must be joking. It’s Mr. Cowl. Do you like working here?”

“Best job I’ve ever had,” he said with as much sincerity as he could muster, which, granted, wasn’t much.

He headed to the subway, unfolding the piece of paper and reading off the address.

Well, this could be instructive. Or maybe disastrous.

Devine took the train to Mount Kisco and walked quickly home, sucking in the heat and humidity. His mind was going a million miles an hour and still getting him nowhere fast.

Valentine, with his gamer headphones on, was lying on the couch working on his laptop, as always. A beer was on the floor next to him. He looked up as Devine came in, his expression anxious. He had apparently been awaiting Devine’s return.

“So?” said Valentine in a prompting manner as he took off his headphones.

“I talked to the security guard and the guy who found the body. That room was unguarded for maybe a max of ten minutes. But there was no one on the floor because there was a seminar for people like me at an off-site location. And the support staff weren’t in yet.”

“So how did whoever send message get all that info?”

“I don’t know. The killer would have known some of those details when he murdered her. But the person could not have known that Sara had been found hanging in that room by a custodian unless they were around at the time, and either saw it for themselves, which is doubtful, or someone told them shortly thereafter. And that just isn’t likely. And I don’t think anyone else got the message that I got, or if they did, they’re not saying anything.”

“So during those ten minutes maybe person sending email saw the body and stuff?”

“And saw the custodian finding the body. But that’s not certain and I’m still working on it. By the way, I used the info you gave me to access the security logging database, and I’ve got a question.”

Valentine closed his laptop and looked up. “Shoot, dude.”

Devine explained to Valentine about the security logging system at Cowl using the RFID cards. “Can that be manipulated to show that someone was there who really wasn’t there?”

Valentine nodded before Devine was finished. “Sure. Clone card. Then, it like electronic twin walking in place. Easy-peasy. Do it in seconds, depending on what protection they have on card. Let me see yours.”

Devine handed over his security card. Valentine pulled a device out of his backpack on the floor and held it up to the card. “This is one twenty-five. Is bullshit. I have app on phone. I can clone card right now by writing what’s on your card onto clean one I get from Amazon. Is big bullshit just like encryption on your ‘security’ database.”

“ ‘One twenty-five’?”

“One hundred twenty-five kilohertz. Is radio frequency. Open twenty-six-bit format. Card is just simple LC circuit, capacitor, and integrated circuit working in combo. Card number transmitted is key, is what reader reads. But one twenty-five not encrypted. You get that key, you tell reader ‘Let me in’ and it does. Ten-buck RFID reader/writer, bam, you got card number. Most ‘security’ cards are one twenty-fives. My little bay-bee cousin can hack that shit.”

“Your little bay-bee cousin really gets around. So what else is out there you can use that’s better?”

He said promptly, “Thirteen point fifty-six megahertz. SOS technology. Encrypted. Hard to clone, hard to hack, but not impossible, for someone like me.”

“In the Army we would use protection shields over our RFID cards to prevent any electronic skimming.”

“That is good. That works, mostly. Unless hackers really good. Two-factor authentication is very good. Need two things to get in door.”

“I use that on my phone.”

Valentine took a swig of beer. “Good for you, Travis. You kickass champ.”

“But we don’t have two-factor authentication at Cowl, and it looks like all the cards are one twenty-fives. And everyone wears them around their necks with no shields.”

“Is bad. Is bullshit.”

“Can that be proved? I mean that someone cloned a card?”

“Depend on card and depend on how good cloning is. Pretty technical.” He held up his phone. “Use this as security card. Mobile cards too easy to loan out. You don’t do that with phone. With newer Apple phone models they have NFC chip. Activate Bluetooth, engage NFC chip, and you can use with door reader to open door if reader is programmed to recognize Apple phone. And if you lose phone, still has security feature before you can get in. Cards don’t have that. Readers read card, not person with card. That takes biometrics. That is good too. Better than phone. You need eyes or thumb. In Russia they have to be living eyes and thumbs, you know. In Russia they used to take fingers and eyes from people to open doors. But dead fingers and eyes not work anymore. Need pulse. I can tell you that.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Devine thought back to the night Cowl had accessed the garage entrance. “Cowl used his phone to get into the building’s garage. And I’ve never seen him with one of these cards around his neck.”

“That is because he is not messing around. He uses NFC chip. He just lets guys like you have bullshit one twenty-five security.”

“But it’s his building. And we can get in with these bullshit cards.”

Valentine handed the card back. “Does this let you go everywhere in building?”

Devine thought about this. “No. There’s an off-limits space on the fifty-first floor. We call it Area 51 as a joke.” He watched Valentine closely, to see if he got the reference.

“What is special about it?” said Valentine in a way that made Devine unsure whether he had gotten the cultural allusion or not.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think anyone works on the floor. I think it’s just computers.”

“Not so weird. It might be supercomputer trading space. They get millisecond head start on trading at volume. They make millions every day on head start over others who not do this.”

“I know. It’s called high-frequency trading. Buy it a millisecond before the shares or bonds rise a penny, which in the course of a day they all do, and sell it a millisecond later before the shares or bond prices drop a penny. It’s like being just ahead of a wave rising and falling. You have to have expensive and specially designed software and infrastructure. The institutions have that, plus, because they’re licensed brokers, they’re hardwired into the exchanges; it’s called naked access. And it’s not just brokers, but hedge funds and specialty firms.”

“Is smart and is stupid at same time.”

“Why is it stupid if they make so much money off it?” asked Devine.

“First reason, you have flash crash, when computer make mistake because of bad line of code or something. Then it sells when it should buy, or vice versa. You lose billions in snap of finger.”

“That has happened,” conceded Devine. “And what’s the second reason?”

“All eggs in one basket, dude,” replied Valentine. “Ransomware? You hit that one target, what will they pay to get back up and running? Huh? I tell you what they pay. Shitloads. And nobody will know because company will tell no one because they are afraid clients will not trust them and run to other guy. So, a few computer clicks and you are fuckin’ billionaire. They pay in bitcoin now. Cryptocurrency.”

“How do you know that?” said Devine, staring at him suspiciously.

Valentine caught this look and held up his hands in mock surrender. “I hear on street. I do not do this. I am good guy now. I do not fill up my bank account.”

“But with ransomware you have some countries filling up their treasuries,” amended Devine.

“Is true. But for ransomware, North Koreans have nothing to eat and then they throw out little leader in glasses. Others do it, too.”

“Russia?”

Valentine pointed his finger at him. “Ha-ha. Putin loves his money. He buys big horses and rides them without shirt on. He is crazy-ass stud.”

“Can you see if Cowl is doing their high-frequency trading from Area 51?”

“I can see trades if buying and selling is on public markets. I can’t see if they buy and sell through darkpool, not till sale complete. Is how high-frequency traders operate for so long without being found out.”

“But can you tell if it is high-speed trading going on? Based on the activity in the pipe?”

“Will take time. I have other things to do.”

“I thought you liked a challenge. And you couldn’t trace the message. I thought I’d give you a shot at redemption.”

“What is this redemption bullshit?” he asked, frowning.

“It means a second chance to prove that you are a world-class hacker.”

“I am world-class hacker. I know this already.”

“But I don’t, not based on the email fail.”

“You are funny man. Let me think. I get back to you.”

“Just don’t take too long. I have a feeling knowing sooner is better than knowing later.”

Valentine put his headphones on, flipped open his laptop, and went back to work.

Devine climbed the stairs, rinsed off the day’s grime in the shower, and changed into a pair of light brown slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt that he wore untucked. He put his dress shoes back on.

As he was heading back down, he met Helen Speers coming up the stairs. She’d obviously been doing yoga in the dining room again because the woman had on another set of colorful duds and was sweating. And he felt his heart start to race as she approached.

“Going out?” she said.

“Got a meeting.”

She gave him an odd look. “How’s the police investigation going?”

“It’s going. In some pretty odd directions.”

“Need that lawyer yet?”

“Probably any minute now.”

She looked at him severely, then headed off to her room where she would slide out of her yoga clothes and step into the shower... And he had to stop thinking about that.

Devine knocked on Tapshaw’s door. “Hey, it’s Travis. Did you eat today, Jill? The dating world of Hummingbird wants to know.”

She opened her door and stood there in red athletic shorts, a white tank top, and crew socks with pink Converse tennis shoes. Her hair was done up with an assortment of bobby pins. “I had lunch,” she said brightly. “And I might have dinner.”

“How’s the fund-raising going?”

“Hey, you work on Wall Street, right?”

“Yeah. Cowl and Comely. Why?”

“Let me show you something.”

She led him into her room and over to one of her giant computer screens. He had been to her office in the strip mall, and it looked like a cyberwarfare command center.

All in the name of love.

She brushed some of the sticky notes off the glass and hit a few keys. Her LinkedIn page came up. Tapshaw scrolled down and pointed to a message.

“I got this ping. It’s from an investment group looking to fully fund my next round. I mean the whole twenty-five million, Travis. They want to Zoom-meet and then start doing due diligence. They said if things go well, they could have a term sheet to me in two weeks and the money days after agreement on the deal points and the lawyers papering it all.”

“That’s great.” He looked at her. “So why the long face?”

“I’ve been beating the bushes trying to get this round filled for a while. It’s been tougher than I thought. You heard me on with the Taiwanese VC group the other night. They were interested, but said the process would take about six months, and our cash flow is tight. I’ve heard that same song over and over. And I reached out to them. I’ve done the same with all the other potential investors for this round. I’ve run out of friends and family and angel sources. This round is with the pros. But then these guys ping me and say it could all be done in a little over two weeks? I don’t know. It just seems weird. What do you think?”

“It does seem off. What’s the name of the investment group?”

She hit another key and a second screen came up. She pointed to it.

“Mayflower Enterprises. Ever heard of them? I’ve done some digging on them but there’s not much. Some guy named—”

Devine didn’t hear her because he was looking at the name of the gent who had pinged her with the proposal.

Yep, old Christian F. Chilton. That is no coincidence. He clearly knows who I am and that Jill is my roommate.

He pulled his gaze away. “Look, don’t do anything with these guys right now, okay? Just executive-lag it for a bit.”

She said doubtfully, “Okay, but twenty-five million is twenty-five million, Travis.”

“Just play it cool and that might become fifty mil or even more.”

“Wait a minute, I don’t want to sell the company. I want to build it. It’s my baby.”

“I’m not asking you to sell anything. Just trust me, Jill. And go get some dinner.”

He left her there and rode out into the night on his motorcycle for his appointment with Brad Cowl.