The Switch

7

It wasn’t until after the morning videoconference that Will was able to return to the matter of the missing laptop. He had a stack of phone calls to return, most important being a major donor who wanted to talk about an aviation bill. That was someone whose call you returned quickly.

He got up and shut his office door. The MacBook Air was sitting on the corner of his desk, gleaming, waiting, a reproof. He pulled it in front of him and opened the lid. In the middle of the screen was a little oval containing a headshot of some guy, obviously the owner, and the name “Michael Tanner.” Below it was a space that said “Enter Password.”

He entered the word “password” and hit Return — some people who couldn’t be bothered to memorize a password tried to be clever. In response the little icon shook. Uh-uh.

He entered “1234” and hit Return and the screen shook no again. He tried “12345678,” and still no.

He tried “99999” and got the shake.

He tried a couple more common default passwords — “987654” and “1111111” — and each time got the shake.

There had to be a way to hack into the laptop without the password, but he didn’t know it. And maybe it wouldn’t be necessary. The computer belonged to someone named Michael Tanner. How many Michael Tanners could there be in the United States?

He swiveled his chair toward the keyboard tray and opened a new browser window. In WhitePages.com he typed “Michael Tanner” and hit Return and found 710 matches around the country.

So much for making a few phone calls to track down the owner. Not remotely feasible.

So there was no choice: somehow he had to hack into the MacBook. Find out whose it was and ask him to return Susan’s.

That called for someone with computer chops far beyond his. They shared an IT specialist with a couple of other senators. The guy was good enough, so far as Will could tell, but he wasn’t going to ask him to hack into someone’s laptop that wasn’t the senator’s. And if they did find some way to remotely access her laptop, that could be deadly. These guys weren’t priests or psychiatrists. They weren’t bound by an oath of confidentiality.

No, he needed a computer guy who could be trusted, and that meant finding someone — anyone — who knew nothing about the circumstances, who could be trusted because he was ignorant. Tell him what happened, how the laptop ended up in the senator’s hands, and he’d be intrigued and might tell someone.

But if Will Abbott brought in a MacBook Air and sheepishly admitted he’d forgotten the password... well, that was benign enough, right? It couldn’t be terribly complicated to reset a computer. He Googled computer repair places and found a place that looked reputable on C Street on Capitol Hill. He called and waited through the prompts and then pressed 5 to talk to a “specialist.”

“Yeah,” he said when a guy answered, young sounding and with a nasal voice. “I’ve got a MacBook Air and I forgot my password. Can you guys crack into it?”

“Uh... is it a new machine?”

It certainly looked new, but maybe it was just well cared for. He couldn’t admit he didn’t know. “Yeah, pretty new. Does that make a difference?”

“Well, what operating system is on there?”

“Looks up-to-date.”

“The new Apple operating system, you can’t crack into it. It’s like the iPhone. Can’t do it. Used to be, you could do a password reset, but not with the new system.”

“Oh.” There was a sharp knock at the door, and then it opened. The boss. No one else would just barge in. Sure enough, she entered, closed the door behind her, and stood with arms folded. The appropriations committee meeting must have just gotten out.

“Do you have it backed up?” the specialist said on the phone. “We can wipe the machine and restore it to factory fresh.”

“No, I don’t have it backed up.”

“Then I don’t know what to tell you. Can’t be done. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” he said, and disconnected.

Susan said, “The laptop?”

Will nodded. “I thought it would be easy to crack the password, but it’s not.”

“You weren’t just talking to Carlos, or whatever his name is, our IT guy, were you?”

“No, an outside repair place on the Hill.”

“Good. I don’t want to use our in-house guy. People talk.”

“Ahead of you on that.”

“Can this place do it?”

He shook his head. “But there’s got to be a way. I just don’t know it. Maybe we should tell the Senate Security Office what happened.”

“Are you kidding, Will? And set off a whole investigation? No, thanks.”

“You’re right.”

“Morty has a guy he says is really good. Some Russian or something. Supposed to be a genius. I think he’s in DC.”

Morton Nathanson was a real estate tycoon, a billionaire, and Susan’s biggest donor.

“I don’t know about bringing someone else in. If it gets out—”

“Morty is the most secretive guy I know. If he uses this guy, he’s guaranteed to be discreet.”

Will hesitated. It sounded like a bad idea to him. “Well, of course, we could go that way. Absolutely. But—”

“We’re going that way,” Susan said. “Is that a problem for you?”

“I mean, obviously we want to keep this thing maximally siloed, and—”

Susan gave Will her famous over-the-reading-glasses death-ray stare. “Is that a problem for you?”

“I’m on it,” Will said.