In Deep with the FBI Agent Page 12

  All of the breaches had been done by using the password of an employee. They’d been investigating each employee whose password had been used, but turning up nothing.

  No one had a motive. None of them stood to benefit, and all of them claimed innocence. Doing background checks was time consuming, especially with their limited resources. They didn’t have the manpower to assign a tail to all of the various school employees around the country.

  “Shit,” he muttered and ran his fingers through his hair as he studied IP addresses and source code. “Goddamn Tor Project.” Tor was the bane of his and his department’s existence. Tor allowed anyone to mask their IP address, leaving the FBI or other law enforcement no way to track the source.

  Basically it was like driving down a highway and then coming to a brick wall. They could see doors in the wall, aka exit nodes, but once the door was shut, it was a dead end. Luckily, no one was perfect and eventually everyone screwed up, allowing Sam and people like him to track down the bad guys. All he had to do was wait for a mistake and hope it came soon.

  Why the hell were people so paranoid about the government monitoring Internet traffic that they felt they had to use something like Tor? Didn’t they realize how understaffed and over budget government agencies were? As if the FBI had time or resources to monitor every digital conversation and transaction in the country. If you weren’t doing or planning to do something illegal, no need to conceal your tracks.

  But now he had a reason to call Montgomery Prep and tell them he’d tracked a potential hack to them. Casey hadn’t said anything, but he knew she was pissed as hell that her boss was trying to hide the fact that their school was vulnerable. It angered him too, but no one had done anything illegal; otherwise he would’ve found a way to arrest someone.

  He would use a lot of tech jargon and confuse them enough, making it seem that the FBI was so freaking good at their jobs, they could spot Internet intrusions even if the victims didn’t ask for help and everything was contained in their intranet. Unfortunately, the school was likely going to have to inform the parent body. When minors were involved and there was the potential that their private data had been compromised, the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act held that there was a legal requirement to disclose the security breach.

  Casey yawned yet again as her eyes glazed over staring at her monitor. Though she’d driven home from Sam’s house reasonably early Sunday night, she hadn’t been able to fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning. Her brain couldn’t relax enough to shut down. Every time she’d closed her eyes, she saw Sam’s naked body looming over her as he entered her again and again.

  At two a.m., she’d nearly given up to go back to Sam’s house to sleep. After the amazing sex, he’d made them dinner and they’d eaten it naked on his sofa. He’d kept purposely spilling food on her, forcing him to have to lick it off. Eventually, they’d given up on dinner and dined on each other.

  She hadn’t spent the night, because she felt like she needed space to process everything that had happened that day. When the sex was literally mind-blowing, she needed space to get her mind back. He’d walked her outside to her car and kissed her, pretending to be all sad puppy that she wasn’t spending the night.

  She’d laughed as she’d driven away, but she wasn’t laughing at two a.m. when she couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t laughing now at three in the afternoon when her brain was foggy and her eyes kept wanting to close. And the little fraction of her brain that was actually working couldn’t seem to concentrate on her job. Instead, it kept thinking about Sam.

  Outside her office, people chatted as they walked, and she sat up, alert. Was that Sam’s voice she heard? Then she slumped back down on her desk chair. Sam was at his own office. It was simply that she had him so much on the brain, she was imagining his voice and hearing things.

  She shot a quick email to Annie, who had a view of the hallway.

  Casey: Did Sam just walk by, or am I imagining things?

  Annie: If you mean hot FBI agent? Then yes.

  Casey shot out of her seat and made it to the hallway in time to see Sam’s backside disappear into Nancy’s office. Shit. Shit on a stick. What was he doing here? He’d promised. Breathing suddenly became a tricky task, and she stumbled back into her office past a curious Annie.

  Casey: How did Nancy look? Mad? Angry?

  Annie: I didn’t see her face.

  Dammit, what was she paying the girl for? She conveniently ignored the fact that Montgomery Prep paid Annie’s salary, not her. Casey fiddled with her computer mouse and then gave up trying to do any work. She kept telling herself it was going to be fine. She trusted Sam not to do anything that would jeopardize her job, but it didn’t make the waiting any less agonizing.

  Thirty-eight minutes later, Annie emailed.

  Sam just walked past.

  One minute later, Sam texted. “Come out to the parking lot.”

  She was on her feet and out the door, nearly breaking her ankle on her painful but gorgeous heels. It took her a minute to find him, but he was waiting by her car, which, luckily, was in the far end of the parking lot, hidden from the school. Sometimes sleeping poorly and getting to work late paid off. He indicated that they should both get inside.

  “I don’t have my keys,” she said, panting. “I ran my butt off the second you texted, and didn’t stop to get my purse.”

  Sam shrugged, and even in her nervous state, she noticed that his blue dress shirt brought out the handsome coloring of his tan skin and light brown, blondish hair. “Fine. We can talk here, but first…” He stepped closer and hauled her into his body to plant a kiss on her lips. She responded instinctually, melting into him and returning the kiss before she remembered why he was at the school and pushed away.

  “No,” she said. “No kissing until I know why you’re here and why you didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t tell you for two reasons. One, I’m investigating a crime. I can’t tell my girlfriend details.”

  She relaxed slightly at that logic.

  “And two. I wanted to give you plausible deniability. If your boss asks if you knew I was coming, you can say no and give no tells or have to lie.”

  She breathed out fully for the first time in nearly an hour. “How did Nancy react? Am I getting fired?”

  He put on a mock hurt expression. “Give me some credit, Casey. I would never have come here if I thought there was a chance I’d hurt you.” She relaxed her stance slightly at his words and stepped next to him to lean against her car as he was doing. “I told her the FBI was investigating similar cases and that a Tor exit port was tracked here.”

  “A what?”

  “Exactly your boss’s reaction. I gave her enough technical mumbo jumbo that she now thinks the FBI is capable of super computer feats. It was enough to throw her off your scent. Since she doesn’t know about the conversation you overheard, she doesn’t suspect you gave those names.”

  Casey closed her eyes and tipped her head back to soak up some warm spring sun. “Thank you.”

  “It was interesting how hard they fought me on admitting any sort of security breach, but eventually, they caved. However, I wouldn’t recommend it getting out that we’re dating. Nancy doesn’t suspect that you told me anything, but it would be hard to deny if she sees we’re connected.”

  She opened her eyes and gave him a sidelong glance. “Are we dating?” she asked coyly, able to flirt now that her job wasn’t in immediate jeopardy.

  “After what we did last night, I sure as hell hope so.”

  She smiled, and now she leaned into him to give him a quick, hard kiss before pulling back. “I don’t want to get caught in the parking lot. This school already had two people caught out here.”

  “Call you later,” Sam said, giving her hand a squeeze before heading back to the front toward his own car. Casey gave him a few minutes before going back into her office. She avoided Nancy for the rest of the day and hid out in her office.

  Fou
r days later, Sam and his team had gone through the legal hurdles to bring in two minors for questioning. Sam watched one seventeen-year-old boy’s sweat drip down his forehead and onto his chin, where it clung futilely before dropping to the table below.

  “Jesus,” he muttered from the safety behind his one-way mirror where he could watch and listen to the proceedings. “Poor kid.”

  “The poor kid may be a hacker, but his attorney bills at twelve hundred dollars an hour, which his parents are happily paying to make sure their darling won’t end up in prison. Or worse, not get into college,” said Ted, Sam’s supervisory special agent.

  “We’re not getting anywhere,” Sam said, pressing his forehead against the glass. “I want to talk to him.”

  “We discussed this, Sam. You’re too close. They may know you from old yearbooks or something.”

  “So?” He turned to his boss. “If anything, that should help. I know these kids. I’m from their world, and maybe they’ll open up to me.”

  Together they watched in annoyed silence as Jack asked another question, which the kid was directed not to answer by his attorney.

  “Shit. Get in there, Sam. Give it a try.”

  Sam nodded and entered the interrogation room with an easy smile slapped on his face. “Hey, guys. Sorry to interrupt. Agent Suarez is needed outside for a minute.” He waited until Jack was out the door and then turned back to the kid. “Can I get you anything? Water? Diet Coke?”

  The kid glanced at his lawyer, then back at Sam, but said nothing.

  “Me? I’m grabbing a soda. I’ll get you one.” He strolled out the door as if he had all the time in the world and came back with two sodas, purposely bringing nothing for the lawyer. This was between him and Noah Lawrence, one of the two boys Casey had overheard in the school parking lot. The other kid was being interviewed in a different room, but Sam had judged Noah the weaker link of the two. Sam sat in the chair, leaning back, and taking a long drag from his can of soda.

  “Jack should be back soon,” Sam said, glancing behind him at the door, as if Jack alone were in charge of the questioning, and he was simply a seat filler. The silence hung heavy in the room for a few more minutes, and then he smiled at the kid. “Are Tuesdays still Tater Tot Tuesdays?”

  Noah blinked at him. “Huh?”

  “I graduated from Montgomery Prep. Class of 2005.” Another sip of his drink. “Sorry, did I not mention that before?”

  “No.” Noah leaned forward slightly and wrapped a palm around his can of soda.

  “Yep. Went there from ninth grade through graduation. How about you? Did you start in high school or are you one of the lifers?” he asked, naming the nickname for kids who started the school in kindergarten and went all the way through to graduation.

  “Uh…” Noah glanced at his lawyer, who was checking his phone. “Lifer.”

  “And what about the Tater Tots?”

  “No. Some moms went to war against any foods with trans fats. We lost Tater Tot Tuesday, but we got bulgogi instead.”

  Sam nearly choked on his soda. He’d meant the conversation opener to be light and generate a rapport, but now he was the one feeling out of his element. Bulgogi? For real? He reestablished his calm demeanor and said, “Those were good times. Does Mr. Martino still stand with his clipboard in the parking lot at dismissal to yell at everyone?”

  “Yeah.” Noah found his first smile since he’d been dragged into his new nightmare.

  “We used to joke that when he died, they should make a bronze statue of him standing in his spot, clipboard in hand.” That earned another faint smile from the kid. “Play any sports?” Sam asked.

  “No.”

  “Me neither. I hung out in the computer lab all the time. What about you? Which clubs?”

  “Uh, I’m in the computer coding club,” Noah said, which got the attention of his lawyer.

  “Don’t answer that,” he said sharply.

  Sam gave a get-a-load-of-this-guy eye roll at Noah. “We didn’t have an official computer club when I was a student. Instead, we hung around and talked about shit like which companies had the tightest security.”

  “We didn’t do anything,” Noah burst out.

  Sam raised a brow, but said nothing.

  “I mean, Sean said if we tried to log in using the teacher passwords, no one would know or care. We went into the school system, but all we did was add a fake student named Bob Underhill.”

  “Noah, be quiet. He didn’t ask you anything,” the lawyer said.

  Sam hid a surprised smile behind the soda can.

  “We didn’t mean any harm, I swear. I didn’t think the FBI would care.”

  “We don’t care about Bob Underhill, Noah,” Sam said. “Tell us about the other schools. Was that for the social engineering challenge, too?”

  “What other schools?” The look of confusion on Noah’s face was genuine, though it would be analyzed later by the experts.

  “The other schools you hacked. Don’t pretend, Noah. We know exactly what you did.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We only went into our school. Seriously, dude.”

  Sam slammed his soda can down and leaned forward. “Don’t call me dude. I’m an FBI agent. You may call me ‘sir’ or ‘Mr. Cooper.’”

  Noah looked as if he might cry. “O…okay, sir.”

  “How much money did you pull? How many Social Security numbers did you sell?”

  “Money?” Noah’s eyes widened, and the attorney looked as if he was going to say something.

  “Yes, the money? What’d you spend it on?”

  “Nothing. I mean, we didn’t take any money. We changed a name. It was the tech challenge, I swear.”

  Sam abruptly stood. He believed the kid, having been identical to him once upon a time. “We’re done here.” He looked at the attorney. “Tell him not to leave the state or the country and we may be calling with more questions, but we’re done for now.” He turned to leave and glanced back at Noah, who was slumped in his seat looking like he’d been hit by a city bus.

  “Be smarter next time, kid. Our country needs smart computer programmers, but only ones we can trust.”

  The kid nodded vigorously, and Sam knew he’d been scared enough to never even roll through a stop sign in the future. As for himself, he was annoyed. If Noah and Sean weren’t the hackers, who the hell was? Back to the drawing board.

  He returned to his office, dejected and frustrated. Once there, he perked up slightly because a lot of the log files and data from Montgomery Prep had been sent over. Sam went through them with a fine-tooth comb and froze fifteen minutes in.

  There was no question his alma mater had been hacked by the same perpetrator who’d attacked the other schools. Once again, he’d used a login and password of one of the school employees.

  “Shit,” Sam muttered, staring at his computer monitor, suddenly feeling as if he’d taken a punch to the gut.

  He picked up his phone and then replaced it. This was a conversation that needed to happen in person or not at all. He was hoping for the not at all option, because the data he’d been given pointed to the fact that the log-in and password used to hack the school was none other than Casey Cooper’s.

  Sam picked up his phone a dozen more times to call Casey. In his gut, he knew she wasn’t the hacker. He’d known her for fourteen years, which was long enough to trust her, and it was also long enough to know she didn’t have the computer chops to pull off anything like this.

  He was torn about what to do. With all the previous hacks, they’d instigated a background check on the person whose password had been used. In this case, a background check wasn’t really needed. He knew Casey, and he knew she didn’t do it.

  Unfortunately, he still had to follow the law and examine all aspects of the investigation. It was only a matter of time before Dan, the IT guy at Montgomery Prep, figured out that it had been Casey’s log-in. Better they and Casey should hear the news from him directly with him b
eing able to emphasize that it was a social engineering hack and that Casey was totally innocent.

  They might blame her, and he didn’t want her to suffer a moment of uneasiness.

  He picked up his car keys and headed over to Montgomery Prep to ruin his girlfriend’s day.

  Chapter Nine

  Two Weeks Later, Montgomery Preparatory Class of 2005 Reunion

  Sam wandered in to the reunion late, partly because work had run a little long and partly because he was a little nervous, dammit. Embarrassing but true. When he’d last been with all his classmates, he’d been several inches shorter and less cool by an infinite power of a very high number. Not that he was sure he was cool now, but at least he’d found his people and a career that people seemed to think was cool.

  He’d texted Casey to see if she wanted a ride, but she’d been at the campus all day setting up. He was flying solo as he parked at the school and entered the building that he’d been inside more in the past month than in the past ten years. She had texted back that she’d meet him at the reunion. They’d had several phone conversations, but work had only allowed one dinner date and sleepover with her.

  He knew things were dicey at work for her. Her boss had seemed to understand that the breach was not Casey’s fault. Still, Casey was working extra hours to show how diligent an employee she was and that she was trustworthy.

  He and Casey hadn’t discussed how they wanted to handle things tonight. If Sam had his way, they’d be holding hands and introducing each other as their significant other. But maybe he was moving too fast for her. They’d had a few dates and some seriously spectacular sex, but perhaps he was emotionally more invested than she was, and he had to admit he was a tad worried.

  There’d been a few times in the past few weeks when he was free to meet after work, but she wasn’t. She’d been cagey and slightly mysterious about her plans. He didn’t think she was dating anyone else, but she was hiding something from him. With his FBI credentials, he could discover her whereabouts in under ten minutes, but he didn’t want to spy on her. He wanted her to confide in him. Tonight he’d play it cool. If she didn’t come running to meet him, he’d respond in kind.