Page 22 of Blood Game

“Here,” Innis indicated a string of numbers, a break, and then another string. “And again, here.” He scrolled down.

“What am I looking at?”

“SQL Injection.”

“Come again,” James replied. He was trying to lose the headache behind his eyes. Innis wasn't helping.

“An outside user opens a web interface and attempts to log in by searching for a string that hasn't been properly terminated. Then they look for any URL that ends in a certain code. He looks for the number of information columns, finds which ones accept inquiries, then changes the ID to a code that he creates. Then he injects a SQL statement into the code string.”

James gave him a look that had him backing up in his chair.

“All right. All right. It wasn't obvious at first. Whoever did this is good, really good.” Innis took a breath.

“Cate's server has been hacked. Once I found it and knew what to look for, there are footprints all over the place. I called Kris, I thought she'd want to know. But there was no answer.”

James studied the display.

“This string of codes, a space, then this combination of letters,” Innis pointed out.

“Here again. And here.”

“Can you tell when these occurred?”

“It goes back at least two months. The most recent was four days ago.”

“How many times?”

“At least a half dozen over the past two months?”

“Was it meant to sabotage the server?”

That blue-shadowed gaze met his. Innis shook his head.

“Whoever is behind this was looking for something.”

He spent the next two hours looking over Innis's shoulder, along with a crash course on hacking. Whoever had accessed Cate's server had methodically opened every file, including the last draft of the book she'd been working on. As Innis put it, there were footprints everywhere.

Four days ago. That put it the same day as the accident in France, and just before Kris had arrived from London.

“Is there any way to identify the hacker? Some chain of information that leads back.”

“That's the hard part. If it's some of the well-known hackers out there, they have a tendency to sprinkle breadcrumbs.”

“Keep it simple,” James told him.

“They have certain techniques that are almost like a fingerprint,” Innis explained. “You can't prove anything but it's pretty obvious which are the better-known hackers around the world. It's the lone wolf that's harder to find. You have to put bait in the trap.” At the look James gave him, he went on to explain.

“You make a change in the server protocol that signals that something has been uploaded recently.”

“Like staking out a rabbit to lure the wolf.”

“Exactly. Then when the wolf catches the scent and moves in, you spring the trap. In this case the trap would be a ghost that follows the wolf after it leaves—a unique protocol that leaves a trail. The tricky part is getting away with it so that the wolf doesn't know that he's been tagged.”

James frowned. Someone looking for something. But what? The manuscript?

The finished manuscript, if it existed, wasn't there. That would have been discovered the first time the server was hacked. Then what? Try to sell it back to the publisher?

It didn't make sense. And then several more instances where the server had been hacked. Innis was right, someone was looking for something, but apparently hadn't found it.