Page 21 of Girl, Empty (Ella Dark #27)

‘I don’t like saying this, but security and secure are two different things. It’s an illusion. Like everything.’

Ella listened to David Lorraine closely. They'd moved to a back room in Murphy's Bar, away from prying ears. 'Those buildings have thick steel doors and solid locks. How is that an illusion?'

‘Because everything is digital, and there’s no such thing as a secure electronic lock. Security is really just the impression of security. It’s a deterrent. Do you see?’

‘Drop the cryptic stuff,’ Ripley snapped. ‘We want the security expert, not the wizard.’

‘They’re the same.’

‘So you’re saying our perp entered these buildings by magic?’

‘No. The opposite. It just looks like magic. Everything you think of as secure, be it locks, cameras, access panels, bank vaults, they’re all just code.

They’re just ones and zeros arranged in patterns that tell machines what to do.

A biometric scanner doesn't actually recognize your fingerprint.

It converts the ridges and valleys into numerical data, compares that data to stored numerical data, and if the numbers match within acceptable parameters, it sends a signal to an electronic lock telling it to disengage. '

Ella looked over at her partner, who was wearing the expression of a woman who’d just heard trigonometry explained in Greek. ‘So, you’re saying anyone can get in anywhere?’

‘Yes. If you know the right sequence, you can tell any system to do anything.

Open when it should stay closed. Go blind when it should see.

It's not magic. It's just knowing which numbers to change.

Perfect example, weight sensors in elevators are just load cells connected to analog-to-digital converters that send numeric values to a central processing unit.

If you can intercept that signal and replace it with the numbers the system expects to see, you can do anything. '

‘Right. I think I follow. What about biometric scanners?'’

‘Biometric scanners are even easier to fool because they're trying to solve an impossible problem, which is turning biological data into digital data without losing accuracy.

Your fingerprint isn't stored as an actual image of your fingerprint.

It's stored as an algorithm based on measurement points called minutiae.

If you can generate the right algorithm, you can convince the scanner that any finger is the authorized finger. '

Ella was trying to keep up with the techno-babble. Ripley looked like she’d already checked out. ‘What about the cameras? And the bank vault?’

‘Blacking out security cameras? Pfft. That’s the easiest part. Have you never heard of signal jammers?’

‘No. Should I have?’

‘They’re all the rage. Not a new technology, but they’ve gotten really good in recent years. Theaters and venues use them to stop people filming shows and concerts.’

‘How do they work?’

‘The clue is in the name. They block signals.

Modern security cameras aren't like the old analog ones with physical tapes.

They're all networked. They capture footage and transmit it to a central server via radio frequencies – WiFi, cellular, whatever.

A signal jammer floods those frequencies with noise, so it's like trying to have a conversation next to a jet engine.

Ella leaned in. ‘So the cameras stop working?’

‘Not exactly. The cameras keep recording, but they can't send the data anywhere.

From the monitoring station's perspective, it looks like the camera just went dark.

But here's the clever part - if you use a directional jammer, you can create a bubble of interference that moves with you. Walk past a camera, it goes dark. Move on, it comes back online.’

‘That's what we saw,’ Ripley said. ‘Cameras going dark one by one.’

‘Then that’s what your guy used. Those things are legal to buy too. As for the bank vault, well, that’s a tough one.’

‘No kidding,’ Ripley said.

‘I mean, the locks for the bank vault are no different than any electronic lock. A hacker could absolutely get in there, but…’

‘But?’

‘You asked me where I was at midnight last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘So someone got into the bank vault about that time?’

‘Correct,’ said Ella.

Lorraine scoffed. ‘No chance. The First National vault seals at 5 PM for fifteen hours. It’s on a time lock. A hacker could own the whole server and it wouldn't matter. You can't hack a block of steel.’

Ella took it on board, even though she begged to differ. Someone had gotten in there, because dead bodies didn’t magically appear in vaults. ‘So, you can say with certainty that someone hacked these systems?'

‘Yeah. In this game, you learn to remove the impossible before concluding the improbable, and people can’t walk through walls.

Believe me, I’ve tried. So it has to be a hacker.

Every security system I've ever worked on can be accessed remotely if you know the protocols.

And before you ask, yes, that includes the ones at Morrison and First National. '

‘There are backdoors into these systems?’

‘Sort of. Every security system has access points for things like maintenance, updates, diagnostics. You can't have a system that's completely closed or you can't fix it when it breaks.'

'And who would know about these access points?'

‘Well, tons of people, but that’s not the weird thing about all of this.’

Ella took a breath. She really didn’t need this getting any weirder. ‘Go on.’

‘I said it’s possible to breach these things, but it’s possible to land a 747 on a garage roof. In terms of difficulty, they’re about the same.’

‘Right. This is going to sound like a stupid question, but just how difficult? Could someone learn to do this with enough dedication, or is it one of those things where you need to have a certain type of brain?’

Lorraine laughed again. ‘Both. To the extreme. If what you’re saying is true, then the complexity here is insane.

We had penetration testers put both of those systems through the wringer, and our penetration testers were black hat hackers.

That means they have no problem getting dirty, and it took them weeks to even get anywhere close to breaking in. ’

‘But our killer didn’t just get close.’

‘No. It sounds to me like he did something three of the world’s best hackers couldn’t do even with weeks of preparation and intimate knowledge of the very systems they were hacking, so we’re not just talking about some script kiddie here. Your guy is… special.’

‘Like a savant?’ Ripley asked.

‘I hate to sound politically incorrect, but I never met a hacker that wasn’t on the spectrum. It doesn’t matter who did this, whether they were part of the installation crew or not, they’ve got a brain worth preserving.’

Ella said, ‘We’ll need names of everyone who worked on these systems, especially those hackers you mentioned. Do you have them?’

‘Yup. I have two teams, and it’s always the same people. I can send you a list of employees.’

‘Thank you.’

They fell into a silence while Lorraine glanced around the back room, probably eager to get away from these annoying agents who’d interrupted his magic gig.

Her instincts concluded that David Lorraine was no killer, just a man who happened to orbit the environments the killer operated in.

Once she had his alibi, she could cross his name off the list.

All of this felt like new territory. She'd spent years learning to think like killers, but she'd never learned to think like a computer.

And now she was chasing someone who apparently thought like both.

Her memory, historical knowledge, behavioral expertise – it all felt as inadequate as a typewriter.

She couldn't picture this killer's hands on a weapon because the weapon was code.

She couldn't imagine him breaking into buildings because he'd never broken anything. He’d just asked politely in a language she didn't speak.

And the worst part was the creeping certainty that she was already several moves behind in a game whose rules she didn't understand.

'Mr. Lorraine,' Ripley said, 'what other buildings have you worked on in this area? Other places our killer might target?'

Lorraine shook his head. ‘Not many around here. I work all over the state, but Indianapolis isn't exactly a hotbed of high-tech buildings. Most of my local work is basic corporate stuff. Nothing like the level at Morrison and First National.’

‘None at all?’

Lorraine reached for the deck of cards he’d pocketed earlier. ‘Well, there’s one. About forty minutes outside of the city. A company called the Sinclair Corporation.’

Ella committed the name to memory. ‘This Sinclair Corporation. They had the same levels of security as Morrison and First National?’

‘And then some. They’re a technology company. Don’t ask me what they do exactly, but I remember the owner was kind of a loony. You don’t actually get many loonies in this business, so he stood out.’

‘Who was this owner? And what was noticeable about him?’

‘Just a bit... nutty. I only met him a couple of times. He was one of those tech recluses, but I liked that. I wish more tech people were recluses, honestly.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Ripley. ‘What was the guy’s name?’

‘Mr. Sinclair himself. Can’t remember his first name. Can I get back to my gig now? I’m gonna have to do an extra hour because of this.’

‘Yeah, but stay here. We’re going to send an officer to check your alibi, okay?’

‘Fine.’

Ella’s phone vibrated against her thigh. Two quick buzzes. She checked it.

A text off Riggs.

You need to see this.