The next morning SnakeByte powered up the dirty machine to have a look at the pay data. Since one file was text that was the obvious starting point.
The first few lines of the file chilled him to the bone.
The first few lines of the file chilled him to the bone.
RARDE
Document tracking number 01000
Version 7.2244
EUROArt Cobra Technical Functionality and Production Diagrams
SECRET
Document tracking number 01000
Version 7.2244
EUROArt Cobra Technical Functionality and Production Diagrams
SECRET
Fuck!
Fuck fuck fucking ... FUCK!
RARDE is the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment. Weapons research, that prick had me hack weapons research. What the fuck is Cobra?
His stomach tight as a drum, and waves of nausea racking his body, SnakeByte read on. He soon wished he hadn't. Cobra is a counter battery radar system designed to instantly track incoming artillery fire, locate all the guns from the missile trajectory, group them into batteries, and send targeting data to artillery batteries for counter battery fire. Shit this thing could get rounds in the air almost before the incoming rounds landed.
Fuck fuck fucking ... FUCK!
RARDE is the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment. Weapons research, that prick had me hack weapons research. What the fuck is Cobra?
His stomach tight as a drum, and waves of nausea racking his body, SnakeByte read on. He soon wished he hadn't. Cobra is a counter battery radar system designed to instantly track incoming artillery fire, locate all the guns from the missile trajectory, group them into batteries, and send targeting data to artillery batteries for counter battery fire. Shit this thing could get rounds in the air almost before the incoming rounds landed.
SnakeByte barely made it to the bathroom before he threw up. He may be a hacker, but he comes from a military family. Granddad survived the Somme in WWI and a prisoner of war camp in north Africa in WWII. Dad was in the RAF, his uncles in the army. Hell even in his generation his brother and two brother in laws are in the army.
With this data hostiles could target Cobra itself and gain a significant battlefield advantage.
No way he could deliver this pay data.
He couldn't just bin it either. It wasn't a hard hack and that prick Miller knew enough to get someone else to hack it. What to do. Shaking, SnakeByte went down stairs for another coffee and a cigarette. Stood on the balcony he reached the final stage of grief. Acceptance. He was screwed, he had only one move, the atomic bomb of moves. The move he hoped he would never, ever, have to use.
Strangely calm, he phoned the office and left a message on the answer phone saying he was ill and wouldn't be in work today. Then he made a few notes, picked up the pay data and headed out. Thirty minutes later he was on the way to London.
With this data hostiles could target Cobra itself and gain a significant battlefield advantage.
No way he could deliver this pay data.
He couldn't just bin it either. It wasn't a hard hack and that prick Miller knew enough to get someone else to hack it. What to do. Shaking, SnakeByte went down stairs for another coffee and a cigarette. Stood on the balcony he reached the final stage of grief. Acceptance. He was screwed, he had only one move, the atomic bomb of moves. The move he hoped he would never, ever, have to use.
Strangely calm, he phoned the office and left a message on the answer phone saying he was ill and wouldn't be in work today. Then he made a few notes, picked up the pay data and headed out. Thirty minutes later he was on the way to London.
The train journey lasted a couple of hours. SnakeByte spent the entire time in a complete funk.
His life was over. He spent half an hour scribbling equations on the back of a cig packet. No matter which way he calculated it, the best he could come up with was a fifty percent chance of staying out of jail.
Eventually the train pulled into St Pancras. He walked around to the taxi rank and smoked a cig before jumping into the taxi headed to 140 Gower Street. The address that filled him with dread.
140 Gower street had been the home of the MI5 since 1976. The building was deliberately nondescript. You could walk past it and not have a clue who worked there. Despite appearances, during the Irish troubles this was one of the most secure locations in the world.
The taxi ride was over far too quickly. SnakeByte paid the driver, gave him a very generous tip, he probably wasn't going to need money again. He delayed walking through the door by having yet another cig, smoking it down to the butt. When he couldn't delay any longer, he headed through the door to his doom.
Inside the door was a reception desk, just like any other business. There were a few more cameras than you would normally see, but other than that you wouldn't have a clue what lay behind the façade.
"Could you contact someone who works with UK military research and tell them they have a walk in please."
SnakeByte was too depressed even to wait for a response from the receptionist, he just walked back to the far wall and leaned against it. A few minutes later a young man in a cheap suit walked up to him.
"Can I help you sir?"
"I'm a walk in, I have information to give you on an active espionage attempt."
He looked at him for a few seconds, trying to evaluate him. Finally he made a decision and escorted SnakeByte into a small interview room.
"Can you just wait here please sir"
"Like I have a choice"
As the door closed, SnakeByte had an overwhelming desire to run. Then he laughed to himself as he realised the door was probably locked anyway. Some time later the door opened and a man in his late 50's wearing a much nicer suit entered and sat down. He was the sort of man you could imagine sitting in a gentleman's club, smoking a cigar, sipping a glass of cognac. He also looked like he could order the execution of a terrorist in the same tone of voice as he ordered a refill for his huge brandy balloon. SnakeByte was shitting himself.
"So what have you got for me?"
SnakeByte thought about it for a second, then with a sigh he leaned forward and began.
"Look I'm under time pressure, I have information about a theft of classified information from RARDE and want to do something about it. If we are going to prevent this theft we have to act fast. Are you the right man to talk to, I don't have the time to go through it twice."
The man just sat there looking at him, SnakeByte swore he hadn't blinked once since he walked in the room. After what seemed an age, he replied.
"I am the man you need to talk to"
SnakeByte reached into his pocket and dropped the disks and his notes onto the desk.
"This is the information that has been stolen, while we are talking have you any techies who can authenticate it?"
The man ignored the disks, but he slowly reached over and pulled the notes over towards him with one finger. He glanced down at seemed to absorb the whole page of text in a single glance. For the first time, he blinked. He glanced up to one of the cameras scattered around the room and made a 'come here' gesture with his head.
"Where did you get this from?"
"I was contacted by a man who calls himself Arthur Miller, I have no idea if that is his real name. He gave me a phone number and a list of files he wanted. The price was £20,000. I hacked the computer and retrieved the data"
"Have you delivered the data?"
"No, I came to you as soon as I discovered what the data was"
He nodded once, and read the notes again. While he was doing that a man entered the room and removed the disks. Not a word was spoken. A few minutes went by, seemed like a couple of days to SnakeByte. He was trying to play it cool, but he could feel perspiration running down his back and pooling in the crack of his arse. Finally the man spoke.
"What do you expect us to do?"
"Probably throw me in jail, fail to find Miller, try to shore up security, and lose the data to a foreign power"
"You don't have a lot of confidence in us then?"
"You are a government agency, I bet you have people who know how many paper clips there are in a two mile radius of any military base in the world but still use FRED as a password to their work terminal."
Something really weird happened then, he laughed. SnakeByte had problems controlling his bladder, he didn't know fear could be so intense.
His fears were unfounded though, the next comment floored him and for the very first time today, he had hope.
"No. That's MI6"
A joke. Fucking hell. A joke!
His life was over. He spent half an hour scribbling equations on the back of a cig packet. No matter which way he calculated it, the best he could come up with was a fifty percent chance of staying out of jail.
Eventually the train pulled into St Pancras. He walked around to the taxi rank and smoked a cig before jumping into the taxi headed to 140 Gower Street. The address that filled him with dread.
140 Gower street had been the home of the MI5 since 1976. The building was deliberately nondescript. You could walk past it and not have a clue who worked there. Despite appearances, during the Irish troubles this was one of the most secure locations in the world.
The taxi ride was over far too quickly. SnakeByte paid the driver, gave him a very generous tip, he probably wasn't going to need money again. He delayed walking through the door by having yet another cig, smoking it down to the butt. When he couldn't delay any longer, he headed through the door to his doom.
Inside the door was a reception desk, just like any other business. There were a few more cameras than you would normally see, but other than that you wouldn't have a clue what lay behind the façade.
"Could you contact someone who works with UK military research and tell them they have a walk in please."
SnakeByte was too depressed even to wait for a response from the receptionist, he just walked back to the far wall and leaned against it. A few minutes later a young man in a cheap suit walked up to him.
"Can I help you sir?"
"I'm a walk in, I have information to give you on an active espionage attempt."
He looked at him for a few seconds, trying to evaluate him. Finally he made a decision and escorted SnakeByte into a small interview room.
"Can you just wait here please sir"
"Like I have a choice"
As the door closed, SnakeByte had an overwhelming desire to run. Then he laughed to himself as he realised the door was probably locked anyway. Some time later the door opened and a man in his late 50's wearing a much nicer suit entered and sat down. He was the sort of man you could imagine sitting in a gentleman's club, smoking a cigar, sipping a glass of cognac. He also looked like he could order the execution of a terrorist in the same tone of voice as he ordered a refill for his huge brandy balloon. SnakeByte was shitting himself.
"So what have you got for me?"
SnakeByte thought about it for a second, then with a sigh he leaned forward and began.
"Look I'm under time pressure, I have information about a theft of classified information from RARDE and want to do something about it. If we are going to prevent this theft we have to act fast. Are you the right man to talk to, I don't have the time to go through it twice."
The man just sat there looking at him, SnakeByte swore he hadn't blinked once since he walked in the room. After what seemed an age, he replied.
"I am the man you need to talk to"
SnakeByte reached into his pocket and dropped the disks and his notes onto the desk.
"This is the information that has been stolen, while we are talking have you any techies who can authenticate it?"
The man ignored the disks, but he slowly reached over and pulled the notes over towards him with one finger. He glanced down at seemed to absorb the whole page of text in a single glance. For the first time, he blinked. He glanced up to one of the cameras scattered around the room and made a 'come here' gesture with his head.
"Where did you get this from?"
"I was contacted by a man who calls himself Arthur Miller, I have no idea if that is his real name. He gave me a phone number and a list of files he wanted. The price was £20,000. I hacked the computer and retrieved the data"
"Have you delivered the data?"
"No, I came to you as soon as I discovered what the data was"
He nodded once, and read the notes again. While he was doing that a man entered the room and removed the disks. Not a word was spoken. A few minutes went by, seemed like a couple of days to SnakeByte. He was trying to play it cool, but he could feel perspiration running down his back and pooling in the crack of his arse. Finally the man spoke.
"What do you expect us to do?"
"Probably throw me in jail, fail to find Miller, try to shore up security, and lose the data to a foreign power"
"You don't have a lot of confidence in us then?"
"You are a government agency, I bet you have people who know how many paper clips there are in a two mile radius of any military base in the world but still use FRED as a password to their work terminal."
Something really weird happened then, he laughed. SnakeByte had problems controlling his bladder, he didn't know fear could be so intense.
His fears were unfounded though, the next comment floored him and for the very first time today, he had hope.
"No. That's MI6"
A joke. Fucking hell. A joke!
Breathing a little easier, SnakeByte made his pitch.
"What I want you to do is to edit the files so they are useless. I'll deliver them, you follow Miller and .. well do what you do. I'll tell your techies exactly how I did the hack, and we all go our separate ways."
"Why should we do that? We could just vanish you and secure the data."
SnakeByte didn't like the word 'vanish'. Didn't like it at all. Didn't like it the same way a man with a bad cough doesn't like the word 'cancer'. He swallowed the lump in his throat, just, and continued the pitch.
"Miller didn't give me a phone number and tell me to grab whatever was there. He knew the filenames, knew how many files there were, knew far too much for you to just secure the data. You have a serious leak that needs plugging. This is the best way for you to do that."
"You do make a valid point, we could follow through with your plan, and then deal with you I suppose."
Oh man, come on. SnakeByte saw that glimmer of hope fading away, he needed to come up with something fast.
" Why waste a resource. You know now that I am not a threat to national security. If I was I would have just delivered the pay data and taken the money. I could be useful in the future."
That was it. That was SnakeByte's last throw of the dice. He waited for the dice to land like a man that's just put everything he owns on seven.
"Quite."
Quite! That's all! Shit.
At this point the younger man SnakeByte had first met entered the room and handed the older man a folded note. He read it then handed it back and told him to assemble team one for a rush job. Rush job. He was going for it. SnakeByte almost passed out with relief.
"Just wait here please Mr Dooley."
With that, he left the room. He must have been gone for five minutes when SnakeByte finally noticed.
He had just used his real name.
"What I want you to do is to edit the files so they are useless. I'll deliver them, you follow Miller and .. well do what you do. I'll tell your techies exactly how I did the hack, and we all go our separate ways."
"Why should we do that? We could just vanish you and secure the data."
SnakeByte didn't like the word 'vanish'. Didn't like it at all. Didn't like it the same way a man with a bad cough doesn't like the word 'cancer'. He swallowed the lump in his throat, just, and continued the pitch.
"Miller didn't give me a phone number and tell me to grab whatever was there. He knew the filenames, knew how many files there were, knew far too much for you to just secure the data. You have a serious leak that needs plugging. This is the best way for you to do that."
"You do make a valid point, we could follow through with your plan, and then deal with you I suppose."
Oh man, come on. SnakeByte saw that glimmer of hope fading away, he needed to come up with something fast.
" Why waste a resource. You know now that I am not a threat to national security. If I was I would have just delivered the pay data and taken the money. I could be useful in the future."
That was it. That was SnakeByte's last throw of the dice. He waited for the dice to land like a man that's just put everything he owns on seven.
"Quite."
Quite! That's all! Shit.
At this point the younger man SnakeByte had first met entered the room and handed the older man a folded note. He read it then handed it back and told him to assemble team one for a rush job. Rush job. He was going for it. SnakeByte almost passed out with relief.
"Just wait here please Mr Dooley."
With that, he left the room. He must have been gone for five minutes when SnakeByte finally noticed.
He had just used his real name.