Point of Contact

If he had to guess, Paul thought it looked like Jack had been in a fight. But Jack was a financial analyst, not a street brawler. If he’d been in a fight, why wouldn’t he just tell him that?

Paul stood chewing his cereal in the foyer, thinking. He wiped away another drop of milk dribbling down his chin, running through the possibilities.

Booze? Drugs? Brain chemistry?

Maybe.

Or maybe Jack wasn’t the man Paul thought he was, after all.

* * *

Paul was nervous. He wanted a drink. Needed one, in fact. But he needed his mind clear more.

After thinking about the Dalfan security protocols all day, Paul finally figured out a way to work around them. Like most brilliant solutions to complex problems, it was frighteningly simple. It was also kind of crazy.

His plan had only a few moving parts: Download the CIA program onto his laptop, then copy the CIA program from his laptop to a Dalfan encrypted USB. Once it was infected, Paul would then install the Dalfan USB into a Dalfan desktop and, thirty seconds later, his mission would be completed.

Tonight was the easy piece. All he had to do was download the CIA program from Rhodes’s USB drive to his laptop. Easy.

Unless it didn’t work.

Relax, he told himself. One step at a time.

He double-checked the lock on his bedroom door to make sure Jack wouldn’t suddenly walk in. No point in getting him tangled up in this mess.

He then sat on his bed and opened his laptop in order to load Rhodes’s CIA drive onto his computer. But what did Rhodes say? It was an automatically executing file. But it would execute only after he used his thumbprint to unlock it and typed in his verification code. Once he did those two things, the program would automatically launch.

That was a problem. Paul didn’t want the program to launch automatically — otherwise, he might not be able to copy it.

But Paul figured out a crack in the system. He inserted the CIA drive into the USB port, then pressed his thumb against the thumb pad. The drive recognized Paul’s print. It unlocked, as expected, flashing red, then blue.

The laptop screen then flashed a dialogue box, asking Paul for his security code, which would initiate the program launch. Paul ignored it. Instead, he opened up the USB drive icon on his laptop and examined its contents.

Paul saw a single unnamed file folder. The file didn’t appear to be doing anything. So far, so good.

He swallowed hard, then dragged the unnamed CIA file onto his laptop. A copy progress bar opened up. It was going to take about two minutes to transfer. Paul drummed his fingers nervously, waiting for the transfer to complete…

… waiting for an explosion.

It never came.

The progress bar completed, and the CIA file was successfully copied to his machine’s desktop. He ejected the CIA drive and the passcode dialogue box disappeared.

Paul stared at the copied file on his screen. It didn’t seem to be doing anything.

What was really interesting to Paul was that his MilSpec-grade antivirus software wasn’t picking up anything. In theory, the CIA program hadn’t launched inside his computer because he hadn’t entered his passcode.

Paul’s heart raced as panic set in. How could he enter his passcode and launch it on the Dalfan machine without the CIA drive inserted? Maybe the CIA program wouldn’t run on the Dalfan· machine without it.

A second later, a new passcode dialogue box generated by the copied CIA file opened. The copied CIA file was now ready to launch. That meant a copy would run from the Dalfan machine without the CIA drive inserted. Paul sighed, relieved.

Tomorrow he would copy the CIA file from his laptop to an encrypted Dalfan USB drive, then install the infected drive onto a Dalfan desktop. The copied CIA program would ask him again for his verification code, and once he entered it, the program would launch and his mission would be complete.

At least, that was the plan.

There was still one problem. He needed to acquire an encrypted Dalfan USB.

But how?

25

The next morning, Jack did two of his three S’s in quick succession and brushed his teeth. He pulled on a pair of chinos and a blue oxford shirt with a pair of his favorite urban hiking boots — super-comfortable and just dressy enough for the business-casual atmosphere at Dalfan. They were also waterproof. There was the strong possibility of thundershowers again today.

He’d promised Paul he’d be down in twenty minutes, and his watch told him it had already been twenty-two. But Jack needed to do one more thing before heading out the door.