While he was waiting for the response, he drummed his fingers absentmindedly on the dash. He recognised that there was something about Natasha he had rarely felt for another human being in all his time working for the agency. For one thing, he was used to dealing with agents, either from his own side or the opposition. These were men and women who had a number things in common — they all tended to be highly skilled in their trade, committed to their current mission, and ruthless in the execution of every task.
But although Natasha might be committed to helping her government in her own way, she was relatively inexperienced in field craft. So much so, Sean doubted whether she ever had been given any training. No, Sean felt that what drove Natasha was her innocent belief in her job and her duty to her country. But without the training and experience she was a minnow in a shark infested sea.
His cell phone vibrated silently to indicate the receipt of a text message. He pulled out the road map from the back seat and quickly located the grid reference on the map from the text. It looked like Natasha was about 10 miles north of New Bedford, in an area where several lakes were surrounded by heavily forested woods.
Sean started the engine and drove out of the motel car park.
Lomax unfurled an architect’s drawing onto the table and used a notepad and a book to stop it curling back up.
‘This is a map of the ground floor.’ Lomax scanned the large scale diagram. ‘I don’t see the computer room — where is it?’
DD shook his head. ‘We’re not going after the computer room.’
Lomax looked bemused. ‘I thought that’s where you would need to go to get access?’
DD shook his head. ‘No. It would take too long. They will have that room locked up safer than Fort Knox. From the information I gathered over their Wi-Fi they have a telephone network which uses the same cabling as their computer network. That could be their Achilles heel. No-one thinks to lock down voice systems with the same level of security as their computer network. There's a strong possibility I can use the voice network to make a bridge to their private computer network. From there I could find a way in through a back-door.’
‘OK’ said Lomax in a perplexed voice — what sort of back door are you talking about?’
‘I mean a back door in software — it’s a way into the system through a little known entrance. Normally the entrance is left there by engineers working on the system — they’re the worst when it comes to security. If they’re having to constantly login and log off when they need to test things, they can’t afford the time to go through the usual security procedures.’
‘So?’ asked Lomax impatiently.
‘So they leave a back-door — a way into the system that only they know about — but the back-door bypasses all the normal security checks, so they can get in and out straight away.’
‘But surely the company wouldn’t permit that — it wouldn’t make sense!’
‘The company wouldn’t know about it. I’ve known lots of computer engineers — they all have a story about someone who has left a back door. Normally engineers set it up because getting the normal clearances takes time and often the clearances they are given are not enough, so more time is wasted going back through the channels to increase their access. But once they are logged on the first time, it’s easier for them to configure their own access and use that for the duration of the job. They don't tell the company because the good ones remove the access when they finish the job. Some forget and some bad ones leave the access there deliberately. In any case, none of them would tell.’
‘Supposing the company find it — they would haul the engineer over the coals.’
‘The company could look for a back door for years and never find one — they’re too difficult to detect.’
‘So what makes you think you can find one in the time you’ll have?’
DD looked at Lomax and for the first time in ages, a smile crept around his still puffy lips. ‘That’s what you pay me for, isn’t it!’
Lomax thought it through. ‘OK, but how do you propose to get from a telephone system to their computer system — it just doesn’t seem possible?’
‘Like I said — the telephone system uses the same cables to transfer calls as the computer network. All I need is to be able to ‘lift’ the traffic on any telephone wire and I’ve got all the computer traffic as well. I can then feed that information into an analyser program I have on my laptop and look at the individual packets of information that are passing over the network. It still won’t be easy, because login and password information is always encrypted over a network — but at least I’ll be onto the right network and with the software tools I have it shouldn’t take me too long to figure it out.’
‘You’ve done this type of thing before then?’ asked Lomax.
‘Kind of’ DD replied evasively.
‘In the States?’ pressed Lomax.
‘Um, no. Serbia and Montenegro.'
'Yes?'
And India.’
'India?'
‘Mm — I can't go into details, but the principle is the same — even in the States.’
Lomax looked at DD. Despite his black eyes, broken teeth and puffed up face, he had all the youth and enthusiasm of a schoolboy who has just been asked to raid the sweet shop by the headmaster. As least, thought Lomax, he would be with him to make sure he was not bothered by any more heavies.
‘When do we go?’ asked DD brightly.
Chapter 20
Before Lomax got into the car he memorised the street scale map around the Advanced Marine Agency buildings. There were three altogether, all within a distance of half a mile. The largest was a tall high rise office block situated on the main commercial street. Lomax drove past the main building entrance noting the reception area immediately inside the lobby. There was an underground car park at the back. The other two buildings did not seem to have reception areas and there were no other obvious entrances. Lomax carefully noted the location of security cameras at the corners of the buildings and parked the car in a multi-storey car park.
He came back to a nearby cafe opposite where he took a long latte to the window. While idly looking through a local paper he observed the comings and goings of the few people entering and leaving the building. After five minutes his cell phone rang. It was DD.
‘I’ve managed to track down the firm that looks after the buildings for Advanced Marine.’
Lomax grunted. ‘Anything else?’
‘I hacked their computer systems and managed to trace all the pass codes and security procedures they have in place.’
As DD began to reel off the list Lomax began to reappraise DD’s true value. DD had even managed to download a copy of the utility firm’s letterhead stationery and could print off an exact duplicate letter of authorisation. He had taken it one step further and logged a call on their systems as if emanating from Advanced Marine about an intermittent problem on one of their telephone handsets. DD created and assigned a non-existent engineer to the call so that although it would look genuine to the Advanced Marine Agency, no-one in real life would be prompted to attend.
After twenty minutes Lomax left the cafe and walked several blocks, noting the type and positioning of security cameras both sides of the street. Lomax decided the best method of entering the building would be through the front door — but that called for a little subtlety.
The receptionist studied the man in blue overalls and looked at his pass. She picked up the phone and spoke quietly, then told Lomax to wait. Two minutes later a smartly dressed man in a white shirt and puzzled expression came out to meet him.
‘I didn’t know we had a faulty point?’ he said.