Internal Threat Read Free

I assume you have kids yourself, then?”
    “A son.”
    Matt related the conversation to Agent Dockett as he also glanced up at the digital clock in the car’s dashboard. “Eleven minutes,” he said casually.
    “Mr. Weatherly, I’ve only been partnered with Agent Helms a few times but he’s made one thing abundantly clear - I should always follow his rules to the letter.” Dockett shifted in discomfort from the heat, loosening his tie slightly as the sun speared through the front window. “So that gives you about four minutes to explain a little more about how you’re here.”
    Matt leaned back, enjoying the warm-up to the business patter he had presented at numerous client meetings and professional seminars. “My business is selling real estate, or rather, a really small piece of valuable real estate. Server space.” Dockett gave him a blank look. “Websites aren’t just things that magically appear on your computer,” Matt explained. “They’re streams of data, huge chunks of it actually, that need to be stored somewhere. The ‘somewhere’ is what’s called a server, kind of like a massive hard drive. Those hard drives are required by law to be placed in very specific environments away from the main servers in case of power failures or cyber attacks.”
    “Okay, I think I get it,” Dockett said slowly. “So this kiddie porn company bought one of your servers and you told us where they were.”
“I wish it were that easy. A lot of the actual purchasers of the space sublet the servers when they don’t need it, just like subletting an apartment. That can happen ten, twenty times. By the time it’s held by someone that far down the line, the original owners don’t care who they sublet to. That’s how companies like this one can do their shady business.”
    It had taken Matt nearly a week to wade through the sheaves of paperwork his assistant had printed out for him. This particular server had been sublet over thirty times. At last, after enough digging to make his eyes blur, Matt found the IP address of the account he was searching for. The physical address associated with it was a mere six miles from his Beverly Hills office, in an industrial strip of Culver City.
    “Helms asked me to come along,” Matt continued. “Monitor activity on the account in case they get scared and start transferring their data to someone overseas.” He held up his Blackberry. “Which I’ve been doing remotely this whole time.” Helms had made contact with the owner of this site and distribution ring, posing as a potential investor into the business. He was currently inside trying to suss out the size of the operation before making any arrests.
    His cell phone buzzed again and Matt looked down to see a familiar number – that of his own house. He instantly clicked on. “Something wrong?” he asked.
    “Not at all,” replied the female voice on the other end. It was Luke’s nanny, a pleasant woman in her thirties named Ana. “Just wanted to let you know we got back from the doctor’s office and everything went fine.” Luke had been scheduled to receive inoculation against a particularly virulent flu that was circulating California. The shot had been just a precaution, but a necessary one as far as Matt was concerned.
    “He’d like to talk to you,” Ana said.
    “I’m a little busy right now. Maybe later I could-”
    The voice of his son came over the line. “Hey, Dad.”
    “Hey, tough guy. You sore at all?”
“Just a little. No big deal.”
    “Good man. Help Ana with dinner tonight, alright?”
    “Okay,” Luke replied sullenly. “What time are you going to be home?”
    “I’ll be home when I’m home, Luke,” Matt said with more irritation than he would have liked to. “I told you, when it’s business-”
    Consecutive pings from the phone cut off his words. He told Luke he would call him back and quickly studied the screen. “There’s something wrong,” he said to Dockett. “The site’s