Mitch was impressed and, with another few keystrokes, he loaded Jeff’s information into his. As the other analysts noticed what was on the main screen, a few of them came over and started brainstorming. Mitch took their ideas, working them into what information they had and by lunch time, he had a plan and a program that would start to close in on the culprit.
“Good work, everyone,” he said to the group of men and women who were the brains of his analytical operation. All of them had higher than average IQs but were a little less socially adept. As long as they could whiz through computer systems, he didn’t care if they dated. They produced results and that was enough for him.
An hour later, he drove home, his sleek grey Jaguar eating up the miles into the mountain side until he came to the tree line that hid the entrance to his house. The large, white modern building was an oasis from the chaos that sometimes erupted in his business. As he walked into the house, he greeted Duke, his German shepherd guard dog and best friend who was already wagging his tale in anticipation of their nightly adventures, stripped off his clothes and walked straight out to the swimming pool. With one clean stroke, he dove into the pool, instantly feeling refreshed. He swam lap after lap for over an hour, tossing the ball to Duke who jumped into the pool after retrieving the ball, happily bringing the ball back to his master. The punishing swim and the enthusiastic antics of his fierce friend quickly cleared his mind of the cobwebs from the previous eighteen hours but he mentally continued to go through the details of his programming and trap to see if there was something else he could do to catch this person. He didn’t like someone trying to hack into his company files and he was damn well going to throw the person into prison for as long as possible. The trick was catching the culprits.
Chapter 3
“We’ve got ‘em!” Jeff called out, walking into Mitch’s office a day later, barely pausing to knock. He wasn’t worried about the invasion, knowing that Mitch would be more interested in catching the person who was hacking into the personnel files than maintaining his personal sanctum. “They’re at this location,” he said, placing a piece of paper onto Mitch’s desk. “Let’s go,” he said and turned around.
Mitch didn’t hesitate. As soon as Jeff said the words, he grabbed his coat and keys, instantly moving out of the office to follow. Normally, Mitch would never be part of an operation. He’d had his share of traipsing through the jungle and desert, capturing bad guys and retrieving whatever information or hardware needed to be retrieved. Now, however, he was a desk guy, working the business, building the company and ensuring its continued success. He left the cloak and dagger stuff to the agents who worked for him but since this was his company and the hacker was delving into his files, Mitch wanted to be more than personally involved. He wanted to take this sucker down himself.
“We’ll take my car. It’s faster,” he said and slammed out the front door, racing to his car which was parked in the first space. The Jaguar roared to life and Mitch spun the vehicle around, racing down the road towards the address Jeff had given him. In less than fifteen minutes, he was parking in front of the coffee shop. With feigned casualness, he and Jeff stepped out of the car and into the shop. Just because they knew where the hacker was getting in, that didn’t mean they would know which person in the café was the culprit.
The patrons all looked normal, but Mitch knew that criminals didn’t wear a sign over their heads with an arrow indicating that they were “The One”. Inside the internet coffee shop, there were about twenty people in the shop, all sitting in front of a computer screen typing away while sipping expensive coffee. Each one of them looked like they were focusing quite diligently on whatever was on their computer screen, which meant they weren’t simply surfing the internet.
Mitch and Jeff stood in line while at the same time surveying the crowd, assessing the body language of the other people. Mitch skimmed through the crowd, his eyes surreptitiously going over every face, scanning their features, looking for clues that would give them some indication of their intent. Sometimes it was just body language that gave away the criminal. Other times, when someone was a hardened criminal or a sociopathic liar, the body language wasn’t enough.
With an ear piece, he was told by his security team that the hacker had already downloaded the files but was still online. They were trying to get the number of the terminal, but because these shops were a little less technically savvy, they weren’t always numbered well and most of the internet data was brought through one large networked system. A computer numbered fifteen in the system might actually be the first one in the line of physical computer terminals. It was basically a crap shoot at this point and gut instincts were in play.
Mitch looked around and noticed three people logging off. One appeared to be a student who was packing up a stack of books. Another was an elderly man and the third was a blond teenager. Check that, he thought with surprise as she stood up. It wasn’t a teenager, but a woman in her mid twenties. And she was stunningly gorgeous in a bombshell sort of way. She was short, but that was relative since Mitch was six feet three inches tall so everyone was short to him. She had short, curly blond hair that was almost platinum, but he suspected that the hair color was real since her eyebrows were the same soft color and her skin was extremely pale. Her eyes though – they weren’t pale but a shining, chocolate color that were almost offset by her perfect rosebud lips with a “dangerous” sort of deep red lipstick. She looked both adorable and sexy as hell, especially when she walked past and he noticed her black pencil skirt, black tights and red stiletto shoes. She pulled on a light red coat since it was a bit cool outside and he was intrigued when he got only a peek of her perfect derriere.
“Damn!” Gary said, walking up behind him and handing Mitch a cup of coffee. “What a little dynamite,” he whispered. “I wish she were our culprit so I could frisk her,” he chuckled.
Mitch wasn’t sure why, but for some reason, Gary’s comment offended him. A protective instinct he never knew he had reared its ugly head and he glared at the older man.
“Sorry,” Gary said, instantly contrite and looking away from the woman who was now walking down the street, away from the parking lot.
Mitch surveyed the rest of the crowd as he and Gary sat in one of the overstuffed chairs set up by a large fireplace. The shop was very busy with people coming in and going out, all of them grabbing a cup of coffee while some sat down at one of the terminals and sifted through the internet. Patrons could purchase internet usage by the minute, hour or in larger blocks of time so there was no way he and Gary could figure out who was on the system. “Are they still online?” he asked through his microphone?