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Day Four, early morning

CyberNet Forensics, Inc., New York City

CyberNet Forensics was one of the top-rated, though not one of the highest-grossing, Internet Investigative Services in the country. While the identities of clients were usually kept pretty hush-hush, all of the company’s top cybersleuths, including Gil, knew that their clients were some of the most powerful individuals and agencies in the world.

CyberNet’s website claimed their computer programs had helped spot, prosecute, and put an end to more identity theft, online child pornography, money laundering, fraud, and potential terrorist schemes than all the other Internet forensics companies combined. Oddly, though, according to the company’s annual financial reports, CyberNet continued to remain in the red.

At least once a month, George, as division supervisor, addressed the company’s team of cybersleuths or, as he preferred to call them, his Internet Forensic Specialists. It was always the same old pep talk about how their programs were helping to keep cyberspace safe for the innocent. Most of them no longer listened to the plethora of words and lack of action. George could never explain why, as the accounts grew, budgets shrank. Morale dropped accordingly.

When Gil first came to the company, fresh out of graduate school, it had been a different place entirely; full of excitement and hope. These were the crème de la crème; young men and women, not necessarily tops in their classes but independent in their thinking and dogged in their persistence.

Every one of them was a loner, content to work in some tiny windowless office for days on end, hacking into “unbreakable” data bases and Internet sites, in order to track down a target, find proof of the cyber crime, and present enough solid evidence to back up an arrest and conviction.

“You get paid to break into top secret files?” Lucy asked incredulously on their first date. “Can’t you be arrested or something?”

No, he couldn’t be arrested. He was registered with the National Securities Administration, the only organization that hired more forensic investigators than CyberNet. And, no, he wasn’t being paid the big bucks, such as they were, to break into systems; he was paid to figure out how identity thieves had made their way into the systems and to make sure that no one else could ever do the same.

The truth, however, was that like every other cybersleuth, it was “nailing the target” that Gil loved. Once he had proof positive of a crime and the identity of the perpetrator, the task of making the system secure for the future didn’t run anywhere near a close second. It was the very love of the hunt and his dislike for the cleanup that ended up being Gil’s salvation.

While looking for a shortcut in order to patch up the FBI’s payroll system, he’d written a set of computer instructions designed to sniff out the gaps in the original program. He called his subprograms Dobermans because, once set in motion, they hunted down their prey and pounced on it, holding it at bay until he gave them the okay to obliterate it. A single tap on the return key and the security breach in the system was literally gobbled up.

At the time, George had been beside himself with joy. He predicted that, with Gil’s Dobermans in action, the world would be beating a path to CyberNet’s door. Which it had, though the money never seemed to find its way beyond George’s office on the top floor. Gil looked around at his own small, windowless office.

Well, so much for the Trickle-Down Theory of Economics.

Gil swiveled to face the largest of his three computer screens and settled back to savor his morning bagel and cream cheese as he perused his e-mail. It was early, George wouldn’t be in for a couple of hours, and Gil would have plenty of time to figure out how he was going to play down last Friday’s dinner fiasco with Ludlow.

The familiar “You’ve Got Mail” alert interrupted Gil’s final sip of coffee.

Jesus! What’s he doing in this early?

Obviously, someone had already informed George of the problem. Nothing but a potentially lost source of income would get the big guy in at this hour.

A piercing alarm proclaimed that Gil’s main computer had gone down and the rest were about to follow. He rushed to delete George’s message. He was too late. The screens on his two alternate computers and the lights on his Internet server went dark. Gil held his breath as he waited for the whirr that would confirm that the backup system had kicked in. He sighed with relief. The backup system’s welcome drone promised that, within a few minutes, everything would be up and running and more than seven terabytes of information would have been saved from oblivion.

Until recently, George’s e-mail would have simply meant yet another pain-in-the-ass communication that required Gil’s attention. For the past two weeks, however, any incoming e-mail bearing George’s screen name sent Gil’s computer network crashing.

Gil had warned George that if he continued to refuse to incorporate RSA security codes, they were inviting a major hacking catastrophe. George refused to discuss the matter. Gil offered to brave George’s maze of computers to try and tease out the problem. George refused. Finally, they came to a truce. Gil agreed to drop the whole thing with the promise that George would phone, rather than send any e-mail until Gil figured out a workaround. The cease-fire lasted two days. By the third day, the big guy was sending e-mail messages as if there had never been a problem.

Each time an incoming e-mail shut Gil down, George would claim, as if for the first time, that he was doing his best to remember. “After all,” he would add with a shrug and an innocent smile, “I guess I’m just a creature of habit.”

Gil pulled his chair in close to the largest of the monitors and rapidly typed in a series of commands. Line by line, he examined the high-end security program he had designed for himself only days before the trouble had first begun.

What was triggering the goddamn thing to crash? And why only with George’s e-mail?

Even his Dobermans couldn’t find the source of the problem. Gil grabbed the phone and dialed George’s extension.

“I’m coming. I’m coming,” Gil said as he continued to type. “And for Christ’s sake, don’t send any more e-mails.”

Gil shook his head. What a waste. A brilliant mind like George’s imprisoned in a four-hundred-pound body. With the maturity of a preadolescent, to boot. Nobody at work had ever seen the mountain of a man with a friend or had ever known him to go out socially. George simply shuffled from home to the offices, eating and sitting in front of one computer or another or playing with his latest tech toy. Though George had no one to blame but himself, still, it was a pathetic waste of a life.

Given that he was probably terribly lonely, or maybe because of it, George wasn’t half bad to work for. Though he was smart as hell, he wasn’t competitive. He spoke his mind when he didn’t like the way something was going but, in general, he appreciated Gil’s work and told him so quite often. George was okay and just self-conscious enough about his appearance to make him easy to get along with. All you had to do was tell George there had been a noticeable decrease in his ample middle, and he’d beam at you like a happy five-year-old. Just a big old puppy dog—a greedy but lovable big old puppy dog.

The last computer kicked in and, before George could send yet another e-mail, Gil headed for what could be loosely referred to as George’s office.