“You were scheduled for your company physical at nine; you had a ten o’clock meeting with Mr. Edwards; at noon, you had a working lunch meeting with Mr. Roez; and at two you were to sit down with Mr. Spoltz,” she said reciting the list from memory.
“I guess I had a busy day,” Daniel said. “Can you tell me what is on my agenda then?”
“Mr. Postadolas thought you’d be busy recruiting the experts you mentioned to him,” she replied. “Would you like me to tell him something different?”
“No, that’s okay,” Daniel said. “By the way, I don’t have Mr. Postadolas’ number.”
“I do,” Lisa said. “I’ll be happy to reach him any time you need him. Is there anything else?”
“No,” Daniel answered now confirming in his mind that Lisa was a tall, beautiful spy and that he’d have to be very careful around her. “Wait a second, there is something. Inform the lobby that a group of young men will be arriving soon and need to be directed to one of the big rooms.”
As she left the room, Daniel lay back on the couch and stared at the ceiling slightly paranoid that it was staring back at him.
CHAPTER 3
An hour and a half later he was as awake as he was going to be, so he went down to one of the large rooms to wait for Richie. At 8:45, Richie arrived with the first of his team, a young man named Ron who looked to be twelve years old. Taking his brother aside as Ron looked over the equipment, Daniel spoke.
“Who is this kid?” he asked. “He looks like he’s in sixth grade never mind a junior in college.”
“Trust me, Ron’s okay,” Ritchie replied. “The kid’s a genius and skipped grades. He should be working on his master’s degree right now, but he’s having too much fun with our group so he decided to stay. By the time he’s sixteen, he’ll have at least one doctorate. He can hack anything.”
Daniel knew that all of the guys coming in that morning were college students, all members of a group they had formed secretly, sort of like a Hackers R Us. Richie had said they were experts with a computer and each would try to outdo the other in getting into high priority targets. They did it for the challenge and adventure, never really benefiting financially. It was like an exercise for a mind that got easily bored by doing the mundane things that fill most people’s days. It was almost ironic that they were going to be asked to find their exact opposite: the most average person in the United States
They always left behind a logo, a shark with the words I NEVER SLEEP, to show that no security program was safe from their key strokes. They wanted to be recognized for their accomplishments but not named or identified; however, the F.B.I. was searching diligently for them while not knowing exactly who they were.
The final five members arrived exactly on time and were introduced to Daniel. Pauline, a sixteen year old junior in college; Bill, a fifteen year old sophomore; Jake, a seventeen year old senior; Marci, a sixteen year old senior; and George, a sixteen year old junior. They all started looking at the equipment in the two rooms and began picking favorite locations. After fifteen minutes, Daniel gathered them all together.
“I think Richie filled you in on what I need you to do, but let me summarize,” he said. “We need data on every man, woman, and child in the United States…I mean everything you can find out about each person not just the ordinary stuff you might find in, let’s say, an insurance file. I’m talking complete as possible…health history, driving record, spending habits, likes and dislikes, education, clothing preferences, favorite colors, credit history, letters of praise or complaint…in short, we need to tap into every source we can think of to get these people’s records. If they ever filled out a form and it was filed, we need to know what it said. If another company polled their preferences, we need to know what they were. We’re going to hack the IRS, the F.B.I., the Social Security Records, Military Service, Census, credit card companies, banks, school and hospital and doctor’s files, State Tax reports, Prison files and anything else your minds can think of. Our purpose is to take all of that data and boil it down to find the single most average person in America
“In reality, we’ve already hacked some of the groups you’ve stated,” Ron piped in. “Just as an exercise that we could do it. In many cases, we’ve left ourselves a back door entry that is undetectable if we wanted to go in again, so those would be relatively easy. The rest are doable, but the problem is data storage. There’s not enough in both of these rooms together to store and process that much data electronically.”
“Then what else do you need?’ Daniel asked.
“I’ll confer with my colleagues and get back to you,” Ron said as if he were addressing a corporate meeting and not a group of nerdy college students who were dressed in a wild assortment of mismatched clothes.
“How much in dollars would you estimate?” Daniel asked wondering whether he should start getting nervous.
“Off hand,” Ron replied; “I’d say maybe seven million dollars. Now we could build it ourselves for maybe two or three million cheaper, but that would take some time.”
Now Daniel began to sweat again, but he didn’t want the students to know that he was worried. The original equipment had cost him seven million already with the technicians and electrician’s salaries coming out of that. He’d saved a million for the students’ fees and miscellaneous plus he had the other two million for phase two of the operation. The bottom line was that he’d have to go back to Louis right away for seven million more which would show the man that Daniel was off target before he even got started. That wasn’t a confidence builder to say the least. Would Louis shut down the project right now, take the loss, and make Daniel pay in ways other than money? That was the question.
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