The EMT Ch. 15

A light seemed to dawn on Ian's face as Otis made this revelation.

"That would do it," he said, "He wouldn't need much time to install his executable files and set things up so that the alarms would be disabled when he wanted them to be. If he kept his access after the robbery, he could even have got back into the system to do the clean-up himself, which would explain why I've been unable to explain the Russian Dolls mystery."

Ian looked across at the younger and more technical of the two brothers.

"Cordell, we need to make sure that no back-doors exist on the server or your network. We can do that best by sitting on the server direct, and the sooner we can get that done the better. I think we should do that now before any more damage is done. Can we go?"

Cordell was already pulling himself to his feet. On his way out of the room he was addressing Otis, and he looked really angry.

"Bro. you stay here and think of a way to pin this on that fucker and get our property back. You know where to find me if you need me. He ain't getting away with this shit!"

With that, Ian and Cordell were gone, leaving in their wake a very surprised looking Graham, Suzanne and Otis. Events had moved so rapidly, they were all a little taken aback.

Whilst Ian drove Cordell towards the warehouse where the server and network infrastructure were located, Cordell filled him in on a few more details about the sacked IT Manager, whose name was Michael (Mike) Roseberry.

At the same time, Otis was providing the same information to Graham and Suzanne in the small meeting room back at the jewellery company's offices.

"So we don't really know a lot about him," continued Otis. "We know he lives alone near downtown Phoenix, no recorded next-of-kin. He came to us about 15 months ago when we advertised for someone to set up our network. His references looked OK, and he seemed to know what he was about, but I have to say, I never really liked the look of him. When we found out that he had been bothering one of the sales girls in one of the stores downtown, really it was worse than that, he'd been stalking her, we decided to put an end to it and we terminated him for gross misconduct. He didn't like it, but Cordell and I are a hard team to resist when we put our minds to something..."

Otis' brief account trailed off, and the three of them considered what had probably transpired, which all made logical sense, even if it couldn't be proved. That was the dilemma they faced – how to prove the accusation and recover Otis' property. They were still considering that when the conference phone warbled in the middle of the meeting room table. Otis hit the button that answered on speakerphone. A distant Cordell spoke over the background noise of heavy traffic.

"Listen Otis, not sure if this helps, but Ian says if we can get a look at Roseberry's laptop, there are almost certainly tell-tale signs if he was involved. The only alternative is if we can find any trace of a back-door that has his credentials associated with it, but Ian doesn't rate our chances on that front. He thinks that Roseberry may have been less careful with his own machine which isn't as open to us as our own assets. How's the thinking going there?"

Otis let him finish his opening burst, and then informed him he was on speakerphone, and continued with, "We are a bit stuck at the moment. Ian's plan sounds good, but how the hell do we get hold of his laptop. You know how protective he was of that thing when he was working for us – carried it everywhere with him as I remember."

"I remember!" squawked Cordell from the phone. "He kept that thing closer than a sacked quarterback keeps the football. Listen bro, you were always the thinker when we were playing. Put your mind to it, I'm sure you can think of a way. We'll get back to you as soon as we get to the warehouse. Speak to you soon."

The line went dead, and the three in the room looked at one another. It seemed like their problem of how to prove Mike Roseberry's culpability had morphed into how to get hold of his laptop.

After a few moments thought, Otis rose from his chair and went over to the large whiteboard at one end of the meeting room. Picking up a whiteboard marker, he drew three vertical lines, dividing the board into four columns. As he wrote headings at the top of each column, he spoke to Graham and Suzanne over his shoulder.

"Cordell is right! I was supposed to be the great thinker when we were playing football, and this is how I used to analyse tactical and strategic weaknesses and problems with the team when we had a tough challenge ahead."

Suzanne and Graham watched as he headed the 4 columns on the whiteboard, respectively; "Problem", "Knowledge", "Assets" and finally "Solution".

"This is hierarchical" explained Otis, writing rapidly in the "Problem" column. "At the top level is the problem of proving Mike Roseberry has our property." He quickly phrased the problem on the whiteboard. "This has already changed into how do we get access to his laptop?" He drew a down arrow under the first question, and wrote down the second. "There are sure to be lower level problems, like can we get into his laptop if we have hold of it? But you see the point."

Otis moved across to the "Knowledge" column. "Feel free to add anything you can!" he spoke to his "team", now back in strategic football player mode. He started to write 'MR is a loner' in the appropriate column, then added 'MR is a creature of habit'. By way of explanation he turned from the whiteboard to explain to Graham and Suzanne.

"He eats at the same restaurant every night, and then drinks in his local sports bar. I only know about this because the cell phone reception in the bar is terrible, and he had to give us the landline number so he could be reached in an emergency if the network went down!"

Graham nodded in understanding, and then commented "It's a bit difficult for us to comment or add to the knowledge column, given we've never met the man", but Suzanne interrupted to make her own contribution.

"I might never have met him, but from what I've heard about the reason for his dismissal, he sounds like a bit of a creep and a scumbag."

Otis and Graham laughed at her point, and Otis immediately wrote down 'scumbag' and 'creep' under the knowledge column.

"That's the spirit" he said, "It's a bit like a brainstorming exercise. Just throw anything into the pot at this stage."

An hour later and after a couple of calls to Cordell and Ian, they had a crowded whiteboard and the germ of a plan to solve the top-level problem. Several additional lower-level problems had been identified, and the "knowledge" column had burst its boarders and encroached heavily on the "Assets" column which had been cut in two to accommodate, but that was OK; under "Assets" was the single word...

"Suzanne!"

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Two hours later, Suzanne was half dozing, half going over the plan in her mind as she lay on a recliner at the side of the pool at the hotel complex. The early afternoon sun blazed overhead, and her exposed skin was thickly coated with a high-factor sun screen, and yet she could feel the heat starting to do its job. Her little white bikini hid less than 5% of her total body surface, her dark sunglasses also helped a little. With her blond hair and a paperback at her side, she looked for all the world like a star of stage or screen, and she drew many an admiring glance from the other guests using the facility.

At first Otis had objected to the idea of using her as a decoy in order to get access to Mike Roseberry's laptop. He had reiterated what a "creep and a scumbag" the guy really was (to use Suzanne's own turn of phrase). However, Graham had insisted that his team were all there to help, and one of the advantages they had was that Mike didn't know any of the British contingent. He stressed what an asset that was to "team Otis", and that the whole purpose of following Otis' tactical assessment method (as he had called it) was to use available assets to overcome difficulties to achieve a goal.

Once the basic method had been agreed, they had done what planning they could, using the available knowledge assets drawn on the board, to outline a plan. That plan started with Suzanne planning to have a drink in the same sports bar that Mike used every night at about 8:00 pm that evening. Until then, she was free to relax, top up her tan and recover from her exertions the previous evening.

Meanwhile, Ian and Cordell were completing a forensic sweep of the company's network and server assets, replacing all sys-admin passwords and closing all possible loopholes to ensure that there could be no further hacking of the systems by their public enemy number one. Otis had disappeared into the Phoenix conurbation to put in place certain mysterious "potential assets", and Graham had retired to his room to hold a number of conference calls with other members of the Ruler Electronics EMT back in Edinburgh where the company was beginning to feel his lack of attention over the last couple of days. When asked about how his trip was going, he would modestly reply that all was going well, and he expected to be back in Scotland in a couple of days.

Suzanne checked her watch lying beside her and decided it was time to turn over and expose her back to the wonderful Arizona sunshine for a while. Once lying safely on her tummy, she removed her dark glasses, reached behind her to undo the strap of her bikini top, and closed her eyes and drifted off into a well-earned snooze.

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Eight-fifteen that evening found Suzanne sitting at one of the bars in Mike Roseberry's favourite sports bar with a bottle of mad dog in front of her, and her eyes glued to one of the large screen TVs that were scattered around the joint in a seemingly random fashion, each apparently tuned to its own unique sporting channel, and covering everything from College football to an international pool competition. Suzanne was carefully watching a soccer match between two domestic teams as if a real fan. Fortunately, not only was this a sport that she knew a little about, but it had appeared in the "Knowledge" column as being something of a favourite with a certain Mike Roseberry.

A little way away sat Graham and Ian in one of the booths, apparently completely separate from and un-associated with the good looking girl at the bar; although a careful observer would have noticed the intense interest that the younger man was showing, not unnaturally, in the babe on the barstool. Whilst Graham had his back to Suzanne, Ian faced her directly, and could hardly keep his eyes off his own wife, sitting as she was in short white shorts and tank top, her long legs (long, smooth and freshly tanned legs) displayed so alluringly and resting on the foot-rest of the stool on which she perched. Whenever the soccer game that she seemed to be so intently watching, had a moment of excitement, she would tense her legs and lift herself off the stool as if to punch the air, before sitting back and taking a sip of her beer whilst the action on screen returned to the normal ebb and flow of the game.

She really did look beautiful, thought Ian, although slightly incongruous in the faintly seedy sports bar. The rest of the clientele were engrossed in their own favourite spectator sport on one of the big screens, or were playing pool at one of the many available tables, or were watching Suzanne and wondering whether she was expecting someone else to join her. Most of the people in the establishment were men, and other than Suzanne and the bar staff (who were mostly young and female) there were only three other women in the place, and they were all accompanied by their boyfriends / husbands. Ian had already seen one of the braver regulars sit at a nearby stool to Suzanne and offer to buy her a drink, but getting no encouragement from the sexy stranger, he had quickly lost interest and gone back to join a couple of other friends at one of the pool tables.

There had been no sign of Mike Roseberry so far, but they weren't really expecting him to arrive until about now. A photograph taken for his company ID card had been studied by all of them, and they were each confident that they would recognise him if he came in. Roseberry was a thin, pale man of about 35 years, with slicked hair and a prominent nose. Otis had informed them that out of office hours he liked to dress down, usually in a pair of faded denims and tee. Just as Ian was beginning to wonder what Plan B was if Roseberry failed to show, he felt a little kick from Graham under the table, and a few seconds later the person concerned walked down the aisle at the side of Ian, heading towards the bar.

Ian watched as their target cast his eye towards the girls behind the bar, picking out one and waving to her, as he headed towards his customary bar stool at one corner of the box-shaped 3-sided bar. As he climbed onto the seat of his stool and signalled for a beer, Ian noticed that he took out a laptop from under his arm and was already unfolding the screen and powering it up on the bar in front of him before looking up to glance around the room to see who was here.

Mike Roseberry first looked to the pool tables where he smiled and waved or otherwise acknowledged a few of the recognised regulars. As his eyes continued around the room, his gaze fell upon Suzanne, sitting on the leg of the bar at right angles to his position, and about three seats away from their shared corner. Ian was amused to watch his eyebrows lift as he saw her, as if to say "Hello, what have we got here. I don't recognise you, but I like the look of you". Suzanne acted oblivious to his presence, her eyes remaining steadfastly on the screen that she had been watching for some time.

Mike reluctantly dragged his eyes away from the attractive stranger, and returned them to his laptop screen as he typed in a password and completed his log-in. Ian tried desperately to see what he typed, but from that angle it was impossible. Had Mike been a typical two-finger typist, Ian may have stood a chance, but Mike had obviously taught himself touch-typing earlier in his career, and his fingers were just a blur as he entered his credentials. Whilst his computer completed booting, he returned his attention to Suzanne and what she was watching. When his beer arrived, he drank from the bottle, and started to share his attention between his screen, keyboard and Suzanne in roughly equal measures.

Out of the corner of her eye, Suzanne had noted his arrival, and without giving any clue to her awareness of or interest in him, she quietly sized him up. She saw a spare little man, with a weak swept-away chin that was compensated by a heavy nose and thick, almost bulbous lips. A small moustache covered his upper lip, as if to hide the fleshiness of the lip below, but with the result of highlighting the large proboscis above. His eyes too were slightly bulgy. The overall impression was one of weakness, and not even his own mother could have called Mike attractive or handsome, even if she hadn't deserted him when he was eleven to run away with the married next-door neighbour. Mike had thereafter been brought up by his father who neglected him, had joined the Navy at 17 to get away from home, and had worked in an almost exclusively male dominated world for the next 7 years, where he learnt nothing about the gentler sex, but did fashion a sort of skill in computing. He was a classic nerd, OK with computers, useless with relationships, and as a consequence of his monastic upbringing and subsequent lifestyle in the Navy, he was endlessly fascinated by women, but without any of the social skills needed to relate to them in any meaningful and rewarding way. He could easily be a virgin except for allowing himself to be led astray and into the arms of a few hookers by his erstwhile shipmates.

Suzanne wasn't impressed, and didn't relish the thought of what she was required to do. She started to understand Otis' objections and his reluctance to ask her to do this, but she was here under the orders of Graham, and it was important to all of them that she succeeded in her allotted task. She carried on watching the soccer match, but quietly, slowly, imperceptibly, turned on her bar stool to face more towards her target.

The next half hour continued much the same. Mike made no move to speak to her, but she could constantly feel his eyes on her rather than his computer screen whenever her eyes were on the TV above the bar. His attention to her felt like a physical thing, as if she had another sense that responded when his eyes were drawing in the view of her. It made her skin crawl and it made her conscious of every move that she made. If his eyes were on his laptop and she moved, his eyelids would flick up and he'd look at her, noting every new position her body took. He was clearly fascinated by her, but unable to do anything other than stare at her. Suzanne realised that she would need to take the initiative.

The soccer game was approaching a conclusion; it looked like it was going to end in a goalless draw. When another shot wafted harmlessly above the goal, Suzanne sighed dramatically, and used the event to speak, as if to no-one in particular, but loud enough for Mike to hear.

"Jesus, this is a frustrating game!"

Unusually, and perhaps accidentally, without even thinking about what he was doing, Mike couldn't resist responding.

"It certainly is. You can't beat the excitement when they do score though!"

Suzanne looked at him, as if for the first time, and seized her advantage.

"You like soccer? I thought all you Americans preferred baseball or basketball or something."

The ice was broken, and little Mike Roseberry was actually having a conversation with the sexy, attractive, blond English lady that had turned up in his favourite bar as if from nowhere, and who had spurned any similar approaches from other customers; who would have believed it? It took all of Suzanne's very considerable charm and skill to keep the conversation going, but a few minutes later, when the match ended as predicted in a goalless draw, she and Mike were new best friends, and he had moved from his regular corner to sit at the bar stool next to her, and she had even accepted the bottle of beer he had nervously offered to buy for her.

Ian wasn't slow to notice that when he changed seats, Mike had taken his precious laptop with him, and he was now using it to show Suzanne a clip of spectacular goals scored in last seasons 12th Annual Diablo Cup, a subject which seemed to all intents and purposes to fascinate Suzanne, despite her having shown no interest in football in all the years she had been married to Ian.

"So far, so good!" thought Ian. But now what? One of the weak points in their plan had been separating Mike from his laptop. They had known where to go to get an opportunity of doing that, and they knew exactly what to do when they got hold of it. But actually making that opportunity happen had been something that was going to be dependent on circumstances at the time, although they had discussed and anticipated some potential circumstances and had accordingly planned to seize them if they materialized. Now it was up to Suzanne to create an opportunity, and all Graham and Ian could do was watch and wait.

Having enthused over the wonderful goals from the recent Diablo Cup, Suzanne was facing the same question; how to separate odious Mike from his laptop. The solution hit her when she started to ask about incomprehensible (to Europeans) American sports, such as baseball and football (USA style, rather than the one favoured by the rest of the planet). Feigning ignorance greater than reality, she stated:

"I don't really understand some American sports, like baseball, American football, or even," she gestured to the rest of the room, "or even pool! I know how to play snooker, but pool just baffles me." She smiled innocently and disarmingly at little Mike, who took the bait.