Page 26 of Cold Silence
“Which will be when?” Travis asked.
“We’ve got a few more hours here, then we’ll have to clean up to remove all evidence of our visit and catch our flight.” She looked around the room. “That’s going to be so different for us. We never clean up the fingerprint powder, but it could be a good thing for us to see how the other side handles things.”
Travis liked her positive take on the subject. Seemed to him that she was a positive person altogether. It was good for them to have her here when they weren’t locating many leads.
“We can help with the cleaning,” Claire said.
“I’d appreciate that. Now I need to get back to work.” Sierra smiled at Gage. “Good to see you again, Gage.”
He nodded and returned the smile with a reserved one.
Claire stepped into the hallway. “Let’s wrap this tour up. I’d like to get that shower in and come back here in plenty of time to help clean.”
She was true to her word and finished the tour quickly, until Nick poked his head out of the server room to stop them.
“I’ve tracked your intruder.” Nick dropped into the chair. “He waltzed in and downloaded the software to an external drive from this computer.”
“So like downloading something from the internet then?” Travis asked.
“Not quite that simple. First, there are security measures in place to prevent use of any external devices on this computer, and he had to bypass that. Then the software had security measures too that he had to get around. But he did.” Nick leaned his chair back and clasped his hands behind his head. “And I have to say, I’m impressed with his skills. Efficient and creative.”
“We haven’t really determined that we’re looking for ahe,” Claire said. “True, my attacker was male, but he could be working for a woman.”
“Right, I was using he as hackers are more often male than female.” He grabbed the sticky note she’d given him with the login and jotted something on it. “This is the login used to access the network at eleven-fourteen p.m. yesterday.”
“Wait, what?” Claire gaped at him. “That’s the person who stole the software?”
He held out the note. “It is indeed. Your thief’s identity in writing.”
7
Travis reached out for the sticky note, but Claire snatched the paper from Nick’s hand first. Travis looked over her shoulder as she stared at the information. Not a name as Travis had hoped, but a login that didn’t give a clue as to the person’s identity.
She looked at Nick. “This doesn’t give even a hint of who accessed the network, but I can at least find it on our login list.”
“Already did.” Nick grinned. “The network login is registered to a former employee, Mike Robb.”
“Mike? No.” She shook her head hard. “Not possible. I personally deactivated his key card and network credentials.”
“He’s on your suspect list,” Travis pointed out.
Her posture stiffened. “Yes, but I honestly didn’t believe it could be him. I mean how would he have reactivated his credentials?”
Gage moved closer. “Who has authority to activate and issue key cards and network logins?”
“Me and our security manager, Warren White.” She clasped a hand at her chest. “I surely didn’t do it and couldn’t imagine Warren doing it either.”
“No need to speculate on this.” Nick swiveled back to the computer. “As I said, I can track the changes, and I’ll let you know who reactivated the credentials. Assuming the person didn’t hide their trail.”
She continued to eye Nick. “Have you looked at the internal security logs to see if a key card was used to gain access to this room?”
Nick glanced over his shoulder. “No one swiped a card after seven p.m. until seven-thirty-two am for any room in the building. Not helpful, I know, but I’ll include the log in my report so you have it and can see the last and first people to use cards. I’m going to look for cameras next. Maybe we have some video to go on, though as meticulously as this theft seems to be planned, I’m going to assume the cameras were disabled too.”
“Thanks, Nick.”
“And might I add, we should be looking into this security manager. He has the ability to make the changes that made this theft possible.”
“But I told you,” Claire said, not hiding her irritation. “Warren’s out of town at a conference this week.”
