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Authors: Kylie Brant
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phone and landline LUDs by noon tomorrow.”
“What about triangulation?” she asked.
“Tried it but struck out. His cell phone is shut off, so there’s no way of pinpointing his location that way.”
“We found his car in the employee’s garage, locked. He only has the one vehicle registered to him, so he found another way off the estate. Has his cell, which he isn’t answering, and according to you, took about half his clothes, but not his bankbooks. He could still transfer his money, I suppose, if he has online banking, but he’d have to figure either way leaves a trail for us to follow.” Raiker toyed with the polished mahogany knob of his cane. “If he’d planned on ransom, leaving the money behind makes more sense. What’s a hundred grand if you plan to ask for ten or twenty times that?”
“But there’s still been no demand?”
Raiker shook his head at Agent Travis’s question. “No. But the techs finally discovered how the security system was circumvented.”
Macy straightened, the news erasing her exhaustion. “How?”
“By checking the computer’s download history.” There was impatience in his expression, in his tone, and she knew intuitively that he thought his own computer techs would have made the discovery hours earlier. “The suspect—presumably Hubbard—covered his tracks, but there was evidence of a software patch downloaded during his shift that caused certain cameras to loop the same scene only between midnight and two A.M. this morning.”
“Shit,” muttered Travis. The agent’s deep-set eyes were shadowed by fatigue. “So much for being foolproof like Cramer claimed.”
“It’s not exactly something your average burglar could pull off,” Raiker said dryly. “Very high-tech. And detailed exactly to match the specifications of this system. Our guy went to considerable expense to acquire the design for the patch, because there’s nothing in Hubbard’s background to indicate he had this sort of expertise.”
Dan Travis wasn’t buying it. “He and Cramer were camera experts.”
“Capable of troubleshooting problems with the cameras and computer feed. But this . . .” Raiker shook his head. “I talked to Gavin Pounds, one of my employees, and described the setup here. He’s a cyber genius. He claims there are only a handful of people in the country capable of designing something so detail-specific, so we can also figure it was expensive. Someone went to a great deal of cost to set this job up.”
“Cost is no object when you’re pulling down billions a year,” Whitman muttered. His reference to the Mulders was clear.
“Or when you hope to recoup that expense and millions more with a ransom demand.” Raiker held up a hand to stem any comments. “Assuming one comes.”
Kell folded his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair, face tilted toward the ceiling as he mused aloud. “So a few of the cameras are circumvented. Not turned off—there would have been a record of that. But by replaying a different scene, there’d be no pixel change. One of the criteria to trip the alarm isn’t met, allowing the kidnapper to move about the area freely.”
“And knowing the specific cameras he disabled points to both entry and exit points for the house?”
“That’s right.” Whitman worked his shoulders tiredly as he answered Macy’s question. “The affected cameras included the one in the employee garage, so maybe he hid in the vehicle until making his move on the house. The camera that would have picked up his movements from that garage to the east side of the home were decommissioned. He probably entered the home through one of the sets of French doors on the east side of the sunroom. Could have left the same way. They can be locked behind a person as they exit.”
Having not had a chance to look through the home, Macy had no idea what the layout was. “How far from there to Ellie’s bedroom?”
“Across the house,” Agent Travis put in. He
“What about triangulation?” she asked.
“Tried it but struck out. His cell phone is shut off, so there’s no way of pinpointing his location that way.”
“We found his car in the employee’s garage, locked. He only has the one vehicle registered to him, so he found another way off the estate. Has his cell, which he isn’t answering, and according to you, took about half his clothes, but not his bankbooks. He could still transfer his money, I suppose, if he has online banking, but he’d have to figure either way leaves a trail for us to follow.” Raiker toyed with the polished mahogany knob of his cane. “If he’d planned on ransom, leaving the money behind makes more sense. What’s a hundred grand if you plan to ask for ten or twenty times that?”
“But there’s still been no demand?”
Raiker shook his head at Agent Travis’s question. “No. But the techs finally discovered how the security system was circumvented.”
Macy straightened, the news erasing her exhaustion. “How?”
“By checking the computer’s download history.” There was impatience in his expression, in his tone, and she knew intuitively that he thought his own computer techs would have made the discovery hours earlier. “The suspect—presumably Hubbard—covered his tracks, but there was evidence of a software patch downloaded during his shift that caused certain cameras to loop the same scene only between midnight and two A.M. this morning.”
“Shit,” muttered Travis. The agent’s deep-set eyes were shadowed by fatigue. “So much for being foolproof like Cramer claimed.”
“It’s not exactly something your average burglar could pull off,” Raiker said dryly. “Very high-tech. And detailed exactly to match the specifications of this system. Our guy went to considerable expense to acquire the design for the patch, because there’s nothing in Hubbard’s background to indicate he had this sort of expertise.”
Dan Travis wasn’t buying it. “He and Cramer were camera experts.”
“Capable of troubleshooting problems with the cameras and computer feed. But this . . .” Raiker shook his head. “I talked to Gavin Pounds, one of my employees, and described the setup here. He’s a cyber genius. He claims there are only a handful of people in the country capable of designing something so detail-specific, so we can also figure it was expensive. Someone went to a great deal of cost to set this job up.”
“Cost is no object when you’re pulling down billions a year,” Whitman muttered. His reference to the Mulders was clear.
“Or when you hope to recoup that expense and millions more with a ransom demand.” Raiker held up a hand to stem any comments. “Assuming one comes.”
Kell folded his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair, face tilted toward the ceiling as he mused aloud. “So a few of the cameras are circumvented. Not turned off—there would have been a record of that. But by replaying a different scene, there’d be no pixel change. One of the criteria to trip the alarm isn’t met, allowing the kidnapper to move about the area freely.”
“And knowing the specific cameras he disabled points to both entry and exit points for the house?”
“That’s right.” Whitman worked his shoulders tiredly as he answered Macy’s question. “The affected cameras included the one in the employee garage, so maybe he hid in the vehicle until making his move on the house. The camera that would have picked up his movements from that garage to the east side of the home were decommissioned. He probably entered the home through one of the sets of French doors on the east side of the sunroom. Could have left the same way. They can be locked behind a person as they exit.”
Having not had a chance to look through the home, Macy had no idea what the layout was. “How far from there to Ellie’s bedroom?”
“Across the house,” Agent Travis put in. He
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