Read Online The Fourth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (A Tenzing Norbu Mystery series Book 4) by Gay Hendricks - Free Book Online Page B

Something had made the man suspicious. He’d be back this way soon.
    I relocked Roland’s office door, slipped out the back exit, and was in the Neon and aimed toward home within minutes.
    An onion.
    For some unknown reason, Roland Conway, Jr. had a small, purplish onion icon on his computer desktop. I had no idea what it symbolized, but I had the next best thing: Mike Koenigs, cyber-genius extraordinaire. He was my source for all matters digital, and given his nocturnal habits, he was just about to start his day.
    “Onion? Sure, I know what it is.” Mike’s voice rose from the cup holder, where my phone was nestled.
    I sped along the 101 at 75 miles an hour listening to my phone while gripping a Starbucks egg salad sandwich with one hand and the steering wheel with the other, just another typical SoCal multitasking driver. A few years ago, I would have pulled me over in a heartbeat.
    “Anything else on his desktop, boss?”
    “No. Just that and his hard drive, which was password protected.”
    “And what did you say the guy does?”
    “Insurance adjuster. Works with life insurance claims. Why?”
    “Because the man is flat-out paranoid. There’s only one other person I know who is that careful about keeping his digital footprints invisible, and you’re talking to him.”
    A glop of egg salad dropped somewhere out of sight. Served me right.
    “Explain, please?”
    “Dude uses Tor.”
    “I’m sorry … ?”
    “The Onion Router. T-O-R. Get it? Spells Tor. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it, especially now that you’re so buddy-buddy with that FBI agent.”
    “First of all, Gus and I haven’t spoken in months—she’s way too busy with her promotion and her new girlfriend. And second of all, this is me, remember? I’m still getting the hang of my iPhone. Which is why I have you, my friend. So I repeat, explain, please? I have about twenty more minutes of driving ahead of me.”
    I heard the distinctive pop of an aluminum top, followed by a slurping sound, followed by a sigh of pleasure. Mike was fueling up with his first Red Bull of the day.
    “So, Tor started as a Navy project. Some smart dudes at the Naval Research Lab developed it as a way of protecting top-secret government communications. Ironic, right, because now Tor’s the only way Joe Citizen can protect himself from that same government.”
    “But what is it?”
    “It’s an anonymous routing tool. You know, so no one can analyze your traffic, get inside your virtual pants, so to speak.”
    “How does it work?”
    “Like any other browser, except unlike Firefox or Safari, say, this one doesn’t leave an obvious trail. So, most searches? They move in a straight line, from point A to point B, and leave a clear route back to a wealth of data for whoever wants it. Tor directs your requests onto, like, twisty impossible-to-follow paths. Virtual tunnels and anonymous circuit-hops and random encryption keys and erasable footprints. There’s no way anyone can trace your communications back to you, okay? The ultimate protection against Internet surveillance, in all its nefarious forms. It’s genius.”
    “And you use Tor?”
    “You bet. Me, plus, let’s see, the military, journalists, whistle-blowers, anarchists, human rights activists, corporate wonks, cops—lots of cops, especially underground ones.”
    “And criminals?”
    “Oh sure. Many, many criminals. Everybody’s got skeletons to hide.”
    Roland, Jr. jumping up from his desk. His hot eyes and damp handshake. Everybody’s got skeletons to hide.
    I turned into my driveway, tires crunching against the gravel. Bill’s old Volvo sedan was parked to one side of the garage.
    “Thanks, Mike. This has been a huge help.”
    “No problem, boss. Next time I come by, I’ll set you up with Tor if you like. Shoulda thought of it earlier—God knows what kind of file the NSA’s got on you.”
    The kitchen light was on. Through the window, a weary Bill slumped at the table. He lifted a