Daemon

inexpensive suits and comfortable shoes sitting on the edge of his desk. One was a Latino, the other Caucasian, but they shared the same humorless expression. Hadi Sarkar, the night-shift data center supervisor, sat at Ross’s keyboard, pecking away behind them. He turned somewhat sheepishly to face Ross.
    One of the clean-cut men reached into his jacket and withdrew credentials, which he flipped open. ‘Jonathan Ross?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I’m Special Agent Straub. This is Special Agent Vasquez. We’d like to ask you a few questions about last night. Your colleague, Hadi here, has been able to shed some light on things, but he tells us you’re the real expert.’
    Ross glared at Sarkar and put his laptop case down on the desk. ‘I’m happy to help any way I can. What’s all this about?’
    ‘You were present in Alcyone’s data center last night?’
    ‘I was working under contract for another department, but Hadi requested my help. His development servers had become infected with what appeared to be a kernel rootkit.’
    ‘And you have experience with computer viruses?’
    Ross paused. He had to be careful here. ‘Look, I’m a database consultant. Computer security is part of my job. I know what I need to know.’
    ‘Why did you make Hadi and his coworkers promise not to tell anyone about your help?’
    ‘Because I was breaking the rules to help Hadi. That endangered my contract here. I made that clear to him.’
    ‘So you were asking Hadi to lie on your behalf?’
    ‘I was asking him not to tell people that I was doing his job.’
    Sarkar jumped in. ‘I was requesting advice merely, Jon.’
    Ross folded his arms. ‘Hadi, your exact words were that you had tried everything you could think of and wanted my help.’ He turned back to Agent Straub. ‘A rogue process somewhere in his data center was broadcasting packets to the Weblast night. Hadi couldn’t find it. The process was incredibly stealthy – possibly a kernel rootkit.’
    Sarkar shook his head emphatically. ‘There is no way to hide the source of network traffic, Jon. I told you this.’
    ‘Well, the test bed servers were definitely involved. Test servers are usually the weakest on security. They have beta software and they’re frequently reconfigured. So I had Hadi kill Icarus servers one through ten, and the packet broadcast stopped – even though it wasn’t supposed to be originating from there.’
    Agent Straub nodded, taking notes. ‘So you knew right where to look, then …’
    ‘That wasn’t my point.’
    Agent Vasquez ignored the discussion and picked up the phone. He dialed while Ross glanced at the computer screen. Sarkar had the Event Viewer maximized. ‘I see we’re starting the hunt on my machine.’
    Straub slid his credentials back into his suit pocket. ‘We haven’t ruled out an inside job.’
    ‘Of course. Forget the fact that I was the one who advised Hadi to shut that system down. Hardly something I’d do if I was the one running the exploit.’
    ‘You might, if you realized it had been discovered. It seems convenient that due to your involvement, the hard drives were erased.’
    Ross was poker-faced. ‘The rootkit destroyed the machine when I tried to shut it down. In any event, FBI forensics can reconstruct data from a wiped drive.’
    Vasquez hung up the phone. ‘They want us in the main data center.’
    As they moved down the hallway, Sarkar kept groaning softly and shaking his head. Ross didn’t take the bait. Sarkar finally muttered, ‘Jon, I had no choice but to tell them.’
    ‘Hadi, I’ve been in this business long enough to knowbetter.’ Ross knew that no good deed goes unpunished, and though he hadn’t technically done anything wrong, helping Sarkar out with his little problem could result in the loss of his contract with Alcyone. Or worse, he thought, eyeing their FBI escort.
    ‘They were asking questions about what we did. This is the FBI, not human resources. They talked to us separately, and I knew that Maynard would mention you. Jon, what was I supposed to do? I do not wish to get deported.’
    Ross grimaced. ‘I should have known better than to get involved, Hadi.’
    ‘I am not a Muslim. I am a Hindu. You will tell them, won’t you?’
    Ross didn’t respond.
    Sarkar looked genuinely pained. ‘I am sorry, Jon.’
    ‘Ted Wynnik probably called the Feds in to force Accounting’s hand and have my contract canceled. He doesn’t like having people down here who don’t answer