Daemon

himself into? He should run.
    Boerner spoke again. ‘
Mein freund
.’
    Gragg looked down at the laptop.
    Boerner took another puff on his cigarette. ‘Zis ist fun, yes?’ Boerner paused a moment. ‘Ist zis you,
mein freund
?’
    The console window populated with Brian Gragg’s full name, social security number, age, birth date, last known address, mother’s maiden name – a huge piece of his life. The adrenaline of pure, high-octane fear swept through Gragg. He almost screamed in terror. He honestly could not remember a time when he’d been more afraid. This machine knew who he was. It knew his real fucking
name
.
    Boerner barked angrily, ‘Ist zis you? Answer!’
    Gragg fearfully typed
No
in the console window beneath his personal information and hit ENTER.
    Boerner loomed again. ‘If zis is not you, I haf ozzer names. But if you lie zu me, I vill find out. Und zer vill be no mercy. Answer again. Ist zis you?’
    Gragg pondered Boerner’s cold eyes, then typed
Yes
and hit ENTER.
    Boerner relented and went back to smoking. ‘Gut. Now ve may begin.’ He put one hand behind his back and started pacing. ‘Run your Vi-Fi scanner again. You vill see a new netvork. You must gain entry zu it. Do not attempt zu leef here before you do.
Auf wiedersehen
.’ Boerner swept out of the room. The moment he did, the 3-D iron grate snapped shut behind him. Immediately after that, the game shut down without warning, leaving Gragg staring at his computer desktop.
    Gragg rubbed his forehead. This was a nightmare. At least he wished it was, but since it wasn’t, he figured he’d betterget down to business. Boerner wanted to see what Gragg was made of? Okay. Gragg launched NetStumbler again. The SSID for the Houston Monte Cassino server was now gone. In its place was a new Wi-Fi access point with no SSID at all.
    No doubt this one was going to be tougher. Gragg opened the NetStumbler logs and checked each entry. The new AP was running Wi-Fi Protected Access – WPA – a form of wireless encryption.
Damn
. He was hoping it would be WEP-encrypted. That would take only seconds to defeat. WPA had no structural flaws. It was as strong as its passphrase. But that would be the test, then, wouldn’t it? Hopefully, the phrase wasn’t more than eight or nine characters. Gragg would need to sniff the key exchange messages between the adapter and the access point, then crack the key off-line with a PSK dictionary (which he had on his laptop). He could use Air-Jack to force the key exchange by broadcasting a
disassociate
message. Gragg slumped in his seat. Hopefully there would be some client exchanges to monitor. But if this was a test, then that was the only correct answer.
So fuck Boerner
.
    It was going to take some time to crack the key, though. Gragg pulled out the DC-to-AC adapter and plugged it into his car lighter, then plugged his laptop into the new AC power source. He launched
Asleap
, a program for grabbing and cracking wireless key exchanges. He could see the network clearly enough. He sent the command to deauthenticate every user on the new network and prayed to the freaking gods that some client connections were present.
    Thirty seconds later, two authentication exchanges occurred to reconnect the clients. Gragg started breathing again. He now had an encrypted hash that
Asleap
was working the dictionary to decrypt. He was on his way.
    Gragg leaned his driver’s seat back and stared at the ceiling, wondering if he’d ever get out of here alive.

Chapter 17:// Succubus
    Jon Ross hopped out at the front entrance to Alcyone Insurance. He opened the rear passenger door of Sebeck’s Dodge Durango and grabbed his laptop bag from the backseat. It was Sebeck’s personal car and reeked of his aftershave. The interior was immaculate, devoid of personal touches like Kleenex holders or errant CDs. It had the brutal cleanliness of a military barracks, and by revealing nothing about Sebeck it revealed a lot.
    Ross looked from the backseat into the rearview mirror to make eye contact with Sebeck. ‘Well, Pete, again, my condolences on Deputy Larson. And I wish you the best of luck on the case.’
    Sebeck just stared at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sebeck’s cell phone started ringing.
    Ross slung his laptop bag over his shoulder. ‘It means that I’m done. The Feds have this under control.’
    ‘Don’t even try that bullshit on me, Jon. Go get some sleep.’ He motioned for Ross to get out, and he unfolded