“Wren something Phil said in the meeting got me to thinking about the Predator’s current problem”
“What problem is that?”
“How to deal with Clarence Murphy.”
“Well how is pretty simple it’s when.”
“That’s my point, I was thinking he’s a grade school teacher right?”
“Yes.”
“So he is off all summer and still lives with his Mom. He is going to be hard to hit at home and he is going to be jumpy anywhere else. We need a way to catch him off guard. What if we bugged his computer to tell us exactly what he was doing on-line.”
“Sounds good but how and would that do enough to tell us exactly, he may not do enough internet communication to give us a clue.”
“Ah, but if he has DSL we might have an edge.”
“You’re going to get really technical here aren’t you?”
“I have access to hardware that would do just what we need. We’ll need someone to climb the pole behind his house and access the telephone line. A simple tester will tell us if it is a DSL line or not. If it is, we simply attach a small voice over internet protocol transceiver in line with a digital repeater and re-router. Then if he makes a phone call we hear it. If he uses a computer on that line we will know exactly where he goes, looks at, and types.”
“You can do that?”
“You doubt your mother?”
“No, actually I don’t.”
“So how do we do this?”
Margaret lays out the plan as they drive back home and Wren repeats it back over and over again until they both have it completely memorized. They return home, change clothes and eat lunch as they finalize their plan. After lunch Wren is off on her bike and her Mom leaves in the Buick. Wren heads out to a Walmart to pick up a set of dark blue work pants and a white work shirt and a small tool bag then she heads back home. Back at home she goes to a cabinet in her room and starts putting the tools her Mom has instructed her to pack into her tool bag. At five-thirty Margaret returns home with a box under her arm. She goes straight to the kitchen table and unpacks the box, a hard hat, boot spikes, a pole belt, a small screwdriver looking tool and a black cylinder.
“Alright here we go, this is the tool that will tell us if he has DSL, which seeing how most young people are really into their computers I assume he does. This is the re-router. All you need to do is hang it along the wire and run these two leads into the junction block leading to his house. Once it is in place you unplug the battery and seal the lid. It is powered by the phone line so it’s self sufficient it is already programmed with all the information it needs to do its job. If it is unhooked it automatically forgets everything. Otherwise I can erase its memory remotely and no one will know who it belongs to or reports to.”
“So when do we install it?”
“As soon as you are changed. If we wait too late it will look suspicious.”
Wren changes into her new work clothes pinning her hair up into a tight bun to fit beneath her hard hat. Grabbing her tool bag with its new additions and her hard hat as she goes through, her and her mom head down the stairs.
“I added something to your hat. If you take a look you will notice there is a small transceiver in the top connected to a small camera on the brim and there is a earphone for your left ear. I have the matching video screen and microphone in the car. I’ll see everything you do and can walk you through the whole process.”
“Let’s get going then.”
They leave with Margaret parking a block away as Wren acts like she is following the lines to her destination. She climbs one pole and acts like she is looking at something poking tools around at junctions but not really doing anything.
“Wren, if you can hear me give me a sign.”
Wren pulls a small notebook and pen out of her bag and writes “sure can”. She heads to the next pole inside Clarence’s back yard. The wires she is looking for are very obvious as they come up out of the house to a junction block on the pole. She climbs up, securing herself in place with a safety belt on her rock climbing harness. She opens the junction and applies the tester to the wires.
“Well Wren here we go.”
The lights go green and Wren smiles as her Mom’s plan starts to take hold. She puts away the tester then pulls out the re-router, hooking it to the terminal block. She pulls the wires up tight to the cable and secures them in place. Opening the case the re-router’s lights are already flashing with activity as she removes the battery. Sealing the case she attaches it to the wires and climbs down the pole.
“Wren I am moving to the next street to pick you up so that no one sees you get in, saw you get out.”
A street over Wren gets into the car and they head out onto the street.
“Well now we just go home and wait to see what he does.”
When they return home Norman is pacing the living room waiting on them. Margaret nudges Wren in the ribs and nods toward Norman as she passes her to turn on the computer. Wren turns and walks over to Norman who looks very relieved to see them yet still concerned.
“What’s up lover boy?”
“I was a little worried about what the two of you were up to.”
“Now why were you worried about me and mom? I mean after all we were together.”
“But I know you and I know her history from her own mouth. Nothing says she wouldn’t be your get away driver.”
“The Predator is nocturnal. In case you didn’t notice, it's still daylight. Come on, I'll show you what we have been up to.”
She leads him into her mom’s computer and they pull up a couple of chairs.
“Any luck?”
“Only if you want to hear his mom talking to another woman about how she never goes out anymore. The only new info is that she did say she has a meeting on Saturday but she wasn’t sure if she’d go.”
“Excuse me but did you two do an illegal wiretap on someone’s house?”
“Would you listen to him, he acts like that’s worse than the other things I’ve done. Yes we did, but this is neat because it not only taps the phone but the internet connection as well.”
“Hang on guys, someone is on-line. It’s an e-mail. Must be his mom. She's asking someone for a recipe. But as long as she is on-line.”
Margaret starts typing furiously into a DOS prompt while the other two watch. Soon a new line forms all on its own. Windows XP professional, one point eight gigahertz AMD processor, two gigabyte ram. She types a few more lines and a new window opens showing a series of file names.
“Mom, what did you just do?”
“This is the contents of his hard drive and this little file looks promising.”
She points at a file marked journal entries. A few more clicks and the file is open in front of them.
“You know, just because people have a separate screen name and log in on a system they never think they need to password protect critical files. I think we can safely save this away for now to read later. Wren would you get me a thumb drive from the drawer over there?”
Wren pulls out a drive and hands it to her mom who is busily typing again before she inserts it into the system. Margaret continues typing along for some time before she finally sits back and watches the screen. A small window appears on the desktop and with a click of the mouse the image changes and they can all see an email being typed though no one is touching the keyboard.
“Margaret what is going on?”
“Well Norman in my business we sometimes have to enter a system remotely to see what is going on. It saves a lot of driving around to fix simple program problems that usually only take a few minutes. However, in the hands of some you can use the system against itself and search the memory or make it do things it really ought not to be doing. Right now I have established administrative rights into the system and can enter its memory and functions at will. You are currently seeing a copy of their screen and what is being typed. The difference is if we were on the other end passwords would be dots or asterisks we on the other hand will see what they are precisely. It will allow us to see where they go and what they do at any time. I have also established a hidden file within the system to post exactly what web sites they visit and the login and password information.”
“Two things, one wouldn’t their antivirus catch your work and two can’t it be traced back to you?”
“To them it appears that the antivirus is working as normal because I tricked it by coming in, in DOS as a system folder as the administrator. And as far as tracing goes everything is going through the re-router. If anyone disconnects it its memory goes blank and to open it will disconnect it. So we’re pretty safe besides only the phone company would know it’s not supposed to be there. Relax for a while and take a look through this thumb drive we may just learn something about the Predators prey.”
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