Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [14]
What I saw made my scalp tighten. Swan had a line into the Department of Motor Vehicles. With a few taps of the Trash-80’s keyboard, she was in their database. She had the same access to licence plates, home addresses, and phone numbers as if she was a DMV clerk sitting at a desk in their offices, rather than a hacker in jeans and sweatshirt sitting in a jumbled suburban kitchen.
Swan had jotted down her intruders’ number plate. She typed it into the relevant field on the screen. After several long seconds, the computer blinked and disgorged a fresh screenful of information. The van was registered to the university. Swan scowled. ‘I was hoping for a home address.’
But she had narrowed the field right down. The van hadn’t been reported stolen; whoever was driving it had ready access to the college’s vehicles. As well as the technical know-how to set up a Lisp Machine. There couldn’t be a whole lot of people who fit that description.
Swan was looking for ways to impress me further. ‘Want to see your own record?’ For a moment I was tempted – as though to prove to myself that what I was seeing was real. I’d investigated a lot of fraudulent use of computers, but I’d never seen anyone with such simple and complete access to public records.
‘Uh, no thanks.’
‘I can look you up any time I want,’ boasted Swan.
‘I believe you.’ I sure did.
Whoever had hoodwinked Swan, I reckoned they’d be better off in the hands of the police than subject to her tender mercies. In fact, the guy I called next had once tangled with her. That was why he never had the same phone number for more than a week at a time.
Ian Mond – known as ‘Mondy’ to the handful of people who did know him – lived a shadowy existence in motel rooms, warehouse corners, and other people’s garages. He carried just a trunkful of equipment with him, often sleeping scrunched in the backseat of his second home, a midnight blue Ford Escort, after doing some ‘fieldwork’: conning information out of telco staff, making unauthorised adjustments to the phone system, and tiptoeing into Ma Bell’s offices in the middle of the night. He made a modest living selling cheap calls, ‘upgrades’ to phone services, and computer equipment that had taken a tumble from a truck. The Mystery of the Lisp Machine was just his kind of gig. I figured if he hadn’t done it, he knew who had.
I spoke to him in his mom’s basement, a musty space filled with ‘borrowed’ phone equipment. Swan had an arcane set of personal ethics that stopped her from messing up the phones or credit ratings of innocents, including Mrs Mond, so Ian was safe as long as he stayed under her roof. We sat on a couple of upturned milk crates while I filled him in.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he said. ‘It’s either one of the staff in the college computer department, or a trusted student. Or both.
You go for a walk through their compute centre and see if you can’t spot one of your suspects right away.’
‘Already done,’ I said. Mondy nodded, satisfied that I was trying to help myself. ‘I’m pretty sure I know who at least one of Swan’s visitors was. Robert Salmon, the sysadmin, didn’t show up for work today. He’s a twenty-year-old blond.’
‘I’ve talked to that kid a couple of times. He’s OK. ‘
Mondy peered at me through his thick, square glasses. ‘Don’t hand him over to her, Chick P.’
‘Relax. I’m a journalist. I’m supposed to observe, not get involved!
He nodded, still peering at me worriedly. ‘Good. Good.
Find out what he wants. Find out what she’s not telling you.’
‘For that,’ I said, ‘I’ll need your help.’
Moody has a devilish smile. ‘All right,’ he said. let me get a few things together.’
I listened in while Moody coaxed the cable-and-pair number he needed out of an innocent worker somewhere in the telco. It was easy as pie: he picked a phone box at random (at least, I assume it was random), flipped open one of his collection of pocket-sized notebooks, and dialled up a number at the line assignment office. His voice became gruff ‘Hi. This is Danny Heap from Repairs. I’m up a pole...’ A few moments later he had the info he needed.