Wired - Douglas E. Richards [110]
While the group studied the map, Griffin pulled up a page of information about the town and left it on the adjacent monitor. Severn had been a small rural town for most of its existence, but in the past several decades it had seen explosive growth given its proximity to D.C. and Baltimore and the growth of the government, including the NSA. While much of the town was originally zoned as rural farmland, the vast majority of land had now be rezoned for residential purposes. Putnam owned one of the few remaining properties that could be designated as a farm.
Griffin changed the view of Putnam’s property, zooming in to give the view from about a hundred feet overhead. “He has enough video cameras blanketing the property that there are virtually no blind spots. They all feed into two separate banks of monitors, one bank inside his bedroom and the other,” he said, pointing to the barn that was the farthest from the residence, “inside here.”
Griffin moved the view a few hundred yards from the residence and zoomed in until a relatively unassuming fence came into view. “This is a chain-link fence, ten feet high, completely encircling the periphery of the property,” he announced. “It looks innocent enough—almost inviting. No razor wire, no electricity. But don’t be fooled. It has vibration sensors. Try to climb over it or cut through it and your exact location is revealed.”
Griffin showed a closer view of the main dwelling. “There’s a microwave perimeter exactly twenty feet out from the house. Break the beam and once again Putnam will know about it.” He raised his eyebrows. “Presupposing you could get over the first fence without any alarms going off, and he didn’t see you on the monitors.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Metzger.
“He has a very advanced system,” explained Griffin. “He has a computer devoted just to home security, and this is tied into the Internet. That way, anyone with the proper codes can check all of the video feeds and security monitors from any computer.”
“And you hacked into this computer?” said Kira.
“Yes. And reprogrammed it while I was inside,” said Griffin proudly. “For the next twenty-four hours the system will ignore certain inputs. Cut through the fence and break the microwave barrier and the system won’t notice. The video monitors are set to show the same benign view of the estate on a continual basis.”
Desh scratched his head. “It doesn’t make sense to have a security system online that’s vulnerable to what you just did,” he said.
“I agree,” said Griffin. “But it isn’t vulnerable. A top-drawer hacker could hack into the system and identify what security safeguards are in place. But anyone skilled at storming this kind of heavily protected castle could do that in other ways. But reprogramming it the way I did simply isn’t possible with normal human faculties. Trust me on this one.”
“Did you get anything useful from his personal computer?” asked Kira eagerly. “Anything that might give us a lead to the sterilization plot?”
Griffin frowned. “No. He didn’t have any computers online during the time I was altered. I suspect he only allows an online connection to be active when he’s using it, and then physically disrupts the connection when he isn’t.”
This was a bad break, thought Desh. But all things considered, Griffin had accomplished more than Desh could ever have hoped for.
“Let’s get back to Putnam’s security,” said Desh. “Are you telling us that we can just waltz in there undetected for the next twenty-four hours?”
“Almost,” said Griffin. He worked the mouse and different views of Putnam’s property came into view, one of which showed a tiny human figure. He zoomed in closer and a man came into focus wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a cowboy hat. He was putting out hay for the horses. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, which meant the footage Griffin had tapped into was probably several months out of date.
“Security information from the monitors and alarms is fed to two men,” said Griffin as he zoomed in tight