No sooner had they docked the boat in Agadir, Morocco, than Dr. Randy entered Jet’s cabin.
“Are you ready?” he asked her.
“This soon? I didn’t think the Sultan would be ready the minute we docked,” Jet said.
“How is your arm?”
Why does he care? Jet thought.
Before Jet could respond, Dr. Randy unwrapped the sling that immobilized the arm. Jet winced. It still hurt as much as it did when she was in the hospital. The sling was only part of what kept her arm from moving. A cast protected the arm from further damage. But sometimes the skin under the cast got irritated, itchy, or just uncomfortable.
Seymour’s attack didn’t help matters.
“Let me know how it feels as I move it,” Dr. Randy said.
“Okay.”
Dr. Randy examined the arm. Jet winced as he stretched it and checked for swelling.
“How does it feel now that your arm is free from the sling?”
“Better, but it still hurts when I stretch it,” Jet said.
“How long has it been since you broke it?”
“Mid-November.”
“I’m glad the arm is healing. There is no permanent damage. The Sultan is not yet aboard. How do you feel about the presentation? Do you need more time?”
I just want this to end! Jet thought.
“I’m ready when the Sultan is,” Jet said.
“I will send for you once the Sultan is ready,” Dr. Randy said, then left the cabin.
About an hour later, a young boy summoned Jet. Jet thought of him as the “cabin boy,” because he was often carrying a tray of food or other things for various crew and honored guests.
“Dr. Randy asks if you are ready,” the cabin boy said.
“Be right there.”
When Jet tried to leave, the cabin boy helped her with her various computer accessories.
The yacht featured a conference room with enough space to hold at least eight. The room even had a projector. There, the cabin boy assisted Jet with setting up the computer—but she did most of the work. The cabin boy just provided the heavy lifting.
Dr. Randy entered. “Are you ready?”
Jet responded with a thumbs-up from her good hand. Dr. Randy motioned, and the Sultan entered along with Seymour and several others she didn’t know. She didn’t wait for introductions. The Sultan didn’t have time for them, anyway.
“The information you gave him was insufficient, and you weren’t available, so I have had to perform my own operational intelligence on the off-site data storage company you gave him. The name ‘Black Sea Hosting’ doesn’t exist,” Jet said.
“What do you mean? I just deposited some data a little more than a week ago,” the Sultan said.
“The company has a web page, valid company information, verifiable on databases that check for business ratings, but that is far as it goes. I could trace all of its financial records to another company: Blackhawk Computer Services in the Grand Cayman Islands. From there, things get a little murky,” Jet said.
She paused for emphasis. The Sultan motioned her to continue.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“After some additional snooping, I located an IP address for Blackhawk. The interesting part is that nothing external really communicates with that IP—not an email server, no discernible web traffic, nothing. Then I checked the logs from the internet service provider and found a permanent MORP relay route from Blackhawk, which is irregular.”
“So? This proves nothing,” said another man, who resembled a mobster.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t catch your name,” Jet said.
“Tony Gratzano, but you can call me Grazie.”
“Well, Grazie, it is suspicious that Blackhawk has a direct link to the Dark Web. No legitimate company that I can think of has that.”
Grazie shrugged.
“Most companies have lots of traffic associated with the various services like email, websites, etc. Hell, most employees check their social media accounts at least once a day from work,” Jet continued.
Jet noticed the Sultan’s intense stare. When she’d first met him, she’d been afraid, but now he was her only ticket out of this place.
“Can someone tell me why Blackhawk would go to such great lengths to keep their IP clean?” Jet asked.
“Client security. They are an off-site storage company, what else?” Grazie said.
No one else took the bait.
“It was a rhetorical question. The answer is, nobody does. There are plenty of security companies that store client data. These companies have security researchers on the Dark Web looking for threats against their clients. However, none of these companies has their infrastructure integrated with the Dark Web. That’s not only irresponsible—it’s impractical to secure,” Jet said.
“The little lady has a point,” Grazie blurted out.
“Okay, I would call this an interesting finding, but this is not the most interesting.” Jet said. “The secure facility that houses the Sultan’s most precious and secure documents is offline. No one should be able to access them. The physical location is a mystery, but what if I told you it was in the Black Sea?”
The Sultan’s eyes seemed to widen.
Jet looked at the Sultan and said, “I don’t know anyone in this room. How much do you trust these people with the documents in the secure storage facility?”
“Those documents are for my eyes only,” the Sultan said.
“Then I suggest that you clear the room!”
The Sultan looked around the room and nodded.
“Do as she asks. Everyone leave,” the Sultan said.
Seconds later, she was alone with him.
“Let me show you something interesting.” Jet brought up a document that listed the Sultan’s real name as Nasri Zubayr Hadad. She displayed other documents that listed some of the sensitive projects in the United States, the Middle East, and Europe.
The Sultan stared at the screen.
“The details of the hack are all here if you want me to explain it to your lackeys,” Jet said.
“Give me all the details.”
“What assurances do I have that you will keep your end of the deal?”
“Turn that off.”
Jet shut off the projector. The Sultan clapped, and a tall, middle-aged man entered. He was dressed in a suit, wore glasses, was balding, and looked like the most miserable man on the planet. He handed the Sultan a folder, who passed it to Jet. She opened the folder with her good hand: a passport, student visa, and airline tickets with her name on them. She noticed that her date of birth was backdated a few years, but otherwise it looked perfect. Her breath caught when she saw the last document: a check for the amount of $50,000, made out to her.
“I always keep my promises.”
The Sultan said something to the man in the suit. Seconds later, his entourage returned.
“Shall we continue?”
The rest of the presentation was exhausting. Jet went over the remaining points describing how it had been possible for Jet to hack the Blackhawk offline servers. She explained that the facility was offline, and she could figure out an employee list by doing some surface web internet searches. Jet even revealed the administrator’s name: Byron Kowalski. She described stalking his internet activities to reveal his employment history, social media, personal pictures (including some of questionable taste). She connected him with the actual construction of the Black Hosting Site. She even pulled up the purchase records of the hardware.
“From there, it was easy to determine the critical vulnerabilities specific to the hardware. The tricky part was tracing his online activity to see if he had downloaded the patched code. He hadn’t, so I exploited the manufacturer’s server to include my own very special patch. Whoever installs it will get a free JetaGirl-approved keylogger that will send me whatever they type. As a special bonus, a small package will also be installed to search for very specific items based on patterns. I also programmed the package to find specific information about the Sultan. I even slowed the update process to gather the information,” Jet said.
“You said the update process was offline. How did you get that information?”
“Well, like most creatures of habit, Byron wanted to finish his champion poker tournament. After all, his pot was in the six-figure range. With his computer back online, I could dump the important parts of his computer memory to my jump server. The hardest part was downloading it all in time with the slow satellite connection you have on this boat,” Jet said.
She felt a grin forming on her face, but she tried her best to remain poker-faced. The room fell silent. Dr. Randy’s mouth was wide open, and the Sultan didn’t appear to have an expression, but Jet thought she noticed the muscles in his jaw clench.
All in a day’s work. The bastard should give me a bonus, Jet thought.
“Will you excuse us, dear? Please wait in your cabin. I believe you have some packing to do,” the Sultan said.
She started gathering the computer and folder.
“Leave those. We will bring them to your cabin,” Dr. Randy said.