A bunch of the folders seemed to be personal—pictures, scans, useful documents relating to the house. Another set related to our company. There were files of VAT returns, invoices, bank statements and spreadsheets. For the love of Mike, had Gabe ever just saved something, without backing it up?
However, by far the largest section of files seemed to relate to ongoing projects. Glancing down the As, I saw Arden Alliance, but it was just one of many, starting with Aardvark Inc—a company we’d never worked for, as far as I knew, but when I clicked through there were notes on some responsible disclosure reports Gabe had made, flagging up a vulnerability in their online email portal. Below Aardvark were folders labeled Abel Inc, Ace Electric, Adelaide Systems, Adelphi-Core, Ajax & Cline, Anoraxis, Apex Finance, Arcturus Publishing… and that was just the As. The list went on and on, through the whole alphabet, and I had no idea where to start.
I scrolled down to C. A file named Cole seemed like too much to hope for—but Cerberus Security was the name of Cole’s company, and it didn’t seem impossible that Gabe would have labeled the folder that way. But there was nothing. I felt like crying.
My side was hurting, along with my head and my joints, which ached like I had the flu, and now I shifted in my chair, feeling the clamminess on my back sticking my T-shirt to my spine and then peeling away as I moved. Under my clothes the new dressing felt stiff, the adhesive pulling at my skin in a way that somehow seemed to aggravate the wound. I had probably been bending when I put it on, and now it was too tight, but I knew I couldn’t start repositioning it now. If I unpeeled it, there was a good chance it wouldn’t stick down again, and it was the last one.
Instead I popped a couple of ibuprofen and scrolled further down the list, trying to ignore the pain. Past C to D, E, F, and then further through the Ls, Ms, Ns and on. There was nothing, or nothing that meant anything to me, at any rate. There were names of companies, names of programs, some unfamiliar, some recognizable from projects we’d worked on together—but nothing I saw seemed to relate to Cole. Had I got this all wrong?
And then I saw it. Right at the bottom, below Unrivalled Software and above Upside Down Design. A folder labeled Unsubmitted.
That was it. Not Unsubmitted Inc., or Unsubmitted Software. It could have been a company name—but something about it, and the size of the folder, made me pause and click through.
Inside were a bunch more folders, these much less tidy, mostly labeled with names relating to website URLs, apps, or programs. And right at the bottom of the list was a name I knew well. Really well. Watchdog. It was the name of Cerberus’s flagship security app.
I clicked on the folder.
I don’t know what I expected. A ticking bomb, a bunch of warnings to flash up. Instead, what I got was a load of files I didn’t recognize, some text, some in what appeared to be computer code. I had no idea what half of them were.
Mentally crossing my fingers that I wasn’t going to make anything explode, I opened one of the files. It was a long string of code—and I had no idea what any of it did. But at the top were a series of what I assumed were Gabe’s notes to himself. I had seen them often enough, a kind of to-do list for that specific project, filled with reminders of loose ends and tasks left unfinished. This one was no exception—there were half a dozen items listed at the top, most of which seemed to be programming related and made little sense to me. But the last few… they made my heart stutter.
# THIS HAS NOT BEEN PATCHED YET
# TODO: Notify Cerberus next week
# TODO: Check Puppydog concerns w Cole
There it was. Cole’s name—in a document Gabe had been working on right before his death—alongside a clear implication that he was about to go over Cole’s head, direct to Cerberus. The “last modified” date on the file was Friday—the day before we’d done the Arden Alliance pen test. The day, according to Cole’s own account, that the two of them had spoken by phone.
What Cole had presented as a routine catch-up must, in reality, have been something quite different—Gabe, following up the warning he’d given Cole with a polite heads-up that he’d be filing an official report with Cerberus on Monday. It was the kind of routine disclosure he’d done many times before as an ethical hacker—one following a tried and tested process. But that friendly warning, I’m sorry, mate, but there’s a problem with your code, had cost Gabe his life—and here was the evidence.
Maybe it wasn’t quite a smoking gun—but it was a whole lot more plausible than the Sunsmile theory Malik and Miles were working on right now.
But it was the reference to Puppydog that really made me shiver. Because Watchdog was bad enough. Watchdog was the home security app that Cerberus made most of their money from—a 360-degree monitoring system that hooked up everything from your home hub to your doorbell to a single app. But Puppydog—Puppydog was the parental monitoring app that was fast coming up the charts to beat it in popularity. Puppydog gave parents complete access to everything on their child’s phone—their contact list, their browsing history, and most importantly of all, it tracked the physical location of both parent and children, so they could always find each other.
If someone could hack Puppydog, they could monitor not just you—but your kids. What kind of money would someone give for that? Access to a celebrity’s child? A political dissident’s family? A chill ran down my spine that was nothing to do with the fever burning through me. And as it did, as I stared at the screen trying to process this and wondering exactly what Cole had got himself involved in, Gabe’s phone began to ring.
For a long moment I just stared at the screen wondering, stupidly, what was happening. The number was a landline, a London one, and I had no idea who it could be. Although Gabe’s number had been SIM-swapped to this phone, nothing else had been transferred, which meant his contact list was blank. It could be anyone from Gabe’s gym, to his parents, to… well, anyone. The question was, should I pick up?
The phone was still ringing, vibrating across the table, and I was still trying to make up my mind when a woman strolled past, pushing a sleeping baby in a buggy, and remarked, “Well it ain’t gonna answer itself, is it?” with a kind of weary pissed-offness that put my back up.
You have no idea what I’m dealing with, I wanted to snap at her. But the truth was, that went both ways. Maybe she had lost someone too. Maybe she was afraid. Maybe she was mired in postnatal depression.
Okay, she almost certainly wasn’t on the run from the police, a suspect in her dead husband’s murder. But either way, she was right. The phone wasn’t going to answer itself, and I wasn’t gaining a great deal by letting it ring. It had already connected to the cell towers, beaming out its location to anyone who knew the number. Picking up wouldn’t change much. And the truth was, the ringing was starting to drive me crazy, boring into my aching head like a drill.
I took a deep breath. I picked up the phone. I pressed answer.
“Who is this?” the caller immediately demanded.
I blinked. The voice at the other end was immediately familiar—but I couldn’t place it. The speaker was a woman, and it sounded like she was somewhere busy; I could hear the sound of computer keyboards clicking in the background, people talking. For a crazy minute I wondered if it was Keeley calling from the Sunsmile call center—if she had tracked me down to demand what the fuck I had been playing at. But no—that was insane, of course it was. She didn’t have my number, let alone Gabe’s. And glancing at my watch I saw that it was too late for Sunsmile to be open. But I did know that voice. Was it one of Gabe’s friends?
And then, as the caller spoke again, repeating her question with a sharper intonation, “Who is this?” I knew.
It’s me,” I said very quietly.
There was a long silence. When the caller spoke again, she didn’t sound abrupt anymore. In fact, there was a warmth in her voice, a smile like someone whose Christmases just came all at once.
“Hello, Jack,” she said. “It’s really, really good to hear your voice.”
I shut my eyes.
Malik.