“Why, because I know we have to make sure we have what we need before you go arresting him? Do you think I’ve learned nothing hanging out with you these past few years?”
“All the time,” said Raley, who looked at Ochoa for appreciation of his jab. But the other half of Roach turned away. Nikki caught that and realized that while they may have agreed to work together, playing together was not happening.
“So how does something like this happen?” asked Detective Aguinaldo. “I mean technically happen?”
“It just can,” said Feller. “Because it did.”
“That’s not an answer, that’s a stance,” said Rook.
“Hey, some Syrians can hack our whole city, how hard it is to hack a car?”
Heat didn’t know. But she knew who might be able to tell her.
Nikki’s call to Wilton Backhouse went straight to voice mail, but he called back within three minutes, just as she had left the ladies’ room and stopped at the bulletin board to check out the latest addition. Someone had pasted George Gallatin’s mug shot over Nic Cage’s face on a screen printout of Ghost Rider. “Sorry, you caught me in a lecture. I keep my phone off.” She could hear his sandals flipping on the linoleum floor on his way to his office. “Is there anything about Nathan?”
“No, not as of yet. In fact, part of the reason I called was to find out if he had made any contact with you.”
“Uh-uh, I even tried his cell a few times. Nothing. He must have totally freaked when he heard about Abigail. Fuck me, I freaked. And he’s not one to sit on his emotions, if you know what I mean.”
Heat slipped behind her desk and sat down. “Yes, I do. He seemed pretty tightly wound the time I met him.”
“Who wouldn’t be?” Backhouse paused and sounded grim. And, for the first time with her, vulnerable. “Can’t you stop all this?”
“We’re working on it, believe me.” In a moment of empathy, she almost shared the ordeal she had just been through with Rook, but stopped herself, figuring it wasn’t the best time to introduce kidnapping and a shootout into the conversation. Instead she said, “In fact, you can help us, if you have a moment.”
“I’ll create one,” he said.
She heard him settling in at his own desk. “I want to know if it’s possible to hack a car.”
Wilton Backhouse’s breath rustled against the mouthpiece as he chuckled. She pictured him on his bouncy ball, grinning. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Do I sound like I am?”
“Gotcha.” In his brief pause, Nikki heard him suddenly become Professor Backhouse. “The fundamental principles apply to all wired devices. Which is to say that, basically, you can hack anything that has a computer in it.”
“And a car…?”
“Is more computer than ever these days. Cars have systems that not only tell them how to function—power steering, traction control, stability control—as in the defective system fucking SwiftRageous is covering up; there are air bags, climate control, they also have GPS, heads-up displays, blindside driver alerts. You get the idea. Cars have computers systems. Systems are made to be hacked.”
“How?”
“Lots of ways. There’s a receptacle called an OBD-II port under the dashboard. Basically all you need now is a laptop and a cheap USB cable to plug into that and run any program ya got. There’s also some new open-source software out there that, once you tap into the CAN bus—that’s Controller Area Network—you can have total access to the vehicle the same way auto mechanics run Unified Diagnostic Services software to give your car a checkup. From there you can access or control just about anything you like, depending on your software. Locks, Bluetooth, GPS, phones, headlights, wipers…”
“What about the operation of the car itself?”
He laughed again. “Why not?” At least he didn’t call her an idiot. “Savvy dudes have been putting performance chips in their own cars for years to increase torque. With new codes, you can pretty much do anything. Brakes, ignition…”
“What about acceleration and steering?”