I opened my laptop, the one Linda had already set on the table for me, along with my coffee – she spoiled me - and started typing. “That should be easy to find out. Did your tech team narrow down the specific places they think were hacked?”
The two men looked at each other. The unknown man shrugged his shoulders.
“No, they did not.”
Okay, unknown was on the tech team, or at least involved with them.
“That’s not a problem, it would have just helped me know where to start. What was being done on the computers when the problem first started?”
Ivan gave a helpless look. “We have many employees, much work done at once…”
I nodded. I hacked into the administration mainframe. “Any specific location I should be looking into, or all locations on the same VPN? Or WAN?”
Ivan looked at the silent man again, almost like he was looking for a translation.
“VPN.” The man answered again, without an accent I noticed. “The problem seems to be spreading, but it started in one of our sports bars near San Fernando.”
I nodded and typed away for a minute. I pulled up the database for The Perun Hotel. It had a sports bar connected to the lobby. Separate entrances were available, for non-hotel guests. Perun, from what a side search told me, was basically the Russian version of Zeus and a bit of Aries. He ruled the other gods with lightning and thunder. He blessed the people, but he was also the god of war. Something about that name seemed significant, I just couldn’t put my finger on why yet.
There was a folder marked Game Night, so I clicked on it. I kept myself from rolling my eyes. A bookie folder. They had gambling there. Awesome.
I strolled through, but nothing seemed amiss. No sign of a virus. In fact, they had a very secure system. It shouldn’t have been so easy for me to get in. It was almost like they were holding back their defenses, lulling me into a false sense of security.
A weight of doom settled over me when that thought hit me.
I looked up at Ivan, who was watching me expectantly. I opened a few cameras, getting a look at the place.
I stopped when I came across a man who looked to be sleeping in one of the stock rooms. Only, it wasn’t actually a stock room. It was too empty. It also didn’t look like it belonged inside a hotel.
A basement perhaps?
Or a warehouse…
I ran a back trace to see where the footage was coming from. Sure enough, this feed had been fed in. I was right, they wanted me to see this.
I zoomed in and got a better look at the man.
“Ah, I think you have an issue with one of your employees. He seems to be confusing a stock room with a hotel room. It looks like he has been there for some time. He may be living there, most likely temporarily. Until he can get back on his feet.”
