The Last Goodbye by Reed Arvin Page A

pronouncement. Four words told me everything I needed to know. “Such a nice man.” She picked up her bag and moved toward the door. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Good-bye, Jack.” With that, she floated out the door. I was alone in my office, left with thoughts of Blu being whisked away on the Horizn corporate jet to New York for a no-expenses shopping excursion.
    I paced around in my office until Nightmare showed up. He had, against all odds, changed his shirt. The new one had a picture of a surprised-looking sheep, with the logo, Dolly Lama—Our Spiritual Leader. His expression was changed, too: I could feel his excitement the moment he walked in the door. “Where is it?” he asked, without saying hello.
    I nodded toward my office. “Apparently I said the magic words.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAre you saying you knew Doug Townsend?”
    â€œI never met him. But I can give Killah his props.”
    â€œKillah?”
    â€œDoug.”
    â€œDoug Townsend went by Killah?”
    â€œLook, man, this is an alternative universe. Goin’ by Killah doesn’t mean he owned a gun. It means file killer.”
    â€œBut you’re saying that Townsend had a reputation in the hacker community.”
    Nightmare smiled. “What hacker community?”
    I stared at him a moment, then said, “Computer’s this way.”
    Nightmare followed me into my office, where I had Townsend’s computer set up on a small table. Nightmare took a seat, then opened up a valise containing dozens of zip disks. It only took about five minutes for him to discover that the trip inside my former client’s computer was no walk in the park. “Shit,” Nightmare said.
    â€œProblem?”
    â€œThere’s hardly anything here. He was working through someone else’s mainframe. From the looks of it, Georgia Tech.”
    â€œWhy them?”
    â€œBecause they’re huge, and they have a relaxed attitude. The grad students manage the mainframes.”
    â€œAre we screwed?”
    Nightmare smiled. “All it takes is time.”
    â€œCan I get you something?” I asked. “A Coke?”
    â€œGot any spring water?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œSee you when you get back.” Apparently, Nightmare was a health nut when it came to beverages. I rose and headed for the little store on the corner near my building. By the time I got back, Nightmare’s smirk had faded.
    â€œThis is some serious shit,” he said.
    â€œMeaning?”
    â€œMeaning this is some serious motherfucking shit.”
    â€œThat clears things up. Thanks.” Nightmare scowled, and I asked, “Are you saying that whoever he was hacking had massive defenses or something?”
    â€œI have no idea who he was hacking,” he answered. “But whoever it was, Killah was taking them seriously. The defenses are the other way around.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI mean he definitely didn’t want them crawling back up his DSL lines and identifying him. This stuff is protected. It’s passwords, which I figured, since Killah wouldn’t have had the resources for a hardware lock, like hand or iris recognition. But whatever it is, it’s the shit, man. Most passwords are six characters, maybe eight. This one is twenty-six. It’s just crazed.”
    â€œTwenty-six?”
    â€œYeah. It gets worse, though.”
    â€œGreat.”
    â€œKillah was using the new 4096-bit encryption. So the number of possibilities is like ... I don’t think calculators go that high. Like a billion billion.”
    â€œWonderful.”
    â€œOr maybe more. It’s so mind-boggling, I can’t actually imagine it.”
    I stared at him, trying to believe in whatever magic guys like him possessed. “So what do we do?’
    Nightmare paused, thinking. “I could set up a brute force program,” he said, “the