Daemon by Daniel Suárez Read Free Book Online Page A

street dark and quiet.
    Gragg knelt down, shivering now in the cold autumn air. He waited for about a half hour before he heard the doors open again. Footsteps clacked across the pavement, heading his way. Gragg knew that Heider never wore anything that could remotely clack on pavement. So he hunkered down as a younger Filipino in slacks and a sport coat walked past the opening between the Dumpsters. Gragg heard his own car alarm chirp off, and the man got inside. He started the car up, raced the engine a bit, and then peeled off in a wild, squealing U-turn back down the street.
    Gragg slumped down against the brick wall behind the Dumpsters. He felt the cold of the brick seep into his back.
    Maybe he shouldn’t have hacked the Filipino’s Web server. Why couldn’t he have left well enough alone? How had they caught on?
    Damn! They got my car. Thank God it was registered under a false name.
    Gragg sighed and took out his GPS receiver. He found the nearest cross street on the map, then flipped open his phone and selected a saved number. After a few rings, it picked up.
    “Yeah, I need a cab.”

Chapter 5:// Icarus-Seven
    J on Ross raced his Audi A8 sedan onto the Alcyone Insurance corporate campus, then quickly slowed down as he noticed several police cruisers and unmarked cars near the lobby doors. He turned down his music—a relentlessly pounding techno track—and motored at a more civilized speed past the squad cars. Interesting. No flashing lights, though.
    Ross headed for the parking garage.
    In a few minutes his voice was echoing across the granite-floored lobby as he approached the security desk. “Hey, Alejandro.”
    Alejandro smiled. “Jon, my boy. How’re you doin’ tonight?”
    Ross swiped his consultant’s badge and signed the after-hours access list. “What’s with the police cars?”
    “Oh, there was a computer break-in. The cops are down in the data center.”
    Ross stopped writing. He looked up. “A break-in?”
    “Yeah. It’s something, what these people can do. It’s all computers nowadays.” Alejandro leaned closer to Ross. “Ted Wynnik was askin’ about you. I won’t tell nobody I saw you if you want to clear out.”
    Ross finished signing in. He smiled. “Thanks, but not necessary. It was probably some twelve-year-old kid.”
    Ross headed down the clean white corridor of B2. Soon he reached the accounting department’s data center and slid his badge through the reader. The door clicked open, and he moved briskly toward his office at the far wall. Then he slowed. The lights were on in his office. He forced himself not to stop and instead resumed a normal walking pace.
    He opened his office door and was greeted by the sight of two severely groomed men in inexpensive suits and comfortable shoes sitting on the edge of his desk. One was a Latino, the other Caucasian, but they shared the same humorless expression. Hadi Sarkar, the night-shift data center supervisor, sat at Ross’s keyboard, pecking away behind them. He turned somewhat sheepishly to face Ross.
    One of the clean-cut men reached into his jacket and withdrew credentials, which he flipped open. “Jonathan Ross?”
    “Yes?”
    “I’m Special Agent Straub. This is Special Agent Vasquez. We’d like to ask you a few questions about last night. Your colleague, Hadi here, has been able to shed some light on things, but he tells us you’re the real expert.”
    Ross glared at Sarkar and put his laptop case down on the desk. “I’m happy to help any way I can. What’s all this about?”
    “You were present in Alcyone’s data center last night?”
    “I was working under contract for another department, but Hadi requested my help. His development servers had become infected with what appeared to be a kernel rootkit.”
    “And you have experience with computer viruses?”
    Ross paused. He had to be careful here. “Look, I’m a database consultant. Computer security is part of my job. I know what I need to know.”
    “Why