Disclosure by Michael Crichton Read Free Book Online

the side. The box began to blink, and emitted a low white noise hiss. Bosak set it in the middle of Sanders's desk.
    Bosak never gave information until the white noise scrambler was in place, since most of what he had to say implied il egal behavior.
    “I have good news for you,” Bosak said. “Your boy is clean.” He pul ed out a manila file, opened it up, and started handing over pages. “Peter John Nealy, twenty three, DigiCom employee for sixteen months. Now working as a programmer in APG. Okay, here we go. His high school and col ege transcripts .
    . . Employment file from Data General, his last employer. Al in order. Now, the recent stuff... Credit rating from TRW . . . Phone bil s from his apartment . . .
    Phone bil s for his cel ular line . . . Bank statement . . . Savings account . . . Last two 1040s . . . Twelve months of credit card charges, VISA and Master . . . Travel records . . . E-mail messages inside the company, and off the Internet . . .
    Parking tickets . . . And this is the clincher . . . Ramada Inn in Sunnyvale, last three visits, his phone charges there, the numbers he cal ed . . . Last three car rentals with mileage . . . Rental car cel ular phone, the numbers cal ed . . . That's everything.”
    “And?”
    “I ran down the numbers he cal ed. here's the breakdown. A lot of cal s to Seattle Silicon, but Nealy's seeing a girl there. She's a secretary, works in sales, no conflict. He also cal s his brother, a programmer at Boeing, does paral el processing stuff for wing design, no conflict. His other cal s are to suppliers and code vendors, and they're al appropriate. No cal s after hours. No cal s to pay phones. No overseas cal s. No suspicious pattern in the cal s. No unexplained bank transfers, no sudden new purchases. No reason to think he's looking for a move. I'd say he's not talking to anybody you care about.”
    “Good,” Sanders said. He glanced down at the sheets of paper, and paused.
    “Gary . . . Some of this stuff is from our company. Some of these reports.”
    “Yeah. So?”
    “How'd you get them?”
    Bosak grinned. “Hey. You don't ask and I don't tel you.”
    “How'd you get the Data General file?”
    Bosak shook his head. “Isn't this why you pay me?”
    “Yes it is, but-”
    “Hey. You wanted a check on an employee, you got it. Your kid's clean. He's working only for you. Anything else you want to know about him?”
    “No.” Sanders shook his head.
    “Great. I got to get some sleep.” Bosak col ected al the files and placed them back in his folder. “By the way, you're going to get a cal from my parole officer.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Can I count on you?”
    “Sure, Gary.”
    “I told him I was doing consulting for you. On telecommunications security.”
    “And so you are.”
    Bosak switched off the blinking box, put it in his briefcase, and reconnected the telephones. “Always a pleasure. Do I leave the bil with you, or Cindy?”
    “I'l take it. See you, Gary.”
    “Hey. Anytime. You need more, you know where I am.”
    Sanders glanced at the bil , from NE Professional Services, Inc., of Bel evue, Washington. The name was Bosak's private joke: the letters NE stood for
    “Necessary Evil.” Ordinarily, high-tech companies employed retired police officers and private investigators to do background checks, but occasional y they used hackers like Gary Bosak, who could gain access to electronic data banks, to get information on suspect employees. The advantage of using; Bosak was that he could work quickly, often making a report in a matter of hours, or overnight. Bosak's methods were of course il egal; simply by hiring him, Sanders himself had broken a half-dozen laws. But background checks on employees were accepted as standard practice in high-tech firms, where a single document or product development plan might be worth hundreds of thousands of dol ars to competitors.
    And in the case of Pete Nealy, a check was particularly crucial. Nealy was developing hot new