Rogue Code by Mark Russinovich Read Free Book Online Page B

the wall that had separated Jeff and Frank from the fantastically complex internal IT network connecting the Exchange’s hundreds of servers and thousands of employee PCs.
    This was the first time Jeff and Frank had worked on-site together, and it was going well so far. Persuading Frank to join him at Red Zoya after Daryl’s departure had not proved as difficult as Jeff initially feared. Though Daryl and Frank were old college friends, Jeff had known the man nearly as long. There’d been years when he had little contact with Frank, though they’d met in person to compare notes and complain from time to time when they worked with the CIA. Their work was related, often overlapping, and if colleagues didn’t go around the bureaucracy occasionally, then nothing would get done.
    For a time, the two men had been on the same Company league ball team, where Frank played a competent second base. He was of average height and a bit thin. Both on and off the field, he was even-tempered and solid. He approached everything methodically.
    Frank had a background in technology, with a degree in computer science, and he’d joined the CIA after college. But instead of moving into computers, which were then in their relative infancy and not a priority, he worked as a field agent for seven years, employing his computer knowledge as a cover. Frank never spoke of his assignment much, but Jeff surmised that he’d been the real McCoy, trained in tradecraft. He’d been stationed in the United Kingdom and Spain, neither of them hot spots, and as a consequence spoke excellent Spanish.
    But Frank gave all that up when he decided to marry Carol, and a safer and more predictable life became a priority. Theirs was a happy marriage, and the couple had three young children. One measure of Frank and Carol’s close relationship with Daryl was that they had named their third and likely final child Daryl.
    Frank had done well when assigned to Langley. He worked just two years as a cybersecurity researcher with the Company while obtaining a graduate degree before becoming a team manager and from there moved further into technical management.
    At work, Frank’s personality and appearance caused him to blend in, to be forgettable, which must have been an advantage, Jeff decided, when he’d been a case officer. For all that, he had no problem pulling his own weight or standing up to other managers in the relentless internecine struggles that marked CIA bureaucracy.
    It had been the ongoing struggles for ownership of cybersecurity charters among various government organizations that finally wore Frank down. Once he became eligible for a pension, he was open to Jeff’s offer. When he put in his papers, he’d been serving as the assistant director of Counter-Cyber Research.
    More than once over the last eight months, Frank had mentioned to Jeff how little he missed the Company. The only part of his new job he disliked was the occasional travel assignments required of him. It might be a digital age, but some things still had to take place on-site. Direct access was especially common with highly secured companies. Though Jeff worked every day since arriving, Frank had squeezed in a weekend trip to his Maryland home.
    Jeff’s decision to remain on the job had been rewarded late yesterday morning, when the pair succeeded in positioning themselves for final penetration into the NYSE Euronext core operating system.
    Frank had turned to Jeff with a profound smile and said, “That was as thrilling an achievement as I’ve ever experienced with computers. No wonder you love this job so much.”

 
    8
    MITRI GROWTH CAPITAL
    LINDELL BOULEVARD
    ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
    10:54 A.M.
    Jonathan Russo started over, trying to make sense of the incomprehensible. If his first pass was correct, the company was $16 million in the hole since the opening bell. Not only was that a great deal of money for Mitri Growth, but it also wasn’t supposed to be possible. The firm had