INSTALLMENT #9

Carter spent the evening in his hotel bar turning down the hookers and pretending to get very drunk. About 10:30 the primarily business crowd thinned significantly. Carter started going on and on about a "real party," eventually stumbling up to the pimp holding forth at the door.

"Where can a guy go to get a drink with a little party?"

"Right here," responded the pimp.

"Nah, I want a party with my party."

The pimp pulled out a business card, wrote a few words on the back, handed it to Carter and said, "Tell them Ivan sent you."

Carter stumbled out the door. There he notices the van that belongs to the permanent Greenpeace contingent that stays at the hotel, protesting Sophiaskia, as if they were the only people in the world who can possibly understand how bad things really are. He decided to have a little fun and add fuel to the fire of his cover by pissing all over the Greenpeace van. When a cop walked by and told him to knock it off, he did.

"It’s mine now," was all Carter said as he made his way down the street in the direction the pimp had pointed him.

Once he was around the corner, all pretense of drunkenness disappeared. Carter stripped off his business suit to reveal an all black body suit. From the pockets of his suit he started pulling gadgets right and left. Shortly, he was all but invisible, except under a street light, something he avoided at all costs.

Carter made his way towards the headquarters of that charity. As he approached he noticed guards. They were; however, lazy and rarely left the front of the building where he had no intention of going. He quickly finds the roof access ladder in the rear of the building and makes his way to the roof. When he gets there he is stunned.

He knew that the shielded room contained the only Internet connection in the building and he figured it was a satellite connection since that was most secure. That's why he headed for the roof. But what he wasn't prepared for was the fact that the servers that ran the rest of the network were in an air conditioned, but unsecured shed on that roof. This was too easy, a few simple connections and he could snoop the whole network from the comfort of his hotel.

"I guess they trust their encryption a little too much," was the thought Carter had as he went about his business. A wireless connection between the Internet server and the network server would be least visible, but detectable by anybody with an RF sniffer, so he opted for a hardwire connection. This meant he had to hide the wires, but on a tar and gravel roof that was no trick at all.

After he had the connection made and confirmed, Carter plugged into the Internet server something that looked like a Palm Pilot, but did a whole lot more. A list of IP addresses started to appear on his screen. After he had downloaded them he, disconnected and left the way he came.

"Too easy," he muttered to himself as he crept away in the shadows.

When he was just a step or two off the property a dog came around from the front of the building and started barking. "Shut up Misha," yelled an obviously drunk guard at the dog. The dog took a couple of steps but staggered and fell, obviously as drunk as the guard. The toughest thing about the entire evening was not laughing out loud at that dog.

Carter made a quick trip to the brothel the pimp had pointed him too. He got just far enough to complain about the prices and left sounding like the drunk he was not. Now his tracks were covered with the pimp.