Zero Day Exploit E-Book

Tami Veldura

• Herausgeber: Tami Veldura
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Zero Day Exploit

Leseprobe

ZERO DAY EXPLOIT

Tami Veldura

LoveLight Press

Contemporary M/M

Table of Contents

Title Page

Zero Day Exploit © Tami Veldura 2017.

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

About The Author

Zero Day Exploit © Tami Veldura 2017.

ISBN: 978-1-941319-51-2

Edited by Micki.

Cover by Aria Tan.

All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

The author has asserted his/her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book.

This book contains sexually explicit content which is suitable only for mature readers.

First LoveLight Press electronic publication: March 2018.

http://www.lovelightpress.com

Zero Day Exploit features American characters, and as such uses American English throughout.

Foreword

Asher “The Hunter” Hunt left black hat hacking for the safer work of IT security three years ago and hasn’t looked back. He’s a law-abiding citizen now, trying to forget the mistakes he made in the past. His latest job deals with a mortgage company, and even though they sent a burly security guard along, Asher doesn’t need anyone’s protection. He’s too much of a geek to be friends with a jock, so the heat he feels in his veins isn’t going to go anywhere.

Connar James is trying to find the right kind of thrill that he left behind while he was stationed overseas. His mind and body are a primed weapon, he just needs to be pointed at a bad guy. This job with a legal hacker is not it, even if the man himself is just Connar’s type: lanky, firm, and loyal. He’s not looking for anything complicated, though, so it’s better to keep his hands off the asset.

But the work isn’t what it seems, and Asher realizes he’s been played. Connar is ready to jump at the threat to defend what’s his, but Asher hesitates. Is it so bad to step into the black-hat world of hackers and conmen if it’s for a good cause? If they’re going to catch a thief, it’s going to take more than a computer nerd and his bodyguard. It will take a team. And Asher knows just the people for the job.

Chapter 1

CONNAR JAMES MERGED smoothly onto East Main, trying hard to ignore the man in his passenger seat. Asher Hunt. Hacker. They’d exchanged barely a few words on the phone a few days ago and the quiet voice on the other end of the line had given Connar no warning that the owner hit the weights regularly. The casual entrance Asher had made replayed itself in a loop in Connar’s mind. The defined calves under untailored slacks, a controlled bend of torso that said the man worked on his lats in his spare time, a swelling deltoid under an out-of-season long-sleeve shirt, a plump ass that landed softly in Connar’s passenger seat—Asher Hunt possessed more than his fair share of bulging biceps, every one of them defined and hidden from view.

There wasn’t quite enough distance between them even in Connar’s spacious SUV. He was crowded. Asher had ignited the air just with his presence and a flare of arrogant blue eyes. Connar kept his attention strictly on the road ahead and cranked the AC up another notch.

“Are you even listening?” Asher jabbed his finger on the passenger window, smudging a print on the pristine glass. Connar tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “We just passed Phö King. I did not cultivate this brilliant mind on an empty stomach. I. Have. A. Need. Man, there goes Yixing Gold. Have you no mercy?”

Connar’s job was simple: shadow Asher during his work, make sure nothing interrupted. Linch had been a bit fuzzy on the details of who or what would interrupt, but Asher hadn’t seem fazed by Connar’s phone call to coordinate the schedule. Connar appreciated when an asset followed instructions without needing to be babysat. It saved him the aggravation of establishing the chain of command.

Asher whimpered as they passed yet another cheap hole-in-the-wall, the very thought of which turned Connar’s stomach. Connar pressed his lips into a line. He closed his eyes against another replay of casual muscle control that only came with practice. If Asher had such a weightlifting habit, Connar’s skillset was a bit superfluous. Still, a paying gig was better than spinning in circles back at home, reliving a war he didn’t particularly care to remember. And Connar was happy to admit Asher was easy on the eyes.

“Really. You’re going to start this day without any food at all?”

Connar swallowed a sigh. Asher was a temptation but his running mouth put Connar off. He growled, “At the very least pick a quality place. How about Xian Phö?”

Asher put a hand to his chest and blinked. “Sir, do I look like a pretentious, rich, white man? Xian Phö—like anyone on a budget can afford gold cutlery.” His voice took on a nasally tone. “Bonsoir, would the gentlemen prefer their caviar on the platinum or Himalayan rose diamond?”

Connar jerked the car into the very next strip mall he saw out of protest. Some gray, dust-covered place with neon signs. A rundown series of buildings that had seen better days. To his dismay, Asher perked up. “Oh, Fortune Cookie, good choice. I love their dumplings. Delivery is always quick.” And he climbed elegantly out of Connar’s SUV without waiting for an acknowledgement.

Connar slammed his car door and marched into the crappy Chinese restaurant, muttering to himself. “There’s no such thing as Himalayan rose diamonds.” Asher either didn’t hear him, or didn’t care.

His ire faded minutely when Asher diminished inside the restaurant. Asher shied away from a server and made a rush for the counter with a hunch in his shoulder that put Connar’s instincts on alert. He wasn’t in the habit of ignoring his lizard brain and awareness fluttered across the back of his neck like a prickling warning. There were half a dozen people at the scattered tables and a couple behind the counter, but no one in particular seemed to trigger his danger sense.

Connar followed Asher with more measure in his pace, attention touching all corners of the room in sequence, searching for the threat that had silenced Asher so completely. All Connar found was the afternoon rush. The prickling feeling didn’t easily subside once triggered, though, and he stood stiffly in line.

Asher ordered in a subdued voice entirely unlike the character he’d shown in the car, then turned and pressed a ten into Connar’s hand as he made his immediate escape. Connar tensed further, too surprised to grab Asher’s arm and prevent him from leaving. He clenched the bill in his hand and took a moment to identify the least terrible menu option. He was uneasy being separated from his charge. Even if the distance was small, this was an unsecured area.

Hackers were a weird sort. There was some charm in that. Asher clearly had some kind of social phobia that the public restaurant aggravated. Connar added the detail to the growing profile and ignored, again, the replay of Asher’s body language as he entered the car. There was no way those sculpted calves happened by accident.

Connar shook his head. It didn’t matter if Asher lifted regularly, Connar was here to do a job: protect Linch’s asset. End of story. He ordered, paid, and brought a bag of food back to the car.

Asher was hunched over some sort of number puzzle when he arrived, hand massaging his left forearm as he concentrated. Something caused him pain in that elbow, an old injury or tendonitis. Connar made a mental note of Asher’s weaker side, just in case. He dumped the bag in Asher’s lap and the man saved his puzzle from the food with room to spare—more observant than Connar initially gave him credit for.

As he settled into his seat, Connar made a face at the dashboard where demo lights danced across his radio to some hippy trance noise. Asher couldn’t seriously call this music, could he? It was like sex in outer space from a seventies show. Were those air raid sirens in the background? Connar firmly thumbed the first XM preset. The Wanted Dead or Alive guitar pealed through his speakers, which was much better than that earlier wailing, but the cascading rainbow of lights blinked and wavered to the new beat.

Connar pointed at his radio. “Whatever you did, make it stop.”

Asher rolled his eyes. With an open Chinese container in one hand, he toggled a series of buttons on Connar’s dash and the rainbow faded to proper, dull amber. Just like the rest of his display.

“Thank you.” His words were stiff. What made Asher think he could alter another man’s radio? This space was sacred. Outside of his home, Connar’s SUV was the only thing he could reliably control: the set of his seat, the angle of his mirrors, and the temperature control were all dialed in to his exact needs. And the radio topped that design with an excellent range of classic alternative.

Asher just shook his head.

They continued out of downtown Cross City and toward a city park with more companionable air between them. Asher dug into his food with a pair of splintery wooden chopsticks and the relative silence let Connar relax. The geek wasn’t so bad as long as he wasn’t talking.

Of course it was then that Connar’s sense of direction failed him as he paused at a stop sign. They were supposed to make their way to a prepped RV on the edge of the city, something about needing a distance buffer from cell towers. It was rare to find any stretch of road without a signal nowadays.

Asher grunted, “Left.”

Connar followed the direction with a furrowed brow. “This is away from downtown.”

“Hmm?” Asher’s mouth full of noodles was less loquacious than his raised eyebrow.

“Don’t you need Wi-Fi or… something?” How obvious was it that he was unfamiliar with how a hacker did his work?

Asher snorted somewhere in the back of his throat. “Businesses of this caliber don’t leave customer information on unsecured Wi-Fi. Not when they call me, anyway. Turn right.” He blew on a wonton and swallowed it whole. “Anyway, Linch said he gave me a secure satellite connection to the RV.”

Connar didn’t know the difference between Wi-Fi and satellite, but he’d already exposed enough of his ignorance. He didn’t need to know the details to protect Asher from... what was he protecting Asher from anyway? Linch wanted Asher to hack his own company. A security test of some kind.

Asher chuckled. “Don’t get dizzy running in that mental circle.”

Connar blinked at him. What had the geek read in his face? He checked his expression and found it solid.

“This is going to be the most boring two weeks of your life. When I recommended Linch send security I meant his tech team. You might as well take a seat and read a book.” Asher dropped his chopsticks into the empty Chinese container. “I, on the other hand, get to play with a dedicated network. Do you know how many programs I could run at once? This is gonna be fun.” He flashed Connar a smile that said wicked things, and just like that Connar had to force the memory of Asher’s bulging deltoids out of his head.

The geek might have a body that pushed Connar’s buttons, but even tempting muscle mass would fall before his iron-clad integrity. He was disappointed to hear he might have been hired by an accident of communication, but that didn’t change the fact that he had a job to do, and he was being paid well to do it.

This kind of detail wasn’t anything like Afghanistan; he wasn’t going to win a valor medal for talking Asher into decent Chinese. And no security job ever matched the high-stakes, stay-on-your-toes adrenaline of close combat. He couldn’t go back, but every addict knew what it was like to yearn for something unhealthy.

That unstoppable rush had left its indelible mark and Connar was stuck seeking a fix that could match it. Civilian life just didn’t work that way. He would know, he’d been searching for three years now. Connar was starting to wonder if his finely-honed edge was dulling.

“Hey, you coming or what? Just gonna brood in the car all day?”

Connar jerked out of his thoughts. That was a dangerous pastime he should curb quickly. He couldn’t afford to slack, even on an easy job. He took in the area with a quick sweep of his head and found it satisfactory.

Asher kicked his door closed, hands full of bad Chinese, and approached a RV tucked into the back of the park. They were surrounded by trees and much further from the city than Connar expected. Good for a recon base. One way in made it easy to defend.

Connar stepped out of the vehicle and left the windows down to vent the smell of cheap Chinese. He leaned on his hood, assessing the land and gravel road. Asher was right—this was going to be a boring job.

--//--

Asher Hunt considered the RV remote headquarters from the doorway. The air inside smelled like ozone and Lysol—clean. He could stand inside with room to spare, which was a consideration Asher appreciated. A week or two in a remote RV never did anyone’s back any favors.

Asher opened cabinets and doors as he moved deeper, locating a server RAID, three PC towers, and a rack of screens tucked elegantly into the corner. Clark Linch didn’t pull any punches. This setup was everything Asher needed and more. He jabbed the power buttons on all three systems and nodded with a grin as the entire RV came to life. “Mm-hm, talk to me,” he said. Fans whirred up to speed, a few red LEDs cast their glow into the darkness, and the computers beeped in unison through their startup procedure. Asher took a deep breath of recirculated air. Yes, this was going to be a fun job.

The RV dipped as the big guy made his entrance—all tall, dark, and brooding. His blond locks haloed him in the doorway, light bouncing around like he’d trapped it there. Asher was transfixed. Connar couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than an enforcer. His wide shoulders strained the edges of his dress shirt and there was an unmistakable triangle down to his waist. The fancy duds couldn’t hide Connar’s readiness, or the sharp perception in his pale eyes. If anything, they drew attention to the fact that he could break a man in half. Connar looked like a secret service agent; better equipped to be defending the president than Asher and an RV. His look was ruthlessly neat. It really was too bad he was a bit of a food snob. Who had Xian Phö money? For lunch?

“We’re set away from the road, no lines of sight to the hiking trails. No one should bother you unless they know you’re here.” Connar crossed his arms, risking a popped seam. “Is everything in order?”

Asher jerked his eyes back to a computer and spewed some bullshit affirmative while his brain rebooted. It wasn’t unusual for clients to send an observer for his work, but they tended to be more rent-a-cop and less former-special-ops. He didn’t know Connar’s history for sure, nothing beyond the gruff way he gave orders and his abysmal taste in late-century music, but there was no faking how he took this job way too seriously.

“Have a seat,” Asher said, gesturing to a chair tucked into a space in the wall. He took his own, adjusting the height to his preference and lightly touching the power for each of the screens in his reach.

After a beat he looked up. Connar remained beside the door, his arms crossed, attention fixated on the wall. Asher cocked his head. “Not a fan of sitting?” Connar only twitched his head negative and Asher rolled his eyes. “You wanna make like a statue for the next six hours, that’s your own business.” Asher shrugged and settled in his chair. “Big man doesn’t know how to kick it back. But that’s not my circus...” and not his monkeys. Asher knew better than to take that bite. It was more than he could chew.

He logged into the system with an ID Linch had given him and checked that each of the network connections he needed were in order. Satisfied, he began to organize his approach. Linch owned a mortgage business, a fairly successful one from what Asher could tell. His website looked professional on the surface, but it was the back-end security Asher had been hired to test. How easily could he breach the system and compromise identities and homeowner equity?

Asher had no doubt he could get inside. Linch was a smart man, but he was no Goldman Sachs with an army of IT at his disposal. Asher huffed a smile at himself. He’d breached GS back in his less legal days, mostly for kicks. Financial institutions had more lockdown than the Pentagon lately. The weakest link in any system was always the people involved, but when Ian’s crew at the Den issued the challenge, Asher could hardly let it slip past.

Back then, getting on Ian’s radar had been a priority. He was the son of Torrance Industries CEO George Torrance, the biggest bad in Cross City. Ian was set to inherit an empire but he’d been making a name for himself in the underground circles as an extraordinary hacker with vision. Asher and his sort didn’t organize readily, having a healthy skepticism for the man a requirement of the business, but Ian was different. Charismatic. Asher had been swept up in his movement, craving a taste of the new world Ian would make for them, and strung along by the promise of more: Ian himself. The golden king.

Then three years ago Asher realized he was being played. Ian didn’t crave anything but his utopian dream, not even the Hunter he’d lifted to such infamous heights.

Asher’s goals shifted after that, and he focused on white-hat jobs now. He avoided the underground meeting places and chat rooms. Everything was above the board. He even paid taxes. Mostly.

So could he break into Linch’s system? Yeah, he’d find a way in. Then it was just a matter of transferring a checklist of specific files and payments through the server RAID in this RV. He’d have a record of the transfer and Linch would see just how he gained access. A very standard approach as far as jobs went. Clients frequently set up fake customers and paper trails for him to seek out and access as a way to test specific defense systems. Linch’s list was a little longer than most, but that just meant a bigger payday.

The RV tipped. Connar stepped out of the RV to… what was he doing? Asher broke from his work to access the RV’s external video. He watched Connar do a lap around the field and check the road. What he was looking for, Asher couldn’t say.

When he returned, the big guy stood at attention, once again facing the wall. Asher shook his head and let him have his space. It was none of Asher’s business how Connar conducted his.

With intent, Asher dove into his work, poking and prodding at the very basics of Linch’s security. He set up a brute force assault on one of his systems, running a program that attempted login after login at incredible speed. The script ran permutations of usernames and passwords on a thousand instances simultaneously, over a hundred thousand varieties every twenty seconds. It was the most low-tech way to breach a system, and as such, easy to defend against. If Linch had any decent security at all, this script didn’t have a chance.

Asher set up a denial of service attack on his second system, targeting Linch’s networked computers. If he could overwhelm the server, he might trigger a response. Occasionally Asher found cracks in security when servers attempted to address his DoS automatically.

He took notes as both systems ran, jotting down ideas for the next stage as they came to him. Ultimately every system was the same: a set of signals in the network just waiting for the right code. Once, the brute force method was hacktivist gold, but most systems now used encrypted sixty-four-bit passwords and the permutations quickly outstripped the average hacker’s computer power.

If anyone in security had a lick of sense, they’d convert their entire system to a blockchain. Impossible to hack or spoof as far as anyone in his circles could tell. Asher had a dedicated computer at home mining a Bitcoin blockchain. It wasn’t going to make him rich, but if he could figure out how to break it, or better yet, insert a fake block on the chain, he’d go down in history.

It wasn’t until the RV dipped and Asher glanced at the camera feed that he realized he’d been sucked into his work for hours. The light outside was fading fast as Connar made his latest pass around the area.

Asher leaned back and stretched, groaning as his muscles protested. He rubbed his left forearm, pressing his thumb in hard to relieve the tendon in his elbow. The ache eased a little, but it would probably never fully fade. Not with the kind of trauma he’d survived. He worked his pressure up his left bicep. He could feel the ridges and swirls of burn scars through the thin sleeve of his shirt. Even in the height of summer he kept long-sleeved shirts on if he left the house. They limited the stares and pitying looks he received.

As Connar returned to the RV, Asher stood, stretching again to get the blood moving. “I’m done here for the day. These systems will run overnight but I doubt they’ll find any cracks.”

“Then why do you run them?”

Connar looked at him intently, and Asher shivered. His direct attention was a little too strong. “If they do break in, Linch’s security has a lot to fix. I’ve just got to check that box before I can move on.” Asher slid his keyboard tray back into the wall and began shutting down screens.

Connar nodded. “Do you need help?”

Asher lifted an eyebrow at him, then the second one went up as Connar unbuttoned his collared shirt. The A-shirt he exposed underneath shone over the bulge of his pecs, rippling and flowing around Connar’s hard angles. Softening the edges.

Asher coughed and jerked his eyes to the computer before him. “Uh, yeah. Help. Thanks.”

The screens recessed smoothly under Connar’s hands and he closed the delicate latches with finesse. Every movement was precise. No effort wasted. Muscle cascaded down Connar’s back in a series of river stones. Asher couldn’t decide if the front view or the rear was better. The urge to touch sprang up and tingled his fingers.

Then Connar’s head twitched around and Asher jumped, caught staring. He looked down and marched quickly out of the RV. Fresh air slapped him in the face. What the hell was he thinking, salivating over a security guard? This was a job, and Linch was paying well for it. He couldn’t screw that up. He’d worked hard to make a name for himself outside of the Den, beyond the black heart and gray edges of the hacker community. Away from the too-sharp eyes of FBI investigators.

Asher wasn’t ashamed of his roots, but he had moved on and there was no way he could endanger that. He had to get his brain on the job, nowhere else. He took several deep breaths, focusing on his next few tasks for tomorrow.

By the time Connar stepped out of the RV and locked the door behind him, Asher had regained some headspace and greeted him with a smile. “What’ll it take to get you to stop at Kung Food on the way home?” Connar made a delightful scrunchy face in response.

“Anything named with a pun is a bad idea,” he grumbled.

They made their way to the SUV, a hulking shadow now that the sun had fallen behind the trees. Asher huffed. “No appreciation for the finer things. A good pun is hard to come by.”

Connar shot him a look over the hood of the car but just shook his head.