The Gillespie Five (A Political / Conspiracy Novel) - Book 1 (42) by T.K. Harris Page B

located."
    "Who?"
    "The kid's uncle."
    "Have we run a background check on him yet?"
    "No, just the parents."
    "Start a background check.  Let's see where that leads us."
    "Should I leave the router?"
    "For now.  See what else we catch.  Put a junior agent on watch."
    Sighing with relief, she hung up the phone, pulling on the constricting turtle neck she wore.  She was anxious to be out of the dull clothes that faculty people seemed to wear no matter what college campus you visited.  For what seemed like an eternity, she had been stuck here waiting for just this moment and was itching to get back into the field.  Even if it meant doing something as tame as a background check. 

Chapter Twelve
     
     
    Alex pulled up to the security gate at work, waving his badge at the guard.  Once through, he drove down the main road and turned right at the intersection of three small side roads, all of which led to other facilities. 
    Stopping in front of a three story, non-descript concrete building, he parked in his designated spot and headed inside.  His mind was racing as he greeted several of his colleagues with a distracted ‘hello’ and continued to his office.  Once inside, he closed the door and began plugging in his laptop, trying to decide what he was going to do to keep sane while he waited for Jason’s response.  When nothing interesting immediately presented itself, he decided to finish working on the mind numbing tasks that had to be done and he had used to fill the past several days with. 
    Alex took out one of his encrypted flash drives and plugged it into his laptop before logging in.  He then logged in to the three other machines at his desk.  Each machine got its own encrypted flash drive.  All his data – work and personal information – was kept on encrypted flash drives that only he had the keys too.  These were all backed up regularly on another set of flash drives, stored safely elsewhere.  By doing this, he ensured that nothing important was ever stored on a single device that someone might get access to.  And, if anyone ever got a hold of his flash drives, they’d have a hell of a time decrypting them. 
    Alex knew this because he had personally developed the algorithm to secure his information, and then handed it off to several people to try and break.  Five years later, there were people at the NSA and other organizations still trying, and many who had suggested he submit his algorithm to be considered as the next ISO standard for encryption.   Which of course he would never do.  Alex didn’t create the algorithm to be ogled by strangers and judged worthy or not.  He already knew it was worthy.  He had simply created it for the same reason most hackers and coders did anything.  He’d done it for the challenge.
    Alex had just signed into one of their office's many anonymizing servers, which masked his originating IP address behind a series of other IPs, when there was a knock on his door.
    "Come in."
    Bill Morrison, the company's lead computer forensics specialist, popped his balding head in.
    "Ya, what's up?"
    "Not much.  Just noticed you’re in late when you're usually the first one here, and that you seemed distracted more than usual.  Any news on your nephew? Or something else I could help with?"
    Alex shook his head.  "Nothing yet.  And, thanks, but I'm good.  Just trying to concentrate and get next week's schedule together."
    Bill gave him a long look before slowly nodding his head.  "Fair enough.  Well, there are donuts in the break room if you're interested."
    "Thanks."
    Bill began to close the door when Alex thought of something.  "Hey, Bill."
    "Ya."
    "We planning any stings or investigations with the FBI?"
    Bill cocked his head for a minute, then said, "No.  Not that I know of.  There was supposed to be one a few weeks ago, but for some reason they went with another group. Not even sure if they executed it or not."
    "You have any data on that?"
    "I can see.