One Hundred Firewalls

The next morning...Bonnie Shay and I met with 12 men...7 men who had refused to pay whoever was extorting them and as a result ,had their homes burned to the ground....and 5 men who were paying....They were white, Black, Latino and Asian..All 12 men had things in common..All were very wealthy and well heeled..All were very successful businessmen and all were heavily insured by the Cyclops Insurance Company...

Bonnie Shay addressed the men...

"Gentlemen...I am glad you agreed to meet me here on neutral grounds and I'm thankful that Mr. Kevin Morris, CEO of Morris Communications

allowed us to use his conference room in his building for this meeting...I assure you ,this meeting is being held in the strictest of confidence..." she said.

"Cyclops Insurance....You're the guys who are blackmailing us..." said one man...

"No...Noooo ." she said.. "It's not us....I am an Attorney and an Insurance Investigator..and Mr. Morris here is an independent Private Investigator who is helping me look into this..." she said.

Then I spoke...

"We know about the super virus that is counting down on your companies computers and I have staff and resources that might be able to help you...I've dealt with this type of thing before and so has Ms. Shay..." I said.

"Can you get it off?" asked one man...

"I'm going to try my best..."I said.

"Our best I T people tried and were confounded...What makes you think you can get rid of it?" asked another man...

"Yeah, you're just a gumshoe...This is real cloak and dagger stuff.." said another man...

"Sir...Before I was a private Detective ,I was a Federal Agent....I have contacts and associates in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Philadelphia Police Department, The FBI and the DEA...I have operatives who work for me who are ex-CIA and Ex KGB....and I can vouch for Mrs. Shay...We have worked together before.. I believe we can handle this..." I said..

"Well can we do anything to help?" asked another man...

"Yes....Keep this meeting a secret...Don't discuss with anybody that you met with us... I need to see all of your infected computers at sometime today so that I can funnel the information to Mr. Kevin, so that he and his people can begin working on not only destroying that virus, but locating the hacker.." said Bonnie Shay..

"When you think about it..You really have no choice...You can either work with us or you can continue to pay whoever is behind this until they bleed you dry...and they may still wipe you out..."I said.


One by one the men grumbled, but in the end , they all agreed to throw their lot in with us...

"Remember....Don't say anything about this to anyone....Go about your normal business.....Give us a chance to get you out of this.."said Bonnie.

They grumbled some more...but all agreed and one by one they filed out...

"I'll be by to see you all today...I'll need that information.." said Bonnie.

She looked at me...

"You think we can trust them?" she asked..

"I don't know Bon-Bon...We have no choice..but whether we can or not...We have to find this hacker..."I said.

"We have to find the arsonist too...another house burned down last night...

It's just terrible." she said..

"Who's house?" I asked..

"Another well heeled man...Wilbur Haney....Fortunately...He's not one of our clients..." said Bonnie..

"He's still somebody we should talk to....I'm surprised that Arson isn't involved in this yet.."I said.

''Whoever this guy is...He's good....He doesn't leave much for the cops to go on....." said Bonnie..

"Hmmm...."I said.

II-

 I was going to be working late tonight..So after Bonnie left, I ventured uptown to a bar I knew, but didn't hang out in....There I found my good friend, Pink...

He saw me and motioned me over ...I sat down next to him and he asked me..

"What are you drinkin Kev?"

''A Tall boy....Blue Moon.."I said.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh you moved up in the world...You don't drink Corona anymore huh?  That used to be your drink of choice.." he laughed..

''Well you know...you gotta change it up every now and then." I laughed..

"I know you are here for info Kev...What can I do for you?" he asked..

''Who's the best and I mean the very best arsonist you know? If you needed a place torched and you not only didn't want it to come back on you....but you didn't want Arson Detectives or Fire Investigators to even know it was torched...?" I asked..

Pink arched his eyebrows....

"Why Kev...you need some money ? You got an insurance scam runnin?" asked Pink...

"Nah Pink...I got clients...13 of em...Well heeled clients whose homes have been torched in the past month or so...Cops don't have a clue it's even arson.."I said.

"And how do you know it's arson, if I may ask?" asked Pink as our beers arrived and we began drinking..

"Because they've all been blackmailed...by text and email...They were told if they didn't pay that that was what they had to look forward to...Some didn't pay, their houses burned down..." I said..

"Damn......Come to think of it...There is a guy....A guy that good..Named...Ronald Brinkley....A real short, weird guy....A few years back, the cops put a tag on him, but he had a real good public defender..who actually got him off." said Pink..

"Olivia? Olivia Bennett-Alexander?? Beverly West?? Nelson East?" I asked..

"Noooo..Not them...A.J. Miller...a white guy...." said Pink...

''A.J. Miller...That's the second time his name has come up...He was Bob "Big Butt" Thornton's lawyer...."I said.

"Uh Huh and Walter Becker, may he rest in peace and Dice Raw and a whole lot of other bottom feeders...he put the criminal in criminal defense attorney..." laughed Pink...

"So this Ronnie Brinkley....He's a real firebug...huh?" I said.

"The very best and he just got out of jail last year....Give me a day or two and I'll be able to give you a line on where he lays his head." said Pink...

"Thanks Bossman.." I said and I peeled off enough dollars to pay for our drinks and any drinks he wanted in the future..

"Thanks Kev." he said.

"Thank You...I knew you'd know something." I said..

"Hey Kev...What do they say?  If Pink don't know it....." he said.

"It aint worth knowin..." I said finishing his sentence....And we both cracked up laughing...

III-

  I met Bonnie in the afternoon at my building and I took her into the sub-basement headquarters of Morris Investigations..

"Wow , this is like the Batcave..." she said.

"You're only the second woman to ever enter my headquarters....My wife has never been here.."I said..

"Oh My God...For real? Shame on you Kevin.." she laughed..

I introduced her to my operatives...

"Guys, this is Ms. Bonnie Shay...That's Clerow....Sean Jackson....Owen Todd...Lockpick Johnson and Peeping Tom...They've been with me the longest....These guys here...I said pointing to the five, older white men in the room are former CIA and KGB operatives..They're going to be helping us.." I said.

Bonnie was in awe of all of our equipment....

''My god...you have equipment that would rival a police department.." she said.

"I didn't always...but as I made more money...Tom here helped me acquire things....Now, let's get down to business..did you bring the information we need about this super virus?" I asked.

"Sure Did.." said Bonnie Shay who was thorough if not anything else...

Peeping Tom and the four ex CIA operatives and the ex KGB operative went to work..with Bonnie Shay watching attentively and soaking up what they were showing her like a sponge..

''Want us to get some food boss?" asked Clerow..

"Get some for you guys...We are good. You guys can go home if you want...I may need you for something else soon...If Pink can get me the information I need." I said.

Clerow smiled..

''See ya later boss." he said and he,Owen Todd, Sean Jackson and Lockpick Johnson, all left for the night..

"Where is Mr. Jones? Isn't he part of your group?" she asked..

''He is...I mostly call on him when I need his particular skill set..Which I don't need as yet, but may need soon...I got a line on who your arsonist might be.." I said.

"I'm hearing the name Ronnie Brinkley!" said Bonnie..

"Wow! I was going to tell you that..."I said, amazed at how sharp she was...

"I've been investigating this for two weeks Kevin...I have my sources..." she said.

"Do you know where he lays his head?" I asked.

"I had three addresses for him, but he wasn't at any of them." said Bonnie Shay...

"Maybe I'll find that out tomorrow." I said.

We worked around the clock for the next four hours...Peeping Tom said to me..

"This is the damndest thing I've ever seen and I've seen it all in my day....Whoever this is ,They use a secret messenging service which according to the screen, they route through 50 proxy servers , one hundred firewalls to a central server with an encrypted code..."he said.

"One hundred firewalls!!" both Bonnie and I said in unison...

Peeping Tom smiled..."We've pulled up a number of ip addresses, all bogus...except for one central one...Whoever this was...They're pretty smart....No wonder they were able to keep from being detected for so long...It's so complicated...My Associates and I knocked down all of the firewalls and it took awhile but we hacked into their central server..Whoever this is...doesn't know it..."he laughed...

''So what is next?" asked Bonnie.

''You know what's next....We nuke the system..." I said.

"The money they were supposed to send is electronically transferred to a bank in Norway...then transferred back to a bank right here in Philadelphia...To an account held by get this Skinny Skinston.."said Peeping Tom.

"That's a code name for the real mastermind behind this...Fat Masterson.."I said.

Peeping Tom transferred money out of the account back to the the few men who had paid's accounts, then he Nuked the entire system....but not before he gave me an address...

"I'm going to put a remote access tracker on this line...I suspect that  whoever is running this isn't on this every minute and certainly not this time of night...He or whoever doesn't realize his bank account is empty as of yet... I'm knocking down the last of  their  one hundred firewalls...Come on...Okayyyyy that was the last one....ummmmmmmm....now I'm sending a Nuke through it..." said Tom.

"This means the super virus is gone.." said Bonnie..

"Yeah and Peeping Tom here and his associates can give you some pointers on how you can safeguard their systems so that whoever this is can't get back in and if he or whoever tries..You can be led right to them...They're going to spend all day tomorrow backing their system up....I'd love to see their face when they realize that all of their sensitive information is gone...and they can no longer contact or blackmail these men." I laughed.

"Thank you so much Kevin..." said Bonnie, hugging me with that soft ,round ,womanly body of hers..

''We are not out of the woods yet baby girl...There is still the matter of finding that arsonist and checkmating him and finding the hacker..As long as they're at large...You got trouble." I said.

"Which means this case is only half over.." said Bonnie Shay..

"Only half baby girl!" I sighed...

And while we were preparing to go home to our love ones , a frantic phone call was being made to Attorney A.J. Miller..

"Hello.."

"A.J. somebody is on to me.."said the hacker.

"What? That's impossible..."said A.J.

"Somebody nuked the system and cleaned out Mr. Masterson's account...There is not a penny in his account and no trace of where it went.."said the Hacker.

"WHAT?" said A.J. Miller..

"And my system was nuked..Everything is gone..I mean everything...The super virus I had counting down on those rich dudes is gone ..I don't have a thing on my system..it was all erased.."said the hacker.

"Back your system up.." said A.J.

"I uh..I uh didn't get around to backing up the system initially.."said the hacker.

"WHAT??  So you're dead..."asked A.J.

"Dead in the water...my system is ruined...I mean who could do this...The top I T people in all of their corporations were baffled..They don't have anybody this smart or skilled...I had one  hundred firewalls spread out to like 50 servers...somebody knocked em all down and just wiped out everything.."said the hacker.

"You idiot....Apparently somebody is skilled.."said A.J.

"You think it was the cops?"asked the Hacker.

"No...If it was...You'd be being arrested...by now..."said A.J.

"P.I.??"asked A.J.

"What P.I. is this smart or skilled..??But it was somebody and they probably know your address.."said A.J.

"I'd better get out of here huh?" he said.

"Wait there...I'm coming to get you...Don't do anything and get rid of that phone.."said A.J.

"Okay..." he said.

Meanwhile...I drove Bonnie Shay to her door..

"Thank you again Kevin....I couldn't have done this without you and I learned so much from your people." said Bonnie..

"Bon-Bon...you're family...Family looks out for each other." I said..

 "Everytime I'm with you...everytime I work with you....I know two things...One ,something good is going to come of it and two,it's never a dull moment.." she said... "Good Night Kevin and thank you so much." she said.

She smiled and waved goodbye as I drove off into the Philadelphia night...


(TO BE CONTINUED)