Terminal Compromise · Chapter 422Sort by Zip 100xx
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"That'll give us . . ."
"I know what it means." Tyrone shut Scott up in mock defense. In reality he didn't know much about computers, but some things were obvious even to the technically naive.
"That was fast," said Scott. "Only 17. Help any?"
"Might. Can I get that on paper?"
Scott gave him the printout of the finances on the several unfor- tunate companies who had lost more than a third of their net worth in the last year. Tyrone folded it into his jacket pocket. "Hey, call me a cab. I'm too drunk to walk."
* * * * *
Wednesday, December 30 Lenox, Georgia
A faded blue Ford Econoline van sat in the Lenox Square parking lot. The affluent Atlanta suburb had been targeted from the beginning. Demographically ,it fit the bill to a tee.
From the outside, the van looked like a thousand other parked cars; empty, with their owners shopping in the huge mall. On the inside though, two men were intently operating a vast array of electronic equipment.
"Here comes another one," said the first. "How many does that make today?"
"A hundred and forty seven. Let's do it." The second man watched the enhanced color video image on a small monitor. A well dressed lady walked up to the ATM machine, card in hand. The first man pressed a switch on another monitor and the snow filled picture was transformed into an electronic copy of the ATM's video display.
Please Insert Card
The screen in the van echoed the ATM screen.
"Can you tune it in a bit?" asked the first man. " It's a little fuzzy."
"Yeah, we must have settled. Let me adjust the antenna." His hand grabbed a joystick on one of the tightly packed racks of equipment and gingerly moved it from left to right. "Is that better?" A small disguised antenna on the roof of the van aligned itself as the joystick commanded.
"Yeah . . .no . . .yeah, back again . . ."
"I see it. There."
"Thanks."
Enter Personal Identification Number:
A third monitor over the second man's cramped desk came to life as the number 3435 appeared across his screen.
"Got it. You, too?"
"On disk and saved."
"I'll back it up."
"Better not. Here comes another one."
"Busy day."
* * * * *
It was a very busy day. Ahmed Shah saw to it that his followers were kept busy, six days a week. As they had been for months.
When his army of a hundred plus Econoline vans were not raiding the contents of unsuspecting computers during the day, they became electronic ears which listened in on the conversations between the ATM's and their bank customers.
Ahmed's vans were used most efficiently. On the road, doing his bidding twenty four hours a day, every day but the Sabbath. Ahmed created cells of eight loyal anti-American sympathizers, regardless of nationality, to operate with each van. Each group operated as an independent entity with only one person from each able to communicate privately with Ahmed over cellular modem. No cell knew of any other cell. If one group was apprehended, they couldn't tell what they didn't know. Therefore, the rest of the cells remain intact.
Absolute loyalty was an unquestioned assumption for all members of Ahmed's electronic army. It had to be that way, for the bigger cause.
All day and night one of Ahmed Shah's computers in his lab at Columbia received constant calls from his cell leaders. During the day it was the most interesting information that they had captured from computer screens. At night, it was the passcodes to automatic bank tellers machines and credit card information.
Once the passcodes were in hand, making fake ATM cards was a trivial task.
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