The 6:20 Man(47)

Devine took the train to Mount Kisco and walked quickly home, sucking in the heat and humidity. His mind was going a million miles an hour and still getting him nowhere fast.

Valentine, with his gamer headphones on, was lying on the couch working on his laptop, as always. A beer was on the floor next to him. He looked up as Devine came in, his expression anxious. He had apparently been awaiting Devine’s return.

“So?” said Valentine in a prompting manner as he took off his headphones.

“I talked to the security guard and the guy who found the body. That room was unguarded for maybe a max of ten minutes. But there was no one on the floor because there was a seminar for people like me at an off-site location. And the support staff weren’t in yet.”

“So how did whoever send message get all that info?”

“I don’t know. The killer would have known some of those details when he murdered her. But the person could not have known that Sara had been found hanging in that room by a custodian unless they were around at the time, and either saw it for themselves, which is doubtful, or someone told them shortly thereafter. And that just isn’t likely. And I don’t think anyone else got the message that I got, or if they did, they’re not saying anything.”

“So during those ten minutes maybe person sending email saw the body and stuff?”

“And saw the custodian finding the body. But that’s not certain and I’m still working on it. By the way, I used the info you gave me to access the security logging database, and I’ve got a question.”

Valentine closed his laptop and looked up. “Shoot, dude.”

Devine explained to Valentine about the security logging system at Cowl using the RFID cards. “Can that be manipulated to show that someone was there who really wasn’t there?”

Valentine nodded before Devine was finished. “Sure. Clone card. Then, it like electronic twin walking in place. Easy-peasy. Do it in seconds, depending on what protection they have on card. Let me see yours.”

Devine handed over his security card. Valentine pulled a device out of his backpack on the floor and held it up to the card. “This is one twenty-five. Is bullshit. I have app on phone. I can clone card right now by writing what’s on your card onto clean one I get from Amazon. Is big bullshit just like encryption on your ‘security’ database.”

“ ‘One twenty-five’?”

“One hundred twenty-five kilohertz. Is radio frequency. Open twenty-six-bit format. Card is just simple LC circuit, capacitor, and integrated circuit working in combo. Card number transmitted is key, is what reader reads. But one twenty-five not encrypted. You get that key, you tell reader ‘Let me in’ and it does. Ten-buck RFID reader/writer, bam, you got card number. Most ‘security’ cards are one twenty-fives. My little bay-bee cousin can hack that shit.”

“Your little bay-bee cousin really gets around. So what else is out there you can use that’s better?”

He said promptly, “Thirteen point fifty-six megahertz. SOS technology. Encrypted. Hard to clone, hard to hack, but not impossible, for someone like me.”

“In the Army we would use protection shields over our RFID cards to prevent any electronic skimming.”

“That is good. That works, mostly. Unless hackers really good. Two-factor authentication is very good. Need two things to get in door.”

“I use that on my phone.”

Valentine took a swig of beer. “Good for you, Travis. You kickass champ.”

“But we don’t have two-factor authentication at Cowl, and it looks like all the cards are one twenty-fives. And everyone wears them around their necks with no shields.”

“Is bad. Is bullshit.”

“Can that be proved? I mean that someone cloned a card?”

“Depend on card and depend on how good cloning is. Pretty technical.” He held up his phone. “Use this as security card. Mobile cards too easy to loan out. You don’t do that with phone. With newer Apple phone models they have NFC chip. Activate Bluetooth, engage NFC chip, and you can use with door reader to open door if reader is programmed to recognize Apple phone. And if you lose phone, still has security feature before you can get in. Cards don’t have that. Readers read card, not person with card. That takes biometrics. That is good too. Better than phone. You need eyes or thumb. In Russia they have to be living eyes and thumbs, you know. In Russia they used to take fingers and eyes from people to open doors. But dead fingers and eyes not work anymore. Need pulse. I can tell you that.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Devine thought back to the night Cowl had accessed the garage entrance. “Cowl used his phone to get into the building’s garage. And I’ve never seen him with one of these cards around his neck.”

“That is because he is not messing around. He uses NFC chip. He just lets guys like you have bullshit one twenty-five security.”

“But it’s his building. And we can get in with these bullshit cards.”

Valentine handed the card back. “Does this let you go everywhere in building?”

Devine thought about this. “No. There’s an off-limits space on the fifty-first floor. We call it Area 51 as a joke.” He watched Valentine closely, to see if he got the reference.

“What is special about it?” said Valentine in a way that made Devine unsure whether he had gotten the cultural allusion or not.