Introduction: The Hacker is a story I started writing under a pseudonym several years ago. I wanted to bring back all the characters from the series and have them work together as a team, and I wanted to look at our favorite cop family in another way. In this present-day universe, Eve didn't marry John Dwyer. Ed never went to Denver; Mark's not a lawyer, a judge, or married, though he's got an attorney girlfriend named Diana, and Fran is doing her own thing for Homeland Security, based on an actual SFPD unit.
I didn't want to be accused of plagiarism, even though Mags' story came first. It got confusing jumping between the accounts. The story fell away from me, primarily because another author decided to do a computer story when I, or Maggie, started this one. It slipped through the cracks. I reread it recently. I still like it, decided to ditch the pseudonym and claim the story.
Thanks to all who wrote those lovely supportive reviews to Maggie Valley; she appreciated them (as did I). So (as we start most sentences in the Midwest), let's see where it goes. Johanna
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Prologue: Hacking The System
Sea Cliff 4 am
Maddox Morgan sat at his computer, rapidly typing code into it. He had a fine setup worthy of a small tech company, with all the bells and whistles, multiple machines, 3-D printers, scanners, and software. Being the only child of a single-parent tech company executive was sometimes good. He got all the new toys as soon as his dad's employees did. It was his father's way of showing love. Many of the parents in San Francisco's most exclusive neighborhoods did that.
Maddox was a thin, pale kid who had earned the nickname "the Vampire" from fellow senior students at Berkeley Prep. He hated his name, Maddox, almost as much as he hated daytime hours. His mother, long since divorced from his dad, had given him that name in honor of some dead relative; he found only one redeeming thing about it, it made for an awesome hacker name, Mad Max.
Mad Max was angry, furious. Yesterday he'd been tooling around in his dad's sweet 2022 BMW X6 convertible. He wasn't doing anything wrong, but a cop had stopped him. He'd gotten a ticket. So what if he'd been doing donuts in the mall parking lot? Hadn't the cop ever been a kid? The whole point of doing donuts was to impress your peeps and throw fear into those who felt their cars were in danger. His father had taken the keys from him and grounded him for three weeks. Max loved his dad but knew he had been stupid when punishing him by basically doing the best thing in Max's view; he was to stay at home, except when he went to school. Mad Max had the badge number of the offending cop, 7942. He wanted to teach Officer 7942 a lesson that wouldn't be forgotten soon. For all its vaunted protection, Mad Max easily breached the San Francisco Police Department computer, finding who Officer 7942 was, where he lived, and all that so-called secure personal information. The Officer would be totally screwed by the time Max had to go to school. So much for firewalls. They couldn't stand up to Maddox Morgan.
"Whoa," Max breathed when he saw the address. The guy lived in Police Headquarters? He dug deeper, his eyes widening when he found out who Officer 7942 was. Max smiled. He decided not to do the usual hack of the Officer's bank and credit, but instead, he'd teach the department a lesson, starting with Officer Mark Sanger and his boss, Robert T. Ironside. This would be fun. He downloaded several viruses into the entire SFPD system that he knew would keep their tech crew busy for a time, then very carefully started on the computers of Robert Ironside.
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Chapter 1 Just Another Day At The Office
7:00 am Ironside's Office
Eve Whitfield stared at her computer screen. She'd been doing it for a couple of hours, but it felt like days. Groaning at her failure to find the information she wanted, she rubbed her tired eyes, then ran her fingers through her short blonde hair.
"C'mon, you stupid machine, find me that document."
The computer was nonplussed.
Eve rose and walked into the small kitchen of her office. Stretching slightly, she poured a cup of coffee and drank it, staring at the laptop on the round oak table. She knew the Chief would be disappointed if she couldn't provide him with the document he wanted, and he'd certainly let her know. She heard the door open and felt her stomach flip. Time to get it over with; she was expecting the worst from the Chief.
"Morning! You're here early," Ed Brown offered as a greeting as he walked into the room. "Chief up yet?" He joined her at the coffee maker, accepting the mug she gave him. He took a sip waiting for Eve to fill in the blanks.
"I came in early to finish the report on the Maroni case, and it's the craziest thing, Ed; the document won't show up, no matter what I do."
"The one you were working on yesterday, that one? You saved it, right?"
"Yes, but every case note I made…is gone. The Chief wanted that report on his desk this morning. I'm going to have to start all over again".
Brown went to the computer and sat down quickly, typing in commands. "Weird. Did you try the other laptops? We're networked, right?"
"Not yet, and yes, we are," Eve said.
Ed got up and went over to a sideboard. Opening it, he took out two identical laptops. Handing one to Eve, they turned them on and began searching for the missing file.
"Nothing. It's like we never did anything in this office during the last six weeks," Ed said. "What do you have?"
"Nada. Ed, who would want to do something like this to us? What if the entire department got hacked?"
"I don't know, Eve, but we better get someone from IT up here fast because this will not make for a good start to the day."
"What isn't, Sergeant?" Ironside said, coming out of his bedroom, Mark Sanger close behind him.
The two stiffened.
"I asked you a question, Sergeant. Do you want to tell me the answer?"
Quickly Ed explained what had happened, with Eve filling in details from her failed attempts to find the case notes earlier.
"It must be a virus of some sort Chief. I'll get IT up here as soon as possible." Eve said.
"Do it quickly, but I want everything committed to paper just in case we're compromised. We need a backup."
Ironside rolled over to the coffeepot and poured himself a mug. Ed Brown had been right; he mused as he drank. It was a bad start to the day and unknowing to all, and it was about to get a lot worse.