I Learned the Secret of Life the Day After My 42nd Birthday

It was just another Monday in September fifteen years ago. It happened to be the day after another unmarked birthday.

Don’t feel sorry. I just don’t do birthdays. I spent the weekend like any other weekend, hiking, socializing, and trying to get laid. A birthday could only be significant in that it helped me achieve one of the other three. This time it hadn’t been helpful.

Cynical.

Yes. I suppose so. I was grouchy as a spring bear when I got to the office that morning, and finding the entire network in collapse didn’t help my mood.

Discovering why would change my life.

My Sunday night IT Tech was standing in a corner of the server room sweating and shifting from foot to foot while a police officer stood barring the door and two dark-suited guys with gravy stains on their ties systematically dismantled our servers. Amy, our receptionist came rushing up behind me.

“I’m sorry, Dag,” she started. “There was nothing I could do. They just flashed badges and came in.”

Neal was nodding his head from his corner of the room. I addressed the uniform.

“You are standing in the door of my office,” I said. “Want to show me your warrant?”

One of the suits stopped what he was doing and the officer stepped aside. He flashed what looked like a valid search and seizure warrant and started to put it back in his pocket. I reached out and took it from him so I could read what was written there.

“We are seizing these computers as evidence in an embezzlement and fraud case,” the suit intoned. I looked quickly through the warrant and found nothing that authorized the dismantling of my network.

“There is nothing in here that says you are authorized to shut down this business,” I remarked. “If I can be of help to get you the actual data you need, I’d be happy to oblige. I’m the Director of Technical Services here.” Two or three others from the office had approached, though thankfully none of the officers seemed to be here yet.

“Dag, my computer won’t connect to the network,” one started in while walking up and then stopping short when he saw the activity.

“It will have to wait, Stanley,” I answered. I turned back to the suit. “You see, you unplug the cables and no one can do any work.”

“If we don’t unplug and take them, we can’t prevent data from being changed and erased,” he answered. He was definitely a little nervous. He obviously knew how to unplug cables, but I had a feeling that he didn’t really know much about computers.

“I see,” I said. “But taking the servers isn’t going to get you what you want.”

“How do you know what we want?” he asked.

“The search warrant says to search for paper or electronic files that evidence embezzlement or fraud on the part of senior executives,” I said. “I don’t know exactly what evidence you expect to find, but it isn’t on those servers.”

“All right smart guy, why don’t you just tell us where it is. You in on this? You concealing the evidence?”

“No,” I said. “I had no knowledge of any wrong-doing. But as a basic security provision, we run a full back-up of everything that is on the system and on each desktop computer every night. We maintain the backups for two months, then recycle all but the end of week ones. Now unless you were so careless as to alert the suspects of your intentions a long time ago, the evidence you are looking for will be on those tapes. Current through midnight Sunday. You ran the backups last night didn’t you Neal?” I asked my tech. He nodded vigorously. “So,” I said, “If you have the backup tapes, you have the evidence. It’s not on the servers and you can reconnect them so all the normal honest people here can go back to work.”

The suit went to confer with the officer and the other suit. He came back a short time later, but work had stopped on disconnecting the network. “I demand the backup tapes for this system and all desktop computers on the network,” he intoned. I smiled.

“According to this warrant,” I said, “as far as I can see you are entitled to it, without being so demanding. Neal, open the safe.” I’d had a fireproof cabinet that we referred to as “the safe” installed a year earlier. I asked Amy to get us some packing boxes and she disappeared and was back in a flash. Neal started unloading the safe into the boxes and labeling them. In the meantime I sat at my desk and scratched out a receipt longhand since my computer was down.

“Why so cooperative?” the suit asked me.

“According to this warrant, you have reason to suspect one or more of our execs of embezzling funds. That means that he’s stealing from the company. All these people standing around you are shareholders in this company. The data on these tapes will either exonerate your suspect or nail his ass to a cross. If he’s been stealing my money, I vote for the latter. Now, before you take those boxes, I’ll need your signature here,” I said. I produced the receipt for him to sign. He started to sign and then read the short document and looked up at me.

“You a lawyer?” he asked.

“No,” I answered. “I’m just someone who wants to make sure that his own ass is covered if any of those tapes come up missing. You’ve got them; it’s your responsibility.” He signed. “Of course, there is one other thing,” I said. “You’ll probably want the encryption keys.” He looked at me blankly. “Without the keys the data on the tapes is a useless hash. Maybe you need someone to decode the information, too,” I said low enough so that only he could hear.

“You could save us a lot of time if we had your full cooperation,” he said equally low. There was no question that he understood my suggestion.

That was the moment when the CEO and CFO chose to get to work and come charging toward the server room.

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Cuff me and get me out of here. Also, take my desktop computer.” The suit nodded and went to work. “Neal,” I called. “Reconnect the servers and get people up and operating again. Make a fresh set of backups.”

“What the bloody hell is going on here?” bellowed our beloved president. My new friend shoved the warrant at him and snapped at the officer to cuff me and bring me along. He grabbed my tower under one arm and his buddy rolled the boxes of tapes out on a cart. We were out of the office and in the parking garage before the boss had gotten to the phone to call his lawyer.

“Thanks,” I said as he took the cuffs off. We shook hands. “I’m Dag Håmar, formerly the Director of Tech Services at Anderson Elliott and Associates.”

“Detective Silas Grant, King County Sheriff’s Department,” he answered.

“How did you get into taking down computers instead of speeders?” I asked good-humoredly. Now that he was out of the situation inside, Silas was relaxing and becoming quite friendly. I thought that I might end up liking him.

“I took a class,” he said. “Frankly, I’m in way over my head on this one. I’m glad you decided to cooperate.”

“With those tapes and my computer we have access to everything of significance that has happened on that computer system in the past year. The system I put together would go back further than that if I’d thought of it sooner. But I’ve only been doing this kind of backup for a year. If you tell me what you are looking for, we can pop it out in no time.”

“So why did you suddenly jump ship?” Silas asked. “Maybe I should be suspicious of you.”

“What I told you is true,” I said. “There are a lot of good people who work in that company and if I can save them their jobs I will. But I’ve been working at Anderson Elliott since I graduated from college almost twenty years ago, and this is the first thing of interest that has happened in all that time. And I happen to have a thing about people who steal and people who break their trust. You hit all three of my happy buttons in there.”

“Well, I’m happy to have you aboard,” Silas grinned. “What else will you need?”

“I’ll need a tape drive, monitor and keyboard. Other than that we’re good.” We pulled into a computer superstore and I bought the drive I would need on my own credit card. I figured I could use it eventually.

Damn.

It was suddenly crystal clear that my life had changed. Inside of two hours when I was forty-two years old, I had left the corporate world and become a private businessman.

I knew the answer to life, the universe, and everything. I could happily spend the rest of my life looking for the question.

I soon discovered that I needed more than a business license to do all the things I wanted to do. Silas offered to introduce me to his instructor and I went with him to a class titled simply “Undercover.” I don’t know why I was surprised to see a face from the past loom in front of me when I entered the classroom.

“I’ve been expecting you, Håmar,” he said as he motioned me to a chair. “I’ve been expecting you for twenty years.” Silas looked at me in question and I smiled and shrugged. Lars Andersen, the venerable professor of this class was my commander in the U.S. Navy in Viet Nam in 1969. I had lucked out when I showed an affinity to electronics and computers and he requisitioned me for his CM&D unit—Countermeasures and Deceit. It was a branch of Navy Intelligence and he kept me busy for two years while I amassed enough veteran’s credit to go to college. He also introduced me to the fundamentals of sneaking around. It seemed that none of the equipment that we needed to do our job was ever delivered to our department. So, we arranged to have it requisitioned from other departments. The back injury that I still complain of at times was suffered, not in combat, but hauling computer equipment from one department to another in the middle of the night.

Now he was in command again, and I was establishing the two friendships that would go with me through all my years as a private investigator—Silas Grant and Lars Anderson.

One thing Lars Andersen emphasized to us repeatedly: There is no substitute for personal observation. If you were investigating a crime, you needed a witness. You wouldn’t find the witness by randomly selecting phone numbers from the telephone directory, nor would you find one on a computer disk. If you wanted to find out the truth, you had to go where the truth was.

I’d been living in a virtual world for too long. It was time to go to the truth.