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    The Cryptos Files: ICE
    The Cryptos Files: ICE
    The Cryptos Files: ICE
    Ebook94 pages1 hour

    The Cryptos Files: ICE

    By Doug Romig

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    About this ebook

    Ian Edos is a successful businessman. His company, Cryptos, is one of the leading cyber-security companies in the world. Ian and his team of hackers can make sure all your data is safe from the cyber-spies who want to break into your computers and sell all your secrets to your competitors. If you can afford their fees, they can keep you safe from the worst e-criminals in the world. Ian can guarantee that because he knows all about them.

    ICE is one of the most notorious hackers for hire on the internet. He is the one who can tear through firewalls like tissue paper and will steal you blind before you even know he has been in your system. There is nothing he won’t do if the price is right.

    Ian and ICE are two sides to the same man. One secures your data; the other will steal it. It is a duality that exists peacefully in one body.

    Enter the enigmatic Stephanie Sarco. She claims to work for the NSA, but she is the one person Ian cannot trace. She has no e-presence and there is no way to verify what she claims. That's not the biggest problem Stephanie presents to Ian. She knows who he is when he is not CEO of Cryptos, and has the evidence to lock ICE away for the rest of his life.

    Now, he has two choices: 1) Go to prison where they will throw away the key. 2) Be Stephanie's puppet to do the jobs that a government agent could never be caught doing. The second option has a much better menu. As ICE, Ian must do Stephanie's dirty work until he can find leverage against her. If that doesn’t work, he can always make her disappear.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDoug Romig
    Release dateApr 18, 2014
    ISBN9780990330318
    The Cryptos Files: ICE
    Author

    Doug Romig

    Doug Romig lives in Knoxville, TN where he enjoys writing, hiking in the Smoky Mountains and spending time with his sons.Doug's first book, Angelcide, is the first of the Spiritscape Chronicles series featuring Zeke, an angel with an attitude, and Tone, a human who can leave his body to help Zeke.The followup to Angelcide is New Fallen. It further chronicles the adventures of Tone and Zeke as they investigate the disappearance of several demons. Could this be the return of the dreaded adversary from Angelcide? Or is this something new?Doug's second book is Shrink: An Abby Chilton novel. Abby is an FBI profiler who teams up with Jonas Lange, an Interpol agent, to track a serial killer called the Observer - a murderous profiler.The Cryptos Files: ICE about the likable cyber-spy introduced in Shrink, Ian Edos. In his role as head of Cryptos, he keeps out the thieves who want to steal your data. As ICE, he is the cyber-spy who will rob your computer of all it's secrets.Coming soon are Reunion: An Abby Chilton Novel; Interpol: A Jonas Lange Adventure, and The Spiritscape Chronicles: Demonize.

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      Book preview

      The Cryptos Files - Doug Romig

      The Cryptos Files

      ICE

      By Doug Romig

      Doug Romig

      Copyright 2014 Doug Romig

      Smashwords Edition

      Dedication

      In memory of John Romig

      I wish you could see me now, Dad

      About the Author

      DOUG ROMIG lives in Knoxville, Tennessee where he enjoys the writing, hiking and spending time with his sons. Doug’s first book was The Spiritscape Chronicles Book One: Angelcide followed by Shrink: An Abby Chilton Novel. Upcoming mystery titles from Doug include The Spiritscape Chronicles Book Two: New Fallen, Reunion: An Abby Chilton Novel, and Interpol.

      Follow Doug's blog at http://dougromig.blogspot.com, see what’s happening on Twitter @DougRomigWriter, follow on his Facebook page at http://facebook.com/DougRomigWriter or just send him an email at dougromig68@gmail.com.

      Table of Contents

      Dedication

      About the Author

      Table of Contents

      Break-In

      Case One – Ripper, Inc.

      Case Two – Gatekeepers

      Case Three – RochneMiles Biotech

      Case Four – Larson Mining & Minerals

      Case Five – Fort Gamma

      Endgame

      A Drink at the Beach

      Break-In

      Stephanie Sarco had been watching Ian for six months. She knew his digital footprint better than she knew his face. That wasn’t saying much since his face kept changing. She watched with interest as he raided the Tokyo Stock Market causing a severe decline of a tech company’s stock, stole the secrets of a new plastic polymer from the University of Adelaide in Australia, destroyed a small startup information company in New Delhi, and caused a rush on the largest bank in Cyprus with a cyber-rumor which created an opportunity for the third largest bank to significantly increase its share of the market. Not bad for a Tuesday night between 9:00 pm and 12:00 am. This man had been all over the world without leaving his apartment. He was the one. Ian was ICE.

      The apartment directly below Ian’s was purchased through an untraceable account in the Cayman Islands. It is amazing how international banking laws can be so helpful in maintaining anonymity. Steph had been monitoring Ian from his own hidden cameras in the hall outside his apartment, watching his every move. During a carefully orchestrated power outage one night while Ian had been working late at his office, she had gained access to his apartment and added a hardware code bypass circuit to his security system. When the power came back on, his system was still intact, but she could enter at will. Trying her new toy, she entered to hear the beep warning of a security system break. Entering her bypass code – 1 2 3 4 5 – she took the time to look around.

      Sarco knew the ICEman must have a hidden room somewhere in his home. It was too dangerous to be a cyber-spy from the office. After two hours of searching, she found the concealed door in the closet of the home office. The lair was impressive. A circular setup of six screens with a command chair that would look normal for any megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. He could spin around, looking at all of his projects as each screen showed a different caper. Steph knew better than to try and hack his system. He was too smart, too dangerous, too ICE to let anyone access this setup. She placed a micro-camera in the arm of the chair and left everything the way she found it.

      It was time to make contact with her newest asset. What do you wear to meet the most dangerous corporate cyber-spy in the world?

      Case One – Ripper, Inc.

      Initial report: Per our arrangement, this is an accounting of the days preceding our first meeting. You can call me Ian since you already know my real name. As you also know, my special clients know me as ICE. Many think it is because I’m ice cold. No feelings. No remorse. No regrets. That is very true; but that is not why I use the name ICE. I tell my clients it stands for Internet Cyber Espionage. The truth is it’s my initials: Ian Carlos Edos. The fact that I don’t really care about anyone but myself is just one of those serendipitous situations. It makes you wonder if my parents knew what they were doing when they named me. I doubt it. They are still living in the same three bedroom house where I grew up in Mar del Plata. Dad still works at the quartzite quarry and Mom still tends bar at the beach for the tourists. They have a nice life in Argentina.

      I know what you are thinking. What the hell is wrong with him? Was he raised like this? Was he born this way? Maybe you are thinking that something tragic happened that made me into a sociopath. The answer is NO. Nothing is wrong with me. I like me just the way I am. You are supposedly a normal, feeling person who experiences joy and pain, highs and lows, heaven and hell. I don’t have those liabilities. You go ahead and have your happiness that makes you want to dance and sadness that makes you want to slit your wrists. I am quite content to watch it all as a completely disinterested observer. By the way, I’m not a total sociopath. The few feelings I have are easily placated with lots of money.

      Now before you get too creeped out – or maybe hopeful, I’m not a serial killer or anything like that. Well, not really. Okay, in the strictest definitions I would probably qualify. In my defense, I don’t set out to kill anyone and haven’t killed that many people in my thirty years. Trust me, they all could have avoided it if they had minded their own business instead of snooping in mine. Some people just keep prying and won’t back off.

      As you know, cyber-spy is a great profession. I work for the highest bidder. Information is power. Power is money. Money allows me to live a comfortable life – a very comfortable life. Corporate espionage is a multi-billion dollar, euro, pound or yen business. My online persona is known world-wide as the one who can find what you need to know about your competition. Then there is Cryptos. It is the company that can keep people like ICE out of your systems. Cryptos is my company. You already knew that? Of course you did. Who better to keep out the black hat hackers than a black hat?

      Some things are just made to blend together. Wine and cheese. Chocolate and peanut butter. Laurel and Hardy. Smith and Wesson. ICE and Cryptos. Two sides of the same coin. ICE breaks into systems to steal information to sell to clients. Cryptos secures systems to stop hackers like ICE. I have even sold Cryptos’ services to several of ICE’s victims. It’s a cyber-circle of life kind of thing. Simple supply and demand. Cryptos supplies the security that the victims of ICE demand. It is a little confusing, but I use the same methods both places.

      Last week you hired me to break into one of the systems I protected six months ago. The security was almost totally impenetrable. Almost being the key word. Every hacker knows to leave a back door to allow them back in. Normally ICE wouldn’t take a contract on one of Cryptos’ clients. It is not out of loyalty; in fact, nothing of the sort. My loyalty is to my bank accounts. Stealing from one of my clients is just bad business. Cryptos brings in twenty-two million a year in profit. Breaking into one of those systems would damage Cryptos’ reputation. That rep gives me credibility

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