Chapter Eleven
The Trojan Horse
That Saturday, roughly forty-eight hours after their first meeting, Walter Forbes and Jane Greer arrived at Senator Morton’s campaign office fifteen minutes early so that they could set up their presentation. There were five chairs set up instead of four.
“Try not to get pissed off with Kaplan,” said Greer.
“Try not to flirt with Senator Morton,” said Forbes.
She shook her head in disbelief.
“You don’t have to pretend,” he said. “He’s a pretty charismatic guy.”
“Did it occur to you that I might have been testing him?”
Forbes laughed. “How did he do?”
“He doesn’t chase every woman who shows interest.”
“That’s good to know.”
“But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t done it once or twice.”
A blonde who looked like a billion bucks in a pair of sunglasses that cost a few hundred and an elegantly tailored black pant suit that set her back a few thousand more, breezed into the room and immediately took charge.
“Hello, Walter,” she said, shaking Forbes’s hand. “How are you, Jane?”
“I’m well,” Greer said. “And you?”
Before Forbes could ask how they knew each other, Valentina Pontano Sternwood slipped her sunglasses into her purse and said, “Thank you for calling me last night and sharing your concerns about the security breaches and taking orders from Kaplan.”
“I thought you should know as soon as possible that this might not work out,” said Forbes.
“I appreciate that,” she said. “It’s George Kaplan’s job to win elections. It’s your job to see that he doesn’t lose his candidate. I know you’re not political. Neither am I.”
“Then why–” Forbes started.
“We’re not asking you to vote for Senator Morton. We’re not asking you to campaign for him, but statistically speaking, his voting record aligns with the values of the majority of voters in this country, not just a couple hundred thousand left-wing and right-wing true believers angry enough to brave sub-zero temperatures and ice storms in Iowa and New Hampshire. With the financial support we’re prepared to offer him, and with George Kaplan handling his messaging, Morton’s capable of staying in the race at least until all primary voters have had their say. That may be why you and Kaplan don’t get along. He is a politician. But, if Morton doesn’t get caught with his pants around his ankles, and the country doesn’t get spooked by terrorist attacks into voting out of fear, trust me. We could do worse.”
George Kaplan and Guy Morton entered the room. Kaplan seemed surprised to see Mrs. Sternwood, too.
“Hello, Guy, George,” she said, shaking their hands.
“So glad you could join us,” said Kaplan, dripping with insincerity. “Shall we proceed?”
Forbes caught Greer grinning when she heard Kaplan utter the punchline from the backfiring practical joke. Forbes pressed play on his laptop and the video of Michael Santore and the latex dominatrix began to play on the flat-screen.
“Shall we proceed, Mr. Kaplan?” the woman in the video said.
“My name is Michael Santore.”
The woman rose abruptly and stepped back. The screen went black.
“Where did you get that?” Kaplan asked. “I deleted that from my phone the moment I saw it.”
Forbes looked to Greer to answer him.
“You deleted it from your phone, but not from your YouTube account.”
“I can explain,” said Morton.
“I beg your pardon, Senator.” Mrs. Sternwood looked from Morton to Forbes and Greer. “It’s my understanding that Mr. Forbes and Ms. Greer caught Mr. Kaplan’s oversight in time. Is that correct?”
Forbes looked to Greer to answer.
“That’s correct,” she reassured Kaplan. “I assumed it posted to your account by mistake, so I deleted it. It wasn’t public, and apparently the other candidates haven’t gotten around to hacking your personal accounts yet. We spoke with Michael Santore and confirmed that you have nothing to worry about from his side, but there’s something else we need to show you.”
Images of Kaplan’s and Morton’s phones appeared with two colored bars beneath each.
“The top bar,” said Forbes, “shows how the memory is allocated for audio, apps, images, video, operating system, free space. The bottom bar shows how the memory should be allocated given the size of the files on your devices. You’ll note the discrepancy in free memory space.”
“What’s the takeaway?” asked Morton.
“You’re both pretty good about steering clear of dodgy websites and email attachments,” said Forbes. “But there’s another way devices get compromised.”
An etching representing the Trojan horse appeared on the screen.
“My best guess, until I get back a line by line code analysis, is that you contracted a Trojan horse file. These don’t try to replicate their way onto our devices. Either someone we trust puts them there, or we invite them in ourselves. Mr. Kaplan’s operating system was compromised on February ninth. That’s the date the video was uploaded from his phone. That’s the date he loaned his phone to Michael Santore. I don’t think Santore tampered with it.”
“You won’t be handing off your phone to anyone in the near future, will you George?” asked Morton.
“That leaves us with your phone, Senator.” said Forbes. “Your operating system was compromised October tenth. Santore told us that you mentioned meeting the woman in that video at a harvest festival. Would that date be about right?”
The senator looked to Kaplan.
“It would,” said Kaplan.
“What’s the damage?” Morton asked.
“There’s no indication that they’ve done much of anything yet,” said Forbes. “I’ll have a better idea when the code analysis is finished. Until then, we’ll give you a couple new phones to use.”
Mrs. Sternwood rose. Everyone followed her lead. “George, as far as the PAC is concerned, we need the level of internal IT security that Mr. Forbes can provide. Since we’re prohibited from coordinating campaign efforts, he won’t be reporting to you, nor will he be telling your campaign what to do. Are you comfortable with that?”
Kaplan didn’t look comfortable, but he said he was.
Mrs. Sternwood nodded, bid her farewells, and left the meeting.
Morton turned to Forbes. “What do you need from us?”
“What can you tell us about the woman in the video?” asked Greer.