I grimaced, knowing damn well it mattered. Gavin, with his ever-active but impractical mind, saw money matters differently. We’d decided to keep the business going as long as we could pay the rent, however, that was starting to look problematic. We walked a financial tightrope while gainfully employed university colleagues called us for discrete solutions to network security problems — some of which they caused themselves. A lot of what we did was damage control. It’s a lousy business model, seeing as educated clients who stop doing damage, stop being clients. We’ve been the last resort when, for instance, someone calls at 2:00 am begging for a favor after somehow granting a blind date access to their client database. Often times, that sort of delicate situation morphs into a seek and destroy mission when a hapless client, drenching his Hugo Boss in tears and snot, lets us in on the fact he was passed out in the board room while his date caught up with her Facebook friends at his workstation. Damage done, Gavin and I would unravel the electronic trails left by the date, find the data she’d compromised, then plug the leak. All without the client’s boss or company security being inconvenienced by the embarrassing incident.
Most of our contracts came via word-of-mouth. A lot of them paid for in person, cash on the line with grateful handshakes, sometimes in supply closets or on loading docks. The contracts had finally started to increase in number, but I was always aware that, if we weren’t careful, it would be too little, too late.
Between the two of us, Gavin’s natural inclination to tinker with things edged him into the hardware and specialized-design end of our partnership. When a job called for a tool, sensor, or hardware device that hadn’t been invented, or wasn’t readily available, Gavin came up with some gizmo that’d usually do the trick. On the other hand, I have a knack for ingratiating myself with people in order to get them to do things or provide useful information. So, I took over the client acquisition and investigation side of the business. Investigations, computer based or otherwise, hadn’t been a consideration when we started out, but somehow they’d become the mainstay of our business.
“Don’t you have a desk of your own?” Sandy emerged from the stairwell, grinning at Gavin and the pile of stuff on her desk.
“I do, but I haven’t been able to find it for years.” Gavin joked.
“Not funny. I really need my desk.” She shrugged off her backpack and well worn Gortex jacket. “That Orange Revolution stuff is really interesting, Jess. I can see why the poster was referring to oranges.”
“You were on the democracy blog?” I asked.
“From the library,” Sandy said. “That’s why I was there. I knew you wouldn’t want me logging in from here. It’s funny. That Russian blogger’s calling herself Anna Ku Klux Klan, and the name is spelled in English.”
“Ah, a tasteful little chat nickname — for a sociopath.” I said. “Gives me the warm fuzzies all over.”
“Whoa, what are you two up to?” Something in our conversation piqued Gavin’s interest.
Sandy glanced at me.
“Uh, nothing, really.” I started to explain. “Just some activity from an IP address I’ve been keeping an eye on.”
“Nothing? Ku Klux Klan, Russia, sociopaths and oranges. Okay, something’s going on. Come on. What’s up?”
“Well,” I began with a deep breath, “remember all that trouble in Ukraine with the election being overturned — those mass protests and the opposition leader getting poisoned?”
“Sure, that’s old news. Canada sent a bunch of observers, as I recall. They had another election and everything’s fine now.”
“Actually, Gavin, it doesn’t seem to be at all fine.” Sandy looked at me for confirmation to go on.
I nodded.
“That was The Orange Revolution. A hard-line, pro-Russia party rigged a presidential election and someone poisoned the opposition leader. He got disfigured, but survived. People, especially young people in Ukraine, knew the election was rigged and they’d had enough. They banded together under the leader of the opposition Democracy Movement, which just happened to be using the color orange as its trademark, and brought the country to a standstill with protests, actions, civil disobedience, that kind of thing. They pretty much started a revolution. Since they were identified with the color orange, they called themselves The Oranges. The movement became known as, The Orange Revolution.” Sandy explained.
“So what? They won eventually. Had another election and life goes on.” Gavin said.
“You would think so. Last January, Viktor Yushchenko, the leader of the Democracy Movement, the guy who had been poisoned, ran in the election. He won, and the Orange Revolution was supposed to be over.” Sandy rummaged in her backpack.
“But, not really,” I suggested.
“Not at all,” Sandy pulled a stack of photocopies from her backpack. She plunked them on her desk. “The press is still crying corruption. People are complaining. The Oranges have been stabbing each other in the back. Meanwhile, the defeated pro-Russian party is financially supported by someone with deep pockets and Yuliya Tymoshenko, the number two figure in the revolution, has been fired from her post as prime minister.”
“I do know about her. No kidding, they fired her eh?”
“Not only that, but Nasha Ukrainaya, meaning Our Ukraine, the Orange’s party, has started to come apart at the seams. It’s like there’s a whole bunch of pressure coming from somewhere.”
“And what’s this got to do with us?” Gavin glared at me.
“Nothing really. It’s activity Sandy traced back to an Internet address I’m interested in. Whoever posted something about the Orange Revolution on the Russian-language democracy blog, did it from that address. The democracy blog is one of those sites we monitor.”
“One of your bait-blogs?”
“Get over it, Gavin. They’re real sites we’ve got the privilege of monitoring.” I said. “Actually, let me rephrase that: The contractual obligation to keep track of, and know who’s doing what and when on them. It’s something we get paid for, in case you forgot.”
“I still don’t see how a post about Ukraine has anything to do with us if there’s nothing to report on. Far as I know we’re not working for the Ukrainians.”
“It isn’t Ukraine, their revolution or the blog post itself. It’s the IP address from where the post originated. That is what interests me.”
Sandy broke in. “You told me to look up the Orange Revolution. You mean this posting has nothing to do with it?”
“I don’t know if the Orange Revolution has anything to do with the posting, but it might be a topic of interest we can use to make contact with whoever posted the message. Maybe draw them out, keep them talking. The Orange Revolution obviously means something to this poster.”
Gavin was wagging an accusatory finger at me, winding up for an argument.
I shut him down. “How many times must I explain this? Somebody posted something on that edgy no-holds-barred Russian-language democracy forum we monitor. It’s not what she posted, it’s where she posted from that has my attention. The Internet address of whatever network she was accessing the Net from. That’s what’s important. Get it?”
“Oh, I get it, and just where did this mysterious person post from?” Asked Gavin.
“Nizhny Novgorod. It’s an ancient city east of Moscow.”
“Spare me the tourist info, sis. Whose IP address is it?”
“It’s owned by a big engineering and construction firm. The kind that gets all the government contracts at the highest bid. As in, a syndicate business interest, as far as I know.”