The Scarecrow

Excerpt

The mantrap alert buzzed from overhead.
"Screens," Carver said.
The three young men at the workstations typed commands in unison,
which hid their work from the visitors. The control room door
opened and McGinnis stepped in with a man in a suit. Carver had never
seen him before.
"This is our control room and through the windows there, you see
what we call the 'front forty,' " McGinnis said. "All of our colocation
services are centered here. This is primarily where your firm's material
would be held. We have forty towers in here holding close to a thousand
dedicated servers. And, of course, there's room for more. We'll never
run out of room."
The man in the suit nodded thoughtfully.
"I'm not worried about room. Our concern is security."
"Yes, this is why we stepped in here. I wanted you to meet Wesley
Carver. Wesley wears a number of hats around here. He is our chief
technology officer as well as our top threat engineer and the designer of
the data center. He can tell you all you need to know about colocation
security."
Another dog and pony show. Carver shook the suit's hand. He was
introduced as David Wyeth of the St. Louis law firm Mercer and Gissal.
It sounded like crisp white shirts and tweed. Carver noticed that
Wyeth had a barbecue stain on his tie. Whenever they came into town
McGinnis took them to eat at Rosie's Barbecue.
Carver gave Wyeth the show by rote, covering everything and saying
everything the silk-stocking lawyer wanted to hear. Wyeth was on
a barbecue-and-due-diligence mission. He would go back to St. Louis
and report on how impressed he had been. He would tell them that this
was the way to go if the firm wanted to keep up with changing technologies
and times.
And McGinnis would get another contract.
"Wesley?" McGinnis said.
Carver came out of the reverie. The suit had asked a question.
Carver had already forgotten his name.
"Excuse me?"
"Mr. Wyeth asked if the colocation center had ever been breached."
McGinnis was smiling, already knowing the answer.
"No, sir, we've never been breached. To be honest, there have been a
few attempts. But they have failed, resulting in disastrous consequences
for those who tried."
The suit nodded somberly.
"We represent the cream of the crop of St. Louis," he said. "The
integrity of our fi les and our client list is paramount to all we do. That's
why I came here personally."
That and the strip club McGinnis took you to, Carver thought but
didn't say. He smiled instead but there was no warmth in it. He was
glad McGinnis had reminded him of the suit's name.
"Don't worry, Mr. Wyeth," he said. "Your crops will be safe on this
farm."
Wyeth smiled back.
"That's what I wanted to hear," he said.