On Melrose Avenue, east of the Hollywood Freeway, Nick pulled into a Mobil station.
The silver Nissan Pathfinder he was looking for was parked by the air hose. He slid in beside it and got out of his car. The man in the Pathfinder joined him and they walked across the street to a McDonald’s.
The man Nick met with spoke softly in a choppy Eastern European accent.
“The hacking on the environmental group was done for one of the big energy companies. They hired a detective based in Cyprus. He had some run of the mill hackers. A job like this didn’t need top shelf guys. They used the most simple spear-phishing you could imagine. This got them user creds and off they went.
“This went on for five years. This guy in Cyprus, the private investigator, had a sweet deal with the oil company. They paid him almost a million a year. I doubt he paid the hackers more than fifty grand.
“So here’s what this was all about. This environmental group they hacked had proof the oil company knew that fossil fuels were contributing more to climate change than they wanted the public to know. The hackers went in and stole the scientific proof. The environmental watchdog group was literally robbed by the oil company. The evidence vanished.”
“The environmental group didn’t have any backups?” asked Nick.
“Apparently not,” said the man with the Eastern European accent. “You know these guys. They get one of their board member’s kids to set up a website for a few bucks.”
“No hardcopy?” asked Nick.
“No. There was never an original hardcopy.”
“How many documents are we talking about?”
“Nobody seems to know. But it’s all smoking gun type stuff. Reports from the oil company’s scientists on the environmental impact of fossil fuels. More reports from other management people at the oil company putting together a plan to keep this stuff secret. From what I’ve been told, it’s all very damning.”
“And this detective from Cyprus, he’s here in LA now?” asked Nick.
“Not yet. He’s coming to visit his daughter. He’ll be here next week.”
Out on Melrose Avenue, just east of the Hollywood Freeway, a big man in a white hardhat and an orange vest lit up his jackhammer.
