Chapter 20
When they arrived on base, Garnet was placed in a room where she could work while Bean and his team went off to talk to someone. There was a young ensign who was outside the door in the hall to escort her to the bathroom if she needed to go or arrange for her to get tea or coffee.
After she was alone, she opened her computer and connected to her hotspot, then the VPN that would help keep her location secret. She downloaded the files she needed and connected to the system that would help her see the vulnerability she needed to correct.
She could change the code, but it didn’t change the connection this system had with the next system, and the one after that.
Eventually, one of the systems would lead her to the system that gave her access to the weapon that possibly could be used to destroy DC.
It was very involved, much more so than any simple explanation she would use to tell anyone else the scope of the situation.
Every extra moment she had, she’d been thinking about how to fix this problem. Of course, the other problem was that someone had figured out the system could be jumped over and finagled to bring about what they wanted. Who could have figured it out?
She closed the connection and pulled up a list of all the conventions she’d spoken at. It had only been three, and her talks had only drawn about seventy people in each one, but that was enough to worry her.
She had another convention coming up in a few weeks, and she figured she had to cancel her speaking engagement. It would be the wise thing to do.
She went back over her notes for the talks she’d given, but didn’t see anything in them that would lead someone to believe she could send a missile to DC.
She hadn’t once disclosed the truth about the fault in the system.
None of the information she spoke on had come close to the topic of hacking into systems and gaining access to weapons.
There had to be something else going on. It wasn’t like she slept around at those conventions, so she hadn’t engaged in pillow talk. She’d heard stories of guys being compromised by having sex with a spy, but she didn’t do that.
How had someone figured out what she knew to be true? And how had they known that she knew it?
Bean shook his head, angry that anyone even suggested that Garnet had to know how the information got out. “She doesn’t know.”
“It’s awfully suspicious,” Krank said.
Krank was Delta, but Bean didn’t work with him on a regular basis. They’d been deployed at different times, and Krank had spent time in Texas and then in California before moving back here to Bragg. The guy was solid, but he was pissing Bean off.
“Take a breather,” Chase said before turning to Krank. “We know it looks suspicious. She doesn’t have any ties to terrorists or any overseas bank accounts. She’s clean.”
“But what if she—”
“She didn’t,” Bean’s voice was harsh, his words sharp as steel.
Krank rolled his eyes. “Listen, I know you believe her, but I wouldn’t be doing my job unless I asked these questions. We have to know who ultimately wants the information and who is planning on sending a missile to DC.”
“Let’s bring her in here,” Stanley said.
Krank shook his head. “Whoa, hold up. Can we trust her?”
Stanley spoke up before Bean could. “Absolutely. Let’s get her input. Bring her in here and let her talk it through. That’s the only way we’re going to figure anything out.”
Bean could see the doubt on the faces of the four Delta guys who didn’t know Garnet. Krank, Abbot, Ricky, and Dime hadn’t been in Beirut, hadn’t met her or talked to her on the plane. They didn’t see her passion for getting to the bottom of the question of who was ultimately behind her being taken.
“Bring her in,” Bean said after a moment. These guys needed to hear from her. She had to show them that she could be trusted.
When she stepped into the room, he saw the worry wrinkling her forehead and the doubt in her eyes. He wanted to go to her, but he couldn’t. If he did, they would think he believed her because they’d had sex. Which they hadn’t, but these guys didn’t know that.
“We have some questions,” Krank said.
Garnet narrowed her eyes as she stared at the men she hadn’t met. Her study of them was intense, and he could tell they didn’t like it.
“Why are you staring so intently?” Dime asked.
“Because I never forget a face and I wanted to make sure you guys weren’t at any of my talks.”
“Talks?” Krank asked.
“I’ve spoken at three conferences with about seventy people at each session.
I think that might be where the person behind this is from.
Or it’s someone I’ve worked with in the last few years.
It wouldn’t be someone from the first few companies I worked at.
It would have to be someone at my current job. ”
Chase nodded. “We’re going through the list of people who work in your department. We’re checking to see if they have an overseas bank account or a sudden influx of money.”
Garnet nodded. “I’ve sent a note to the coordinator of the events and asked them if I could have the roster. It might carry more weight coming from one of you.”
“We could hack in if they don’t want to give it to us,” Dime said.
“You can?”
Dime rubbed his hands together and nodded. “Oh yeah, we can hack into their system and retrieve the list.”
These guys were intense, and she was glad they were on her side. With them working on this, they might find the person responsible.
“I could hack in, but I would rather they give me the information. Besides, I’d go to jail for hacking in.
” She knew the rules well enough to know what she could hack and what would get her in trouble.
Over the years, the hacking scene changed.
Now it was about who you knew, which was probably why she’d been targeted.
The guy flashed a huge smile. “It’s national security against a terrorist threat. We have immunity if we’re acting in the scope of our jobs. So we can hack in, and no one will come after us. They call me Dime. This is Krank, Ricky, and Abbot.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said as she mentally attached their names to their faces. She’d never seen any of them before today, and that made her feel much safer in this room. Whoever was behind her abduction most likely worked for the government, and that scared her.
Her eyes slid to Brady, and he gave a short nod. She had looked to him for confirmation that these guys were good. She’d only known Brady for a short time, but she trusted him. “Okay. Then hack away.”
She took a seat at the end of the table and watched as Dime and Stanley started the sequence to break into the system with the information she was looking for. Chase tapped the table next to her, and she glanced over and met his gaze.
“Do you want to help us look into bank records? Once we get the list of attendees, we’ll start digging.”
She nodded. “Sure, I’d love to help. Anything to keep my mind busy.”
Krank touched her shoulder, getting her attention. “So this thing that they wanted done, the missile to strike DC, is it possible?”
“Fuck,” Brady said under his breath.
She must have hesitated just long enough with her answer that these guys realized it was possible. “The official answer is no, it’s not possible.”
“What needs to change to make it impossible for that to happen?” Krank asked.
She glanced over to Brady. He stood and moved to her, pulling up a chair and sitting next to her. She trusted him and knew that he trusted these men. Having him close made her feel better, though.
“It’s more than just a piece of code. That would be simple.
The vulnerability is multi-pronged. I could send out a patch, but not everyone would deploy the patch at the same time because in California, it’s midnight while it’s daytime in Italy.
We might think it would be deployed at the same time, but for that, we’d have to schedule it.
If it’s scheduled a long time out, like long enough to make sure everyone who can do the operational procedure is at the location at the exact same time, that would give the person who wants to take advantage of the vulnerability enough time to study the code. ”
“What happens if they study the code?” Stanley asked.
“They could figure out how to get around my fix.”
Krank wiped his hand over his face as he shook his head. “That’s bad. That will take a while to fix.”
“Yes, it will. If I start going to these places and accessing the systems, I’ll reveal what is going on. I can’t do that until we figure out who is behind the plan. I don’t want to give the truth away before the main instigator is behind bars.”
Brady shook his head. “If we hadn’t gone in to get you back, like if another group that wasn’t focused on stopping terrorism had gone in, you would still be at risk. This could have taken years for a fix to be in place, or they could have figured out how to get a missile into the air aimed at DC.”
“Exactly. There is no way I would have told anyone about this, trusted anyone with the information, even if I thought I could trust them.”
“We’re in,” Stanley said.
“Good, download the rosters, and I’ll start looking at photos of the people and determine who attended my session and who was just at the conference. With a list, we can cross-reference anyone who attended multiple sessions.”
“It will take time to gain access to all of their photos,” Chase said. “Why don’t we start looking at bank records until we have the photos?”
Garnet was glad to have something to occupy her mind. She’d already excluded four people by the time they had access to the photos to go with the names of people who attended the first conference.
The task of eliminating people would take a while, but this was the only way to figure out who wanted to use her to destroy the nation. With the help of Brady’s friends, it would be easier.
She glanced over and met Brady’s gaze. Heat slid through her. She needed to get a grip on her desire. Brady was just being nice to her because they needed to solve this problem. She needed to keep that thought at the front of her mind so she didn’t do something stupid and embarrass herself.