CHAPTER FIFTEEN
By the time Peters and Billings arrived the next morning, the men had completed their work and were waiting in the conference room, still sipping coffee, still revved up from the night before.
“Good morning,” smiled Peters. “Rough night for you boys?”
“Actually,” smiled AJ, “by our standards it was pretty damn exciting. For us. Not for you.”
Billings and Peters both went from grinning to frowning quickly. Wyatt and AJ described the fiber optic they found and detailed what it was doing.
“I’m not sure I’m following,” said Peters.
“Watch,” said Wyatt. He grabbed the name badge off of one of the young workers and waved it over the removed cable. As he did, the young man’s computer seemed to hum for a moment, the screen waving, then back to normal.
On another computer, AJ showed them what the hacker saw. The young man’s name, title, desk number, everything.
“Shit,” muttered the kid. “H-how did they do that?”
“It’s actually quite sophisticated,” said AJ. “This is someone who doesn’t just have a sound understanding of gaming and computers, but also of the government systems themselves.”
“But each department has different systems,” said Billings. “We have similarities, like spreadsheets or things like that but there are specific systems run by every department.”
“We know,” nodded Wyatt. “Remember, a lot of the systems used here were designed by G.R.I.P.”
“Wait. You’re connected to G.R.I.P.?” asked Peters. “I should have fucking known.”
“Those systems are the ones that are holding up right now. I’m not saying they will forever but for now they’re working.
Someone out there knows exactly what they’re going for.
We aren’t nearly big enough to go after all the gaming hackers, or shopping hackers looking for quick money on your credit cards.
But we can find this person or persons, who seem to know what all of this is about,” said AJ.
“You think they’re trying to obtain classified information?” asked Billings.
“I think they’re willing to take whatever they can get.
Classified information, funds, credit cards, anything.
The IP addresses are completely random. Not surprising.
It’s easy to make it bounce from one point to another all over the world.
With the right timing, you can do it indefinitely and we’ll never track it down,” said Tanner.
Billings and Peters turned to Kiel and Ben, both men they were familiar with from past encounters. Ben held up his hands.
“Don’t look at me. I was a Ranger. One too many times without oxygen jumping out of planes and one too many times banging my head against walls. I’m the slow one in the room.”
“Same,” said Kiel. “We’re here for physical support.”
“Bullshit,” said Billings. “I’ve never met a stupid Robicheaux or Wolfkill. Don’t feed me bullshit, son. I don’t like it.” He was actually younger than both Ben and Kiel, but the men said nothing.
“All we’re saying, sir, is that these guys are the experts on this. However, we do agree with them that whoever is doing this is looking for something they can really use. Like classified information or military secrets. Something they can sell, use, release, or all of the above.”
“Fuck me,” mumbled Billings. “Do you realize what they could get into here?”
“Of course we do,” said AJ. “Why do you think we were up all night reinforcing your firewalls and safety systems? We’ve disabled the fiber optic cable and searched for any others.
For now, you’re safe. But we suggest searching security footage to see who could have installed that cable and when.
That will tell us how long this has been going on. ”
“Any idea how far back we should go?” asked Peters.
“Let’s start with ninety days between the hours of 2200 and 0400.
You should be able to run a badge report of people who were in the building during those hours.
If there was no suspicious activity back that far, then we go to four months, then five, and so on,” said AJ.
“Is there anything here, other than the drone, missile, and gaming systems that are being tested?”
The two men stared at one another, then back at AJ giving a slight shake of their heads.
“I see. So there is,” said Wyatt frowning at the two men. “We can’t help if we don’t know what you’re doing here.”
“Come on, General. Admiral. You know we have clearance and we’re only here to help,” said Kiel.
“Come to my office,” said Peters.
The men followed him down a long hallway and turned left twice. It was important to remember, otherwise you might not find your way out of the place. A maze of hallways, entrances, offices, closets, and other spaces and without a map you were fucked.
He opened his office door and pointed to a small conference table. It was just enough space for all the men to take a seat around it.
“Everything changed after 9-11,” said Peters.
“We’re aware,” said Ben crossing his arms over his chest. The two officers nodded.
“We’ve been testing forms of listening devices for decades.
Most of which were easily detectable, traced, and disabled.
Then we asked G.R.I.P. for some help to make them undetectable, untraceable.
Unfortunately, you guys have a moral code and listening in on average Americans and American workers, without anyone’s knowledge seems on the edge of your code. ”
“We understand the need, sirs, but we don’t like knowing we’re doing it with our allies,” said Ben. “Now, that’s not to say we haven’t done it when needed for good reason but just to randomly record the population doesn’t seem right.”
“It’s not our allies we’re trying to listen to, although we might use it sometimes for that reason,” said Peters. “It’s our own people.”
The six men stared at one another, then back at Billings and Peters, frowning with concern.
“I know what you’re thinking but trust me, there’s a reason. We’ve known for some time that hackers are getting in because our own people are letting them in. But this wasn’t just about hacking. This is about members of our own armed forces, CIA, FBI, NSA, all of them, talking out of turn.
“As new people are brought into the organizations, dare I say a younger generation, their codes are different than those we were brought up on. They believe in openness, talking freely, sitting across the table from enemies to discuss options. We believe in those things too, with a healthy dose of reality.”
“So, you’re concerned that this new generation of operatives, agents, officers, all of them, are more inclined to speak freely when they shouldn’t?” asked AJ.
“We know they’re doing it,” said Billings.
He slid a folder across the table. “December 2011, FBI Agent Malaya met with a South American government official to talk about ways of stopping the drug trades. She openly discussed what the U.S. was planning to do over the next few months. Within thirty days, she was dead and so were six other known associates who were doing the planning.” He slid another folder across and Peters spoke.
“September 2015. While in Geneva guarding the vice-president, a secret service agent had dinner with two British officers. Our allies, or so we thought. He divulged some of the useless electronic equipment used in the White House. Six weeks later, five confidential conversations were released to the press with verbatim transcripts. They occurred in the oval office, during closed door meetings with White House staff and congressional members.”
“Fuck me,” said Hiro.
“Need we go on?” asked Billings pointing to four stacks of folders on the conference table. “Someone has been getting in for years and we don’t know how or why, other than to create chaos.”
“Sometimes that’s the only reason the enemy has. Create chaos, create a distraction and everyone is looking the other way while the real action happens,” said Ben. “Maybe that’s what’s happening here. Maybe someone is creating a distraction to do something else, something bigger, more powerful.”
“What? What do they want? What are they after?” asked Billings.
“That’s what we need to find out. We’re heading back up to Baltimore tomorrow to speak with the men we arrested in the townhouse. Someone has to know something. All they could tell us is it was a woman giving them orders,” said Tanner.
“A woman,” frowned Billings. “This is why I never married.”
“No, you never married because you were married to your job,” said AJ standing to leave. “No love interest. No significant other. No dating. No engagements. You’re in the office by 0600 on average and you don’t leave until well after 1900. No one wants to be married to that.”
“Stop checking my history! You’re creeping me out,” frowned the man.
“It’s my job to creep you out. Imagine if I was the enemy.”
The men said nothing until they were well clear of the Pentagon. They scanned their own bodies and the vehicle for listening devices and were pleased to find that they were all clear.
“Peters has never dated anyone?” grinned Kiel.
“No one that I could find. He’s never even brought a date to a banquet or dinner. It’s highly unusual but I think I can understand given what he does. It wouldn’t be fair to a woman to share him with three-hundred-thousand men and women in uniform.”