Rogue Faction Part 2: A Cyrus Cooper Thriller: Book Three

by Xander Weaver

  “That’s a good question.”

  “You don’t sound entirely surprised,” she realized it just as quickly as she stated the obvious.

  “No,” Cyrus said. “I guess I’m not. Something strange is going on. I’m just having trouble sorting out exactly what it is.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “To be honest? VPN access. I’ve been locked out. The Red Queen claims she’s done it so I’ll pack up and come home. But I’m not entirely convinced that’s her motivation.”

  “That’s actually funny.” Charlie grinned. “Because the only coherent part of my early morning ass-chewing was her directive to have remote access restricted to the continental United States.”

  “No kidding?” Cyrus drawled slowly. “So whatever she’s worried about, it’s important enough to restrict field access to the company network? You’re saying points inside the U.S. are still fair game?”

  Charlie could practically hear the gears working in his mind.

  “What’s going on, Cyrus?”

  “I’m not sure,” he mumbled. “But I think I just got a lot closer to figuring it out.”

  There was a brief silence on the line, and she knew they were both considering the situation from new perspectives. She had the sinking feeling that Cyrus’s call was about to come in direct conflict with her standing orders. Thinking further, she reminded herself that she lived a very different life—safe and secure behind a desk. Cyrus had a lot more to worry about. He hadn’t come right out and said it, but that he was calling her at all should’ve made something clear. Lives were on the line.

  “Did the Red Queen say anything about locking me out of the network specifically?” Cyrus asked.

  “No. In fact, I didn’t know you’d lost access until you mentioned it just now. She must’ve submitted the work order after I left for the day. It never crossed my desk. I would remember something like that.”

  The line went silent again.

  “You need me to reactivate your access, don’t you?” she asked with more than a little apprehension.

  “No,” Cyrus answered immediately. “Absolutely not. I’m not clear on what’s happening, but if you did something like that, it would certainly be bad for you. It’s not worth it.”

  “Well,” she reasoned. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but if Monica’s going to such great lengths to lock you out, there must be something she doesn’t want you to see.”

  “It could be nothing, or it could be the answer to everything,” Cyrus reasoned. She could tell he was working out the problem as he spoke. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be buried in that black hole we call a database.”

  “Sorry, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Cyrus said with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. “There might be something you can do that won’t land you in any trouble…but it still helps me get the information I need. Do you remember a system wide bug we had about a year back? Some kind of glitch hit the system and suddenly no one could login?”

  “Yes!” Charlie laughed. “You would’ve thought the place was going to burn to the ground. With the flick of a switch, everyone was locked out of their computers, network wide.”

  “I talked with one of the guys in IT right after the glitch. He said they’d done a system update and it had rolled back everyone’s logins by several weeks. Everyone was locked out—but anyone who could remember the password they used three weeks earlier could regain normal access to the system.”

  Charlie recalled the chaos that had ensued from the simple bug that surfaced when their central security software was updated. It was amusing and chilling at the same time. It was also a paradox of security in that situation. Since network security was of paramount importance to the Coalition, every network user’s password changed automatically on a weekly basis. For the staff, it was a hassle because it meant that every week they needed to memorize a new password. But from a security standpoint, it was ideal because it meant that even if someone’s login rights were compromised, the access permissions would become obsolete in relatively short order.

  It was a further trait of the security system that each newly generated password would not be allowed to match, or be algorithmically similar to, the account’s previous password. So, in maintaining security, the system was required to maintain a log of each account’s password history. As such, the system was aware of not only each account holder’s current login, but every past login as well.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Charlie reasoned. “But I don’t see how rolling the system back to an old set of logins gets you the access you need.”

  “If you can roll the logins of all accounts back to April first of this year, I’ll have everything I need.”

  “I don’t see how,” she reasoned. “You’ll still be locked out due to your geographic location. Depending on the work order Monica submitted, your account is likely disabled altogether. That won’t change, even if the passwords are rolled back. I would still need to reactivate your account.”

  “Not a problem,” Cyrus said. She could practically feel his confidence through the phone line. “I won’t be logging in using my account.”

  A knowing smile spread across her face, and Charlie was tempted to ask if he was planning to do what she suspected. Then she thought better of it. Some things were better left unmentioned; for her future career, if nothing else. Considering his comment, her mind flashed back to a startling demonstration of his eidetic memory at their last meeting. At some point in time, Cyrus had likely glimpsed the Red Queen’s login. It was a safe bet that it had happened on or before April first.

  Charlie’s mind was already working through a way to bend the system to her bidding. Rolling back all of the logins would draw a great deal of attention. Particularly since steps had been taken to ensure such a thing could never happen again. But she had an idea how she might manipulate the authentication database in a way that would leave all of the existing passwords active while simultaneously resurrecting the logins from April first. Such a maneuver wouldn’t trip any security warnings because it wouldn’t even constitute a database intrusion. The system would simply be reconstituting historical data to recover from a minor corruption. Such an operation wasn’t even uncommon for a database.

  “One more problem,” Charlie said. “You still won’t have access from outside U.S. borders. The geographic restrictions will still be in place.”

  “That’s not a problem,” Cyrus said without worry. “If the Red Queen ever left the office and spent time in the real world, she’d realize the geographic restrictions are the easiest to circumvent.”

  They had a plan in place. It was both possible and low risk. Cyrus would once more have access to the Coalition network, and with it, a chance to get to the bottom of recent events. Charlie had a relatively simple task to perform that offered her virtually no risk.

  At the same time, she knew she was really going out on a limb for a man she barely knew. The thought should’ve made her sick with tension; in fact, she was surprised when it didn’t. Giving it more consideration, she knew the reason why. While she could never be sure who was in the right—the Red Queen or Cyrus—something was certainly going on inside the Coalition. And if the Paris operation had gone as far astray as Cyrus claimed, then there was no possible excuse for not sending a backup team. Validating Cyrus’s account of events was a simple matter of checking into the Paris operation. If men had been lost, she would move ahead with the plan. But if Cyrus was leveraging her, she would take what she knew directly to the Red Queen. Still, in her heart and in her head, she already knew that everything Cyrus had told her was true. Further confirmation would simply settle her conscience.

  Chapter 21

  All Things Java, Rivven Rock

  2:33 pm

  Sitting at a small table at the very back of the coffee shop, Cyrus had spent hours trudging through the Coalition’s central database. Once he logged in as Monica Fichtner, he had a
ccess to files and reports that he didn’t even know existed. Budgets, contact lists, performance evaluations, meeting notes, appointment schedules—it was amazing. It was like being given the keys to every nook and cranny of the Coalition. Except in this case, he’d stolen those keys.

  The hard part was knowing where to start. Thinking of the bomb that had killed Voss’s wife, Cyrus figured that was as good a place as any. It was one of the several discrepancies that had surfaced since the start of the case. It was also one of the most glaring since it offered a number of contradictions.

  The gist, or summary report, Cyrus was given prior to taking the case, had clearly stated that Eleanor Voss was killed in a car bombing and that there had never been a definitive conclusion as to whether she or her husband had been the intended target. The reports stated that the bomb used was a conventional fragmentation device that had done extreme damage to the victim and the interior of the vehicle, while doing little or no damage to the surrounding parked cars. But in his brief conversation with Voss, he had described the bomb as heinous and barbaric. Voss said the bomb had clearly been designed to send a message. And while it was true that any man who had lost his wife to such a violent act might describe the tragedy in such a way, it was the look Cyrus had seen in his eyes as he described the bombing that made him suspect that there was much more to the story. Enough so, that twenty years later, Voss still seemed haunted by the memory of what he’d witnessed in the bomb wreckage. The point wasn’t conclusive, but instinct made Cyrus suspect there was more he had yet to hear regarding the story.

  It turned out he was right. The Coalition database contained detailed records of the bombing. Once Cyrus took a wider view of the case, it was clear the Coalition had conducted an extensive investigation of Voss’s employer at the time, Onyx Gander, GmbH. Digging deeper, he was surprised to discover that what the Coalition had on Onyx wasn’t all after-the-fact, supporting research. He found logs, phone records, wire taps, clones of computer hard drives, and thousands of pages of transcripts pertaining to the surveillance of Onyx Gander corporate facilities and its highest ranking employees. The records dated back more than a year before Eleanor Voss’s death.

  The implication was clear. Voss’s old employer had something—or was up to something—the Coalition was interested in. Furthermore, at that point in time the Coalition was still a fledgling organization. Their charter had been signed only a few years earlier. The organization’s budget and staff was a tiny fraction of what it was today. The Coalition putting so many resources into a single operation back then was reckless. It was the equivalent to a rookie poker player with a short stack of chips—and not so much as bus fare in his wallet—going all in on a single hand at a high stakes Vegas table. Whatever the Coalition was after, they wanted it in a big way.

  But it was the discrepancy with the bomb that made Cyrus certain he was on the right track. While his case report had been limited and superficial regarding information about the bomb, the Coalition database contained the grisly details of the incident. The bombing wasn’t at all what he’d been led to believe. In fact, the only portion that seemed accurate was that none of the surrounding cars were damaged when the bomb detonated.

  Eleanor Voss had just entered her car, a late model Cadillac. It was parked in the underground garage of Onyx Gander’s corporate headquarters in Munich, Germany. When she turned the ignition key, the bomb detonated. But rather than an explosive payload, the bomb consisted of several small charges, each containing a high potency hydrochloric acid compound. The charges were arrayed in positions surrounding the driver’s seat, apparently in locations discrete enough to avoid detection by anything less than a thorough search of the vehicle. Upon detonation, small explosive charges acted as the delivery method, dousing both front seats in the fast-acting corrosive compound.

  Eleanor Voss’s skin had literally melted from her bones in a matter of seconds. It would’ve been a horrific and painful way to die, but it would’ve been quick. Analysts believed that seconds after the charges fired to disperse the acid, a secondary charge fired. This explosive was substantially more powerful and would’ve ended Eleanor’s life instantly. Clearly Voss was right. The bomb was less about killing Eleanor and more about sending a message. It remained unclear who the intended victim had been. If it was Rutger Voss, the message was received loud and clear. He subsequently quit Onyx Gander and severed all ties with the company. Soon after, he’d arrived on the Isle of Kapros and created his own personal stronghold with Dargo guarding the gates.

  But as far as Cyrus was concerned, questions remained. The most important of which, was why he had been provided with wildly inaccurate information in regards to the bomb that killed Voss’s wife. Cyrus didn’t see how hiding the information could be relevant, or suppressing the details necessary. It seemed as though someone had gone out of their way to sanitize the information given to him. But then why alter the facts of the case if they had no bearing on the present day…?

  Unless they did…and he just hadn’t discovered the correlation yet.

  Additionally, what was the Coalition’s interest in Onyx Gander, or Rutger and Eleanor Voss twenty years ago? The database contained a veritable treasure trove of raw intelligence that was two decades old. Still, he found nothing to spark the agencies interest in any of the involved parties.

  And now the Red Queen was pushing him to abandon the mission. Was she really concerned with his well-being? Or was she worried he might be onto something more than he was sent in to accomplish? A lot of good agents were dead. But as far as he was concerned, that was just an argument for him staying in the field. If he pulled out now they’d all have died for nothing.

  There wasn’t much making sense at the moment. Rather than accumulating answers, he was uncovering more questions.

  Sitting back in his chair, Cyrus arched his back and stretched his arms. He went to take a sip from his coffee cup but found it empty. The work had taken hours and he wanted to stretch his legs. His eyes wandered the shop. Patrons had rotated in and out many times while he’d been sitting there. He didn’t like sitting in one spot for so long, but he knew he wasn’t done yet. He’d only scratched the surface of records pertaining to this case. He was fortunate enough to talk Charlie into opening up his network access and, while he didn’t have reason to believe he might lose access, he was sure the answers were buried somewhere in the confines of the company’s vast database. He had to gather what information he could and logoff as soon as possible. It was only a matter of time before whoever was behind all of this made another move against them.

  Cyrus was considering returning to the counter for another black coffee when his eyes fell on the muted, flat panel television hung on the far wall. There was a news program running footage of a burned out SUV as it was dragged from a river. The bright morning sunlight shone in the background and a cameraman had to keep shifting his position in order to keep his shot clear of the glare. The sun hung low, half-cresting the horizon and back-lighting the scene. But when the footage headlines popped up on screen to describe the events being depicted, Cyrus squinted to read them.

  At first, he was certain he’d read the headline wrong. Or, maybe the news network had made a mistake. But the flash of sun that momentarily blinded the camera meant there could be no mistake. With a tap of his keyboard, Cyrus loaded a web browser. He did a quick search to locate the news report via the headline from the television. He found a series of web pages showing not only the same footage he was seeing on TV, but several eyewitness accounts as well. He read the reports one after the other, waiting for some discrepancy, some conflict with the headline from the newscast. All of the sources were reporting the same basic facts. The burned out SUV had been pulled from the Seine River, just before the lochs at the Île de Puteaux. The four-wheel-drive had no plates and there were two bodies inside. Both had suffered gunshot wounds to the head.

  Flipping to a new webpage, Cyrus loaded a map of the Seine River. Zooming out on the map, he l
ocated the Île de Puteaux, as well as the dam. He panned up river, scrolling across the map. A few seconds later, he came to Île des Vannes. It was another discrepancy. The Red Queen had told him that the bodies of Hobbs and Boone were found just north of des Vannes Island. But that wasn’t possible since he’d just seen video footage of the vehicle being discovered some five and a half miles downriver in the early morning hours.

  Closing the lid of the laptop, Cyrus looked around the shop once more. He suddenly felt very exposed. It was time to get moving. Pulling out his phone, he tapped out a text message and hit ‘send’.

  > The Cuban. 9 pm?

  A reply came back seconds later.

  > See you then.

  Chapter 22

  The Cuban

  8:51 pm

  When Cyrus stepped through the door of The Cuban, not much had changed since his last visit. There was no live band tonight, and the crowd was substantially smaller. If anything, the bar was closer to its ideal capacity. He estimated, maybe seventy-five patrons were spread throughout the place. The stage along the back wall had been removed and replaced with three pool tables. What had been standing-room-only accommodations was now an open area occupied by dozens of small, round tables, nearly all of which were occupied by couples or small clustered groups. The same beaten and abused jukebox played in the corner. At least, Cyrus assumed it was the same. The place had been so jam-packed on his last visit that he’d never actually seen the jukebox. Unless the machine had caught a stray bullet last time, the sturdy, old clunker looked like it might run forever.

  Stepping up to the bar, Cyrus was glad for the breathing room. He climbed atop a stool near the front entrance. The wall behind the bar was lined with dozens of bottles of every shape and color. More importantly, behind the bottles was a wide, five-foot high mirror that extended the entire length of the counter. Such mirrors were common to bars because they made establishments look larger, plus they made the collection of liquor bottles stacked before the mirror look more impressive. None of that mattered to Cyrus. He preferred sitting at the bar because it meant that from one spot he could see virtually every square inch of the place, even while keeping his back to it.