Athena Force 11: Target

by Cindy Dees

  He stared down at her intently for a moment before nodding. “Your intuitions have gotten you and me this far in one piece. Go track down whatever’s bothering you. And let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. But you stay safe. Okay?”

  She reached up to touch his cheek with her fingertips. “Okay. You, too.”

  “That’s a deal.”

  But, as she donned the blindfold once more so Agent Tilman could take her back to the surface, and blackness descended upon her, she had a sinking feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  5:00 P.M.

  She dumped her cashmere coat on the couch and went directly to her computer the second she walked in her front door. She cranked up the Oracle database, praying the morning’s lockdown on the system had been lifted by now. The computer monitor blinked for a few seconds after she tried to sign in, and then the Oracle welcome screen flashed up before her. Thank goodness.

  She went to the data-entry screen and typed as quickly as her fingers would go, throwing in everything that had happened to her today in as much detail as she could remember. Her hands ached by the time she finished, and daylight was fading from the living room. Night came early at this time of year.

  She punched the command that started the Oracle database processing the new inputs. An analysis could take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours, depending on the complexity of the computations her entries triggered. She’d seen the logic algorithms for the database once, and had been blown away by them. Whoever’d invented this system was a bona fide genius.

  She wandered into the kitchen to pour herself a cup of stale coffee from the pot she’d brewed so long ago this morning. At this point, she didn’t care if it tasted like battery acid. She was beat. And she suspected this day wasn’t over, yet.

  To kill time while Oracle did its thing, she flipped on the television and was assaulted immediately by images of the day’s near miss on Gabe. She switched the channel quickly. She didn’t need a blow-by-blow replay of the horror she’d gone through. She lurched as the next channel flashed up a picture of one of the Q-group members her hacker buddies had tracked down that morning. She sat down in front of the TV to hear the whole report. Apparently ten of the fourteen suspects had already been apprehended, and a massive manhunt was underway for the remaining possible terrorists. An FBI spokesman said tips were coming in from all over the East Coast and the Bureau had confidence it would have its men in custody within a matter of hours.

  Now she could only hope that she and her buddies had fingered the right guys. She shoved down the moment of doubt. She’d read these guys’ e-mails to each other for months, and there was no doubt in her mind that this was the cell that had planned today’s attack on Gabe.

  Her computer beeped. She set down her mug and turned off the TV, hustling over to the computer. She sat down at the console eagerly to read the analysis. As shock paralyzed her mind, she skimmed faster and faster, catching key phrases as they leaped out at her.

  …no significant correlations have been identified…random occurrences…day’s other events bear no relation to any threat to the Presidency…

  This was a very different analysis from the one she’d seen in Oracle’s main database this morning. Even if the Q-group threat had been successfully neutralized, as sure as she was sitting here she was certain there was still someone out there gunning for Gabe. How could Oracle have reversed itself so radically like this in a matter of hours? Last night, Delphi personally had been convinced Gabe was in huge danger. That whoever was after him would not give up until he was dead. And now, everything was hunky-dory? What in the hell was going on?

  She stared at the computer screen in dismay, her mental wheels spinning, until she became aware of a vague noise behind her. Someone was knocking on her front door. Insistently. She stood up, went to the front door and opened it numbly.

  Her mother stood on the porch, shivering in the bitter chill.

  “Come on in, Mom.”

  “Hello to you, too,” her mother replied mildly. “Did I come at a bad time?”

  “Actually, yes. I’m in the middle of a crisis.”

  “What sort of crisis?”

  Diana winced. Her mother only wanted to be part of Diana’s life and be the kind of parent Diana had deserved for all those empty years. And Diana wanted to let her, get to know her as an adult. But the timing sucked. Except…what was she going to do if her mother turned around and walked out this second? She didn’t have the foggiest idea what to do next. Even Oracle had given her nothing but a dead end.

  “Can I get you something to drink, Mom?”

  “No, thank you.” Her mother sat down on the sofa resolutely. “Tell me about your crisis.”

  Even at the worst of her depression, Zoe Lockworth had always known when one of her girls was in trouble. It was some sort of maternal sixth sense.

  “I can’t talk about it, Mom. It’s classified.”

  Her mother pursed her lips. “Are you sure you’re not just avoiding me?”

  Diana huffed in exasperation. “Why does everyone in the family keep accusing me of that?”

  “Maybe because it’s true, honey. Look, I know I wasn’t there for you when you were young, and I take full responsibility for that. I chose to do dangerous work, and I chose to put myself in harm’s way even though I had a family to think about. But I’m here for you, now. I’d like to help.”

  The fight went out of her in a rush. What was the point of being mad? It didn’t change anything that had happened. In comparison to everything that had happened to her today, her childhood was starting to look pretty bland. She sat down on the other end of the couch and asked her mother, “Was your work really that important?”

  Zoe shrugged. “It seemed so at the time. We were trying to save the lives of thousands of pilots by coming up with stealth technologies to protect them. I suppose you’d have to ask pilots like Josie and Diego if the research was ultimately worthwhile.”

  Diana’d already heard her sister’s opinion on that, and the answer was an emphatic yes. “Yes, but was your sacrifice worth it all?”

  Zoe shrugged. “I’ve made my peace with what happened to me. I lost a chunk of my life in the name of serving my country. I’m just grateful I didn’t lose my life altogether. What I can’t forgive myself for is the sacrifice you girls and your father had to make. Nobody asked you if you were willing to lose your mother for twenty years.”

  They’d been over this ground before. Her parents just assumed that, because she and her sister were in the Armed Forces, they’d understand the idea of serving one’s country. Of sacrifice and loss in the name of freedom. Of the price military families paid alongside their active-duty members. Josie bought into the idea hook, line and sinker. But Diana had trouble swallowing the concept. There came a point beyond which families shouldn’t suffer the same way their military members did.

  Although, she had put her neck on the line for Gabe today. Hadn’t hesitated to do so, either. Like her mother, she’d dived into this mess without a second thought for herself. Why was that? Was it just that she hadn’t found something—or someone—important enough to die for until now? At the end of the day, was she as dedicated as her mother had been? Maybe to different causes, but both in the name of defending their nation.

  Startled, she asked her mother slowly, “Did you hesitate to get into such dangerous research?”

  Zoe laughed ruefully. “I have to confess I leaped before I looked. I was well into the work before it occurred to me that there might be menacing forces opposed to what I was doing. But even if I had known in advance, I’d have done it anyway. I was one of only a handful of scientists who could do the research. And the need for stealth technology was bigger than me. More important than me. I did what I had to do.”

  Diana froze, stunned. If someone asked her if she’d considered the risks of saving Gabe, she’d have answered the exact same way. For the first time, she got it. Zoe was absolutely driven by her most
fundamental belief in right and wrong. And Dear God, Diana was stuck with the very same set of beliefs. Was she destined to wreck herself on the rocky beaches of her morals the same way her mother had?

  A chill chattered down her spine. This must be how her mother had felt once she discovered the dangers stalking her. Even if Richard Dunst or his superiors were out there waiting for her at this very moment, she still had to do this. She had to save Gabe from them or die trying.

  She eyed her mother speculatively. What the heck. Her mom had been a highly intelligent scientist in her day, an expert at computer analysis of problems. “I’ve got a work-related question for you, Mom.”

  Zoe blinked at the abrupt change of subject. “I’ll do my best, but it has been a long while since I did any research.”

  “If you were to put a set of data into a sophisticated database that has always been accurate in the past, and you suddenly got back a set of completely garbled analyses on that data, what would you do?”

  Zoe laughed. “I’d recheck my data. You know what they say. Garbage in, garbage out. Computers are really just huge calculators, and databases are just big sets of mathematical formulas that get applied to your data. Those formulas never change once they’re entered into the computer. The computer will do the exact same thing to your data every time you enter it. So if your output is wonky, you’ve got to suspect the input.”

  “I’ve rechecked the data entered. It’s accurate. Late last night, the database analyzed a similar set of data and came up with completely different conclusions than it did just now.”

  “Well, then I’d check the database itself for bugs. Go to a backup version of it and reload the data.”

  Good idea. “And what might cause a bug—a big one—in a database?”

  Zoe shrugged. “It could be something as simple as a maintenance technician or data-entry specialist making a mistake and hitting the wrong key. Or, it could be something as sinister as someone tampering with the database intentionally.”

  The sight of four men leaping into the library at the Oracle safe house this morning flashed into her mind. Oh, yeah. The secret of the Oracle database’s existence was definitely compromised. Why not the database itself?

  Diana leaped to her feet abruptly, causing her mother to jump up in alarm, as well. She gave her mother a big hug and commenced herding her toward the door. “Thank you so much. You’ve been a huge help. I’m glad we talked. We have much more in common than I ever realized. We must talk more. Very soon. Right now I’ve got to run.”

  Her mother paused in the doorway, frowning. “Are you all right?”

  She gave her mother a genuine smile. One of the few she ever remembered giving her mother. “For the first time in a very long time, I’m definitely all right. I know what I have to do, and I know how I have to do it. I’ll give you a call as soon as this is all over.” Of course, her poor mother had no idea what “this” was.

  On impulse, she gave Zoe another hug. “I’ve got to go now. I’ve got a ton of stuff to do and not much time to do it.”

  She closed the door in her mother’s disbelieving face and whirled, heading straight for the phone. She dialed Delphi’s emergency phone number for the fourth time in one day. That had to be some kind of record. The usual answering machine picked up her call and she waited impatiently through the bland message.

  “Hi, this is Diana Lockworth. I need an access password to get into the guts of the Oracle database. I don’t need to have access to rewriting any of the code, but I need to take a look at it. No time to explain—”

  The electronically altered voice interrupted her. “I’m here. What’s this all about?”

  “I don’t have time to go into all the details, but I think the Oracle database has been compromised. I need to look at the program, itself.”

  “That’s an alarming accusation,” the voice said emotionlessly.

  Diana retorted, “No more alarming than four armed men bursting into the Old Town facility and making off with what they think is the hard drive holding the database.”

  “We’ve already had a look at the database today, and it’s fine.”

  Diana snorted. “I just tried to use it, and I got complete gobbledygook out of it. Something’s wrong with Oracle, I’m telling you.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know the database should’ve gone nuts over the information I put into it about the ongoing threat I’m convinced exists to Gabe Monihan, and it came back with a null threat assessment. The damned thing all but called me stupid!”

  A delicate pause. “You neutralized the threat earlier.”

  Diana gnashed her teeth as urgency nipped at her heels. Her gut was screaming at her that she was losing time. Time she couldn’t afford to waste if she was going to save Gabe. “Look. You hired me. Do you trust me or not? I know we caught one terrorist but based on what I saw earlier today, I’m certain someone’s still out there gunning for Gabe, and they’re going to try to kill him again within the next couple hours.”

  “Of course, I trust you. And who do you think is going to make this assassination attempt?”

  “That’s what I was hoping Oracle could tell me.”

  “One moment.”

  Diana fidgeted while the line went silent. Her boss was either putting out an APB on her at this very moment, or hopefully retrieving the access code she needed to get inside the Oracle database proper.

  “Enter this number into the log-in screen when you choose the system maintenance option.” Delphi read off a long string of numbers that Diana scrawled down hastily. “That will get you into the code. You’ll have read-only access. You will not be able to make any system changes.”

  “Fair enough. That’s what I needed.” In response to the tacit vote of confidence the sharing of that access code represented, she said, “And thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Call me if you need any further assistance. It is imperative that Monihan be kept safe.”

  Diana hung up and all but ran into the living room to sit down at the computer. She pulled up the appropriate access screen and entered Delphi’s number into the correct field. Her screen went blank briefly, and then page after page of detailed, complex computer code began scrolling down her screen. Crud. This was going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  Time to think like a hacker. If she were going to tamper with a system of this size, how would she do it? She’d head for a low-level subroutine connected to the analysis portions of the program and she’d bury the smallest possible command she could in it that would foul it up.

  She made her way to the analysis subroutines and frantically waded through the dense programming language. She couldn’t help but be impressed by the elegance of the program. It was the single most intelligent piece of computer work she’d ever seen. She’d give her right arm to meet whoever’d designed this database.

  And then she saw it. A bland little command sequence that didn’t have quite the same feel as the rest of the code around it. She read the three-line instruction again. Her internal warning antennae wiggled wildly. She followed the instruction set to where it led elsewhere in the database and found another innocuous bit of code that didn’t feel right. It led to another. And then to another. All these little pieces of code were linked together, a huge set of tiny monkey wrenches scattered throughout the cogs and gears of the mighty machine that was Oracle.

  Over the course of the next couple minutes, she traced the spiderweb of commands and found them inserted all over the program. She didn’t begin to understand precisely how these commands were screwing up the Oracle database, but there was no doubt the system was completely corrupted.

  Something about this code tickled the edges of her consciousness. And then it hit her. She recognized the programming style of the commands. The spare, coldly logical technique of the programming was identical to the instructions the intruder in her house had put onto this very computer last night!

  She open
ed the file of code she’d copied out of her computer’s operating system and compared it to the lines of commands in the Oracle database. It was as clear as day. The same person had done both bits of hacking.

  On a hunch, she called up a screen view of the code where the signature of the programmer was entered beside each line of code they’d written. She stared in shock. Her own name stared back at her.

  The hacker this morning. Had he entered this code from her home computer? It made sense.

  Somebody knew she was an Oracle agent. Why else would both her computer, and now the Oracle database be attacked by the same person on the same day? If her identity was compromised, how many other Oracle agents were exposed and in danger? And if the very heart of the Oracle agency had suffered an attack like this, was the entire agency at risk?

  As alarming as that was, she had more important fish to fry at the moment. Somebody who could afford to hire a frighteningly smart hacker was trying to stop her or even kill her. From doing what? It could only be one thing. The only project she’d been working on for weeks now was the link between Q-group and Gabe Monihan. Whoever’d hacked into her computer and into Oracle was out to kill Gabe. And they were very close on not only her heels, but his.

  The bad feeling in her gut exploded into panic, roiling and bubbling nearly out of control. She typed a hasty note to Delphi outlining her discovery and finished it with a warning that Delphi himself or herself could be in danger.

  Now what?

  She sat back and stared at her computer for a couple seconds. C’mon brain. Come up with something smart! The next step was to find out who was behind the Q-group and Richard Dunst.

  For lack of anywhere else to begin, she typed into her computer the familiar name of the Q-group’s primary chat room. It should be deserted, since most or all of its members would either be arrested by now or running for their lives.