“Or better yet, attacks where the perpetrators involved are unknown or”—he thought for a moment—“see if you can find discrepancies. Unexplained data glitches. Sensitive personnel with high-clearance levels who died inexplicably, so that perhaps their death was a disguised killing and they might have disclosed to their killers sensitive information before their death. That sort of thing. And not necessarily at IDSD here, something might have taken place at one of your other locations.” He stood up. “That’s fishing a bit, I suppose, but once we know more about what the break-in involved, I’ll be able to provide more focusing parameters.”
The lieutenant commander acknowledged that he had understood, and promised to start sending information as soon as IDSD’s intelligence and security divisions provided it.
As soon as the liaison entered the elevator, Donovan turned to Ben. At least there was one mystery he could solve right now.
“Get me everything you can find about Lara Holsworth. Start with her service file.” He began to walk away and then, in an afterthought, turned back. “And don’t summarize it. I want to see it all.”
“But she’s IDSD. And she’s an International, isn’t she?”
Donovan raised his eyebrows.
“Right,” Ben said and went to work.
After only a few minutes he came to Donovan’s office, looking perplexed. “I can’t.”
“Can’t what, Ben? Get into her IDSD file? Try US Global Intelligence’s database for all foreign officials. Hack it for all I care.”
“No, I mean I can’t even get the system to admit she has a file. I can’t find anything about her.”
Donovan stared. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s a zero-access name. So any information about it is only stored . . .”
“In the data centers. Like the one whose break-in we’re investigating.”
Ben nodded.
After the investigator left, Donovan considered for a while. He then ran a search for the license plate of the car he saw his neighbor leave in that morning. It was registered to IDSD. This made him pause. To the best of his knowledge, even IDSD didn’t assign luxury convertibles to its staff. He then checked the house, but at this point he already knew he wouldn’t find anything useful.
The house was listed as having been owned by the Howards until seven weeks earlier. It was then listed as having been sold and being under private ownership. And that was it. He thought a bit, then checked who the bills and any other formal mail were addressed to, expecting to find IDSD again. He was right. Except that this time, the address provided was that of IDSD’s legal division in the United States. He shook his head. Another mystery. And this one he definitely wasn’t about to let go of.
He had to know who she was.
Somewhere deep inside him a voice whispered that this had nothing to do with the investigation, that he didn’t need to find answers to the questions he had about Lara Holsworth.
Except that he did. The same irritatingly persistent voice tried to ask him why, but he pushed it away.
He thought about calling the Howards to catch up, see how they were, maybe find what they knew about their granddaughter’s friend. Then dismissed this, wondering why he was even considering going to such lengths. Tried hard to convince himself he was simply intrigued about his new neighbor who, on the one hand, was just a very real woman who lived in an elegant house that was decorated for her in quiet colors by her very colorful best friend, and who liked to enjoy the peace of her back yard with a cup of whatever it was that had been in that mug she was holding in the morning, and on the other hand, he, the senior investigator for the top investigative authority in the United States, couldn’t find one bit of information about her. And, he reasoned, gladly finding a connection between his personal curiosity and his professional capacity, if she wasn’t a part of this investigation, why was she in the vice admiral’s office the night before? Why had she been privy to his findings from the data center break-in? Thinking about this only brought the discrepancies about her to light more sharply. He considered the Howards again. He didn’t expect to learn anything substantial, but it would be a start.
Movement at his office door caught his attention. Reilly and Sidney, his two best techs, hovered excitedly, with Ben behind them.
“We know what burned down the data center,” they said in unison.
“And we know how the bad guys found the security signal,” Sidney said, and Reilly added quickly, “But the USOMP helped with that.”
The floor assigned to Donovan’s teams in the imposing USFID building was silent again, though not entirely empty. It wasn’t nearly as late as the night before, and several of his investigators were busy wrapping up a previous case of his, which he’d all but completed when he was pulled to this one, and working on other open interagency investigations USFID-SIRT was in charge of. Donovan himself was sitting in his office, contemplating what he knew so far about the data center break-in, which was more than he had at the same time the day before. Not enough yet to reach a critical mass of information, which would allow him to begin to solve this case, but enough to bring in more of his past experience. He was also reviewing what the intelligence community knew about groups of the types he’d discussed with the IDSD liaison, unaffiliated groups that might have procured the type of expertise required to attack the data center and that had an interest in intra- or inter-nation disputes or some other reason to want the allies or specifically IDSD hurt. He was looking for the extraordinary, but so far was finding only the all too ordinary.
An incoming message took his eyes off the notes he was jotting down and to the desk screen. IDSD, Lieutenant Commander Nathan Walker. Donovan absently accessed the secure message, which included an orderly preliminary linked list of the information he had asked for. He began skimming through it—Ben’s team would later canvass every bit of this data and provide him with the key points—but then stopped and returned to the top, then went through the list again, slowly this time.
Every single document, photo or footage was automatically tagged by every person who had seen it. This was standard procedure, all the more so where confidential data was involved. Normally tags would be hidden, unless whoever was viewing the data wanted to see them. But USFID’s business was investigations, and so everyone who had clearance to see the data was automatically presented with the tags on the screen. Donovan had clearance.
And he could see each of the names of the people who had seen the data he had requested for his investigation, before he did.
The first two names were, logically, the heads of IDSD Intelligence and IDSD Security, the divisions that had prepared the information. The third was Vice Admiral Francis A. Scholes, head of IDSD Missions. The fifth was Lieutenant Commander Nathan Walker, IDSD-USFID liaison, as the last reviewer before the information was sent out.
The fourth was Lara Holsworth. No title, no rank, no position. Just Lara Holsworth.
Donovan fought a sudden urge to shoot someone.
He left his office a short while later. He couldn’t focus, and thought he’d better get out of there before one of his people got in his way. He wasn’t one to take his anger out on anyone, certainly not his own teams. He considered blowing off some steam in the training facility on the other side of USFID Plaza, but instead found himself getting into his car and heading home. Pulling into his driveway, he noticed the lights were on next door, on the ground floor. He started toward his own front door, then stopped and cursed under his breath. He skirted his house to the back and crossed to her back yard, then strode to the open patio doors. Unannounced and uncaring, he walked in.
She was sitting on a couch, sideways so that she was facing him. Her legs were comfortably tucked under her, and she was studying a small screen she was holding, her other hand toying absently with a glass of red wine. He had fully intended to stride in, but instead it took him a moment to realize he’d stopped at the open doors. She was just sitting there, relaxed, her dark
hair down on her shoulders, the soft, white sweater she was wearing open at the neck. She was breathtaking wasn’t the thought that passed through his mind but the feeling that pierced his entire body.
His anger flared, more powerful than before, his unwelcome reaction to her fueling it. She looked up and saw him, and her only visible reaction was a slight narrowing of her eyes.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked, not bothering to hide his rage.
She tilted her head slightly in question.
“You’re interfering with my investigation.”
“How so?” Her tone was infuriatingly indifferent.
“You have access to it, to what I’m doing, don’t you? Today you saw the information I requested from IDSD before I did.”
“I am IDSD.”
“You’re not part of my investigation.”
“You run the investigation, you don’t run IDSD. Or me, for that matter.” She had no idea what made her react this way. And in principle, he was right. In fact, he should never have known she was being updated about his investigation. Nathan was a good liaison, but perhaps he was too cooperative.
Donovan was furious. He was also finding it hard to control himself, which made him even angrier. He was used to being the one in control, and yet this woman was looking at him calmly, not even a little intimidated by his anger, completely impervious to his role in this high-profile investigation that had as its focus the organization she worked for. And he could swear he saw a glitter of something, amusement he thought, in her eyes as she watched him.
“Stay away from my investigation,” he said, his tone unmistakable, and turned to leave.
“Oh, by the way.”
Her quiet voice had Donovan turn back to her. She was looking, maddeningly calm, not at him but at the wine in her glass, swirling it lightly, the light bouncing off the reddish liquid reflected in those entrancing hazel eyes.
“The next time you decide to try to run a check on me”—she met his eyes with ice that matched his—“don’t.”
He hoped he hid his surprise as well as he thought he did. How the hell did she know? Saying nothing, he walked away.
Behind him, the ice in Lara’s eyes gave way to a worrying frown. From her own inquiries and from what she’d seen so far, he was relentless. And apparently the best.
She needed him to be.
Chapter Five
The old woman sighed and tried to think how she would go about doing this. Her frail form, hunched over a cane, began to bend down in a strenuous effort to retrieve the purse she had dropped. But she barely had a chance to move before someone picked it up and handed it to her, steadying her with his other hand. She looked up and smiled at the nice man who had helped her. “Why, thank you, young man.”
“You’re welcome,” he said with a kind smile.
Nice accent, she thought. Not too pronounced, but she was curious about that sort of thing, so she noticed. Not local, no. She tried to place it as she wobbled off, content with the knowledge that there were still such nice young men around. British? No, that did not fit. South African? She knew someone from South Africa once. No, not that, either. She continued to contemplate this, then forgot all about it when she met her friend down the street, at the entrance to a small mall.
The man watched her leave, then turned away, the smile disappearing, coldness taking its place in his eyes. Appearance is everything, he thought as he walked toward an unobtrusive one-story warehouse. Whitewashed, the high fence around it new, the narrow strip of concrete between the structure and the fence cleanly swept. Appearance, he thought again as he crossed it and stepped through the door, is certainly everything.
The heavy door closed and locked behind him. Had it not been him, an automatic security system would have electrocuted him as soon as he touched it. But then, had it not been him, he never would have made it past the seemingly innocent fence. This warehouse, the former supply center for a robotics company, was now the temporary base of operations of his group. It was disguised as a pharmaceutical research lab, which ensured that it being off-limits to anyone who was not supposed to be there would not seem odd. He snickered to himself. How easy it was to hide his activity under the claim of the secrecy medical research required, even in this day and age, when a lack of transparency was frowned upon for security reasons.
He passed through an inner door and scrutinized his surroundings. Behind thick soundproof, bulletproof glass ahead, the room that took up most of the floor was packed with guns. Most of his men were there, too. Training. Preparing. The others were maintaining the vehicles in the parking area to his left. To his right stood the tracking and jamming technology, idle now until it was called to serve him again. But what interested him most was this, the sight immediately before him. The hacker and the massive computing capability at his fingertips.
Working to decipher the data he and his men had stolen.
“It’s a bit too clever, I have to say,” Bill Reese, the supervisor in charge of the data center’s automated function and security at the USOMP, was saying. He shook his head, looking dejected. “This system was my pride and joy, and these guys reduced it to . . .” He tried in vain to find a word, then gave up. Donovan chalked it up to the fact that the man looked as if he hadn’t slept since the break-in. Which was most likely the case.
They were standing in the data center’s monitoring station, now ominously silent. Normally, Reese had explained, this room would be humming with incessant activity. “In the past weeks we even had reps here from the other data centers, and last week we were told our security system has been selected for implementation in all four of them. Now it won’t even be implemented in this one, when it’s rebuilt. I mean, look at us,” he said, throwing his hands up in despair.
Donovan knew where the sentiment was coming from. After the break-in, US Global Intelligence, the USOMP’s parent agency, clamped down on it, taking all data security protocols apart—all of them, not only the data center’s—to ensure no other sensitive information was at risk. Which was why even he had to wait until now to get the access he needed for his investigation. And getting to the monitoring station on this floor, into the USOMP building, in fact, he’d had to go through a number of stern agents who were not about to trust anyone anytime soon.
He couldn’t blame them. This incident, which had, as if matters weren’t already bad enough, finally leaked out, put quite a dent in the confidence in the ability of the United States to protect both its and its allies’ most sensitive data, and already there was talk about whether it should be the one to control the fifth data center, when it would be rebuilt. Which was why the pressure on USFID to solve this had now increased, in the hope that what the investigation found would take the hook out of the United States, or at least distribute the blame. And a quick resolution in itself would decisively show both the country’s enemies and its allies that no one could get away with attacking it. But then again, that was why he was here, receiving unlimited access to the most sensitive information about the data center—and the USOMP’s failure to protect it—even in the midst of a massive security shutdown.
He contemplated the idle equipment around him. “My techs tell me whoever did this took advantage of repairs.” Sidney and Reilly had explained it, but he wanted to hear it again directly from Reese.
“Well, not exactly repairs, not technically. See, this security system was entirely new, we had designed it especially for the data center. There is nothing like it. We originally installed it about . . . well, more than a year ago now. And the transition to it, from the previous system, was flawless. But after working with it for a while we decided to make some adjustments we’d made note of in the duration, and, while we’re at it, upgrade. Upgrades are always done, you see, always something new, learned, improved. Especially with a new system like this one. But the work on it caused some hitches, and between these, the upgrade and the original adjustments we’d meant to do, we had signal disruptions between
the mainframe here and the security system at the data center. It was just for a few weeks, not much longer, and we had the manned on-site security at the data center enhanced during that time. We were being careful, we . . .” His voice trailed off, and Donovan saw in his expression the renewed realization that careful had not been enough.
“See,” Reese continued in a subdued voice, “what we think happened is that these people, whoever they are, had managed to identify not the data center security signal itself but the disruptions in it. They then locked on to these disruptions and piggybacked on our repair warning signal back here, and into the mainframe on which the security system works . . . worked, and then they rode the security signal back to the data center. Then they just waited, undetected. They now had both ends of the signal and a clear path between the heart of the data center’s monitoring functions and its on-site security, and could jam the signal pretty much at will. They even managed to make it look like it was a malfunction.”
He rubbed his eyes in despair. “Stupid, stupid mistake. I should have kept the old security system working alongside the new one during the first year, then all I would have had to do was take the new system entirely offline, make all the changes and simulation-test it, then bring it back online at once, without any disruption, just like we did when we originally made the replacement. Then these guys never would have had a duration of disrupted signals to lock on to. And even if not, even if they’d already been watching the data center and had managed to lock on our taking the system offline and then reactivating it, since it would have been a flawless signal it would have given us a good chance of seeing discrepancies caused by their actions and catching them. As it was, we didn’t notice their disruptions among the ones we were causing. God, spend years creating a full-proof, self-sustaining data center and then its security system—our security system—of all things, is used to breach it.”
Oracle's Hunt Page 5
