by Sweth Water
“This way, please,” Tina ushered them to the left side.
A steel gate was ahead of them. Tina entered the code and scanned her palm, it opened. Taking nodded to Gin, muttered something under his breath. Maybe a curse.
Three big screens loomed at them. Several keyboards and servers were placed at the right corner of the room. The temperature was quite low. If she were to work here, she wouldn’t survive for even few hours. Taking inhaled.
“This is the main screen,” Tina punched few buttons, “these are the codes that you need. All the information is on the mainframe. Call me if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Tina. Appreciate your help.” Taking said.
Tina left the room.
“Don’t let anyone enter the room except Tina and Summer.” Gin ordered the agents who came with her. “Taking, check the last day’s activity in the building. Anyone looking at the CCTVs or showing any jittering, we should consider them as suspects. I need the updates after every hour once I leave.”
He nodded. “We are considering what Tina said about the deceit?”
“Yes, we are. Before that I want to know how the ports were bugged. First check the origin of the email. Any IP address spoofing. Summer didn’t sound like a technical person. Check the Office’s system to confirm it. I will inform Madam President.”
“Give me few minutes. I will transfer the required data to our server. Will be easy to analyse.”
She dialled the number to the Office.
President Earl sighed after Gin told her everything. “Is it connected to yesterday’s incident?”
“I don’t think so. They are still at the Headquarters. Haven’t said anything that linked this to yesterday’s incident. We are still working on to find who sent them to the Department. I talked with Officer Baldwin; they are still interrogating them.”
“We need to be careful, Gin.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“RAAD should be called for the Operation Blackbuck if we failed here.”
“I can understand, ma’am. I hope it doesn’t come to that. We still have the time to stop this.”
“Keep me posted.” And there was a beep.
Gin sat on the chair near another big screen showing the officers who had access to the classified files. If it was an inside job, he could have taken anything. Most of the times all the documentation would be done after building the systems and put on the server. The server address she had. Her tech team might find a loophole if there was any. Many systems were handled by the private firms that the government trusted.
She told Taking to shut down some of the servers so that the attacker would not have any access to the important data. People are the real danger. I must be careful. Underestimating them will be a mistake.
She scanned the names of the officers, their origins, how long they had been working for, ages, their spouses, and their relatives. After flagging few people in their database, she checked all those names against the list of the officers working here. Nothing appeared on the screen.
In the next two hours Taking tried to bug all the secured ports on a dummy model. Not only it was impossible to hack into the system but trying to do that would raise an alarm in the server room. Two hours didn’t give anything but drained all the energy that he had.
He was frustrated. He asked the security staff of the Office about the email. They said that the email was in the ‘Sent’ folder. So, someone really used that system or somehow got the access.
Tina brought sandwiches for them. Taking didn’t have anything until Gin ordered him to eat. She knew how he worked and how hard it was to stop him.
Finding answers were difficult here. She didn’t want to waste time. After eating a sandwich, she left the building. Taking still there.
Her car started with one swift turn of the key. Her foot on the gas, she roved the streets around the building. Few people she met and talked with them. They seemed afraid. She didn’t tell them about her rank and agency. Some bogus ID she could have shown but thought better of it.
On the National Highway 97, nobody was there. She checked her GPS and found no traffic on the long-lasting road until it was meeting the other city. The specific road was deserted!? Why?
Her hand on the gun next to her seat, she steered the wheel to right, moving fast on the road. Some farms and barns popped up ten miles ahead. The stench of shit covered the whole road. It was so intense that she could die there. No man was there. Barns were open and pigs were pulverizing the fields.
The car was running like a beast. She cared less to look at the speedometer. Her eyes were on the road, scanning anything of humans. Not once the road was deserted. Even in the local festivals, people would be celebrating on the roads. Many of the presidential campaigns were held along this road because of its density of humans.
But today was a different day.
Peculiar day.
She checked her wristwatch; it was six o’clock. Evening. One hour and half before night. For more than thirty minutes she had been on the road. Her GPS showed the same distance as before. What was happening? She pulled over the vehicle and clambered out.
Some water she gulped from the bottle and coughed. The atmosphere was not good here. She smelled the burning flesh. Could have been a coincidence; few meters ahead a barn was torched down. She ignited the engine and drove towards it.
Her phone rang, and she stopped the car.
It was Taking.
“Yes?”
“I found something. Something very serious.”
“Listening.” Her eyes not leaving the barn. Who could have burned it? Didn’t make sense. Maybe some lunatic lost everything and burned it down? Or was there a purpose to do that?
She walked towards it.
“The motherboard was plugged with some sort of a stressing device. Signals were sent to other ports during the overload. It caused a severe damage to the board; I can smell the burning pieces. Will contact you once I have everything.”
“Wait,” Gin said, “don’t hang up. Be on the line. Do you have access to the F8 satellite?”
“Yes.”
“Check the traffic on the National Highway 97.”
“I am in the middle of finding the person who bugged the system, Gin!” Taking snapped.
“I know that because I put you there. Do as I say. No need to be under pressure.”
“Give me a minute.”
She heard the chair moving and pressing of some buttons, harshly. She waited patiently. Fumes were rising to the sky. The fire consumed everything. She felt the heat at thirty feet too. It’s quiet. Only burning and fumes. Nothing else.
“You have something for me?” Gin asked quickly. Losing the patience. Her eyes fixed at the fire.
“Give me a sec,” he cleared his throat, “this damned thing is moving too fast. Stay still, you stupid machine.”
She was inside the car, her foot on the gas, and hand on the gear.
“I got it,” Taking said. “Nobody has been there since morning. Some type of breaking it is showing on the satellite. Whoever wanted to take that route adopted the one going to the east side. 23rd Long Street.”
“I am not able to see any breaking here. I travelled most of the route.”
“You should have come across it after five miles from the city. And what are you doing there?”
“Will update you. Send me the latest change made on the route to my device. Tell no-one about your findings and where I am. Keep it to yourself. Top One should be briefed by me. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
She hung up the phone.
She adjusted the rear-view mirror and found a man in her car, a gun pointed at her head.
Before she could do anything, a bullet was fired.
Chapter
7
She turned her head and looked out of the window. Two men entered the office. If you call it an office. Chase hated this place the moment she came here. Its bricked walls and odd colours didn’t let h
er concentrate on the work. Her place was better than this zoo.
A man in his late twenties looked straight at her. He had black hair, handsome face, and six feet height. His height and body features were stunning. Other man was bald and short. Both looked cops, but they were not in the uniform. Maybe knew something about the attack and had the courage to tell the authorities without caring about their lives.
An officer knocked on the door.
“Come in,” she said.
“These officers are from the Headquarters. Looking for Agent Gin.”
“Thank you.”
And he left.
“Please have a seat. My name is Chase,” she forwarded her hand to their direction.
The handsome man shook her hand first. “I am Coal.”
“And I am Baldwin,” she smiled and sat on her chair. Baldwin continued. “Agent Gin called us a few hours back. Got stuck in the traffic and then ran into some trouble.”
“Yes, Officer. Alert Level has been raised to ten. Checking is going on. The patrol has been alerted. The President is planning to block all the roads connecting to other cities.”
“Yes, we were briefed in the local PD.”
“I thought you were from the Headquarters.”
“Yes. We were attacked at Coffee Home. One hostile is dead, and other escaped. The cops are pursuing him as we speak,” Coal said. “The Headquarters has been given the orders to work with Top One. We know RAAD has been involved too. So, we want to meet Agent Gin to discuss it.”
That’s why they looked spent and their clothes were dirty. “I am sorry, Officer Coal, she left hours ago. She said she would be back in a couple of hours. We are still waiting for her.”
“We contacted her. She said she would be here by night. Did she give any specific time when she would come back?”
“No, I can try her phone.”
Coal looked at Baldwin and nodded. “There will be no need of that. You know what Gin wanted to ask or give us? Any information?”
“She sent the objectives on our emails. She might have sent something on yours too. I will arrange two systems for you and the secured ports to login.”
“Staying here?”
“They have rooms on the fourth floor.” Chase adjusted her blonde hair and smiled.
“They?” It was Baldwin who asked.
“Yes. I am from the local PD. Working with Top One on this.”
“How your department got involved in this?” Even though Coal knew it very well but he asked anyway.
Chase kept her pen on the table, her hands on the arms of the chair. “Long story short. I arrested Agent Gin in the morning due to some misunderstanding. She didn’t have a choice to let me go without compromising the mission. So here I am.”
“Thank you, Chase. We will be in the room.” Baldwin shook hands with her and left.
Chase called Fin and told him to set up two systems in a cabin. She called Gin two times and no response came. She got Taking’s number from the records and he said he was doing something important and couldn’t talk.
She sat in the chair and sighed.
The live feed from the Headquarters was on the screen in front of her. Three people were talking with each other and no officer was in the room. They hadn’t done the audio connection yet. And the officers working in there were not known to her. She met Baldwin and Coal; they could answer the questions that she had.
These hackers had a bigger plan. Her experience was telling her to intervene as soon as possible. The Department had been breached. What was protected then? All the army plans they had there. A device they were looking? No, it was not the case. They were liars.
In a bad-shaped washroom, Coal washed his face. Some scratches he’d on his face. Before coming to the office, he’d the EMT checked the shards under his skin. He was safe. Some shots and pills they gave him and told him to rest. It’s not the time to take rest.
There was a mystery to solve.
Mystery of his wife’s death.
Baldwin put his weapons on the table, his back to the window. “Nice view from here. I wish we had a good view from our office.”
“You seem to ignore the walls and the roof.”
“Who cares what is inside when outside is beautiful.” Baldwin laughed. “Might have to stay here for few days. No clothes and all.”
“Thinking the same. Will go for it tomorrow.”
“And about the incident, Coal, if you don’t mind.” Baldwin stared at him.
“What about it?”
“The guy pointed the gun at you. Any idea why he would do that? Any connection to your wife?”
“No. I know my wife’s friends. And the face doesn’t look the one that I remember. If you insist, I can go through the photos that I have of her friends.” He sat on the bed. “Why you said that?”
“We are assuming your wife was killed. She must have known something. And people who wanted to keep the information to themselves thought you knew it too. These are only guesses. What you think?”
“You may be right. You brought the hard disk?”
“Yes.”
“We can check it. But I still believe she was not involved in something illegal. I knew her.”
“I understand, Coal. No other direction we are seeing now. Worth of taking a shot.”
They went down to the ground floor and were led to a cabin by the agents. That Chase’s cabin was directly opposite to theirs. A big curtain was hanging on the window. Baldwin locked the door and pulled the curtains together.
Coal chose the system on the right side, near the window. They sat at the same table. Baldwin attached the hard disk and booted up the system. A window popped up, asking for the credentials. An officer working at the Headquarters had the credentials that could be used in all the departments. The trick was that the system had to be connected through a secured VPN.
Coal logged in with his username and password.
Some files showed up and then Baldwin took the control.
“Right here, your wife’s name. Her number in the group. Again, it can be fabricated.”
“Didn’t you check that?”
“Had no time to do it. And then Gin called. I can send it to the Headquarters to verify.”
“No. Let’s go through the names first. The reason behind the fabrication must be solid; she was wife of a senior officer is not enough.”
“Enemies?”
“No. They killed her. It should have been me. I have considered the possibility. Any other familiar name you got?”
“So far, no. I scanned the first few names and there it was. I thought of checking the list against our database.”
“Won’t make any sense. My wife’s name won’t be there. It is something more than that, Baldwin,” Coal sat on the chair, relaxed. “Start it from the beginning. Again.”
“Last night, three people were arrested in the Department. Caught on the fourth floor by the security personnel.”
“Names of the security personnel?”
“Give me a minute,” Baldwin checked in the Blue Database – the database having the details of all the crime scenes. “Eight and Roach.”
“Were they debriefed?”
“Yes. It was not the usual thing. Breaking into the Department never happened before. They were on duty when the alarm went off.”
“We will have them at the Headquarters once we go from here. And?”
“The local PD was called. As it was related to the Department, they were sent to the Headquarters. Jo and I talked with them. They told what we wanted to hear, nothing more.” He sighed. “Someone from here asked for the live feed from the Headquarters. We can ask Jo to do it in your way.”
“Will be risky. Fog is there. Let the night pass. In the early morning we shall talk. Tell him to be there for the night shift. Take a day off after.”
“Fog will not let him do that. Both of us are here. He is the ranking officer after you.”
“Damn it.” Coal said bitterly. “How you
got the laptop and the hard disks?”
“They were carrying them. Didn’t try to destroy, or didn’t get the time. One of them was shot by the security guard.”
“I do not understand one thing here, Baldwin.”
“What?”
“How the hard disk that they had was not encrypted. The sensitive data revealing the names of all the people working against the government. That has been striking me since the beginning. They are not fools for sure.”
Baldwin was silent.
“Can it be a deception?” Coal asked.
“How?”
“The group might have known I would intervene if something like that showed up. So fabricated the information. And as we are trying to find the reason behind my wife’s death, they are planning something. Something bigger than that we do not know. The attack can be another deceit. And then the theory that you have.”
“Could be. Check your email; I will check mine. Chase said Gin sent some objectives over the email.”
Coal logged into his account and found one email from the address he never saw before. He downloaded the attachment.
1. You are bound to Top One now. Without my permission, you won’t risk anything.
2. Chase will be the third person after Taking that you can contact for any information.
3. Ask the Headquarters to mobilize the officers as soon as we get the confirmation from the President.
4. Collect whatever statistics you can. Talk with the arrested people. Might talk to you.
5. Martial law will be proposed soon in Venhoa.
At the end Gin was written. The situation was serious than he’d thought. It was not just about his wife’s murder, at least for others, which was never the case, martial law meant the involvement of the army. The country had been given to the army three times in the history. And hundreds of people died and thousands injured. What information did they want to have that led to this? He had no answer. Chase was the only link that he had now. That Taking he hadn’t met yet.
“Almost same points I have,” Baldwin gazed over Coal’s screen.
“Give me the F13 satellite view on my screen. Let’s start scanning the roads for any kind of problems.”
