Athena Force 7-12

by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees

  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 opened 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.

  The screen blinked. Seventeen members were present in the chat room.

  Seventeen?

  She signed in quickly, using her usual fake e-mail address and Arabic ID for this chat group. She scanned through the discussion, a disjointed conversation about European soccer scores. Translating the coded phrases in her head based on what she’d figured out the last couple months, she stared in shock.

  Someone she’d never seen in this room before was giving this new group of people a crisp set of instructions.

  On how to kill Gabe Monihan.

  6:00 P.M.

  Diana read frantically through the posts, looking for key phrases that meant something entirely different than their surface meaning. There. A soccer score from the Bristol Capitols. That was a reference to Washington, D.C. A mention of a soccer game date a couple of weeks from now. She reversed the date and gaped—01-20. January 20. This person was ordering another hit on Gabe today? Her blood pressure lurched upward significantly.

  She flinched at a request for who was going to be at the upcoming game so they could get a block of tickets together. Four, no six people responded to that bit. A six-man team was volunteering to kill Gabe? Her blood pressure pounded up another few points.

  The chat host, a total stranger to this room called Disco-Duck, replied that he thought he could only get tickets for one or two guys. A bunch of people clamored to be the ones chosen to go. What kind of handle was DiscoDuck, anyway? She’d lay ten-to-one odds no teenager today had ever heard of the song from the 1970s by that name. Not a kid, then. Someone older. Probably was a teen or young adult in the seventies. That would put this guy in his fifties at the youngest.

  Had the mastermind behind the Q-group and Richard Dunst finally shown himself?

  Quickly, she opened another chat screen and prayed some of her hacker buddies were online. They were.

  She typed in, Hey guys. I need you to do another trace like you did this morning. This one’s possibly more important than the last one. Anyone up for it?

  A reply from a top-notch hacker who went by the handle, Fantasy Man, was forthcoming almost instantly. How could it be more important than the last batch? Those idiots were out to kill the new president. What’s more important than that?
>
  She typed back tersely, Finding the idiots’ boss.

  Fantasy Man retorted, Who are you, anyway? Why were you tracking down criminals for the FBI? Are you some sort of undercover agent or something?

  Crud. She’d worked for years establishing a cover with these guys, worming her way into the good graces of the best and most dangerous hackers on the East Coast. If she confessed to being Army Intelligence now she’d spook them off for sure. But they were also highly intelligent people. Would they smell a rat if she gave them anything less than the complete truth? Ultimately, if they turned their hacking skills on her, they’d find out everything there was to know about her, anyway. Heck, for all she knew, they already had. She sighed. She had no choice.

  She typed carefully, I’m not FBI. I’m not a cop, either. I’m a conspiracy theorist for the military.

  The cursor blinked steadily, winking at her for long seconds as she waited for a reply. C’mon, guys. Help her out here. She couldn’t do this alone.

  Finally the reply popped up. You’re sure you’re not a cop?

  Positive, she typed back immediately.

  Was that arrest scene real this morning, or did you stage it to make it look like you’re on our side?

  She typed in an abbreviation to indicate laughing. I’m better than that. If I’d wanted to stage a scenario to convince you I’m legit, I’d have done a whole lot better than those pathetic losers.

  Who were those guys who hauled you off?

  She didn’t have time to get into this. DiscoDuck could go offline at any moment. Army Intelligence. Long story. I managed to talk my way out of it. Hey, and thanks for getting those pictures to Owen Haas. He says thank you, too.

  Fantasy Man replied, Is that Haas guy really in the Secret Service?

  She smiled. These poor hackers were having a hard time wrapping their brains around the idea of having helped stop an assassination attempt on the President-elect. It went just enough against their principles to help the government that they weren’t sure they liked what she’d had them do. But, they also didn’t condone murder. It was a heck of a moral pickle for them to find themselves in. She grinned to herself. It was good for them.

  She typed rapidly, Look, I’ve found the guy who gives the orders to the Q-group. His handle is DiscoDuck, and he’s online right now. I’ve got to track down who he is. Immediately. Are you in?

  Another lengthy pause.

  Please, please, please play ball.

  And then Fantasy Man typed back, What server is he using?

  She sagged in relief over her keyboard and typed in the necessary information. In a matter of minutes, a half-dozen hackers had joined the hunt, circling in on their prey as a group. With so many hackers coming at him from so many directions at once, DiscoDuck didn’t stand a chance.

  But what was odd was the guy seemed to have taken no precautions to protect himself from this sort of attack. Apparently, he wasn’t overly familiar with the power of the Internet and what a good hacker could do with it.

  Just a couple of minutes into the hunt, Fantasy Man fired off a message that he’d found something. Diana headed to the Web address he specified to take a look. She frowned as lines of programming code scrolled down her screen. He’d run into a firewall, a barrier between the Internet and a private computer network. And it was a big, nasty firewall. As tough as anything she’d ever seen.

  The rest of the hackers joined them, and everyone began flinging their strongest, most creative protocols at the electronic security system. This was what hacking was all about. Except this firewall wasn’t going down without a fight. The server they were assaulting began throwing back counterhacking commands, and it turned into a pitched battle to defend her own computer while trying to break into the other guy’s.

  In desperation, she pulled out a couple of government protocols she’d been careful never to reveal to her hacker friends, since they were designed to get into the very systems these guys most loved to invade—government computer networks. Implacably, her special protocol chipped away at the firewall in front of her.

  The way her protocol was bulldozing through the layers of protection in this firewall, she’d almost guess this was a government network they were breaking into.

  And then she was in.

  She stared in stunned disbelief as a round logo popped up on her computer screen on a navy-blue background. Holy cow. The Central Intelligence Agency? DiscoDuck was operating from inside the CIA computer network?

  She typed furiously, trying to narrow down the search parameters. Maybe get a directorate within the CIA from which the e-mails were coming, or even capture the name of this operator. But her break-in must have triggered some sort of warning. Within a matter of seconds, DiscoDuck signed off, severing the connection to the Internet and her search.

  The other hackers reacted with varying degrees of disgust and dismay.

  She typed quickly,

  Hey, thanks anyway, guys. I owe you.

  Fantasy Man typed back dryly,

  Nah, that Monihan guy owes us. And we’re not going to let him forget it, either.

  Diana grinned. She’d relay that message to Gabe the next time she saw him.

  The other hackers backed away from the firewall, and she pretended to do the same, as well. Once they’d all cleared out, she opened up a file she’d never used before. It was written by an FBI computer programmer for the purpose of intercepting and opening e-mails when the Bureau did surveillance on members of the government who’d come under suspicion. She seriously was not supposed to have a copy of this program, and she’d never even hinted at its existence to her hacker buddies. They’d have a field day with it if they ever got their hands on it.

  She loaded the program and watched it run.

  It took a few minutes, but eventually, an e-mail log to Disco-Duck popped up on her screen. She gazed down through the mail headers of hundreds of e-mails dating back for nearly a year and nothing out of the ordinary caught her attention. Damn. She didn’t have time to open all these up and read them!

  The e-mail intercept program indicated that these were the nonencrypted files available. Would she like to see the encrypted messages, as well? She typed in an immediate yes command.

  This program didn’t decrypt the mails themselves, but she could at least look at the captions the authors had attached to their posts.

  Another long list of message titles scrolled down her screen. And immediately, something odd leaped out at her. The same word kept appearing, over and over. Safe. Safe? What the heck did that signify? Was this person involved in a safety program of some kind? Maybe it was a code name for a CIA operation DiscoDuck was involved in?

  But then she got that niggling feeling in the back of her head again that she was forgetting something important. She closed her eyes and wiped her mind blank. She let the word safe float across her mind’s eye. She visualized it in various fonts and scripts, trying to place it in the context of books, newspaper and magazine articles, or even on a computer screen.

  And suddenly it came to her where she’d seen it before. In small, unobtrusive print at the bottom of a title page in a book. Above the phrase, “The Society for the Advancement of Free Economies.” A California-based small press that had published several of Thomas Wolfe’s political and legal treatises. From what little she’d read of his deadly dull books, they professed nothing overly radical or alarming. He’d argued in the one book she’d managed to slog partway through that terror could only be effectively fought with terror and lawful societies would never defeat lawless societies, or something like that. Prophetic words a decade ago. And completely ignored, apparently, given recent past history. Could that be the same “S.A.F.E.” that DiscoDuck’s e-mail referred to?

  The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that she was on the right track. Safe wasn’t a word at all. It was an acronym for an organization or operation of some kind.

  She stared at her computer speculatively. So DiscoDuck and
this S.A.F.E. operation came out of the CIA, huh? Well, it made sense. Whoever was controlling Dunst might have known him from his CIA days. And the Q-group’s operation in Chicago had CIA training stamped all over it. For that matter, the break-in at the Old Town Oracle facility had classic CIA operation stamped all over it, too.

  Abruptly, she recalled Oracle’s analysis last night that indicated someone highly placed within the government was probably behind the attacks on Gabe. Was this the person she’d been searching for? She pulled up the list of names Oracle had generated of people in positions of power who might have had access to the information that had been passed on to Gabe’s attackers. Who on that list was in the CIA?

  Two names leaped out at her. Collin Scott, an assistant Director of Operations and…Joseph Lockworth. Surely not. Her brain rebelled against the idea of Gramps killing anyone. Except he’d been Director of the CIA. Of course, he’d ordered people killed on his watch. Why not order an incoming President killed?

  Darryl and his Cadillac from hell had picked her up immediately after she contacted her grandfather. After he’d offered her a ride in his private car. Could it be? Had her own grandfather set her up to be killed?

  She thought back to the times he’d bounced her on his knee, doing the same horsey-riding rhyme over and over for her. How he’d convinced her father to send her and Josie into the Athena Academy, which had probably saved both of them from ruined lives. How he’d come to visit them a couple of times a year, dropping in at the Academy without notice, pulling them out of their classes and taking them out to lunch at some outrageously expensive restaurant. He hadn’t replaced their mother, but he’d by golly kept a close eye on them and done whatever he could to help them after his daughter-in-law failed them.

  For that matter, most of the arguments she ever remembered Gramps having with Mom had to do with Josie and her. The one thing that had stuck in his craw was that Zoe would abandon her children. Gramps was a stickler for family taking care of family. That couldn’t all have been an act. It just couldn’t. He wouldn’t set up his own granddaughter to be kidnapped or murdered.