Sins of the Titanic (A James Acton Thriller, #13) (28 page)

“Hey,
what’s the idea?”

“Show me
your hand.”

The
entire room turned toward the two men, Dawson an imposing figure, Saunders
anything but.

Saunders
went pale, his body starting to tremble. “N-no.”

Dawson
squeezed slightly tighter. Not enough to hurt the man, simply to illustrate a
point. “I must insist.”

Saunders
tried to pull his arm away, but Dawson’s grip wasn’t to be broken.

Somebody
knocked on the bedroom door, McCarthy stepping toward the exchange.

“What’s
going on here?” he asked, looking at the terrified Saunders then the
dispassionate stare of Dawson.

“Is
there a problem?”

Dawson
looked to see Jones stepping out of the room, his eyes narrowing at the sight
of Dawson holding the wrist of his senior aide.

“Mr.
Saunders took two phones from the table.”

“I-is
that all this is about?” asked Saunders, his voice shaky. “I have two phones,
one for business, one for personal.”

“So do
I,” said someone else in the room.

“Me
too.”

Dawson
nodded, his hand still clamped on Saunders’ forearm. “I’m well aware of that.
Six of you have two cellphones each, all your numbers provided to the security detail
ahead of time. But Mr. Saunders only has one phone listed.”

“I’m
sure it’s just an oversight,” said Jones as he stepped toward his aide, his
wife holding the doorframe, her face stained with fresh tears.

“Of
course it is.” Saunders yanked again. “Let me go!”

Dawson
held out his other hand. “The phones, please.”

Saunders
looked over his shoulder at his boss. “Sir, please, tell him to let me go.”

Jones
looked at Dawson for a second then drew a deep breath. “Give him the phones,
Russ.”

Saunders’
jaw dropped, his eyes popping wide. “But sir!”

Jones
stepped forward, putting his hand on his aide’s shoulder. “Listen, these men
risked everything to save me tonight. I trust them and so should you. All they
want to do is check the phones. You know I trust you, I know you’ve got nothing
to hide. It’s just routine. Let them do their job.”

Saunders
didn’t seem convinced, his mouth closing, his eyes still wide.

With
fear.

This
guy’s definitely hiding something.

The
question was what. The man was married. Was he having an affair and keeping a
separate phone for it? Or was he secretly a Heisenberg, running a meth lab in
his spare time.

The
possibilities were endless, and regardless of where the truth lied, it was a
security breach.

“Come on
Russ, give him the phones.” Jones sounded a little more insistent this time,
his expression no longer bemused, but instead suggesting he was beginning to
think there was more going on here than an innocent oversight.

“Fine,”
muttered Saunders.

Dawson
let go of his grip and took the two phones, Saunders rubbing his wrist, clearly
in discomfort. Dawson looked at the phones, an iPhone and a Blackberry. “Which
is the phone you registered with us?”

“The
Blackberry. They’re more secure so we do all of our campaign business on them.
The iPhone is just my personal phone. Only my family has the number.”

Dawson
looked at the phones for a moment, trying to figure out what his gut was trying
to tell him. He held up the Blackberry. “So this is your business phone.”

“Yes.”

“And you
never receive business calls on this one?” He held up the iPhone.

“Never.”

“Then
why, sir, did you receive a phone call from Mr. Quaid on your iPhone earlier
today when we were coming back from the last speech of the day?”

Constitution Tower, New Orleans, Louisiana

Detective Isabelle Laprise entered the server room for the hi-tech
building, Ray Salinger behind her, dozens of racks of tech far beyond her understanding
hummed and flashed, the HVAC keeping the room uncomfortably chilly. She wrapped
her arms over her chest, concerned her body might betray her, and there no need
for the younger Salinger to get a cheap thrill.

“Where
are you guys?”

“Back
here, Detective.”

Isabelle
followed the voice to the back of the room, finding Randy and Lucas hammering
away at laptops and keyboards, it appearing they had their own computers jacked
into those belonging to the tower. The two were young. How young she wasn’t
sure, but if they were over twenty-five she’d be stunned, though it might just
be the way they carried themselves. These were geeks. Uber-dorks of the first
order, two who would fit perfectly into any episode of Big Bang Theory or the
nearest Comicon.

Which
was exactly what you wanted working your IT problems.

“What
have you found?”

“Oh,
they were hacked alright,” replied Randy, pointing at gibberish on the screen.

“Explain.”

“Well,
that conference room your guy said he was held in was booked all day according
to the building’s concierge service head, but now it’s showing it free all
afternoon and evening.”

“So
someone cancelled. What’s that tell us?”

“No,
dude, you don’t understand.” Lucas caught himself. “Sorry, Detective, umm,
dudette, umm.” He paused.

If
mankind’s survival depended upon this guy getting a date, we’d be screwed.

“Cancelled.
What don’t I understand?”

“Oh,
umm, yeah, well, it wasn’t cancelled from inside, the IP address is showing it
was somebody outside the building that did it.”

“So, I
can cancel meetings in Outlook using my phone. So what?”

“So this
booking wasn’t just cancelled, it was wiped from the record completely. There’s
no record of it ever having existed, and the IP address I’m pretty sure is spoofed.”

“Pretty
sure!” interrupted Randy. “Try absolutely. Unless our government is involved.”

Isabelle’s
eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean
the IP address that apparently did this belongs to the government.”

“Which
government?”

“Ours,
dude, in Washington.”

“I find
that hard to believe.”

“Exactly,
dude, which means it was probably spoofed. Made to look like it came from
Washington.”

Lucas
leaned back in his chair. “Whoa.”

Isabelle
gave Salinger a look, her eyes rolling slightly. “Whoa what?”

“Somebody
just hacked into the system.”

“Who?”

“I
dunno, but they’re pulling everything. Fast.”

“Can you
stop them?” asked Salinger, leaning forward.

“Yeah, I
guess. Easiest way is to cut the hardline.”

“No
cutting, can’t you just turn it off?” asked Isabelle.

“That’s
what I mean.” Randy reached for one of the nearby racks. “Want me to?”

“Can you
trace them?”

“Oh
yeah, dude, sure we can.”

“Then do
it. There’s nothing on here that we care about. And there’s no way this is a
coincidence.”

The
conversation quickly devolved into acronyms and insults as the two “men”
attacked their keyboards, each either in a race with the other, or somehow
collaborating, she not sure which, to trace the origin of whoever was trying to
tap the system.

“Whoa.”

It was
said in unison, all typing stopping at once.

“What?”

Randy
and Lucas both pointed.

Isabelle
was getting frustrated. “What the hell am I looking at? Who’s hacking the
system?”

“The
CIA.”

“What?
Another spoof?”

They
both shook their heads in synch, as if sharing a single brain.

“No, for
real this time.”

Isabelle
turned to Salinger. “What the hell is going on here?”

Suddenly
something changed on the screens that had the boys excited again.

“What’s
going on?”

“They’re
gone,” explained Lucas. “They’ve disconnected.”

“What
did they get?”

“Everything.”

“Meaning?”

“I mean
everything. They tapped every pipe coming into the building and just copied it
all.” Lucas shook his head, awe written all over his face. “These guys are
good.”

“The
best,” agreed Randy as he tentatively typed something, almost as if he were
afraid to touch anything. “And they cleaned up after themselves. If we weren’t
here when it happened, no one would have ever known.”

“And
you’re sure it’s CIA?”

“Yes.”
Randy paused. “Unless…”

“Unless
what?”

“Unless
they’ve got a mole.”

“Huh?”

“Someone
on the inside, using their hardware.” Randy shrugged. “I don’t know, I doubt
it, though you never know nowadays.”

Isabelle
frowned. “Well, that’s above my paygrade. I’ll mention it to the LT when we get
back to the station.” She nodded toward the screens. “Now you were going to
show us some security footage?”

“Oh
yeah! Almost forgot!” Randy hammered at the keyboard. “This is going to be so
mundane compared to what just happened.”

Sorry,
“dude”, but what just happened wasn’t exciting to most of us.

A video
appeared of the parking garage. “So they wiped all the cameras for the
elevators and the conference room floor for the entire time they were here,
which was less than half an hour apparently, but they forgot one.”

“Which
one?”

“Parking
garage, third level,” replied Lucas. He pointed at the screen. “See the angle?
You can actually see part of the second level through those concrete columns.
I’m guessing they figured they didn’t need to wipe anything below the second
level since they were never there.”

Five men
suddenly came into view.

“Do we
have audio?”

Randy
shook his head. “No, dude, this is all The Artist like.”

“Just
without the music!” laughed Lucas.

“Dude!”
laughed Randy, fist bumps exchanged.

Society
is doomed.

The men
left the frame. “Play it back.” Randy complied and Isabelle leaned forward,
peering at the screen. “The one in the middle is the kidnap victim that the
Secret Service rescued in the shootout. Mr. Quaid.”

“Yup,”
agreed Salinger.

“Play it
again.”

Keys
were hit.

Isabelle
stood up straight. “What does it look like he’s doing?”

Salinger
pursed his lips for a moment, then his eyebrows popped. “He’s arguing.”

Lucas
shook his head. “Dude’s got Hulk-sized cajones, man! And look at them, it’s
like they’re scared of him.”

Isabelle
wasn’t sure she agreed with that assessment, though she did agree with one
thing.

It took
massive balls to argue with four gunmen.

And why
did he seem completely unafraid?

JW Marriott Hotel, New Orleans

“One last time, what’s the password for the phone?”

Once
again Saunders refused to answer, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest,
as they had been for most of the half hour Special Agent in Charge McCarthy had
been interrogating him.

“This is
going to a lab as soon as we get back,” said McCarthy. “We’ll get into your
phone. All you’re doing is delaying things. And making things worse for
yourself.”

“What’s
going on in here?”

Dawson
turned to see Detective Isabelle Laprise in the doorway to the hall, her
partner behind her. She didn’t look pleased.

McCarthy
rose from his perch on the edge of a couch. “I’m interrogating a suspect. And
you are?”

“Detective
Laprise, NOPD.” She flashed her badge. “And
you
are?”

“Special
Agent in Charge McCarthy.”

“Has
this man been read his rights?”

“He’s
not under arrest.”

“Then
why are you interrogating him?”

“Because
he had an unauthorized cellphone and refuses to give us access to it.”