Once Recker and Haley got the call, they came right back to the office. It’d been a full twenty-four hours since they were last there. They thought Jones would have things up and running sooner, if even only partially. Either the breach was worse than Jones thought it was, or he was being extra precautious. But on the flip side, at least Jones hadn’t sent out any SOS signals. Things hadn’t spiraled totally out of control yet.
When they stepped back inside the office, it looked a little cleaner than it had the previous day. It wasn’t yet back to normal, but there was at least room to walk around without stepping on something.
“So how are we looking?” Recker asked.
Jones was on a computer typing, but stopped and lifted his head to look at his partners. Instead of saying anything, though, he puffed his cheeks out and sighed. That was a pretty clear indication that it wasn’t going as well as anyone hoped.
“So you haven’t fixed it yet, I’m assuming?”
“That would be a great assumption,” Jones replied.
“I thought you said we were good and to come back?”
“No, I said I had a portion of the system up.”
Recker took his phone out and looked at his text messages. He flipped his phone around so Jones could see. It was a text message that Jones had sent him.
“We’re good for now. Come back in.”
“You literally said we were good,” Recker said.
“I said for now. At that point, I thought we were good. I’ve had a few complications since then.”
Recker tilted his head back and rolled his eyes as he looked up at the ceiling. Sensing his friend’s frustrations, Jones sought to reassure him that everything would be taken care of.
“I’m getting there.”
“Nowhere?” Recker asked.
“Not funny.”
Recker put his hands up. “What’s the damage?”
“Pardon?”
“Whoever got into the system? What’d they see, take, or get into?”
“It looks to be contained.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means it’s no longer a threat.”
“English,” Recker said. “Speak English.”
“There’s no virus, and nothing was taken.”
“So what was the point?”
Jones blew air through his mouth. “It appears the point was to put me on notice.”
“On notice? What do you mean by that?”
“It appears that I am the target.”
“Target of what?”
Jones waved at Recker and Haley to follow him to another computer. Jones quickly pulled up a small amount of text that was in the middle of a large block of code that was mostly gibberish to Recker.
Recker had problems finding the text. “What am I looking at?”
Jones sat down, then highlighted and enlarged the block of text that he wanted his friend to see.
“This is it.”
Recker and Haley started reading it.
“I’ve found you. I’ve been looking a long time. You’re very good at hiding. But there’s nothing you can do to hide yourself from me anymore. I’m coming.”
“I still don’t see anything that has your name on it,” Haley said.
Recker agreed. “I don’t either. Could still be any or all of us.”
“No,” Jones replied. “It’s me.”
“How you figure?”
“Because this block of text was surrounded by a wall of code that I had to break my way into.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning neither of you two would have the know-how to do such a thing.”
“Could still be for all of us,” Haley said.
“In order for that to happen, whoever did this would still have to know about me. In this city, there’s only a handful of people who know that. Fewer still, that would have the capability to contact me in this way.”
“You think it’s someone from your past?” Recker asked.
Jones shrugged. “That’s all that I can assume at this point.”
“Why would someone do that? NSA’s not looking for you anymore.”
“Not officially, anyway.”
“Someone who’s doing it off the books,” Haley said.
“And as we’ve mentioned previously, if it was someone from the CIA for either of you two, there are probably other alternatives they would use. Or if it’s some other criminal entity from the hundreds we’ve dealt with over the years, again, I can think of a dozen other ways to let you know instead of this.”
“That would bring up the question of why,” Recker said. “Why would someone be gunning for you after all these years?”
“That is the question, isn’t it?” Jones replied. “I’m afraid I don’t have an answer. Not right now.”
“What else did they get into?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“I’ve double-checked every computer, all my software, hardware, everything. There’s nothing else on there that shouldn’t be.”
Haley scratched the top of his head. “What sense does that make?”
“You mean, someone hacked into this system, left this message, then just left? Didn’t do anything else?”
Jones nodded. “That is correct.”
A puzzled look overcame Recker’s face. “You’re right, that makes no sense.”
“How did they get into the system in the first place?”
“Do you think you’d really understand, even if I told you?”
“Probably not, but go ahead anyway.”
“I’ll give you the shortened version. Some of the techniques I borrowed from the NSA in setting up our system in the first place, they were able to get in through a back door.”
“Is that supposed to be possible?”
“It’s technically necessary, but I can’t imagine a normal person, even one who’s extremely knowledgeable about computers, would know how to do it.”
“Again, leans to someone who used to work for the NSA,” Haley said. “Someone there would probably know how to do that.”
“And, they weren’t very careful in avoiding my detection system.”
“Which means?” Recker asked.
“That they wanted me to know that they got into the system, but wanted me to do a lot of work to find that message that they planted.”
“This sounds like it’s gonna be a big headache.”
Jones put his hands out. “I concur.”
“And you have no leads on who this person might be?”
“I can start tracing the route of the leak, but I am assuming it will lead nowhere.”
“But you can try.”
“I will try, yes.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Recker said.
“I doubt the person who was able to get into my system is going to be stupid enough to leave a bread trail leading back to them.”
“What about what they did leave? The message, the code, all that… anything that looks familiar, or can identify?”
Jones shook his head. “Nothing at first glance. I’ll dig into it, but it doesn’t appear so.”
“Looks like we’re batting zero so far.”
“That we are.”
“Well, you have any more good news for me?”
“I suppose you could call this good. I’ve started looking for your friend Diago. I got the email from him this morning. I’ve already got the camera system running.”
“How long will that take?” Haley asked.
“Depends on whether his story holds up or not. Plus, it’s only been running for an hour or so. I’ll know more later. He mentioned a couple other small things that might be able to help, so I’ve got to get those parameters set up as well. Assuming we actually get a hit on anything, depending on how long it takes to investigate, might be a few days. Maybe more. But in any case, it’s running.”
“Anything you need us to do on that front?”
“Not at the moment. We’ve just got to let the system do its part first.”
“Well, since you’ve got that handled, we’ll start knocking on some doors,” Recker said.
Jones didn’t get the meaning at first. “What doors?”
“You know I don’t like being reactive to things if we can get out in front of it.”
“I’m not sure what there is to be proactive about.”
Recker got out his phone and started typing text messages. “Tyrell and Malloy. Maybe they’ve heard something.”
“In regards to our situation? I highly doubt it.”
“Never know.”
“As we’ve inferred, do you really think this person is stupid enough to leave crumbs out on the street that lead back to him?”
“What if the person we’re looking for isn’t a mastermind with computers?” Recker said. “What if he’s the person behind it all, but he needs someone else to actually run it?”
“Then he’d be out there, looking around, asking about who might be best for the job,” Haley replied.
“This is all assuming he’s even in the city,” Jones said. “Which is far from a guarantee. He, or she, doesn’t need to be close by for this, you know.”
“I’m thinking that they are,” Recker said.
“Why?”
“They specifically mentioned they’re coming. That could be literally or figuratively. In any case, that doesn’t sound like someone who’s aiming to erase your hard drives from three-thousand miles away, does it? Sounds like someone who’s got an ax to grind, don’t you think?”
Jones adjusted his glasses. “Possibly.”
“So we’ll start with that. Maybe nobody knows anything. Maybe the person’s not even here. Yet. But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna just sit here and do nothing. If they’re coming for you… then I’m coming for them.”