Recker pulled into the guard station. He left at six in the morning, making sure he got there in plenty of time. The last thing he needed was to miss the meeting because he got stuck in traffic.
“Name?”
“John Smith. I’m expected. Meeting with Jensen Fierbach.”
The guard looked at his sheet. He then started typing on a computer. He then gave a nod. “Go ahead. Main building. Just hit the lobby. Someone will meet you there.”
Smith took an ID lanyard and drove on through. After parking, he walked into the lobby of the main building. There was a woman standing there. Probably in her mid-thirties. She had business attire on; her left arm filled with a binder and notebooks, holding it against her body. She looked a little frazzled already. The sign of someone who was completely overworked, and probably didn’t love her job.
Smith wasn’t sure if the woman was waiting for her, but it appeared she was looking for someone, as she kept watching the door, though she also kept looking at her phone in her right hand. He walked right up to her.
“Hi. There’s supposed to be someone waiting for me. Can you tell me where I should be going?”
Despite looking overworked, the woman managed to plaster on a smile. She seemed friendly enough. “And who are you?”
“John Smith.”
“Well, I guess we both found who we’re looking for.” The woman quickly stuffed her phone into the pocket of her pants, then stuck her hand out to greet her visitor.
Recker put his hand in hers. “Pleasure.”
“So, you’re here to see Jensen?”
Recker nodded. “That’s right.”
“Well, I’m sorry to say he won’t be able to meet with you today. Something came up.”
Recker’s face quickly turned from hopeful to disappointed. He was trying not to let it turn to anger. “What?”
“But, all hope’s not lost. That’s why I’m here. I’m completely aware of the situation… well, as much as I can be, I guess, after just learning about it thirty minutes ago.” Now she was the one who didn’t seem pleased. “Just follow me to a conference room and we can go over everything.”
Recker faked a smile, and started following the woman, even though he wasn’t sure how much good this was going to do. He didn’t mean any disrespect, but it felt like he was being pushed on to a secretary or something. As they walked, Recker tried to get a little more information out of the woman so he could see what he was dealing with.
“So you work with Fierbach a lot?”
“You could say that.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t even get your name.”
The woman turned her head and smiled. “Oh, it’s Maggie.”
“You get shoved off on things at the last minute often?”
She grinned. “It shows, huh?”
“Just a little.”
“Don’t worry. I’m just as qualified as he is to help you. You’re CIA, right?”
“Shows, huh?”
Maggie laughed. “Just a little. Plus, I saw in the notes where you were coming from.”
“Hope you don’t hold it against me.”
Maggie chuckled again. “You’ve got more of a sense of humor than the other agents I’ve met from your agency.”
“Yeah, well, I’m kind of considered a rebel, I guess.”
They continued walking down a long hallway before stopping at an elevator. Once the doors opened, they waited a few moments as half a dozen other people got off. Then they got on. Maggie pushed the button for the third floor. A few more people got on, pushing them to the back of the elevator.
“So how big of a situation are we dealing with?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Recker answered. “Could be isolated. Could be bigger. One thing I’m pretty sure of is that the suspect is someone that used to work for this agency.”
Maggie gave him a look. It was never a pleasant thing to hear when someone turned their backs on the agency they swore an oath to. Once they reached the third floor, they got off, and walked down another long hallway. They eventually reached a room on their left. Nothing but glass windows. Maggie swiped her badge and the glass door unlocked. They walked in and sat down at a round table that was big enough for six people.
Maggie sorted through the pile in front of her, putting her binder to the left, a couple of notebooks to her right, some file folders on top of that, and a white legal pad in front of her to take notes.
“So what can you tell me about what we’re looking for?”
Recker shrugged. “Not much. Nothing, really.”
Maggie had her head down, ready to take notes. She looked up at him, confused. “You don’t know what we’re looking for?”
“Not really.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
Recker pointed to the binder and files she had in front of her. “Did you get a chance to look at any of that stuff?”
“Well, uh, no, not really. Like I said, I was just informed of this about half an hour ago.”
“OK. So I’ll tell you the situation. I’ve been working with an ex-NSA agent. He left under sketchy circumstances some years ago. Anyway, we recruited him to help us with a classified project.”
“What project?”
“Didn’t I just say it’s classified? What I can tell you is that we’re after an extremely dangerous international gang that’s got its toes in just about everything. Drugs, guns, prostitution, gambling, everything. We’re talking about an organization with revenues of at least a billion dollars a year. At least. And there are some who think that’s quite conservative. In any case, their operation is growing.”
“Understand so far.”
“Our guy is helping us to make tremendous inroads into their computer systems. We’ve got an in. And we’re starting to make some progress in tracking some of their runners. We need him.”
“OK?”
“He informed us a few days ago that someone hacked him,” Recker said. “We’ve tried to get a handle on it from our end, but so far we’ve been unable to get a read on whoever this is. He’s very, very good. He then called our guy, and threatened that he was going to kill him in a week.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, so not pleasant. Anyway, he mentioned after he killed our guy that he was going to take out five more people who he believed wronged him somehow at this agency.”
“He specifically mentioned us?” Maggie asked.
“Well, not in so many words, but we believe that’s the case.”
“Why?”
“Our guy’s been with us for several years now. What else would it be?”
“Maybe some of the people you’re going up against?”
Recker shook his head. “Not possible.”
“Why not?”
“He said they’re not sophisticated enough. He’s employing techniques that he said he learned by working here. Nobody else would know how to beat them except someone else that also worked here.”
Maggie rubbed her forehead. “OK, so, um, are there any clues or leads as to who this person is?”
“No. That’s why I’m here. To figure that out.”
“I mean, it’s going to be almost impossible to learn this person’s identity without a lead or two. What about the phone call?”
“Used burner phones,” Recker said. “Not traceable. Tried that already.”
“You said this person hacked into your guy’s system. What about reverse hacking?”
“Tried that too. Led nowhere.”
“Look, obviously whoever this is has a beef with my guy. I just want to go through his personnel record, see if we can come up with something.”
“Still a longshot.”
“Maybe so.” Recker pointed to the files again. “Is one of those his?”
“Yes. I didn’t really get a chance to go over it yet.” Maggie grabbed two folders, sliding one of them over to Recker. “There’s a copy for each of us.”
“I mean, if this person’s successful in taking my guy out first, then sets his sight on a few more of yours, this thing’s gonna get ugly really fast.”
“I don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
“There’s a list of projects that he worked for. Let’s write down those projects, and everyone else who also worked on those.”
“Here,” Maggie said, sliding over a notepad and a pen. “You might need those.”
They immediately started writing down everything that Jones had been associated with in his time at the NSA. After a short time, Maggie left the room to get her laptop. They were going to need it to check out what some of those projects entailed. She brought it back, along with a coffee for each of them.
“Here,” she said, setting it down in front of Recker. “Figured we might need this. Seems like we might be here a while.”
As Recker continued looking through the files, he tried to find out more about his host. “So what’s your role here? Fierbach’s assistant?”
“No, I guess I’m what you call a liaison officer. I help coordinate projects between various government agencies.”
“So you get dumped on quite a bit.”
Maggie laughed. “Yeah, I guess I do. I’m pretty much used to it by now.”
“So Fierbach took a look at this and figured it was going to take some time and didn’t want to deal with it, so he passed it along to you.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s how it works.”
They worked for several hours, finding all the names that had worked with Jones at one point. It was a rather lengthy list. There were over two hundred names.
“Is it a safe assumption that whoever’s behind this isn’t currently working for us?”
“I’m not sure anything’s a safe assumption,” Recker answered. “But I could see the logic in it.”
“If they were still employed, why start now? If you were going to do it, why not do it last year? Or the year before? Why not?”
“Maybe they just figured out where he was?”
Maggie shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. If you’ve got the knowledge to do this, I doubt it just came to them recently. They probably would’ve known how to do this a while ago.”
“Possibly. I don’t know if we can say that with certainty, though.”
“Another thing, most of our people who can do this kind of thing are incredibly busy. I doubt after being on a computer all day here, they’re going home and hacking into someone else’s system. They have personal lives too.”
“Do they?”
Maggie grinned. “Well, some of them.”
“So you’re thinking of someone who’s no longer employed here?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Let me type in this list of names and see what we come up with.”
It took some time, but Maggie eventually inputted all two hundred names. She then hit a few more buttons to get the result she was looking for. Her eyes widened once the result came back.
“Oh, boy.”
“What?” Recker asked.
“Not as easy as I was hoping for.”
“Why not?”
“Out of those two hundred, ninety are no longer working for us.”
Recker closed his eyes and slapped his hand on the table.
“That’s OK, though,” Maggie said.
“It is?”
“Sure. Same thing still applies. Let’s see how many of these people have left in the last year.”
“Why is that significant?”
“It’s the same principle. Whoever’s left in the last year might have a lot more time on their hands.”
Recker scrunched his face together. He wasn’t arguing, but he also wasn’t sure he agreed with that assessment. Still, he was willing to see where it took them. Maggie hit a few more keys on her laptop. After a few more seconds, they had their results. She stuck her arms out wide.
“And there we go. Only six have left within the last year.”
Recker looked at the screen and sighed. He still wasn’t sure he bought this idea.
“So let’s start looking into these six and see where it goes from here.”
They started checking the six names to see when exactly they left, and where they were working now. They were assuming the person they were looking for did not have a current employer. They felt that whoever was behind this wouldn’t have the time. Whatever they were planning for Jones seemed like a full-time job in itself. It was dangerous to make any assumptions, though, based on how little they actually knew.
They each took three of the names and started doing a background dive to find out as much as they could about them. To their dismay, they were all currently employed. And they all had families. They couldn’t find anything in the records of the six men to indicate they had any involvement with what was happening to Jones.
“Guess we have to look into the other eighty-four,” Maggie said.
Recker rubbed his forehead. “This is gonna take forever. We need more people on this.”
Maggie leaned back in her chair, staring at the remaining names. She agreed. “I can pull a few more people on this.”
Recker sat there, barely moving, his hand over his mouth, deep in thought. Maggie glanced over at him, and could tell he had something on his mind.
“What is it?”
Recker’s eyes shifted to look at her. He then took his hand off his mouth and cleared his throat. “I just had a thought.”
“Might as well share.”
“What if the guy we’re after has falsified his info?”
“Falsified it in what way?”
“In any way,” Recker replied. “I mean, wouldn’t that make sense? If this person’s good enough to hack his way into my guy’s system, he’s probably smart enough to know we’d probably get to this step, wouldn’t he? He’d know we’d look for him here.”
Maggie nodded, understanding where he was going with this. “So he would cover up his tracks since he left here. Make it look like he was just like anybody else. Maybe a new job, family, all that.”
“He’s probably been setting this up for a while. I doubt he just rolled out of bed the other day and decided to do this on a whim.”
Maggie leaned her head down and scratched the top of it. “That means we’re gonna have to dig a lot deeper. A lot deeper.”
“I think that’s likely. Whoever this person is has probably had a lot of time to cover themselves.”
“I’m gonna have to pull in a lot more people. Put more resources into this.”
“Can you do that?”
Maggie smiled. “I can do just about anything. But this is going to take more than just you and me casually checking a bunch of names. We gotta do a deep dive. That’s going to take time.”
“How much time?” Recker asked. “We’re not working with a lot to begin with.”
“Probably a few days, at least.”
Recker folded his arms and nodded. He wasn’t thrilled with the possibility of having to wait, but he understood things like this took time. They weren’t dealing with some run-of-the-mill criminal here. Whoever was behind this was intelligent, and calculating. It wasn’t going to come easily.
“OK.” Recker then gave her the number of his new burner phone. “Can you call me if you find out something?”
Maggie smiled at him, then shook his hand. “Don’t worry. I will.”
“Remember, there’s a lot on the line here.”
“I know that. You can trust me. I know that’s a line people in our business say a lot and don’t mean, but you really can.”
“I don’t really have any other choice, do I?”
“You could turn around and forget it.”
Recker shook his head. “No, I can’t really do that. I guess I’m just gonna have to trust you, then.”
“We’ll find something. I promise. We’ll find this guy. You have my word.”