“We have to get her in custody to find out more.”
“Or, I can hack all her personals and see what’s going on behind the curtain,” Sophie smiled.“Show her the real meaning of cyber intrusion.”
“There’s a Be On Lookout posted for her, and I’m working on a federal warrant for her house, office, computer, etcetera as we speak.”Marcella smiled back; it was more of a baring of teeth.“Let’s get you back to our computer lab where you can really do some damage.”
The helicopter banked, heading inland.Below them, the Big Island’s varied landscape spread out—black lava fields giving way to deep valleys, merging into rainforest as they left the dry areas behind.Soon they were streaking across the Pacific toward Oahu.
Sophie was grateful the wind was calm this early in the morning; she pressed her forehead against the window and watched for the telltale spume of whales, but none ever showed this time.
* * *
The helicopter toucheddown at the FBI’s rooftop on Oahu as the morning sun bathed Diamond Head fully in golden light.
Sophie headed straight downstairs for the FBI’s computer lab, familiar territory from her years there, Feirn trailing behind.Marcella peeled off to her office to brief Special Agent in Charge Waxman.
Sophie’s mind was already racing through the digital infiltration she’d need to execute.Upon entering the cool, sound baffled space with its dimly lit work bays, the familiar hum of servers and clicking of keyboards was a form of greeting.
She dropped into an ergonomic chair in an empty workstation and immediately dialed Armita.The line connected on the second ring.
“Armita, it’s Sophie.Calling from the FBI office.My phone is dead.”
“Sophie!Marcella reached me yesterday, said you were detained.Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, really.How were the children last night?”
“They’re good.Sean had a rough night again, but he settled around three a.m.I gave him some warm milk with honey, and it did the trick.”
Sophie’s chest tightened with regret that she wasn’t there, but relief too.Motherhood was full of ambivalence.“And Momi?”
“Drawing pictures of dolphins this morning before preschool.She wants to show them to you when you get home.”Armita took a breath, blew it out.“Sophie, are you safe?This case is worrying me.”
“It’s worrying me, too.I’m being careful, and Feirn is at my side.I'll try to be home for dinner.”
After ending the call, Sophie cracked her knuckles and got to work.The federal warrant for Yoshimura’s digital assets had come through while she was in the air; it was time to show the curator what a real cyber intrusion looked like.
Feirn dropped to the floor.He sat cross-legged beside Sophie in her computer bay, his back against the wall, and appeared to go to sleep.
Meanwhile Sophie’s fingers flew across the keyboard, exploiting a vulnerability in Yoshimura’s home router that she’d identified during her initial reconnaissance.Within minutes, she was inside the home’s network, tunneling to Yoshimura’s personal computer.
The woman had decent security—for an academic.But Sophie had cut her teeth infiltrating Russian crime syndicates and Chinese state hackers.Getting into Yoshimura’s cloud storage backup was child’s play.
“Come to mama,” she murmured as she accessed Yoshimura’s encrypted backup drives on her desktop.This took longer, but Sophie’s custom tools chewed steadily as she cloned the entire information cache.
The artifact database, when she got it open, was breathtaking in its scope.Hundreds of Native Hawaiian pieces had been catalogued with obsessive detail: provenance, current location, owner information, estimated value, and detailed security assessments of each owner’s home or storage facility.
“This isn’t just research,” Sophie murmured aloud.“It’s a shopping list.”
She forwarded the entire database to Marcella via the FBI’s cloud storage, then began cross-referencing the entries with the stolen items from the Bishop Museum.
Her phone buzzed with Marcella’s text:“Got it.Contacting all the owners on the database now to warn them.This is huge.”Then, a few minutes later,“Come upstairs to Waxman’s office at 3:00 p.m.for a briefing.”
Sophie continued digging, finding encrypted communications between Yoshimura and someone using the handle “Mainland Buyer.”The messages discussed shipment schedules, payment structures, and—Sophie’s blood chilled—“removing obstacles.”
She archived everything, creating redundant backups on the FBI’s secure server.This was evidence that could put Yoshimura, and any of the Ancient Ways members they could catch, away for a long time.
An hour later, Sophie’s eyes burned from screen glare and her shoulders ached from tension.She stood, stretching until her spine popped, and spoke in Thai.“Feirn, I need to hit something before we go to this FBI meeting.”
Her bodyguard looked up from his position on the floor.“What kind of something?”
