“Destiny,” Destiny jumped hearing her name, but it was just her boss accompanied by a medium-sized woman with brown pixie hair. She’d seen her around base before but had never actually met her.
“Colonel Burns.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard by now we’ve had a breach. The source came from this room. This is Cora, she’s our lead computer analyst who created our firewalls.” He gave Cora a scathing glance out of the corner of his eye like it was her fault. Cora didn’t seem to notice. She just stared at Destiny like she knew her but didn’t know from where. “She needs to get on your computer to see if anything has been stolen.”
Her first instinct was to deny her. Destiny was protective of her work but knew she didn’t really have much choice. Colonel Burns was going to let Cora on her computer whether she wanted her to or not. “Of course.”
Destiny stood up but watched Cora like a hawk, making sure she wasn’t looking into anything she shouldn’t. Destiny had been deciphering messages from the Middle East for months. There was a lot of chatter going on that if the information fell into the wrong hands it could be deadly. She passed everything to the Colonel to handle, but she knew she was only able to decode half the messages. She was missing something big. Something that could turn out very deadly for the soldiers overseas, which was why she was so protective of her work.
“Everything looks fine on this one,” Cora announced standing up. Her violet eyes pierced into hers and Destiny gulped. “Nice firewalls,” she commented before moving onto the next computer station.
“For now this stays in this building. Nobody can know about this,” Colonel Burns warned before following Cora, not waiting for an answer.
Well, her day just got more interesting. She spent the rest of the morning re-enforcing her firewalls. Had this been a random attack or had they been looking for something specific. From time to time her thoughts drifted to Mike and wondered if he was affected by the attack but knew she couldn’t ask. Colonel Burns told her this stayed in the building. For the first time she hated all the secrets she had to keep.
Chapter 17
“Someone did what?” Mike roared.
“There’s no need to shout, we’re right here,” Aaron said from across the table, not looking up from his laptop.
The team had gathered in the war planning room standing around when Aaron’s phone went off like a mayday call. That had been twenty minutes ago. Then he casually dropped someone hacked into the computers on base like it was no big deal. It was a huge deal.
“How? Cora has all those firewalls. You and Abigail constantly monitor the base.”
“Whoever it is, they’re good. They didn’t leave any traces behind.” Aaron sounded impressed, whereas it scared the shit out of Mike. Aaron was their top computer guy. If he and Abigail couldn’t find who did this, no one could.
“Meaning?”
Aaron stopped typing on his computer to look at him. “Meaning I don’t know who it is or how to find them. Yet,” he finished under his breath.
If anyone could find who broke into their base, it would be Aaron.
“Would they have to be on base to do it or could it be remote?” Ben asked.
That wasn’t something he hadn’t thought about. That’s why Ben was their team lead. He strived under pressure. The more stressful the more focused Ben became. Mike just did what he was told.
“For what they needed? Local.”
“Can you tell what they got yet?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
Ben nodded and stood up going into commander mode. “This base is small enough. We’ll start with process of elimination. Liam, check with security forces at the gate to see if anyone requesting guest passes came in the past few days. Check to see if they noticed anyone leaving in the past thirty minutes, too.”
“Why the past few days?” Liam questioned. Mike wasn’t usually one to question orders, but he was curious, too.
“Because they would have needed to scope out the area. The communications office isn’t heavily guarded, but intel is a separate section of the building. The doors are fortified and you need an ID badge and retinal scanner to get in. Someone from the inside had to have helped them or been paid for that information.”
“Ben’s right,” Aaron added. “ Nothing in the communications area was touched. They struck straight at intel, which means they knew exactly where to go. That should help narrow down the search.”
“Aaron, have Abigail look into the employees in that building. See if any of them stick out.”
“Cora just said she finished in the building. She made a list of potentials she thinks are worth looking into.” Liam said showing his phone to Ben.
Mike peeked over his shoulder and gawked at one of the names on the list. Destiny. No, he didn’t believe it.
“Something you want to add?” Ben asked, everyone stared at Mike.
