Page 49 of Fox in Plain Sight

“Third door.”

Nick counted. At the third door, he stopped. There was only a number on it, no other indication of what lay behind it.

“Is it empty?” Nick asked, keeping his voice low.

“Yes. Infrared indicates no human inside. It’s a go.”

Nick pushed the door open and slipped in, easing it shut behind him. The humming noise in the room was created by the many computers lining one wall.

“I’m going silent,” he advised Yankee.

“Understood.”

Nick walked up to the first computer and touched the mouse. The login screen came on as expected. He pulled the paper Yankee had given him from his pocket and placed it next to the keyboard, then typed in the string of numbers and letters into the login and password area on the screen. Praying he was correct that this was Sheppard’s ghost login, he pressed the Enter key.

It only took a second for a blue desktop to appear. Welcome, Henry, it said in large letters before the writing faded into the background, and made way for several icons.

It wasn’t hard to navigate the area. Sheppard had been an organized man, keeping everything in its proper place.

Under a folder named Family, Nick found a folder simply named My Boys. For Sheppard, his Stargate agents had been his family.

For a brief instant, Nick’s heart clenched. Sheppard had truly been a father to him, and most likely to the other Stargate agents, too. To know that he had seen them as his sons, brought back the pain of losing him. But he had no time to wallow in that pain now.

Nick clicked on the folder.

Shock made him jerk back. The folder was empty.

“Shit!” he cursed.

“What’s wrong?” Yankee asked.

“Not now!”

Frantically, Nick searched the remainder of the folders. Empty, all of them!

“Fuck!” he cursed. “Somebody got here ahead of us! The files are all gone!”

“Shit!” Yankee ground out.

“Wait!” He’d just had an idea. “The recycle bin.” Maybe it hadn’t been emptied and the deleted files were still sitting in there.

Nick clicked on the icon. Empty, too.

“Fuck!” All this for nothing. He kicked against the desk, frustrated. “Somebody knew we’d be coming.”

“Get out of there!” Yankee ordered. “Now!”

“There must be another way,” Nick mumbled to himself. There had to be. He scanned all icons on the desktop once more.

“Damn it, Fox, you’ve gotta leave!”

Nick shook his head, when his eyes suddenly fell on an icon he’d ignored. “The backup system.”

“What?”

“All computers are backed up regularly. The backup files are kept for quite some time.” He only had to figure out where the backup files were kept.

Quickly, Nick opened the control panel and searched for the right area then scanned the information and found the file path he was looking for.