Page 2 of Command and Control: GHOST Operative

“I’m not sure.” Elias, the head of my IT team, keeps pace with my long strides as we cut down the hall toward the room we call The Pit. “But he made it past the firewall.”

That stops me dead in my tracks. “What?”

“The firewall. He made it past the firewall.” Elias’s skin pales. “He was in before there was any sign it was happening.”

I begin to walk again, this time faster. “Where did he go from there?”

“That’s the strange thing.” Elias grabs the door to the large, circular room lined with tiers of workstations, and pulls it open. “Nowhere. We think he just left.”

Every eye in the room comes my way as we walk in. I head straight to the main desk at the sunken center of the barely lit room. Leaning down, I scan the screens lining Elias’s workspace. “Show me where you first saw evidence he was here.”

Elias swipes across the largest of the screens with one finger, pulling up lines of code before pointing to a single line. “Here.”

It’s impossible. “There’s no way anyone should be able to get into this system.”

And yet this man has done it—and done it without being seen.

“Print it off.” I walk to the printer and wait, snagging the paper as soon as it slides free. “There’s nowhere else he went?”

Elias shakes his head. “Not that we can find.”

“How long was he in there?” I hold my breath, hoping.

Elias gives me a slow smile. “Long enough.” His smile slips. “But we still can’t figure out what in the hell he’s doing.”

“I know what he’s doing.” And it’s both a little impressive and irritating as hell. “Double-check everything and make sure the firewall is still intact. And send me the numbers you got.” Rushing from The Pit, I don’t slow down until I’m back in my office, the door shut behind me.

Dropping to sit behind my desk, I push the bottle and glass I was so invested in earlier aside before sliding my laptop closer. Slipping on my readers, I scan the page Elias printed off.

A set of numbers are tucked neatly into the lines of code. They mimic the code around them, making them nearly impossible to find, but we’ve seen them before. It’s likely the only indication Elias’s team found that our repeat visitor is back.

And this time he’s managed to access our system.

Normally this kind of breach would result in an entire lockdown of GHOST. A complete scrub of all systems along with the design and application of a new, improved firewall. But this man isn’t trying to cause harm. If he was, it would already be done. Instead, after getting inside our system, he left only this single breadcrumb, inserted in a benign way.

Except he doesn’t seem to fully grasp just how skilled my team is. How quickly they can glean information like phone numbers and IP addresses.

Turning to the computer, I navigate through the screens, pulling up one of our most used programs before entering the series of numbers Elias’s team identified before our hacker could fully pull back.

The IP address that will bring me right to his doorstep.

In a few short breaths I have a location. A narrowed scope of where I’ll be flying to shortly.

But before the map can populate my computer goes black.

“Damn it.” Shoving back from the desk, I lean down to check the cord I regularly kick from the plug. I must have missed the power warning in my excitement to find this bastard.

But the plug is still secure in the outlet.

My eyes slowly lift to the screen. A pinpoint of light starts at the center, growing until it consumes the entirespace. Then it goes black again, the soft sound of an open audio line the only sign the computer’s still active.

“Hello, Vincent.”

My focus snaps to the camera at the top of the screen.

A light and lyrical laugh carries through the open line. “Worried I can see you?”

I waswrong. Our visitor isn’t a man.

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