Page 15 of Legacy's Destiny

Deacon narrowed his eyes at the officer. “When?”

“Immediately,” Echo replied.

He lifted an eyebrow and looked at her. “Why?”

She glanced at the officer, and he spoke. “Four days ago, a piece of hardware was stolen from our facilities in Virginia. Anofficer provided assistance, access, and intelligence to the Triad of the Serpent.”

Deacon sat back and stared at the officer. “So, we’re retrieving hardware?”

“No, not exactly.” Echo sat down. “Sir, do I have permission?”

“He has the clearance.” The man nodded.

“The device is a storage unit for our most sensitive material. In this case, the device contains the locations, cover aliases, and contact information for our undercover officers currently embedded in foreign countries. The host countries don’t know they’re there. These officers have been in a communications blackout, relying on periodic encrypted updates to indicate their safety and operational progress. The data on the device includes the last-known coordinates of these officers along with critical operational details needed to extract them. These coordinates are encoded in a way that requires decryption within a specific timeframe, or the information will delete itself, leaving the officers stranded in dangerous situations.”

Officer Flanagan interjected, “Echo’s expertise is needed to access the coordinates and extract actionable data immediately to avoid a fatal delay. Your team is there to protect her because these coordinates could mean life or death for our officers. If the data isn’t accessed immediately, these officers are effectively cut off, with a high chance of capture or death.”

Deacon frowned. “There isn’t any redundancy for this equipment?”

Officer Flanagan sighed and shook his head. “No, it was a single point of failure that Echo had warned us about, but …”

“I was ignored.” She lifted an eyebrow and stared at Officer Flanagan.

“She was,” he admitted.

“Why does she need to go? We can go in, recover it, and bring it out.”

Echo placed her hands on her hips. “We don’t have time for you to bring it out, and I have to be the one to open it. I created it, and it works on bio-locks. I’m one of three people who can unlock the device. If I don’t open it, the information will be wiped, and we won’t be able to reach the officers. That means the information will be lost if anyone tries to open it before we arrive.” She shook her head. The burden of what had happened was clearly on her shoulders. “It should never have been accessible.”

Flanagan agreed. “We’re making internal changes to ensure no more single points of failure. The rogue officer was cornered, and he shot himself rather than be taken. Before he died, he told the officers surrounding him the device was being taken to Laos, and we’ve connected money the officer received to the Triad.”

Deacon lifted an eyebrow. The Triad was the largest cartel in the area and responsible for a long line of money, death, destruction, and political turmoil. They’d fought the fuckers numerous times.

Deacon crossed his arms. “It’s a big country.”

Flanagan reached for a map lying beside him and unrolled it. “We’ve corroborated information on three camps that the Triad occupy.”

Echo leaned over with him and pointed to the locations on the map. “Here, here, and here.”

Deacon studied the map. He knew the country, and the problems of reaching any camps without detection were stacked against them. “Which one first?”

“This one.” Echo tapped the map and extended her hand. Flanagan gave her a manila envelope, and she withdrew several satellite images showing the camp and its setup.

After committing the photos to memory, he dropped them. Then he stood up and studied the map, asking, “And if this isn’t the camp?”

“We move on to the other camps.” She sighed. “My gut tells me this will be the camp. If our intelligence is accurate, it has the most infrastructure and a communications node. Selling and disseminating the information would be a priority for them. They don’t know they can’t hack the system. If they go past the fail safes and attempt to open it, the information is gone.”

“So, a calculated risk.” He could deal with that.

“Based on the best information we could obtain, yes.” Echo nodded.

He cocked his head and asked, “Why weren't we briefed yesterday if we’re working against the clock? We were all in country.”

Flanagan drew a deep breath. “We needed clearance to share this information with you, and coordinating the release took a while. As a matter of fact, I only received the final approval five minutes before you walked in the door. We’ve been attempting to place our own resources for the extraction, but we don’t have a team available.” Flanagan rubbed his head. “No organization likes to admit they’ve fucked up, but I agree, we’ve wasted valuable time.”

Deacon hated the fact that saving face took priority over saving lives, but honestly, it didn’t surprise him that any government agency would focus on reputation before repairing the fucking issue. He looked at Flanagan. “Logistics?”

“I’ve been in contact with Guardian without my organization’s knowledge. In my position, I knew what we needed, and Jason King and I have been coordinating the response. I’ll deal with any reprimand that may come my way over that. We have a transport aircraft on the tarmac waiting. My men will transport you and Echo to the plane.”

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