Page 44 of Deadly Hope
He glanced at Olivia, still perched on the settee but now watching them intently. The urge to move closer to her, to place himself between her and potential threats, surged through him.
The same knowledge reflected in his team’s faces. They weren’t dealing with ordinary criminals or even corporate espionage. This was something else. Something that made his combat-honed instincts scream danger.
Olivia stood, moving to join them at the command center. “You all look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she observed quietly. “Care to share with the class?”
Before Axel could answer, Kenji straightened in his chair. “Wait. What?”
23
“Someone’s upgrading our security,”Kenji said slowly, as if he didn’t believe the words. “While they’re inside our system.”
Olivia watched tension ripple through the man’s shoulders as he leaned closer to his screens. As a therapist, she’d learned to read micro-expressions, the subtle tells that revealed what people tried to hide. Right now, Kenji’s face showed pure bewilderment.
“That’s not possible,” Axel countered, but he didn’t sound convinced.
“Look.” Kenji’s screens filled with scrolling code that meant nothing to her, but the team’s reactions spoke volumes. “They’re closing backdoors we didn’t even know existed. Patching vulnerabilities. Adding layers of encryption specifically around ...” He glanced at her. “Around your files, Dr. Kane.”
She moved closer, drawn by the intensity of their focus. Axel shifted subtly, positioning himself at her shoulder. She’d noticed he did that—always keeping himself between her andpotential threats, even digital ones. The protectiveness should have felt stifling. Instead, it was oddly comforting.
“Two signatures,” Zara announced suddenly. “I’m seeing two distinct patterns. The first one’s aggressive—they’re hunting, gathering intel. But the second ...” She shook her head. “They’re following behind, strengthening everything the first one touches.”
“Government,” Griffin said quietly. “Deep operatives. Has to be. This level of sophistication ...”
“But which government?” Izzy asked the question Olivia was thinking. “And whose side are they on?”
Olivia studied the faces around her—these people who’d become her protectors. They all carried the same expression she’d seen countless times in her practice: the looks of people whose worldview was being fundamentally challenged.
“The first entity,” she said carefully, “they’re studying your security to break it. But the second one ... they’re using their access to improve it? Like they’re trying to protect us without revealing themselves.”
Axel turned to her, and something in his steel-blue eyes made her breath catch. “Not us,” he said softly. “You.”
The weight of that settled over her like a physical thing. More players in a game she still didn’t understand. More people who either wanted her dead or needed her alive, and she didn’t know which possibility frightened her more. “So you think there are two different breaches?”
Zara shook her head, never taking her eyes from her screens. “Doubtful. How would our rescuer manage to be online at the exact moment the baddies initiated a breach? My guess is we’re looking at a blue-hat event.”
Before Olivia could ask for a translation, Axel filled in the pieces. “Blue hat hackers work for the good guys. They’re thecrews organizations hire to test system security, and then repair it.”
“Only Knight Tactical didn’t hire anybody.” Ronan held up his phone. “I just checked with Jack Reese. No one authorized a test.”
Her hand found James’s compass in her pocket, its familiar edges grounding her. “Well,” she said, summoning a calm she didn’t feel, “at least we know my brother wasn’t paranoid. He was right—something bigger is going on here.”
The question was: How many more ghosts from her brother’s past were about to become very real threats in her present?
“And it all comes down to your brother’s warning. The photo,” Ronan said, breaking the tense silence. “This level of surveillance, the timing ... this Driscoll character is connected to this somehow.”
Olivia watched the name hit Axel like a physical blow, though he masked it quickly. She filed away that reaction for later analysis—professional habits died hard.
“Let me trace these security upgrades,” Zara suggested, already typing. “Maybe we can ID our guardian angel through their coding style.”
“Guardian angel or wolf in sheep’s clothing?” Griffin moved to the windows, checking sightlines with renewed intensity. “We need to update all firewalls. Now. Assume everything we’ve been doing is compromised.”
Kenji had pulled up what looked like organizational charts. “CIA, NSA, DIA ... Driscoll probably drifted through all of them. The hacker could be any of them. Or could be a private hire of Driscoll’s.”
Olivia forced herself to think clinically. “So we have one group hunting me, another apparently protecting me, and we can’t trust either of them.” She smiled wryly. “Sounds like half my couples’ therapy sessions.”
Nobody laughed. Instead, she caught them exchanging loaded glances, having one of those silent conversations that close-knit teams developed.
“We’re being squeezed,” Axel said finally. “Even if this latest infiltrator was a good guy, they clearly expect an attack from the other side. We’re caught between players who know our moves before we make them.” He was pacing again, energy coiled tight. “We can’t trust traditional channels, can’t risk reaching out to usual contacts ...”
