Page 67 of At the Crossroads

“The difference is our clients are banks. The stakes are astronomical. And if I’m right and Sergei Ivanov is behind this, taking me down might be the driving force for his plan.” Clay untents his fingers and rubs his palms over his head.

“Even if we find out the Russians, or rogue hackers, are behind this incursion, it doesn’t mean we’re any closer to finding out who the internal player is. No way to put pressure on anyone to tell us, either.” Metin’s hangdog expression at Clay’s words says it all.

Jarvis continues. “It’s not like we can grill the Russians. If they are government sanctioned, we end up in a huge diplomatic imbroglio. If they are rogue, it’s like the Wild West. The hackers can operate from anywhere.”

I sip my eighth or maybe eightieth cup of tea. “We have a couple of other options. One is to bring in the FBI and let them interrogate the staff, assuming they can screw more out of them than we can. Another is to make some educated guesses and see if internal questioning brings us any answers.”

Clay gives us a searchlight glare, his blue eyes icy. “Not a fan of bringing in the feds, so an internal investigation it is. If we are looking at people in your department, Max, who would you single out?”

I squint a bit, then slide the faxed report over to him. “Erik thinks it’s Troy Diamond. First, he thought the problem was sloppy coding, but now he agrees we’re looking at sabotage. He thinks the Russians puts Troy here as a mole.”

“You’re not convinced.” Clay’s voice is flat.

The bald statement startles me. “No-o-o-o.” I run my finger along the faux wood grain of the table. “Decorated ex-Navy, Cal Tech. He appears to like the work and the company. And he brought the problem to Erik’s attention. I wouldn’t say definitively he isn’t the perpetrator, but right now I’m not buying it.”

“Double bluff?” Clay’s voice is gruff. He glares around the table, then through the screen at JL and me. “I don’t like finger pointing.” He drinks some coffee. “Erik himself is another possibility.”

“Because he’s Russian?” JL’s eyebrows raise toward his hairline. “He’s been here almost since the beginning.”

Metin taps on the table. “His story about leaving Moscow checks out, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. If he’s a Russian agent, he’d have a convincing cover. I can ask some of my CIA contacts to recheck.”

“Okay, do it. Anyone else?”

“Almost anyone in the department could be a suspect, but that’s doubtful.” Jarvis chews on a pencil now. “We have two more reasonable possibilities. Amy Shelby has been very pushy about trying to work with me if there is a new build. That could be suspicious.”

We’ve all been squirming in our chairs. No one in this meeting is comfortable.

“Maybe she’s ambitious and looking for a promotion.”

My MI6 Spidey sense says no, but my obligation to fairness kicks in. “Could be. She has a thing going with Erik. She also has a chip on her shoulder, whines about being overlooked and underappreciated.” They can all tell I’m not convinced by my own argument. I soldier on. “And she complains we are a boy’s club. Maybe dissatisfaction is all it is.”

“Her dissatisfaction might make her more vulnerable to subversion. Perhaps it means she’s our mole.” Clay stands and spins his chair around. We watch, fascinated, as it makes three full rotations before slowing. He sits back down. “Worth checking her out, anyway.”

“We have a few other possibles,” I throw in. “Although I would leave out Michael Francis. He came in late when we realized we needed more help. He wasn’t originally on the team.”

“The Davids. Lorraine, Felix, Jarod, Tracy, Mary, and Bennett are also on the team.” Jarvis adds more layers. “I don’t think they have the skills, though. They are all competent, but I don’t think they can function at this level of sophistication without leaving an obvious trail.”

Metin rises and picks up her tablet. “We can put some guys on them for a few days. Watch where they go, who they meet, monitor their phones. Report back if any of them do something suspicious. We’ll scan their emails, texts, and social media accounts, too. Do you want to let Case know, JL? Or should I tell him?”

“You go ahead, Metin. It will be faster, and you can explain exactly what you need.”

She waves at the screen, pivots, and heads for the door, calling over her shoulder. “I have another meeting. Let me know if you need anything else.”

Clay raps on the table to grab her attention before she makes it out the door. “Metin, start this afternoon. We’ll do the internal interrogations on Monday. That will give us four days of surveillance. Elena set up the interviews—Erik, Amy, Troy. If we need to talk to others, we can set them up later. About an hour for each one, with discussion in between. If any of you have another commitment on Monday, reschedule it.”

I jerk my head up. “I’ll be in Scotland.”

Clay frowns. “Can you join securely from there?”

“Yes. I can connect via VPN from my pa rents’ house.”

“Fine.” He pushes back, the wheels of the chair scraping against the linoleum floor. “We’re done here. Thanks, Elena, Jarvis.” He turns off the screen.

I turn to JL, eyes narrowed. “I thought you were out sightseeing with Hillary.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Does this bother you?”

“No,” I tell him. “Curious.”

---