Deadly Little Secrets (13 page)

“Yeah, me too,” Pretzky admitted, spinning the blinds open so the curious could see Ana was okay. Pearson was hovering at the door. “Yeah?” Pretzky opened the door enough to ask the question.

“I know it's a bitch, but IT wants to come up, when you're ready. Want to talk to both of you, and me.”

Pretzky frowned. “Send 'em in. Tell Davis I said to get some drinks for everyone,” Pretzky said with a malicious grin. “He can take the orders when everyone gets here.”

Pearson's grin was equally feral. “Sure thing, boss.”

“She'll enjoy that,” Pretzky said, not looking at Ana. “I will too, come to think of it.”

Ana was too tired to censor the laugh that snorted out, or the weary comment. “Davis is a pus-ball.”

Pretzky snickered. There was no other way to describe the sound. “Yeah. Perfect description.”

She didn't move from her spot at the conference room window, but Pretzky added, in a more serious tone, “Here they come. You up for this, Burton?”

“Yeah. I'm good.” She wasn't, of course. Far from it. Her brain felt like mush. Her thoughts were running like gerbils on a wheel, and the gerbils were on crack, running like there was a world record at stake.

“Right. Suck it up. Here we go,” Pretzky muttered. “Agents, you know Agent Burton. Thanks, Pearson,” she said and nodded her approval to the woman who settled drinks and cups on the table. “Lay it out for us, Monroe,” she snapped. “What the hell happened, and how did anyone get around our security?”

With Pretzky on the attack, Ana let the conversation—mostly deflection of responsibility and rants about budget—flow around her. One comment finally caught her attention, and she spoke up.

“I caught five ISPs,” she interjected. Monroe, the IT guy, had said he only caught three.

“Five?” Monroe leaned forward, ass-covering forgotten in his interest in a geek problem. “How'd you see five? What were they? Here.” He shoved paper toward her with numbers scrawled on it. “Those were the ones I caught before they self-erased. What'd you get?”

Ana closed her eyes and pictured the screens flashing in front of her mind's eye. “This one, and this one, I saw. This one I didn't. Here's the other three I saw. She neatly printed the series of numbers on the sheet under his scratchings.

“Six then. Damn. That's a hell of a hacker. Outside the US too,” he said, and Ana nodded.

“What? Where?” Pretzky demanded, yanking the page around to look at it, as if she could determine that from the numbers.

“See this?” Monroe was all eager-teacher now. “This prefix? Yeah. That's Belgium, Antwerp maybe, or close. This one's somewhere in, uh…” He paused thinking.

“Turkey. Probably around Izmir, on the coast,” Ana said, recognizing the prefix. Monroe looked impressed.

“Cool. So, yeah, Turkey,” he continued, getting more excited. “This one here is in Canada. That's probably a bounce though. Most of the Canadian signatures are bounces 'cause not a lot of bad guys in Canada. Too cold, I guess,” he joked, snickering at whatever made that funny for him. He finally noticed they weren't laughing and said, “Yeah, well, here, this one, that's somewhere in the Balkans. We caught those a lot back when the US was active there, so I recognize it.”

“What about the other two?” Pretzky demanded.

“Don't know,” Monroe admitted immediately.

Everyone looked at Ana. “I don't recognize either of them. Monroe can track them though.” She put the ball squarely back in his court.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I can track them. But six. Wow. That's righteous.”

The other IT agent, silent up to this point, finally spoke. “I think one of those is Georgia, the country, not the state.”

“Russia?” Pretzky and Ana said together.

“Um, yeah, former Soviet state? Independent now,” the man said.

“Agent…” Pretzky waited for the IT guy to fill in his name. Monroe shot an elbow into his side.

“Oh, uh, Talmadge, sir. I mean ma'am.”

“Special Agent Pretzky,” Monroe hissed.

Talmadge blushed. “Um, sorry. New,” he muttered as if that explained everything.

“Yeah, he took Wade's place. You know, guy that went to Cisco, big bucks.”

Pretzky looked irritated. “No, I hadn't heard, but it has no bearing at the moment.” She paused for a moment. “Who's Perkins, by the way? He was up here before you came.”

Monroe looked confused, then irritated. “Oh, him. He's a programmer. Don't know why he came up. He might have thought he could help, I guess.”

“It doesn't matter, then.” Pretzky focused on the other man. “Well, Agent Talmadge, why do you say it's Georgia?” Pretzky demanded, and the habitual foot-tapping began. Ana wanted to roll her eyes, but it just took too much energy. She felt like she'd been run over.

“Um, it's got this series here?” he indicated the middle set of numbers. “That's usually um, one of the groups that operates in Georgia. They don't have their own satellite? So, um, they bounce off a particular one all the time. Kinda stupid, really.”

Monroe made as if to elbow him again, but Ana sat forward, because she'd decided it was better to cut these guys some slack. She needed them. “They're probably all bounces though, Special Agent Pretzky.” She used Pretzky's formal title in front of the geeks. “Anyone who's competent enough to hack us,
just
us and not the whole database? They're not going to be pinpointed by their ISP or satellite. Right, gentlemen?”

She directed the question to Monroe and Talmadge, wanting everyone to stop gawking at her. She just wanted to go home. Now.

She wanted to forget that someone had tried to put a bullet in her head. A cold feeling of dread crept over her again, and she could feel panic rising up to shake her.

“Burton? You okay?” Pretzky's sharp inquiry cut into her funk.

“Yeah, sure. I'm okay,” Ana said. “Just freakin' a bit over getting shot at. Sorry.”

“Shot at?”
Monroe squeaked. Talmadge looked appalled.

“Agent Burton was coming up to be debriefed about an incident that occurred as she pulled into the garage when she walked into this, this…” Pretzky stopped. Took a breath, and finally added, “SNAFU.”

Talmadge looked puzzled, so Monroe whispered, “I'll explain later. But it's a mess.”

Talmadge nodded, but looked at Ana with respect verging on awe. “Serious, dude. Glad you're okay.”

“Thanks.” Ana had to laugh at the simple sentiment. Somehow it was just the tonic to the incipient panic. “Me too.”

“Wow, into the breach, right?” Monroe was more the squirrelly, tell-me-the-details type, obviously. She could tell he was busting to ask. He flicked a glance at the frowning Pretzky, and instead said, “So you have a photographic memory? You got those ISPs.”

Ana nodded. “Pretty much. I've seen one of them before, the Turkish one, so I recognized the source code.”

“Source code?” Pretzky looked puzzled. “Part of that's a source code?”

Monroe was back to teacher mode. “Yeah, see the middle section here? Yeah, that's kinda like a country code, like we said. Satellite code. Pretty distinct. But this hacker bounced it probably, like Agent Burton said. You set up this pattern thing, beforehand, and then it takes your real ISP—computer identity code, you know?—and hides it behind all these others. Pretty cool.”

“Cool aside,” Pretzky's stern look repressed even Monroe's enthusiasm. “Can you track it?”

“Probably not.” Talmadge was the bucket of cold water on a growing spark. “Guy who did this? Real good. Sneaky. Trackin' it would mean lots of man-hours for probably nuthin' much. Hard to justify, right?”

Pretzky's sour grimace said it all. “Right. See if you can get anything, but don't spend more than twenty man-hours on it or the director will have my ass.”

“Got it.” Talmadge's reply was snappy, succinct.

“We'll patch the hole though, for sure,” Monroe said, shooting a look at Talmadge. “That's first priority. Gotta get you back up, right?”

“Immediately, but safely.”

“Right-o.” Monroe jumped up. Ana got the impression he didn't sit still much. “Thanks for the soda,” he said, grabbing two more as he scooted toward the door. Talmadge just nodded and followed.

“Mutt and Jeff?” Pretzky muttered as the two men left.

“More like Phineas and Ferb.” Pearson, heretofore silent, muttered the rejoinder.

“Who?”

Pearson looked embarrassed. “Kid show on Disney. Two brothers who build wild stuff all the time, get their sister in trouble. Uh, they're like that. Geeks. One talks, the other doesn't say much.”

“Got it,” Pretzky snapped. “So, ideas, next steps?”

“I'll boot up my personal, hook into the Wi-Fi. Check out the Net. Call in some favors if I need to,” Ana said.

“Keep IAD in the loop, Burton. They want to be apprised of everything going down. They don't like agents getting shot at under the watchful eye of our own security cameras. And if you got dead it would really piss them off.” She paced toward the wall, pivoted. “Pearson, you have your personal laptop with you too?”

Pearson nodded, crossed her arms. Ana hadn't known it was frowned upon to have your personal in the office until she'd been in two weeks and brought her computer every day. Pearson had obviously bucked the stricture too.

“Got Wi-Fi?”

“Yeah, I do, standard-issue three-G remote Wi-Fi device. What do you need?”

“Backup. Come to my office please and pull up whatever server and e-mail you use. We'll need to keep working. God,” she groaned. “This is going to take hours to sort out, and I didn't have time for this shit. I've got five reports due tomorrow.”

For the first time, Ana saw Pretzky as a person. A worker with a job, with reports, with someone she had to answer to. It was enlightening.

“Okay, let's move, Agents. Burton, you want to head out, or stay here?”

“Stay here, I guess. I don't have a car at the moment,” she said, shrugging off the immediate offers of a cab or help. “Really, I'd rather try to work. Do like IAD said, go through my communications over the last week and see if there was any warning of this. Anything.”

“You got any ideas right off the top?” Pearson asked, shooting her a speculative glance as they walked out of the conference room.

“Not a one. Wish to hell I did.”

The three women moved through the office, and all conversations ceased. Agents rolled out of their cubicles, away from their desks, to look at Pretzky, judge her mood.

“Davis, thanks for getting coffee and sodas,” Pretzky snapped. “Caldwell,” she barked at another agent. “Order in some lunch. The office will cover it, so get a list and call it in. Everyone, list files you need so IT can focus on getting you access for anything you've got heating up. They're cleaning things, making sure they've locked whatever door that hacker came through.” She took a breath, rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Also, I need all of you to go through anything you're working on. Make a list of hot spots that might have precipitated today's event. I want those lists by COB. The tech geeks need a place to start in backtracking this hacker, so if you're the key, we need to know it. All of this is gonna take time none of us has, so just suck it up and get it done.”

There was some muttering, but it quieted when Pretzky continued to stand there, obviously not finished. “Last thing—” She took a breath, let it whoosh out. “When you leave today, be careful and watch your backs. Agent Burton was fired upon as she entered the garage. It may be personal, but then again it may not. There are enough crazies out there who hate our guts because we work for the Agency. Random isn't out of the question, so stay sharp.”

Everyone gave assent, shooting her a respectful nod or glance. Caldwell hustled over with a pen and paper. “Stile's Deli okay with you?”

“Sure. Reuben. Chicken soup. Brownie. Pepsi.” Pretzky's lunch order was as clipped as the rest of her delivery.

“Got it. Agent Burton?” Ana and Pearson gave their orders. Caldwell moved to other people, which gave them all a chance to more naturally disperse to work.

“Huh,” Ana muttered, deciding Pretzky was smarter than she let on. Getting everyone involved in lunch or listing files took their minds off Ana, off the hacking. Focused them on something they could do, that they needed—lunch—and distracted the attention they'd all been focusing on Ana.

“What?” Pearson said without looking at her.

“Pretzky. Lunch was a good ploy.”

Pearson laughed. “Caught that? I didn't until about the third time she'd done it. Productivity in her unit's about the highest in the building. She brings that up every time someone gets pissy about the deli. She knows how to keep the drones at work.”

“I guess.” Ana was trying to figure out how to say something to Pearson, but the words were difficult. “Pearson…”

“I know. Forget it. We gotta cover each other, you know?”

Relieved, Ana nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Don't mention it.” She grinned. “Seriously.”

“Right. Enjoy hanging with Pretzky.” Ana felt just comfortable enough to tease.

“Bite me, Burton.” Pearson grinned as she said it, disappearing around the cubicle wall to retrieve her gear.

For her part, Ana dumped her bag on the desk and slumped into the chair. She hadn't even had time to unload her notes and files before her cell rang. She frowned over the number, one she didn't recognize.

“Hello?” Damn it, her voice was shaky.

“Ana? It's Gates. I wanted to—” He paused. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she lied. “I'm fine. How'd you get this number?”

He laughed. “Do you really want to know?”

Shaking her head, since the technology to strip the number on her cell was illegal, she declined. “No, really, I don't.”

“That was better. You sounded better when you laughed. Did something happen?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Agent Burton.” Gates switched to the more formal. “I may not know you well, but the woman who…chatted…with me on Friday night and traded barbs with my boss this morning doesn't answer the phone the way you did just now.” Someone must be listening for him to be so cagey, but it warmed her that he mentioned their call.

Ana sighed. She hated showing any weakness, but she'd already decided to call Gates, tell him about the incident in case it was connected to her meeting with Dav.

“Well,
Mister
Bromley.” Ana returned the favor of formality. “My car was targeted as I returned to the building, and our computers were hit by a hacker at exactly the same time. Think it might have anything to do with my visit this morning?”

“Targeted?” Gates latched onto the word. “What do you mean?”

Ana's gut clenched at the sharp worry in his voice. “Someone took a shot at me.”

“Damn it!” He cursed viciously. “Where? Any details? Wait,” he snapped before she could answer the first questions. “You got hacked too? Man, what a sucky day for you.”

“Yes to all of the above.” Admitting it made her feel a hundred years old. She could feel tears threatening again at the warmth of his sympathy. “I barely wrapped my mind around the shot when I walked into the hacking situation. It's been a hell of an afternoon.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. His velvety voice was warm and reassuring, which, if she'd been sharper, would probably have set off alarm bells. Or, her reaction to it would have, at least. As hot as he was, her reaction to him was out of proportion. She wanted to worry about it, but she was too tired. Instead, just for now, she simply appreciated it. “I'm sorry, Ana. How about a meal and a glass of wine?”

That did set off alarm bells. “Beg pardon?”

He laughed in that velvet voice, and once again, she could almost feel the sensuous sweep of his hand at her back, the whisper of his breath on her skin. “Just dinner, Ana. I'd like to get the details of your misadventure. The fact that you were…what did you call it? Targeted. Yes. Interesting terminology. The fact that you were targeted after you left here is a huge concern for me. On the hacking, were they aiming for your files, do you know? Or was it a random attack?”

“We don't know yet.” Ana let her head fall back onto the high-backed office chair. “No rhyme or reason to either. Or both. Not yet. There are enough issues that I'm embroiled in to keep IAD busy checking leads for a week.”

“They're already on it?” He sounded surprised.

“Yeah, because it's me. I've been in some trouble. That's why I'm on cold cases,” she admitted. “But, on the shot and the hack, it may not be me. Like I told IAD, there are a lot of people who drive a vehicle like mine. Any one of them could be the target. The hack? There are fifteen other agents working cases in this division, most of them active, unlike what I'm doing.” She closed her eyes, wishing she knew more, felt less. “Any one of their cases could have triggered the hack.”

“Hmmm. I'm not hearing a lot of conviction in your voice about those options.” He let silence fall between them for a moment. Then he used his sexy voice at its most persuasive. “I think it sounds like dinner's just the thing you need. Want me to pick you up at the building, or at home?”

“I'm sorry, what?” Had she agreed to dinner? She didn't remember agreeing.

“Dinner. A meal. A discussion. You did your homework, Ana,” he said. “You know what my specialty is. If you have any more info on the hack, I may be able to help. We can also run some probabilities between us, as to whether the
targeting
is related to Dav.”