“Well—yeah, software, I suppose.”
“Exactly. And what do we do with software used for national security?”
“We run risk assessments constantly, like any other software, though at a much higher level, to make sure there are no breaches. It’s part of what I did when I was—ah, before. Break in, then show them the faults. For a price.”
“And is there a particular company who might be responsible for these risk assessments?”
There was a sharp intake of breath. “Holy crap, Nicholas. Juno. It has to be, but you already figured that out, since Juno caters to all the high-end military and government installations, and has a number of private-sector contracts. They are the leader in the field of cyber-security.”
“Good, you agree with me. Here’s what I think. It’s not about Juno’s incompetence, no, I believe someone who worked the risk-assessment teams for all of the companies planted the bad code during the assessments. All Andy Tate had to do was upload Gunther Ansell’s code COE had purchased, and they were in.”
Adam whistled, long and low. “So someone left them keys to the back door. It makes sense.”
“Find out who it was for me, Adam. Look at all of Juno’s male employees thirty-five to fifty years old. I’m sending you a photo right now for comparison. Tear apart their financials. We’ll take care of the warrant on this end, but we need to find out who this man is, and find out now.”
“How did you get a photo of the man?”
“We have video from a café in Baltimore. Zahir Damari was meeting with him, and the man was passing him a tube that possibly had plans for Yorktown refinery inside, or plans for something else, we don’t know for sure. I’m willing to bet this is our guy and he works for Juno.”
“Got it.”
“Run the photo through their employee profile, Facebook page, everything. Cross-check against the risk assessment teams. Find out who this is.”
“Give me five minutes. You want to stay on the phone?”
Nicholas smiled at Mike. “I’m timing you. Go.”
It took Adam three minutes.
“Got him. His name is Woody Reading, works risk assessment out of the D.C. office. Sending you his particulars now.”
Mike watched Nicholas’s computer screen light up. “This has to be our mole,” she said. “You’re fast, Adam.”
Windows continued opening on the screen. Adam said, “Would you look at this—what an idiot. Guy has two houses, in Bethesda, no less, but only has enough money coming in from Juno to afford one of them. His financials are suspicious, Nicholas. You have everything I do now.”
“I see it all. This is great work, Adam. I’ll be in touch soon.”
“This was fun. And I am glad it’s all shaking out for us. Hey, am I your head minion? Direct all the other minions?”
“Go for it.” Nicholas hung up, grinned at Mike. She said, “You could have done that as fast as Adam.”
“Maybe, but my brain has been otherwise occupied. How much time until zero hour?”
“Four minutes. We’ve got our mole. Now all we have to do is tie the money to COE, which in turn ties to Zahir, and the Iranians and Hezbollah. Hard proof of their contract to assassinate the vice president. But we still don’t have Damari and we still don’t know about those bombs.”
“One problem at a time, Agent Caine. Now, since Woody Reading is local, we’ll have Sherlock send a team to grab him up, get him arrested and brought in. Zahir seems to like eliminating people he works with. We might be able to save this guy’s life.”
Mike shrugged. “Hopefully he’ll think being alive is better than being charged with high treason.”