Adam sighed. “That’s the bad news, Nicholas. Until twelve hours ago, they were in Brooklyn. But now? I don’t know. They’re offline. There hasn’t been a peep on any of their IPs, not since the cyber-attack began. I’ve been sending feelers everywhere I know, but so are half the hackers in the U.S., looking to party along. COE went dark after the attack, and there’s nothing else I can do until they come back online, so I can’t get in if they’re not answering the door.
“But I do have something you’ll like. I found an e-mail generated out of one of their known IP addresses to a guy at a brokerage firm on Wall Street by the name of Porter Wallace. Wallace runs a couple of major hedge funds and is young, really young, to have so much power. He’s even been written up in The Wall Street Journal a few times. I can’t get into his system without an epic hack, and I’m juggling five searches as it is. I’ve sent you all the information I’ve found. You have a lot of manpower there. If your onsite team can start taking apart the data—”
“I will set them to it immediately.”
“Good, because there’s a possibility we can find a trace from earlier to tell us where they were headed next. Right now I can find no rhyme or reason to their targets.”
“What about the targets themselves? There must be a reason COE attacked the places they did. It takes too much time and effort and coordination to set the bombs, like getting plant plans to know where to set the bombs, like at Bayway, with this guy Larry Reeves. There has to be a tie-in. Find it for me, Adam.”
“I’m working as fast as I can. I’ll keep you updated.” And he was gone.
46
PAWN TAKES B6
Mike said in a friendly voice to Craig Swanson, “You move one step and I’ll flatten you.”
“I’m not budging,” Swanson said. “Hey, maybe you want to talk about this, maybe—”
Mike turned her back to him, said to Ben, “Whatever Adam’s telling Nicholas, it’s making him glow, so that means we’re getting some needed answers.” She shot a look at Swanson, who was very gently wiping the blood off his teeth, pushing them to see if they were loose. “And now we’ve got the CIA involved. I’ve got to call Mr. Zachery, see if he knows what this is all about.”
Ben looked over at Swanson. “Seems to me you’re safe from the CIA bozo, so I’ll head back to the office and see what’s happening. Work with Gray. The code he and Nicholas wrote to stop the cyber-attack last night was impressive. Gray’s got his team following up on it, patching all the remaining holes and working with the IT guys at the companies hit to get them back up and running. From what I heard, the damage could have been exceptionally severe, though I don’t think they’re letting the news out yet. If he and Nicholas hadn’t stepped in, we’d be facing a whole different issue. See you later.”
Once Ben had climbed into the elevator and was off, Mike looked over at Swanson again. He was sitting on the ground next to his Suburban, his arms clasped around his knees. He looked up. “Can I have my cell? I need to call Melody.”
“No. Well, maybe, if you tell me why you were planning on leaving a tactical vehicle full of weapons in an unsecured garage. This is SOP for the CIA?”
“No. I was going to unload shortly. I came to say hello to Melody.”
“Love life before work, then?”
Swanson shook his head at her. “You Feebs are so uptight. Surely you think those Doc Martens of hers are hot.”
“If I were your boss, Mr. Swanson, I’d pound your head with those Doc Martens.”
“Can I use my cell now?”
“No. Tell me how well you know Vanessa Grace?”
Swanson shrugged. “Like I told you, she’s the boss’s niece. I’ve met her a couple of times, but I don’t know her all that well. It’s not like we have asset undercover mixers. CIA’s not a sorority.”
“According to a witness, she was injured last night. What happened? Why were you sent in to retrieve her?”
“My boss called and asked me to grab her up. I did as he requested.”
“But you didn’t take her to the hospital, and she was badly injured. Why?”