Chapter 17

“Sinclair, what are you doing about our problem?” The Senator asked as the two men sat at a private table in an exclusive country club on the outskirts of Washington. It was their preferred meeting spot since no reporters or nosey staff could enter the club or get close enough to overhear a conversation. At the same time, the coffee, and pastries they had before them were excellent.

“My people are chasing the source. We’re closing in on him,” Victor Sinclair said with calm confidence. He had not risen to his position by being nervous or carefree with words.

“I’m not talking about the hacker; I’m talking about what they have leaked. I’ve got other sources who are whispering to me. Someone in the press is digging on certain arrangements that must not be linked back to you or me.”

Victor frowned. “Who in the press?” He asked.

The senator shook his head. “I’m trying to find out, but it’s someone at the Times. They seem to have information linking to Senator Addison and certain purchases she may have been involved in.”

Victor kept his face neutral. Senator Addison had peculiar tastes. He had used knowledge and then proof of those tastes to gain a hold over the senator from California. While most of his requests had been to the benefit of industry in her state, a few of them had been very hard sells for him. Only the threat of exposing her peculiar sexual tastes for underage boys and girls, as well as proof of how she obtained her playthings, had gotten her agreement for certain plans and efforts. While she was in Victor’s pocket, he knew she did not particularly care for him.

A reporter digging up similar dirt fit the pattern Alex had uncovered. It was possible a snitch had tipped someone off. It was still possible the snitch was in one of the defense firms that had contributed so nicely to reelection campaigns. For the first time, he wondered if he had become complacent in his use of sensitive personal information to ensure his programs got the funding and technology he needed. The politicians could be a risk, even if it wasn’t Finn who exposed them.

“I’ll look into it,” he said. “I’ll also get the Senator some support to ensure nothing else comes to light.”

Senator Mainer, the senior senator from New York, nodded. “Plug your leak, and make sure anything they got ahold of is buried in the deepest pit of hell. Do you understand?”

Victor Sinclair nodded, keeping his unflappable, stoic face while sipping his coffee. He would never allow his work behind the scenes to be stopped or exposed. He had too much personally invested in the machinations in play. Furthermore, he had built his organization and the capabilities it wielded to shield his country from all threats, foreign and domestic. That included overbearing politicians.

Their meeting ended and Victor left the club. He waited until his driver had them well on the way back to the office before pulling out his phone.

“Activate full surveillance on Senator Addison and Senator Mainer,” he said to the recipient of his call.

All enemies, foreign and domestic, he thought.

Finn absentmindedly watched the tracking dots on his laptop screen as he thought about the code he was writing. It had been three days since his close call with the agency in the coffee shop. If he had not succeeded in identifying and tagging their phones, he would have needed to come up with a new plan. Instead, he was busy watching their interactions, capturing conversations held near their devices, and trying to come up with a way of working up their chain of command. Until the female agent met with her boss again, he was stymied.

A key in the lock to the apartment broke into his concentration. He glanced at the time. Elara must be done for the day. She had left to open this morning, so getting off after the lunchtime rush made sense. He felt warm anticipation at seeing her but pushed that feeling aside. He needed to keep it professional, despite their close living situation.

“Finn?” She asked as the door opened.

“In my bedroom,” he called back. Their sub-let apartment, conveniently near the Yellow Line of the metro, gave them easy access to downtown as well as the Virginia side of the river. With the NSA technically being part of the military, Finn had wanted easy access to the areas around the Pentagon and in Crystal City. One never knew what could be picked up during a stroll over lunch. Not that anyone would speak things in public, but they all carried and used their phones. If he had the computing power, he could activate the backdoors on thousands of devices and tap into untold conversations. For now, he struggled to manage the few devices on the task force hunting them.

“Our friends are still camped out in the coffee shop,” Elara said as she entered his room. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and frowned before letting her disguise fade and her true beauty return.

Finn smiled at her reflection. He liked her silver hair and emerald green eyes. The brief flash of her naked skin as she changed was rewardingly enticing as well.

“Oh?” He managed to ask.

She nodded. “The first customer in the door was the dark-skinned agent. Two others, including the woman, stopped in for coffee and totally ignored him, even though they had all visited together two days ago. I also spotted another member of their group at the lunch counter around the corner when I left to come home.”

“Thank goodness they don’t know your new look,” Finn said as he stood and stretched.

“What are you working on?” Elara asked. “You were hard at it this morning when I left. Tell me you’ve moved since then.”

Finn grinned. “I went for a run just after you left. I don’t want to risk popping up on surveillance, so have been avoiding going out.”

“Won’t your glasses protect you?”

“They should, but why risk it? Besides, I wanted to get some code written. I think I can jump to new phones inside the building.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him.

“I’m on those three devices but not getting much intel from them apart from location tracking. I think I figured out a way to ping other phones near one of the devices, get a new network address, and then activate the backdoor on the new device. That should allow me to spread through the entire building. It will be super important when the lead agent, Pamela, meets with her boss again.”

“Other than the one conversation, have you heard more of him?” Elara asked.

Finn shook his head. “No. I think I know who it is, but the underground parking with the entrance on that other street is keeping us from seeing him coming or going.”

“If you know who he is, do we have to wait at the building for him?” She asked as she kicked off her shoes and sat on the over-stuffed chair in his bedroom.

“Unfortunately, there is no public information about where he lives, so I don’t know where else we might approach him at. I’m also not sure that he is the person we want. I think he is the person pulling the strings, but he could just be a higher-level middleman. If I can get access to his phone, we can get eyes on him and figure our next steps.”

Elara pulled her feet up under her, arched her back, and ran her fingers through her hair. She was a seductive vision of loveliness that Finn tried not to stare at, no matter how much he wanted to.

“So, what do we do in the meantime?” Elara asked.

“I’m going to test this code and see if I can jump phones. I would rather not trip any alarms in the office, so I’ll test it on their commute home. At least a couple of them appear to take the metro. If it works tonight, I’ll be ready to do it in the office tomorrow.”

“But what can I do while you’re performing your quantum magic?” She asked.

“It’s not magic,” Finn began.

“It is to me,” she fired back. “Besides, aren’t you using what little I’ve been able to teach you to make your own technology work better? Doesn’t that make it magic, if you’re using magic?”