Chapter 10
I walked back to my car, the damp cold of the cemetery clinging to my skin as I turned the key in the ignition. The drive back to the office was silent, the radio switched off as I tried to piece together the timeline of my father’s final days.
The basement of the agency building was silent when I arrived at nine that evening, filled only with the low, rhythmic hum of the server cooling fans. The air in the secure room was kept at exactly sixty-two degrees, a cold that settled deep into my joints as I sat before the master console.
Marcus sat at the secondary terminal, his fingers moving over his keyboard with the quiet speed of an experienced analyst. The blue light from the monitors reflected off his dark skin, casting long shadows across the concrete floor.
“I ran the comparative diagnostic on the routing directories,” Marcus said, not looking up. “The system is definitely leaking packets.”
“Show me the source code,” I said, leaning closer to my screen.
He typed a brief command, and a list of system files appeared on my display. I adjusted my glasses, tracing the lines of code that dictated how our secure data was routed to the external networks.
Deep within the primary directory was a sub-routine that had no documentation, a tiny, four-line block of code designed to mirror every encrypted transmission to an external server.
“It is a duplication script,” Marcus said, his voice dropping. “It copies your private Level 8 clearance credentials and routes them to a secure node in northern Virginia.”
“When was this file created, Marcus?”
He clicked his mouse, pulling up the system registry files that documented every modification made to the server architecture.
“The installation stamp is from five years ago,” Marcus said, pointing at the screen. “October twelfth, at three in the morning.”
I stared at the date on the monitor, a cold weight settling in my chest.
October twelfth was the third anniversary of our wedding, a night we had spent at a quiet inn in Maryland, or so I had believed.
“He was copying my work before we even bought the penthouse,” I said.
Marcus looked at me, his eyes wide and uncertain under the blue glare of the screens.
May you like
“The script is still active, Claire,” he said. “If we delete it, whoever is on the other end will know within seconds.”
“Leave it,” I said, my voice steady. “But route the mirror to a dead-end directory.”
