Chapter 13
“They are getting desperate,” Rachel said. “They need those servers before the Senate oversight committee hearing on November fifteenth.”
“They won’t get them,” I said.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the yellow notepad with my father’s handwritten cyphers, tracing the neat pencil lines with my index finger.
“Is that the notepad from the cedar chest?” Rachel asked.
“Yes,” I said. “He wrote these codes years before he died, but they still match the active queries coming into my terminal.”
“We need to find out who is running those queries,” Rachel said, looking at her watch. “Before Harrison’s team finds another way in.”
At ten o’clock that evening, the secure phone on my kitchen counter began to hum.
I picked it up on the third ring, tapping the record button on the receiver base with my thumb while pacing the hardwood floor.
“You should have signed the waiver, Claire,” Harrison’s voice came through the line, heavy with the flat authority of a man used to giving orders from a cruiser bridge.
I walked to the floor-to-ceiling glass, watching the red brake lights of the traffic on the bridge below.
“The waiver is a forgery, Harrison,” I said. “Even your lawyer looked embarrassed when Rachel pointed out the notary seal.”
Over the speaker, I heard a sharp, rhythmic sound. Harrison was tapping his heavy gold Navy Academy signet ring against a hard surface on his end of the line.
“It doesn’t matter what the paper is,” Harrison said. “What matters is what the court believes for twelve hours while we secure the hardware.”
“I am not giving you the codes,” I said.
“You are playing a game you cannot win,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “You are a civilian contractor sitting on classified defense property. We can reclaim it under national security provisions at any moment.”
“I am the Director of Cyber Intelligence,” I said. “And you are a commander with an empty ledger.”
“We will see what the oversight committee thinks of your stubbornness,” he said.
The line went dead with a dry click.
I set the receiver down, my hand steady as I checked the signal tracer on my laptop. The call had been routed through a relay station inside the Pentagon, just as I expected.
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I opened my secure portal and initiated the encrypted video link to Senator Hayes’s private office.
The screen glowed blue, showing an empty desk under a seal of the United States Senate. The meeting connection was active, waiting for the scheduled legislative review feed to begin.
