Chapter 2
The office on the fifth floor of the agency smelled of old carpet, ozone, and the faint, sweet scent of the vanilla tea Marcus kept in his desk drawer. The old air conditioning unit was rattling behind the rusted metal grille under the window, a steady vibration that usually helped me focus when the database analysis became tedious.
I took a sip of cold black coffee, the bitterness lingering on my tongue as I stared at the screen.
Marcus sat at the secondary terminal, his fingers moving across his keyboard with a dry, rhythmic clicking.
“I ran the automated sweep on the external gateways as soon as the court confirmed the filing,” Marcus said, not looking up from his screen. “We have a credential flag on the gateway.”
I adjusted my glasses, pushing the bridge up with my middle finger as I leaned over his shoulder. The green lines of the active database showed a high-level security card had touched the secure server gateway forty minutes ago.
The user profile belonged to Patricia Vance.
“That is a Level 8 access card,” I said, my voice dropping as I watched the data packets transfer. “It should be dormant.”
“It was used to ping the secure node from an external server in Munich,” Marcus said, pointing at the glowing numbers on the screen. “Twice in the last twelve hours.”
My hand went to my lanyard, feeling the hard plastic edge of my own Level 8 card, the surface slightly warm from my skin.
“The routing is encrypted,” Marcus added, “but the volume of data requested is substantial.”
I stared at the log. The reader knows Patricia’s access was used for unauthorized travel, but Claire only knows it was high-level.
“She is accessing the logistics framework,” I said. “There is no reason for her to have that level of visibility anymore.”
“Should I flag it for the supervisor?” Marcus asked.
“No,” I said, my fingers already reaching for the primary keyboard. “I am deleting her profile from the active directory right now. Disable the routing entirely.”
“That will drop her connection immediately,” Marcus said.
May you like
“That is the point,” I said. “You should have used your own credentials, Patricia.”
I struck the enter key, and the green line showing Patricia’s active session vanished from the monitor.
