Page 61 of Code Name: Grit

If she was right, the first casualty would likely be Keller himself. Except he wasn’t that stupid.

“What aren’t we seeing, Grit?”

Lumi’s question was the same one I was about to ask of her.

16

LUMI

“What aren’t we seeing, Grit?”

The question lingered between us as the command center buzzed with activity around us.

“Let’s talk to Admiral,” Grit said, his voice low.

We found him conferring with Atticus at a monitoring station near the back of the room. He turned as we approached, his expression expectant.

“What’s on your mind?”

“It’s about Keller,” Grit said. “The Patriarcas were watching the same meeting we had under surveillance today. They knew about it in advance.”

Admiral’s brow furrowed. “You think there’s a leak?”

“More than that,” I said. “We think Keller might be pitting the Belcastros and Patriarcas against each other, possibly on behalf of one of the other families—the Genoveses, Columbos, or Bonnanos.”

Admiral considered this for a moment. “The timing of the Patriarcas’ moves has been suspicious. It would explain a lot.” He turned toward Dragon and Alice. “Let’s see what we can find.”

“Sir,” Dragon called from her station. “The perimeter breach was a diversion. We’ve got ongoing network intrusion attempts—sophisticated ones.”

“Physical threat?” Admiral asked.

Dragon shook her head. “Doesn’t look like it. The sensors triggered in sequence, but the exterior cameras show nothing. I think they wanted us distracted while they launched a cyber attack.”

Alice looked up from her screen, her expression grim. “These aren’t amateur techniques. Whoever is behind this has serious resources.”

“Can we trace it?” Admiral asked.

Alice exchanged a glance with Dragon. “Not easily. But I know someone who can help.” She reached for her phone. “I need to talk to Tex.”

While she made the call, I returned to my workstation, pulling up everything we had on the Patriarca family. Something about Giovanni’s involvement kept nagging at me, like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

“Got anything?” Grit asked, settling into the chair beside me.

“Not yet,” I admitted. “But Giovanni’s presence feels…personal.”

Grit studied the screen. “Dig deeper. If this is more than territorial, we need to know.”

I scrolled through old case files, searching for connections between the Patriarcas and Belcastros beyond the usual mob rivalries. Something had to explain why Giovanni would be so directly involved in surveillance operations—work typically assigned to lower-level soldiers.

Twenty minutes later, a secure videoconference was established with Tex Keegan. The man who appeared on the screen had a weathered face with deep smile lines around his eyes. Though I’d never seen him before, his Texas drawlimmediately confirmed he was the infamous mentor Alice had mentioned so often.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite digital troublemaker. I was wondering when you’d call. I’ve been watching some interesting patterns in your network traffic.”

“Bored, so you’re checking up on me?” she replied with a hint of affection.

“Somebody besides Admiral needs to.”

“Listen, Tex. We’ve got sophisticated intrusion attempts that started about an hour ago.”