Page 30 of The Rough Ride (Sanctuary, Inc. #3)

T he next day, Liz cleared security and met Major Chan at the elevator.

“Thanks for coming in on a holiday, Liz. Neither of us wants to be here today, but we don’t have a choice. I need your input once we get upstairs.”

“Not a problem, Major.” But a colossal inconvenience, for damn sure. The last thing she’d wanted to do was leave Ella with Vera for what could end up being a long day, but she hadn’t had an alternative with Arlene away.

They walked the quiet hallway in eerie silence to her office. The lights were already on, and the minute the major unlocked the door, the scent of brewing coffee hovered in the air.

“I brought the coffeepot in here. Figured we’d need some.” The major locked the door from the inside and pulled an extra chair up to the computer.

Liz sat, put on her screen glasses, and logged in.

The major poured two mugs of coffee and joined her. “The first thing you should know is that we’re being recorded. Every word, every facial expression. It’s protocol, and the only way I could avoid calling someone else in to act as witness. Got it?”

“Sure.” Liz had nothing to hide. She didn’t appreciate the cloak and dagger approach but years of government work had trained her to ignore the hidden microphones and cameras and be herself. Liz logged into her social media profiles. “What’s our objective?”

The major scrolled to Dottie Ryan’s page.

“As you are aware, the dark web crew works twenty-four-seven on holidays to monitor any new threats, posts, etc. Dottie Ryan’s profile had a few concerning entries yesterday.

They notified me as soon as the messages came in.

We’ve already removed Marion Trent’s profile because of the breach last week over the flowers comment.

Whoever compromised Marion Trent didn’t stop there.

Take a look.” She scrolled and leaned back.

Liz scanned the screen and found the post.

What kind of flowers are your favorite, Dottie?

Her heart sank. “What about the other profiles?”

“They all have posts about flowers. Even your nerdy Herman guy received a message about planting a flower garden next spring. The crew upstairs has been following the posts since last evening.”

“Why haven’t they removed the profiles yet?”

“Because upstairs moved your work to a separate server. We want to encourage this person or organization. Reply to a few messages. See if we can start a dialogue, figure out who’s doing the hacking.

And I know you’ve assigned different personalities, nuances, and mannerisms to each of your personas to make them appear realistic and genuine.

Of everyone who works here, you’ve had the most online hunting success.

It’s due, in part, to the depth of the personalities you invent. ”

Liz nodded. “Do you want me to make a list for each persona?”

“No. On the rare occasions when we’ve lost an analyst to tragedy or illness, we can document that information ourselves, even though it takes time and resources to mimic perfectly.

I brought you in today because you’re up to speed with each account.

We’ll give you keystrokes to enter in a strict sequence.

You’re simply the front to lure them into a conversation.

You’ll have sixty words maximum to coordinate our sequence with your persona’s nuances and reply. ”

Wow. Four years had passed since she’d worked on a project like this. It’d been like combat-crawling through her brain for the right word and puzzle piece.

“I need an assistant, Major.”

The major raised her right hand. “That’s me.”

“It’d save me gobs of time if you manned the dictionary and thesaurus on the other laptop. It’s not fun, kind of like playing Wheel of Fortune with a gun to your head.”

“No pressure, huh?”

Liz smirked. “You’re the one who signed up to be all that you can be when you put on the uniform.”

The major chuckled. “Ain’t that the freaking truth?”

“What’s our time limit?”

“Each new sequence has its own time allotment, anywhere from thirty to ninety seconds. We’ll find out when we open the sequence.”

“And the purpose behind this exercise, Major? Give me a reason to be doing this, besides the fact I want to keep my job.”

“Dark web covert division has hidden code and worms in all the sequences. They can’t trace the perp’s entity because their signal bounces all over the globe and from satellite to satellite.

So, they’re trying to find out who and how proficient our hacker is.

In other words, are we dealing with a gifted kid hiding out in their basement, or do we have a major organization or a foreign government on our hands?

Our sequences are like slapping an ankle monitor on them.

Every time they answer us is another opportunity to find them. ”

“You’re hoping the hacker makes a mistake.” Liz rolled her shoulders and cracked her knuckles.

“An inexperienced one will, for sure. Those people upstairs are smart and sneaky as hell. They know exactly how to corner and trap these bastards.”

The air conditioning whirled on and gusted a cold draft over Liz’s bare arms. She slid into the sweater she kept on the back of her chair. Espionage had never been her specialty. But, as daunting as this assignment looked, she was well acquainted with working on a team.

It was time to get to work.