Countermeasure (10 page)

Aside from having a knack for picking up on minute nuances that could break a case wide open, Trevor was also one of the NSA’s top infiltration and geolocation specialists, and his assistance was always in demand by operation handlers from various departments.

“Hmm…interesting….” he overheard George mumbling at whatever he was screening on his monitor.

“What?” Trevor asked out of habit.

“Remember that missing formula case I was handed last week?” George looked at Trevor through lenses of his black-rimmed glasses, his bright green eyes sparkling with excitement like they always did when he had an interesting case on his hands.

“Yes. I remember.”

George had mentioned the case a few days back, when information about a theft had been picked up via their regular surveillance and flagged due to poor word choice used during the communication between the people in charge of the formula’s security. Since 9/11 the word “bombed” and any other word associated with explosives had been pushed to the top of the keyword list for flagging. Although the people in this case were referring solely to how badly someone had botched the job of securing said formula, their conversation had ended up in the queue and flagged nevertheless.

A frown creased Trevor’s forehead when he looked over at George. “How can a missing formula be interesting? It’s not like you’re investigating the kidnapping of a public figure.”

“Well…in this case the formula is apparently being treated like a public figure.” George cocked his head, reading through the scrolling data, and continued, “The formula was in an advanced trial phase when it was copied from the servers of the company that was managing the trials.”

George narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the document in front of him, and continued to fill Trevor in. “It’s supposed to be a revolutionary anti-aging drug. It appears that it was an insider job, based on the conversations I picked up after that. That’s what’s really caught my attention. It sounded like a Ludlum novel. You know, insider job, frantic security people, The Morrígan….” George sported a small smirk and shook his head, but Trevor’s head jerked and his mind went into overdrive at the shock of hearing that name mentioned.

“What did you say?” he asked, trying not to sound spooked.

“Ludlum novel? You know…Bourne Trilogy guy?” George appeared totally oblivious to Trevor’s change of tone.

“No, no, the name you said last, after Ludlum,” Trevor stumbled on his own words.

“Morrígan? That’s the codename given to the formula during trials. Why?” George looked puzzled by the expression on Trevor’s face. “You don’t look well buddy. Feeling sick?”

“No reason. No. Did you know that Morrígan is a goddess from Irish mythology? I guess I was just surprised to hear her name.” Trevor’s thoughts and questions swirled like twin twisters in his head. What he didn’t say was that The Morrígan was also the name of his parent’s yacht. The same yacht they had disappeared from almost four years back. Here it was again, showing up in connection with what appeared to be a very important pharmaceutical formula.

A coincidence? Or could the two be connected in some way? Was this the clue he so desperately needed in order to break his parents’ case wide open?

Hoping for more answers, Trevor made a quick decision to review the files once George was done with them. While unlikely, there was still a chance that George had overlooked something that would be meaningful to Trevor. He knew George was careful with his work, but it wouldn’t hurt to double check. Whatever the outcome of his dabbling, it would help Trevor decide whether or not the case had any merit and if it was tied in any way to his own personal nightmare.

If there turned out to be a connection, however small, Trevor’s plan was to try his hand at infiltrating the companies’ servers to look for any speck of digital trace he could find. The new clue energized Trevor. After months of futile searches and digging, he now had a possible lead—a breath of life in his stale quest.

Trevor surfaced from his musings and gave George his undivided attention. “What do you mean by inside job?” He kept his tone casual and dug for more information. “Do they know who took it?”

“Based on the latest intercepts, I think they do.” George continued his analysis, unaware of the scowl on Trevor’s face.

“How the hell could an insider walk to the server, steal the files, and leave the building without being caught?” Trevor asked, more to himself than George.

“I don’t have all the details. I took a deeper dive for additional information so that I could unflag that thread. It doesn’t seem like something we need to worry about.” George eyed Trevor with concern again. “Are you sure you’re not sick? Your eyes are glassy, man. I’d see a doctor if I were you. Don’t want to catch any weird viruses from you.”

Trevor laughed at George’s comment and pretended to dismiss the case as if he didn’t care, but it stuck with him. The whole story stunk. In this new digital age, there were ways to safeguard a server against external infiltration, but those measures were only as good as their enforcement.

In theory, every computer was hackable to a certain degree. But in this case, nothing could’ve been done to prevent it, as whoever infiltrated the computers had done so physically. As much as the companies liked to think they did their due diligence in screening employees holding high clearance positions, humans were fallible. Life took its twists and turns and, for the right price, normally law-abiding, dedicated employees could be enticed to jump ship, to become traitors and criminals.

Many cases of trade-secret theft in the pharmaceutical industry had peppered the news over the last ten years. It wouldn’t be anything new if it turned out that one of the scientists working on the Morrígan had decided to go for extra bonus pay by copying the files for a competitor. Trevor didn’t care about the theft itself; that was none of his concern. His curiosity lay in the origin of the formula’s chosen codename.

They spent the rest of their work day on individual assignments, but as always, used each other as sounding boards for ideas, sharing new techniques on how to gather the most information using the latest groundbreaking technology available to them. And they, most certainly, had the latest
everything
in surveillance equipment and software at their disposal.

Trevor always enjoyed his conversations with George, but, for once, Trevor’s mind wasn’t completely focused on it or the job at hand. It repeatedly returned to the Morrígan, making for a very frustrating and anxious day. He wanted the day over and done with so he could pursue the carrot dangling in front of his nose. Hiding his preoccupation was hard and the day dragged on slower than usual.

At noon, George stood up and stretched. “Are you going home for lunch?” he asked. On sunny summer days, Trevor typically liked to get out of the building and into the fresh outdoors. He usually rode his bike home for a quick lunch. But that day was different. His mind was anchored to the idea of getting into the intercepts George had mentioned and pulling everything he could find on the Morrígan.

“Nope. I need to locate and tap a new target for Charlie.” He gave the first excuse he could come up with, knowing George would remember the FBI agent who had paid them a visit the day before. “I also have that transcript from that terrorism case to analyze for the CIA. They want it yesterday, the buggers.” Trevor added. Not totally untrue. He did have all that on his task list, but they could be dealt with at his own pace.

He hoped George would take his time at lunch checking in on the new girl, Jennifer, from Cryptography. George had been mooning over her the last few weeks and had been spending long lunches trying to sweet talk her into visiting the control room.

In an attempt to plant a subliminal seed to send him her way, Trevor asked, “You still drooling over Jennifer?”

George inhaled deeply at the mention of her name. “Yeah…I don’t know what else I can do to gain her attention, Trev.”

“How about just telling her you think she’s beautiful and you’d love to spend time with her outside of Crypto City’s walls?” Trevor chuckled.

“Are you crazy? She’ll laugh at me.” George appeared insulted by the idea. “She sees me as the ultimate nerd.”

“You
are
the ultimate nerd, George.” Trevor got a droll look at his reply and continued, “Why would she laugh? Seriously, George, you need to grow balls and ask her out. You’ll either get a yes or a flat-out no. If it’s a no, you’ll look elsewhere.” As far as Trevor was concerned, his advice sounded pretty damn good. No point in dragging it out when George could easily get closure right away. He wished his own closure could come that easily.

“I guess you’re right. But I’m not ready for rejection right now, so forget it,” George replied as he got up, grabbed his wallet from his desk’s drawer, and headed out for lunch.

“Tell her hi for me,” Trevor called out as George walked out the door.

The minute he was out of sight, Trevor jumped at the opportunity, pulling up the files with the intercept and scanning them quickly. Not much had been exchanged in conversations via the same phone number that was originally flagged. The conversation revolved around another’s poor performance related to the project. Whoever Cassandra was, she had made her boss a very unhappy man, based on a guy named Jeff’s amused comments to his buddy through a company’s line. Jeff sounded like a jerk and his tone indicated he was pleased with the woman’s failure to secure the project files.

Trevor took down the names of the companies mentioned. With very little effort, he was able to secure the IP address associated with both. His goal was to infiltrate the servers and look for anything that could point to a connection to his parents’ case. Armed with this information, he could now worm himself into their systems.

With skilled commands, he burrowed a path to EXClinic’s servers’ door and stalled. The security company had been very careful with those machines. He could pinpoint where they had patched known critical exploits. They had covered their asses against most hackers—but they had never met someone like him. Taking a step back he analyzed his options. Using some little-known creative exploits, he was able to infiltrate EXClinic’s system, browse around, and find and read the Morrígan’s project files in search of any reference to his family.

He poked around for what felt like forever before he came across a single reference to Conor Brennan. His heart rate increased and the thrumming in his ears became deafening. He hadn’t read his father’s name on anything but police reports in a while. Seeing it in connection with science and technology again brought a funny tightness to his chest.

The document in question described the methods for acquiring measurable data on the efficiency of the drug. Biometric data acquired prior to the beginning of the trials would be compared to the data collected at the end for an actual percentage of change in the biometric signature of the volunteers involved in the trials. His father’s brilliance was clearly evident throughout the paper.

A connection. A real lead. Was it a simple coincidence that the trial was being handled by a company that chose his father’s software to prove the drug’s effectiveness? Where did that leave him? Was that all?

The more he dug, the more questions piled in the back of his mind. He quickly checked the time and realized George was due to come back any minute. Trevor erased any trace of his presence from the server. He made sure most of it was either fully deleted from the server logs or covered up in such a way that sys-admins would ignore or attribute it to a system glitch.

Based on his findings, he had milked this source dry. His first hit in years based on a simple fluke: Bristol had decided to codename the drug after the goddess of war from Irish legends. Who knew? Maybe his father had a finger in the naming, too. It didn’t really matter. What Trevor uncovered didn’t amount to much, certainly not enough to connect to his parents’ disappearance. Having exhausted all avenues, the formula case was no longer of interest to him.

He terminated the connection with the servers, exited the command prompt, and quickly opened the transcript he had to work on. Almost on cue, George walked in a few minutes later and flopped himself on his chair. “Hey man, it looks like you never moved. Did you even get lunch?”

Trevor shook his head. “Too much to do. How did your lunch with Jennifer go? Did you ask her out?”

“Hell, no! I told you. Not interested in rejection or licking wounds,” George retorted while he logged back into his computer and, with a deep sigh, went back to work.

“George, admit it. You have it bad. You should have asked her. Then you wouldn’t be sighing right now like an
Amadán grá-bhreoite
.”

“What the hell does
amadangraveite
or whatever you said mean?”

“Lovesick fool.” At hearing the translation of the Gaelic term, George pinned him down with his eyes. Trevor shrugged. “Just saying,” as he gave out a deep belly laugh. George turned his eyes to his own screen, lifted his hand in the air, made a fist, and slowly raised his middle finger.

Jumping back into work, Trevor pushed all thought of The Morrígan out of his mind and immersed himself in the maze of conversations held within the transcript he was working on. As frustrating as the dead end had been, Trevor was not discouraged. He was now, more than ever, determined to take his pursuit for the truth head on and search out any little breadcrumb he could find about his father.

Something would eventually prove to be a genuine link to their strange case. His little brush with one small coincidence was proof he could, and would, find more of them if he had the time and put more energy and effort into it. Trevor’s days were usually packed full with activity at work. He considered what adjustments he might need to make to his lifestyle in order to set aside more time for research. Either way he would get there. One thing was certain: he was not a quitter.