Use of Force

CHAPTER 70

Nicholas had just climbed out of his vehicle when Lydia Ryan pulled into Reed Carlton’s driveway behind him. Following her was a blacked-out van.

Walking around to the gray Mercedes’s cargo door, he let the dogs out and grabbed his backpack. Even from where he stood, he could tell not only that something was wrong, but that Ryan was very angry.

“What’s going on?” he asked as she stepped out of her car and began giving orders to the team in the black van.

“This,” she responded, handing him a tiny surveillance camera. “They were all over my fucking house. My car was wired too. There was even a tracker on it.”

“Not good,” he exclaimed. “Who do you think is responsible?”

“I’ll let you know as soon as we do a full sweep inside. Until then, do me a favor and wait out here.”

Nicholas nodded and Ryan escorted her personnel inside.

Forty-five minutes later, the team re-emerged. After sweeping Nicholas’s vehicle, as well as those of Carlton’s security detail, they packed up their van and drove off.

Giving his dogs the command to walk with him, he entered the house and found Ryan and Carlton at the dining room table. Scattered across it were all of the surveillance devices that had been found in the house.

“Really not good,” Nicholas remarked, setting down his bag. “Are any of those still hot?”

Ryan shook her head. “All the power sources have been removed. None of them are transmitting.”

“Even so,” he said. “Wait here.”

Moments later, he returned with a trash bag. With her help, they cleared the table. He then tied a knot in the top of the bag, tossed it in the garage, and returned to the dining room.

“FYI,” stated Ryan, “your vehicle was clean.”

“Thanks for having them check. What about the security team?”

“Their vehicles had been compromised. Trackers and wired for audio.”

Nicholas shook his head. “What tipped you off?”

“As CIA Deputy Director, I get swept on a regular basis. Something didn’t feel right, so I asked them to move up my next appointment. Call it intuition.”

“How’d they get into your place?”

“Same way they got in here. They waited for me to go to work or for Reed to go to a doctor’s appointment, and that’s when they acted. They could come back and do any vehicles overnight. Judging by the sophistication of their equipment, they know what they’re doing.”

Reed Carlton glanced at her. “Somebody is obviously very interested in what we’re up to.”

“The same somebody,” she replied, “who put the bounty on our email accounts.”

“Speaking of which,” said Nicholas. “I have an update on that. But I don’t want to say anything if we’re not safe to talk here.”

Ryan nodded. “I had my team install some active countermeasures. We’re safe, but your cell phone isn’t going to work inside.”

“I don’t bring mine to these kinds of meetings anyway.”

“Good. Then let’s get started,” Carlton ordered. “What do you have?”

The little man pulled some papers out of his backpack and spread them across the table. “Whoever is behind all this is smart. Really smart. In fact, I’m more than a little upset that I didn’t think of this myself.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Ryan.

“Per the agreement,” he continued, “I was instructed where to upload all of your emails, once I had accessed them. The site is a dark web version of DropBox. Anyway yesterday, once I had the strings of Malice code I needed, I got right to—”

“What’s Malice?” Carlton broke in.

Nicholas’s heart sank. The man’s ability to hold on to new pieces of information was getting worse. “It’s a computer program I needed,” he said politely, as if they had never before discussed it. “I was able to get the CIA to part with a piece of it.”

“Excellent job. Sorry I interrupted. Keep going.”

“No apology necessary,” he replied. “Bottom line is that once I had it, I was able to embed it in the email data. I uploaded it all last night.”

“And?” Ryan asked.

“And early this morning, someone downloaded it.”

“Someone who?”

“I don’t know the who,” said Nicholas, “but I’ve got the where. As soon as those files were accessed, Malice activated its silent beacon.”

“So where was it accessed from?”

“Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.”

Ryan was now just as confused as Carlton. “Cedars-Sinai?” she replied. “I don’t get it.”

“Do you know what HIPAA is?” the little man asked.

“Vaguely.”

“It stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Basically, it’s a law regulating data privacy and security provisions for medical information. The government takes it very seriously.”

“So what,” she answered.

“So Cedars-Sinai is one of the busiest, most technologically advanced hospitals in the world. Because of HIPAA, they have some of the most secure computer systems available. If you could get on the inside of their system, not only would your data be secure, but if you were a bad actor, you’d have the added benefit of being in one of the last places the government would ever think of, or dare to look for you. It’s brilliant.”

“Can you hack it?”

“With enough time and resources, I can hack anything. Here’s the problem,” he stated, as he pushed one of his pieces of paper across to her. On it was what looked like a flowchart of some sort. “Based on what I got back from Malice, I don’t think the people we’re looking for are keeping their data on the actual Cedars-Sinai system.”

“What are they doing then?”

“They’re using the system for cover and then offloading the data to a different system.”

“Do you have any idea where that other system is?” Ryan asked.

Nicholas nodded. “I think it’s right there in the hospital.”

“What would you need to be absolutely sure?”

“I’d need to go there and see it for myself in person.”

Ryan looked at Carlton. Any expression of confusion he might have had moments ago was gone. In its place was a focused look of determination.

“Put a team together,” he ordered, “get the plane ready, and get him out to LA, ASAP.”

• • •

After wrapping up all the details, Nicholas picked up his backpack and with the dogs by his side, exited the house.

Back in his van, he put on his seatbelt and grabbed his phone. One text had come while he was inside. It was from Scot Harvath.