Covert Affairs: Partnership : A Covert Affairs Romance (Book One) by Valerie Vaughn

Author:Valerie Vaughn [Vaughn, Valerie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-02T23:00:00+00:00

Twenty

Monday morning came with a three a.m. call from the Director herself, notifying him of an ongoing cyber attack on the NSA and rousing him from bed with all the frenzy a fire alarm provoked. His presence was requested immediately to provide support to their sister agency. He was on the phone with Maria before he had finished dressing, receiving updates even as he stepped into the bullpen fifteen minutes later.

“Do we know who it is yet?” Protocol dictated that any security breach of a US agency sent all others into a Priority One ready status, prepared to rebuff any potential attacks on their own systems and ready to provide aid to one another.

“Trace keeps bouncing,” Maria replied, both hanging up their phones as they came into ear shot of one another. Miranda was en route, as was the Colonel. Jason stood at the desk nearest the command post, already deep in fortifying their firewall codes.

“Has Meade let us into their system?”

“Yes,” she replied, passing the keyboard and headset over to him, moving to a station besides Jason.

“Deputy Director Perrin here, CIA,” he called over the line, joining the inter-agency team of responders, falling straight into shoring up their firewalls. By his best estimate, there must be a crew of a dozen hackers on the other end. They were getting hit from too many sides at once for there to be any other explanation. He barely noticed Miranda keying in a short while later, nor did he spare a thought for the Colonel taking a position to his left soon after.

It was pushing 8 a.m. before the attack ended, not with a victory, but with a total system shut down. The hackers had breached the NSA. Syler all but collapsed into his chair, stunned.

“Fucking shit,” Director Boothman uttered from somewhere to the left of the bullpen. Well, that about summed it up, Syler thought, somewhat hysterically. “Get me a full review. I want to know who and I want to know how and I want to know it yesterday.”

---

The longer Syler poured over the logs, the more questions he had. Unfortunately, the answer to one of them was becoming undeniably clear the longer he looked.

“Fuckity fuck shit goddamn it.” It was a morning for swearing and that was all there was to it.

“Breath, sweetheart.” His eyes darted up, startled. Dufault sat to his right, pressing a fresh mug of coffee into his hands without comment. Nearly an hour had passed since he’d started his review, absolutely oblivious to everything else including Dufault’s arrival. Syler slumped forward, inhaling his drink, and resisted the urge to whine. “Tell me what happened.”

“Somebody breached the NSA.”

“Got that bit. Do we know who?”

“No.”

“Do we know how?”

“Not really.”

“Are you going to figure it out?”

Syler dug his hands into his hair. “I’m afraid that I already have.”

Arthur hummed consolingly. “That’s not usually the tone of voice people use when they’re reporting good news.”

“Because it really isn’t.”

“Out with it, Perrin,” Boothman barked, apparently still present. It made sense, he supposed.

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