Denial of Service (Cyrus Jennings FBI Mystery Thriller Book 2) by Alex Parman

Author:Alex Parman [Parman, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 31

Cyrus dragged ass into the Bureau the next morning after two cups of coffee at Misty’s. There’d been a lot of laughing, crying, and requisite storytelling about Byron. It sucked. It rocked.

It was too soon.

He’d scheduled an early meeting with Blake and made it to the office with only minutes to spare.

“You look like shit,” the SAC said. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Not really.”

“Sure you don’t want to take a couple days?”

“We have a hacker who has escalated from a simple bank invasion, to a power outage, to an airport alert trigger, and now…”

“DHS is taking over. You can take time off.”

“They what?” Cyrus shot up straight in his chair. “What about Byron?”

Blake’s eyebrows arched. “What about him?”

Cyrus reminded him this was the purpose of his visit. To update the SAC on the investigation, let him know what his CI found.

“The train derail wasn’t an accident.”

This time, it was the SAC who jerked in his chair. “They completed the investigation?” He snatched a glance at his phone. “No one told me.”

Cyrus sighed. “They’ll take weeks. I have a source. Let’s call it a working theory.”

Blake leaned back in his chair and interlocked his fingers across his abdomen. The slight ways his face contorted when the SAC considered Cyrus for a long moment said magnitudes. Deliberation. Careful consideration. The gathering of the appropriate words. Not common among higher ups.

“You going rogue on me, Jennings?”

Okay, maybe he’d read him wrong.

“I don’t know if I’d call it that, exactly.”

Blake leaned forward. “Something you should know about me right off the top. I don’t play word games. You get straight talk from me. Reciprocity is expected.”

“Fair enough, sir. My CI used some tech magic to determine the train rolled off that track because of outside interference. Someone switched the junction to bypass the station at exactly the right moment, just before the train bore down on it. We think half the train passed the switch before it was triggered, which resulted in a gap in the rails, tilted the train sideways, and caused a slide into the station. If it’d been a train bypassing the depot, it would’ve been moving faster and would’ve flattened the structure and crossed Smith, causing more casualties. So, whoever did it had a target in mind.”

“And you think that target was an FBI analyst.” Blake laid a hand on the desk and stared at his fingernails. When he spoke again, his tone was softer, sympathetic. “It sounds like grief has you looking for a way to explain the loss of a friend.”

“Psychoanalysis aside, I trust my CI.”

“Ah, your infamous informant. Tell me, Cyrus, what’s the CI’s gain? What does the CI get out of helping you track down this hacker?”

This was the hard part. Dancing around the edges of Misty’s involvement and sparing him the details he didn’t need to know yet would inevitably bite him in the ass later. The special agent in charge made it clear just moments before that communication had better be clear and honest.

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