True Faith and Allegiance

Jack typed his name in a Romanian search engine. Seconds later he said, “I’ll be damned. He works at a company in Bucharest called Advanced Research Technological Designs.”

Gavin was typing now, looking the company up in a database he kept on computer hackers. Even before he finished inputting the name he said, “Wait, I know those guys. Son of a bitch!”

“Who are they?”

“They are damn good hackers, but that’s just the start of it.” Now he looked at results in his database, reading through details of the company. “Yeah… they started out selling prescription pain pills online for a while, then they branched out into online fraud. They got bigger and bigger, attracted a deeper bench of hacker talent because their social engineers had gotten so damn good at getting passwords and admin access to websites.”

“How do you know about them?”

“They’ve done some sweet social media scams to get information on bankers, mostly in Europe, but it made the news.”

Jack cocked his head. He’d never heard of this. “What news?”

Gavin looked up from his monitor. “News in my world, Ryan. Not on Entertainment Tonight or whatever you watch when you leave here.”

Jack just closed his eyes for a moment and let Gavin’s snarky comment roll off his back.

“Yeah,” Gavin said as he read some more about ARTD. “I remember now, three or four years ago at the Black Hat conference. It’s a get-together of all the world’s hackers.”

“I know what the Black Hat conference is. Must have been on ET.”

“Right. Anyway, a guy did a presentation on a hack this company in Romania carried out on the largest cell-phone provider in Holland. Ripped personal ID info from hundreds of thousands. They could never pin it on ARTD but one of their former employees claimed their hackers pulled it off.”

Jack said, “Are they good enough to do this thing at OPM?”

“Talent-wise, I don’t think so. Plus, they’ve never gone after government networks like this in the past. Still… this Dalca guy clearly works for them, and he clearly communicated with Vadim Rechkov, passing the intel about Hagen.”

Jack launched to his feet. “Good enough for me. See ya.”

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to Romania.” He turned and rushed out of the conference room, racing toward the elevators.

Gavin Biery moved slower, but he did move. “Not without me you aren’t!”

48

Jack saw an open door to Gerry’s office, so he walked right in, only to find Gerry talking to John Clark and Ding Chavez.

“Oh… sorry, guys,” Jack said. He noticed the ultraserious expressions on the three men. “I’m obviously interrupting something.”

Gerry said, “No, I’m glad you’re here. I was about to call you and Dom in. We just got off the phone with Dan Murray. He’s asked us to aid in the hunt for Musa al-Matari and his people here in the U.S. We are considering moving Dominic, along with support, as soon as we can get some place to send him.”

Jack said, “Because of his FBI credentials?”

“That’s right. It will give him freedom of movement around crime scenes, and it’s safe to assume the ISIS terrorists will attack again, sooner, rather than later.”

Clark said, “Sorry, Jack, but you won’t be on this trip. The potential you could be recognized on a domestic op like this is too great.”

Jack said, “That’s good news, actually. I came to request that you send me, along with some help, to Bucharest. Trust me, nobody’s going to recognize me there.”

Gerry said, “I’ll grant you that, but what’s in Bucharest?”

Gavin stepped into the office behind Jack, who was still in the doorway. He answered Gerry Hendley’s question. “A guy named Alexandru Dalca. He is the person, or one of the people, exploiting the Office of Personnel Management files and turning them into targeting packages against American military and intelligence.”

Gerry reacted with surprise. “I’ll be damned! You actually found who is responsible for the breach?”

Jack said, “We think so, but we don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with yet. We know where this man works, but that’s just about it. Not sure if his whole company is involved, or if he is protected or propped up by some other group. What we do know is that we need to get over there, shadow this man Dalca, and try to figure out what the hell is going on.”

Gerry looked to Clark. “What do you think?”

Clark said, “Since we have no idea of the scope of the breach and which government employees have already been exposed to this guy, it makes sense to use our people instead of just notifying Mary Pat and Dan. Dom will need support on his operation here in the States, but in an in extremis situation he can get help from law enforcement. Jack in Romania, on the other hand, will be on his own if we don’t send others along with him.”

Gerry said, “So let’s give some extra support to Jack.”

Clark said, “What do you think, Ding?”

Chavez just shrugged. “I think I’m heading to Romania.”

Gavin Biery, still standing behind Ryan, cleared his throat.