“Will do,” Sven said.
James looked at Yvonne with an earnest expression. “I trust that anything you see here will be kept strictly to yourself.”
“Yes, of course,” she replied, not knowing exactly what he meant.
She was soon to find out.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Sven flashed his card and walked through Info Tech’s security door. Yvonne followed.
“Wow,” she said, looking around. “You guys work in really plush, comfortable surroundings.”
“JW likes to keep us happy.”
“That, I can see,” she said.
“Morning, everyone,” Sven said to a group of developers and technicians busy at various workstations.
Most acknowledged with a greeting or an absent-minded wave of their hand.
“That’s Phil, over there,” Sven said, pointing. “Any problems with your card or phone, speak to him.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Sven placed his phone on top of a filing cabinet outside the media room. “Please leave your phone here,” he said. “Oh, and your NSA phone is already on its way across the country.”
Yvonne laid her new phone next to Sven’s.
“Can I get you a coffee or something?” he asked.
“Water, if you have it, please.”
“Perrier okay? It’s all James drinks, so we never really stock up on anything else.”
“Even better,” she said. “I hate to ask, but what’s that huge scar on Phil’s forehead?”
“Attacked with a crowbar last year,” Sven replied. “He was in the office working late when some nutcase got in here and trashed the place.”
“The poor guy.”
Sven pulled a flash drive out his pocket and sat by the computer at the far side of the media room’s facility table. Yvonne settled into the chair on his left.
“This room is completely void from outside interference,” Sven explained. “If I need to connect onto the internet, I have to physically plug the computer into that Ethernet cable over there.” He pointed. “A constant warning scrolls across the bottom of the screen when the computer has external access. Anything sent out hops through multiple anonymous servers across the globe before reaching its final destination. It cannot be traced back here.”
“Not even by the NSA?”
“Especially, not the NSA,” Sven replied, with a mischievous smile. “No offense to you, of course.”
“None taken.”
He inserted the flash drive into a USB port and sent a few mouse-clicks through to the computer. “I’ve dug up some stuff on your boss. He’s been keeping a close eye on things from here and Groom Lake. This first message appears to be from you,” he said, without sounding judgemental.
Device securely in place…
Yvonne blushed, recalling when she put the listening device into James’s suit jacket and notifying the Controller.
“I also have the full conversation between JW and LaForgue shortly after the bug was activated.”
Yvonne’s embarrassment turned to incredulity.
“And next, a bunch of text messages sent by Ethan Berenson from just outside Groom Lake’s security fences. Ethan is one of your code-breakers, by the way.”
Clark, McIntosh, Hurst and one other arriving Homey Airport day after tomorrow…
SkyTech team arrived…
Lovinescu, Clark and Brown departed…
Hurst and McIntosh inside Building-3A…
Lovinescu and Clark in the communications centre. McIntosh and Hurst remain in Building-3A…
Helicopter returned with three dead bodies and what appear to be explosives. Lovinescu and entourage talking with pilot…
Clark has left Groom Lake. Destination unknown…
“These are just some,” Sven said. “There are lots more.”
Yvonne’s jaw dropped. “How did you get this stuff? Müller clears all his personal messages directly off the NSA’s databanks. It’s exactly that sort of conduct the Office of Security is trying to stop.”
“Personal misuse of government equipment is a full time endeavour for some people in your agencies,” Sven said.
“It certainly is for Müller,” she said. “He spends a good deal of his day snooping into the private conversations of people at Fort Meade, but seems to have another set of rules for himself.”
“To answer your question,” Sven said. “This came directly from Cheltenham’s databanks.”
“Cheltenham?”
“MI6’s listening station in the UK,” Sven said. “What? You thought the NSA and CIA are the only agencies snooping global communications?”
“I never actually thought about it,” she said, honestly. “But I thought they were called MI5.”
“MI5 concerns itself only with the UK’s domestic issues. MI6 is foreign intelligence and global eavesdropping,” Sven explained. “The cold war never really ended, you know.”
“But what possible interest could MI6, or whatever, have in some meaningless text messages coming out of the middle of nowhere?”
“The same interest your NSA has in teenagers exchanging selfies in the Australian Outback.”
“Okay,” she grimaced. “I get your point. How did you get into their databanks?”
“You really don’t want to know,” Sven said.
Yvonne was beginning to understand what James meant when he asked her to keep what she saw to herself.
“Won’t your hacks be traced back here?”
“I don’t actually do it from here, hence the flash drive and the fact that we’re working in a completely isolated environment,” he said. “One of the reasons we leave our phones outside. They’re excellent listening devices if you know how to tap in.”
“Surely Müller would know this? In which case, why didn’t he just tap in to LaForgue’s phone instead of getting me to plant a bug?”
“Müller would know, but he’s probably too stupid to be able to do it himself, and too paranoid to ask someone in the NSA who does have the expertise.”
“You have no idea how much I hate that man,” she said, with disgust, then suggested to Sven that Müller should do something with himself that was anatomically impossible.
Sven looked at her and laughed. “I want to know what his game is,” he said. “Something tells me that what he wants from you isn’t his ultimate goal.”
“It isn’t,” she said. “He wants it as a tool against LaForgue. He wants her job.”
“Maybe, it’s time we rattled his cage a bit.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“JW has put a great deal of trust in you, Yvonne, having you working with me.”
She was a little unsure of how to answer, so said nothing.
“Well, if JW trusts you, then so do I,” Sven said, with sincerity. He clicked on a media file.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Yvonne looked closer as the video played. The date and time of the recording showed on the top right. “That’s Müller’s office,” she said, looking briefly at Sven. “It’s the point of view from the camera above his door.” She looked at Sven puzzled. “What’s he doing?”
“Watch,” Sven said.
“He’s doing something under his desk with his hands, but I can’t see what it is.”
“Watch,” Sven insisted, now with a smile on his face.
Yvonne moved even closer to the computer screen. A moment later, she saw vigorous hand movements, Müller’s body go rigid, and his face contorting in sexual ecstasy.
“That piece of shit!” Yvonne exclaimed. “That goddamn piece of shit. My job is on the line because of stir-sticks, and he’s, well… well you see what he’s doing!”
“Now, you have something of a hold over Müller that’s a little more persuasive than a few stir-sticks,” Sven said. “Let me know if and how you would like to use this.”