“Outstanding,” Slaughter said. “Now, go grab your shit from your apartments and get back here at flank speed. I’ve already spoken with your Marine Corps chain. Consider yourselves confined to base until further notice. The only way I want you off these premises is when you’re in the air on your way to your next assignment.” The CAG’s voice calmed a notch, and he took a long breath, like the theatrics might be over, and he was about to bestow some sage, fatherly advice. Instead, he curled up his upper lip like he needed to spit out something bitter and said, “Dismissed.”
T
Cecily Lung looked at her watch and squirmed in her ergonomic desk chair. She was new to Dexter & Reed, not yet completely trusted by the rest of the engineers — but Phil had a crush on her, so that was something. She’d give herself another minute and a half and then go to his desk, two cubicles down. He made no secret of the fact he’d like to ask her on a date, but he hadn’t quite figured out how to navigate work relationships.
She’d been there only a week, but Lung kept notes on everyone in the office, looking for useful weaknesses that she could leverage — like Phil’s AWF — Asian woman fetish. She used her own made-up code to jot everything down in a notepad she kept in her purse along with a .22-caliber Beretta semiautomatic. She had a small suppressor as well that a former boyfriend had given her. It wasn’t much longer than her thumb and didn’t silence the subcompact pistol, but rendered it quiet enough that anyone listening behind a closed door might wonder if someone had dropped a book.
There were few doors here, though, and only a couple of walls. Dr. Li didn’t believe in cordoned work areas, insisting that open spaces inspired cooperation and group effort. He’d grudgingly allowed cubicles, so long as the walls didn’t go above the shoulder of the shortest seated individual. He had an office — the bigwigs at corporate had insisted so as not to make them look bad for having offices of their own — but he’d taken the door off and kept the blinds raised.
The computer control room itself had a door — an extremely secure door. Known among the engineers as “the vault,” the control room was connected to the outside world, to corporate and government clients, including the Missile Defense Agency, who purchased and depended on Dexter & Reed products — and the periodic software updates that product required. Sealed like a fortress, the vault was built of reinforced concrete block, sheathed in wire mesh walls, floors, and ceiling. Alarms and scramble pads controlled entry.
It wasn’t that there was an atmosphere of mistrust. They were all on the same team and all had high-level security clearances. But Li stressed redundant security and oversight. If anyone, including him, performed any task on the terminal, it had to be double-checked and verified. Engineers with specific hardware or software needs could enter the vault two at a time during office hours, but Li had the only code that worked after hours.
Tucked in Cecily Lung’s purse with the notebook and the pistol was a small thumb drive that her handler had delivered to her that morning, along with the instructions to upload it at once into the central terminal — behind the secure door. The sooner, the better. It would be quick — her handler estimated some fifteen seconds, but that might as well have been fifteen months if she couldn’t get into the locked facility by herself. She’d asked Phil to go in with her to check some hardware, but there was no way she could insert the drive. He was smitten, but he was also smart — and would surely see if she inserted any drive.
With any luck, the logs of the visit would help cover her tracks.
She stood, throwing her purse over her shoulder. Not that she needed the gun to talk to Phil, but it made her feel better to have it — and anyway,
