surrounding Bayway and from Bayonne and Mr. Hodgesâs house. Maybe someone slipped and weâll have the leaderâs face on film.â
Zachery stepped into the conference room, dragging. He satdown hard in the chair at the head of the table. Nicholas slid a soda his way. He took it, opened it, drank half, then set the can on the table. He looked from Mike to Nicholas.
âI thought I told you two to go home,â he said. âInstead, you walk in on four murders, three of them our own people, and you, Nicholas and Gray, stop a cyber-attack. The head of ConocoPhillips called to say thank you.â He fiddled with the Coke can. âWe lost three good men tonight. I want to know why. Tell me what youâve discovered.â
Nicholas ran Zachery through everything they knew or suspected, including his call to Menard and Guntherâs murder, and ended with Mikeâs plans to gather all the video feeds from Mr. Hodgesâs house and the refinery.
Zachery shook his head. âWho could have guessed? I mean, cyber-attacks? Talk about shifting gears. But you pulled the plug on them, by what means I probably donât want to know. But you also know they wonât stop. Not only that, it seems like theyâve taken one huge step from the road they were on, new game, new rules, and who knows where itâs leading?â
Nicholas sat forward. âGray and I have a line in now. Iâm confident we can begin tracing the attack and have names by morning. Thereâs a start.â
Zachery massaged his forehead. âAll right. Set things up. Nicholas, write up a warrant to go after everything Gunther Ansell had on his computers, if they even exist anymore, and Gray, get Interpol to release their files to us. I want to know everything this hacker has done, thought, or planned for the past year. Mike, put in your requests for the video feeds. And then . . .â He gave them a crooked grin. âThen I want all three of you to go home. No, donât argue. All of us need some sleep.â
He rose. âWeâll tackle this again in the morning. Youâve done excellent work tonight, but itâs time to shut it down.â He looked at his watch. âWeâll meet again at eight-thirty tomorrowâthisâmorning. If I see any of you a minute before, Iâll make you clean all the toilets on the twenty-third floor.â
Gray said, âSir, we must get my team going so they can follow all the threads on the cyber-attack. Nicholas stopped the main event, yes, but thereâs no telling if theyâll regroup and try again. With luck, we can protect all the systems and get the companies running normally by morning. Itâll be bad news if we donât. Shanghai is reporting steady sell-offs in the oil and gas sectors. When the markets open here, there could be a huge mess.â
âVery well. Call in some of your people, give them instructions, then get some sleep; youâve been at it over twenty-four hours. All of you, thatâs an order.â He paused, shook his head. âAnother order.â
Twenty minutes later, Mike stuck her head in Nicholasâs cubicle. âReady to get out of here?â
âI am. Gray gave his people instructions and left. I got the warrants in and sent some threads into the ether.â
âAnd Iâve got in a request for the Bayway video feeds.â
âIâm sure Nigel could be convinced to put together a tray if youâd like to come to the house.â
âSounds tempting, but a shower and my very own bed wins hands down. Get some sleep, Nicholas; you need it as much as I do.â She touched her fingers to her bruised face. âI gotta say, though, your pretty face looks better than mine. Itâs going to take a gallon of makeup to make me presentable. Iâll see you back here at eight-thirty.â She gave him a little wave and was gone.
He watched her walk away down the hall,
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