Chapter 08: SNOWDEN
[BRIDGETTE HENRY]
"Good morning, Ms. Henry," the agent greeted.
"Good morning Ms. Floyd."
The liaison officer from the British Intelligence accepted her hand warmly for a shake. After the civil gesture, she offered the official to sit at the lone chair in front of the glass table and strutted back to her own, crossing her legs.
"Are you here to announce that we got the government contract, Ms. Floyd?"
The curve on one side of her cheeks showed off her arrogance, which made the officer giggle with moistened lips shut to suppress the sound.
"Still as cocky as ever," Ms. Floyd said, dismissing her charm.
"My company offers protection. One that the government would never have from other cybersecurity companies."
Confident, she swerved the chair on the side and gazed at the MI6 liaison officer with an ebony complexion that appeared beautiful as a contrast to the whitened office.
"And privacy intrusion is one reason why we are skeptical about it," the agent countered. "You can collect information and use it against us."
"Everyone is skeptical about it. And yet, we all allow social media apps to gather information about us willingly, which they used to promote ads based on our data," she pointed out. "The real question here is, is the intrusion bad for you or not?"
"Well argued," Ms. Floyd answered.
Grinning triumphantly, she stood from her seat to reach for the cups on the table beside her bookshelves. Thinly smoke evaporated from the simmering tea she poured onto the cup, adding milk and honey for the agent's mug. While she stirred, the liaison officer continued to explain the stalemate of her government proposal to provide online security to their websites.
"You know, you're not the only one bidding for this contract. There's five of you," Ms. Floyd said and took a sip of the tea she handed.
"I know," she answered, standing behind the officer's chair and leaning on the agent's shoulder. "And I know how to be on top of everyone."
Mischievously, she pecked on the agent's cheek and let her fragile lips wander on the lady's ear and neck. The sensual apple and bergamot with the strength of sage and cypress brought out a sharp smell that lasted until vanilla and patchouli had their way to feminize the agent's signature scent.
When the agent laid the cup on the table and turned, she reached for the contentious lips with an appetite to conquer the strength of the woman's passion. They continue to argue, using their tongues curling in each other's mouths. With a question, which one of them would top this time.
Answered by her hand landing on the agent's lap, tracing the shape of the muscled thighs under the black skirt. As her hand lifted the wool fabric, the sound of the intercom buzzed to catch her attention.
"Ms. Henry?" the manager, Mr. Bowen, was on the line.
The call wasn't enough for her to stop. Preferring the officer's warm lips, promising a pleasant morning rather than sticking her rims to a plastic device.
"Ms. Henry, there might be an emergency here. Though I truly think there isn't."
The agent slid her lips away and asked, "Shouldn't you look into it?"
"I have better things to look at," she whispered, waning her eyes while simply brushing the edges of her lips against the fullness of the rims in front of her.
"Ms. Henry?" Mr. Bowen insisted.
"That sounded urgent."
"Ugh! What bloody hell?!" she groaned in protest, walking towards the table and pushed the button to ask, "What is it?"
"Trixie is here and—" her secretary cuts in and a young woman suddenly spoke, "—Boss! I think you should see this."
The young cybersecurity analyst employed last year sounded enthusiastic. Glancing at the agent's face, she knew it also piqued the woman's interest.
"Okay, we're going down to look."
"We?" Ms. Floyd asked, hesitant to follow her.
"It's about time you see me in action in other places than your bed," she said and winked.
They left the office with the agent rolling her eyes and rode the elevator down to one floor. The shaft opens to the work floor of the cybersecurity company that has a white brick wall as its logo.
[Computer Advance Security Technology and Logistics Enterprise]
The work floor has 600 square meters of space with internal partitions, custom finishes, and furnishings. The wood, glass, and steel designs incorporated harmoniously to lessen the distraction in the workplace and an open-end area gave a freeing experience.
The divisions set for different activities. Such as the function room, where they discuss ideas for better detection and intrusion of issues on security. Beside it was the capsule room where double-decker beds were installed on the wall to use a resting area for employees.
On the other side was the conference room, used for important meetings with clients and management discussions. Next to it was the administration office, where the manager sits to oversee the employees at the work hub positioned at the center.
Comprising forty workstations with wooden tables and transparent glass partitions, the work hub functions as the heart of the company where all the cybersecurity analysts monitor the protection of websites they handle.
"What's the problem?" she asked, stepping into the office of the manager without knocking.
"It's nothing, just a slowdown on some websites," Mr. Bowen reacted with his lips twisting.
"Does it fluctuate or continuously down?" she asked.
"Steady down!" Trixie answered.
"Let's see."
The screen showed the statistics of the ten websites, with numbers gradually rising compared to the regular overall traffic of people accessing the sites. For others, it would look normal but with sharp eyes, it's alarming.
"What do you think, boss?" Trixie asked, "I think it's a hack."
"A hack? Aren't you assuming too much?" the manager disputed, "It might go back after a few minutes."
"What if it doesn't?"
"Check on it first," she requested. "We don't want to alert anyone with false threats. Find the source. If it doesn't add more clicks and plunge, then we stop it."
"Okay, boss!" Trixie nodded eagerly, ignoring the manager.
Complacent, she stepped towards the conference room and opened the door for the liaison officer to get in first. To give themselves privacy, she pulled the aluminum blinds down one by one.
"That was sexy," Ms. Floyd purred, talking about her previous guidance.
"I could be bossier than that."
"Are we going to fool around while you're being hacked?" the agent asked, arching her lips.
The innuendo of them having sex in the conference room made her faintly laugh. It's exciting but risky. Everyone knew she's engaged to an actress and one slip of gossip in the office would impede her marriage. Even if she cheats with other women, she was careful not to be caught by her soon-to-be wife.
"No. But I'm going to show you the reason the British Intelligence should hire us."
With the 27-inch touch screen computer hanging on the wall, she logged in to the administration using a password and a fingerprint from her phone that could be sent to the system through a secure messaging program only for the company.
After securing her entry, she scanned the system and view the stats of the websites that were losing connection. In another window, she could see her employees filtering the people accessing the websites.
"What are you going to do?" Ms. Floyd asked.
"Find the hacker."
Within the system, she accessed another program and scanned the location of the filtered bots, which showed a masked IP.
"So the websites are certainly being hacked."
"Yes, and this one isn't only attacking the sites, it's also striking us."
"How? Shouldn't your security stop it already?"
"The bots were waiting for the security filter to check it but before it finishes its job and drops the connection. Like the websites, the system will repeatedly check it and it will eat the space provided to one client. And since the bots will click 100x or 1000x, it will accumulate more space."
"Can you disconnect your system to the websites?"
"Abandon them? This is what they paid us to do. We fight it one by one and kill the bots."
"The hacker will only add more and it will slow down you both. Maybe it's time you call the website's server to shut down and restart."
"That's what the hacker wants. If the websites shut down, it means we failed to protect them."
"And if this hacker shuts you down, all the companies connected to you will lose their security. They will be vulnerable."
"That will never happen."
"You seem confident. Do you have a plan?"
From the screen, she accessed one bot and tried to locate it.
"You're tracing the hacker? The IP will bounce off to different places. It's hard to track these people."
"I know."
When the screen displayed locations of the hacker in different places around the globe. From China, Japan, Korea, the US, Singapore, and other countries.
"See? Even if you scan the places where the hacker is, you can't pinpoint where they are exactly on the map."
"What if I can?"
"What do you mean?"
"I invented a software that tells exactly where they are on the globe, on the map, on the street, on their houses."
"Even if they are using VPN and masked their IP?"
"Yes. I call this program "QUEEN"."
"QUEEN? How does it work?"
"Watch."
With one click. The computer showed the address of the hacker.
castle:\ admn\system\hunter\location\Chance Street, London, E2