“We’ll know more in the next coupla days. Do not talk to the media, not even ‘off the record’. And do not post anything online. Understood?”
Lots of nods and thumbs up in response.
“Who do you think did this?” asked an employee.
“Not gonna speculate. You guys need to head out. The building is closed. Text your pod mates and tell them not to come in. Questions get routed to Brooks and me. Once we’ve got power, you can return to work.”
No one moved.
Stryker painted on a smile. “You got paid vacation. Go have some fun.” As the crowd headed out, he jumped off the counter and strode out of the building.What a fucking disaster.
As he sped down the toll road toward DC, he called Cooper.
“Hey, man,” Cooper said. “You caught me between meetings. Wanna grab dinner tonight?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Shoot.”
“In person.”
“Bro, I’m in meetings all day.”
“It’s related to the FBI account at TCS.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Cooper said. “Should I turn on the TV?”
“I need fifteen minutes.”
“Where are you?”
“Toll road, heading east.”
“I’ll tell my assistant to interrupt my meeting when you get here. How bad is it?”
Bad.“Nothing we can’t handle.” Stryker let those words roll off his tongue like he wasn’t in the middle of a total shit storm. In truth, he had no idea who’d stolen the equipment or what they were going to do, now that they had it.
The beautiful weather called for sunroof open, windows down, hair blowing in the breeze, music blaring. Stryker drove in silence and with the windows closed, his thoughts laser-focused on who the hell could have stolen his computers.
When he strolled into Cooper’s office, he had more questions than answers. He couldn’t sit, but he didn’t want to alarm Cooper by pacing, so he leaned against the windowsill. Then, like ripping off a Band-Aid, Stryker blurted, “We had a breach.”
“Jesus, no.”
“They cut the lines outside, which shut down the security system.”
“Not good.”
“It was a targeted hit. Laptops were taken, but only from the FBI hacker pod.”
The color had drained from Cooper’s face. “How many?”
“At least nine.”
“We have to treat this as a security threat. Those laptops could be on their way to Russia or China. Or it could be a domestic terror cell.”
“I’ve got tracking software—”
Cooper sighed. “Why didn’t you lead with that? That’s great. Where are they? Should I call in a SWAT team?”