CHAPTER TWELVE
Old Farrow Hall
Farrow-on-Gray, England
Mike showered, dressed, put her hair in a clip, and got lost only once finding her way from the east side of Old Farrow Hall to Nicholas’s study on the west side. She walked in to hear Nicholas speaking on his cell. Who was he talking to?
“Yes, I’ve released Grandfather’s servers from the ransomware attack, and, in so doing, we believe we’ve discovered a bigger problem. Father, I hate to tell you this, but I believe the servers at both the Home and Foreign Office have been compromised. I need Adam here to do a full sweep of the Security Services’ servers. Yes, both MI5 and MI6.”
Harry Drummond had been called back to London the day before, some sort of important Brexit meeting with the home secretary. Nicholas saw Mike and put his cell on speaker. She heard his father say clearly, “Nicholas, you know those servers are carefully monitored. In fact, after the malware attack this morning, we immediately set the servers to change passwords every hour. We’re taking every precaution.”
Nicholas said, “If MATRIX is compromised on one machine, it could be compromised on all of them. As I said, Adam is flying over, and we’d like to take a look personally at the servers. I’m glad to hear you took such measures so quickly. It’s smart, but it’s still not enough. There’s more, Father. We’re looking for possible ties between Hemmler and Donovan. Is there anything you call tell me, off the record?”
Mike heard silence, then, “This isn’t an appropriate conversation for us to be having.”
“So you’re already pursuing this angle.”
“Those were not my words.”
Nicholas looked at Mike, said slowly, “Do you know if they were involved in some sort of plot, or were they targeted separately? Is there something in your files that ties the two together?”
Harry’s voice became more clipped. “We have no reason to believe the vice chancellor of Germany was doing anything illegal, or immoral. Nor Donovan. Again, this isn’t an appropriate conversation.”
“Except they’re both dead. Murdered, Hemmler, moments before a meeting with the prime minister, Donovan taken out in front of his home. What were these men doing? If you’d let me look at their files, examine the servers—”
His father said with finality, “You do not have the clearance to see any of this information, nor are you part of our investigative services any longer.”
“Mike and I are heading to London shortly, surely we can talk—”
“No, we most certainly cannot. I will pass along your concerns. Now, I will see you at the weekend.”
And then Mike understood. She held up a hand, called out, “Hello, Mr. Drummond. Mike here. It would be lovely to have dinner with you this evening at Drummond House.”
Mike heard silence from his father, then, “Very well. Half six and don’t be late.” And he rang off.
Nicholas smiled at her. “Well done.”
“I realized he simply couldn’t talk to you. The phones aren’t secure, and there were probably people around.”
“Yes. And you know as well as I do he’ll let us know what’s up at dinner. I wonder if there is a link between the two.” He stood. “I’m sorry about cutting our holiday short, but we’ll come back as soon as this is resolved.”
Mike wrapped her arms around his waist, looked up at him, eyes alight with excitement. “Sorry? Nicholas, the game’s afoot. I’ll race you to the car.”
“The game is always afoot for us. Let me tell my mother and talk her out of coming with us. Oh, and I’m going to update Savich. Let him know what’s going on. Get packed, and I’ll meet you at the drive in twenty minutes.”
“Tell S and S I said hello.”
Nicholas watched her nearly dance out of his office. She was an excitement junkie, just like him. He was a lucky, lucky man.
He dialed Savich. “Sorry to bother you, but I need to run something by you.”
“Let me get Sherlock on the phone, too—all right, here she is.”
He filled them in, and they listened without interruptions, until Sherlock said, “Wait. Let me get this straight. Your theory is the victims were already being investigated by Security Services, and you think someone may have hacked the Security Services’ databases and gained this knowledge? Nicholas, the Security Services’ servers are the most secure in the world, as secure as ours.”
Savich laughed. “Sweetheart, both Nicholas and I—and don’t forget Adam Pearce—all of us could hack their databases.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re all geek gods.”
Nicholas laughed. “That’s good, Sherlock, I’ll have to tell Adam.”
She continued, “But the real question is, how would someone outside know to hack the databases to find these specific names in the first place? Or are classified documents being leaked? Either way, if someone is murdering people Security Services are investigating, you do have a serious problem.”
“Yes,” Nicholas said. “We need to find out why these two were being investigated. You know about the massive malware attack Adam and I stopped this morning. And remember, Parliament was attacked head-on back in June.” He paused a moment. “I’m thinking perhaps this goes deeper than we think.”
“Deeper, what do you mean?”
“It’s all coordinated with another purpose at the core of it—what, I don’t know. Yet. But I’ll keep you updated with what Mike and I discover.”
Savich said, “Please do. I’ll pass this along to the president’s team. Keep us posted.”