The End of the Beginning

Nancy swung open her door. William and Jake were standing there, soaking wet.

“Oh my God. What happened to you two?”

“Like you don’t know,” William smirked sarcastically. “Thanks for the shower. Jake told me you were looking out for us. You said you were good with computers. I didn’t think that meant you could do crazy things like that. You belong in… in Anonymous or something.” Nancy took a little ballerina style bow and smiled. “Who says I’m not.”

“Okay. Get inside,” said Jake, pushing both her and William into the room.

“What happened?” Nancy asked again.

William closed the blinds to the room. “Hernandez saw me. I think he was going to arrest me.”

Jake locked the door and dimmed the lights. “When is your roommate coming back?”

“Not for a while. She’s doing homework at the training center.”

“Good. Captain Emerson was right, Nancy,” admitted Jake, taking a seat on her bed. “Someone is hiding something.” “What do you mean?” asked Nancy, sitting beside him.

“We found a fluorescent tattoo on Samir’s right forearm. It had four symbols. I’ve never seen them before. We don’t know what they mean. They should have been noted in the autopsy report but they weren’t. The body is always swept with UV light to kill bacteria before an autopsy.” “Well, even if they were it wouldn’t matter now,” shrugged Nancy.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked William.

Nancy shot up off the bed and slammed herself down in her desk chair. She opened her glass tablet to a segment of coding.

“I reviewed the medical records like you told me to Captain, to check for any anomalies. I was finally able to get into ISAF’s secure database a few hours ago and, well, I found an anomaly.” “What is it, Lewis?”

“Well, sir, there is no autopsy report. In fact, there aren’t even any investigation files. They’re all gone. Deleted.” “What?!” hollered both men simultaneously.

“There is no autopsy report on file for Samir Mamedov.”

“Who deleted the files?” Jake demanded.

“Username and password confirms it. The report was deleted by Base Commander Hammond yesterday.”

“That son of a bitch,” William said furiously. “That’s when she left for the dam.”

“But… why?” asked Nancy. “What is there to hide?”

“She’s the architect of all this, of everything that has happened,” fumed William. “India. Toronto. She must have agents in UNIRO helping her. Samir must have been one of those agents. He killed himself to get out though, and warn me. He told me ‘thou art amongst traitors’ the day he died.” “What the hell are you talking about Emerson?” Jake asked impatiently. “What are you saying?”

“Before Terra Nova’s attack in Toronto,” William explained, “I saw Hammond speaking to someone on a landline in the middle of one of the warehouses.” “A landline,” quirked Nancy. “No one uses those.”

“Exactly,” said William. “On it she said the name Toronto. I heard it as clear as day! She asked whoever she was talking to for more information so that she could finish something. She knew of that attack and now she is plotting a new one and my rescue officer is dead because of it to warn us!” Jake cocked his head. “You heard her say that?”

“Yes,” William gritted. “It’s her. It was always her. I’m sure of it now. She knows an investigation could uncover her though. She’s manipulating it, rushing it and now deleting files to cover up evidence. It explains the tattoos going unnoticed. She must have someone in ISAF helping her as well in order to do all this. A medical examiner or something or maybe one of your forensic people.” “But, if she could change the files why delete them? I mean, someone was bound to notice like you did Nancy,” questioned Jake. “The deletion of an entire investigation is much more obvious than a simple change within it.” “Lewis, was it obvious the deletions were made by her?” asked William.

“No sir, she was careful,” said Nancy, pounding away at her glass tablets keyboard. “She used some clever coding to make it look like someone else had done it actually, some random ISAF guard.” “Who?” Jake demanded.

“He doesn’t exist,” said Nancy. “I looked him up in the registry where an entire file did existed on him. There was even a glass tag popping up.” “Then what gave him away as not existing?” asked William.

“His weapons.” Nancy looked over at Jake. “All ISAF guardsmen are issued two weapons, are they not?”

“They are,” confirmed Jake. “A P320 and a P90.”

“Right, so there should be a record in the ISAF weapons inventory that two weapons have been given to this guard but the stock doesn’t match up. In the registry there are 2,102 active guardsmen on base, which means there should be 4,204 weapons checked out of ISAF’s weapons store. Currently, there are 4,202…” “I’ll be damned,” murmured Jake.

“That’s why she deleted the files yesterday,” said William. “Should the file deletions be noticed it would be pinned on her imaginary guard. By the time someone noticed he was fake, it would already be to late. She’d be over 4,000 miles away comfortably set in amongst her targets. She is going to attack the dam. That’s her big finish.” “Jesus,” Jake gulped. “Almost every world leader and UNIRO head is at the dam with her. Director-General Ferrer is there.” “She’s going to takedown the international system as we know it if she manages to takeout everyone at that dam. The few will fall…” “Why not do it sooner than yesterday?” asked Nancy.

“Because of me, the never ending pain in her ass,” said William, pointing to himself cheekily. “She is afraid of what I know and what I’ll do with it with my slightly obsessive persistence about all this. She’s racing me to her finish…” “And winning,” mumbled Jake.

“With the deletion of those files she permanently removes any suspicions or affiliations away from Samir, her last lose end that I can grab from her and show to world.” “With that level of identification forgery it could take hours, maybe even a few days to realize that guardsman doesn’t exist,” said Jake, rubbing his forehead. “We’d be on a man hunt looking for a ghost. No one would expect her to be able to hack our systems like that.” Jake turned to William. “I’m sorry, Captain. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. Regardless of how Hernandez feels about you right now we need to show him this immediately. I’ll vouch for you. He will listen.” “Thank you Jake,” said William, nodding his head. “We’ll go back now. Lewis, I will send you those tattoo photos. Figure out what they mean.” “Yes, sir.”

“First, I need to call Colonel Morrison and warn him. He could be in danger if an attack on the dam is imminent.” William instructed his earpiece to call John. It tried but failed once again. “Damnit. That’s the third time I’ve tried with nothing. It doesn’t even go through.” “That’s strange,” said Nancy. “Give me your earpiece, Captain. I’ll look into it.”

“Thank you,” said William, handing her his earpiece. “Get to work on those symbols.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jake, you ready to go?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. He started moving towards the door but abruptly stopped. He turned around and kissed Nancy on the lips. “Bye,” he said to her. Nancy blushed.

Jake looked at William, fixed his uniform and said, “Now I’m ready.”