Page 104 of The Secret of Secrets

Field Officer Housemore arrived at Crucifix Bastion to discover no vehicles parked outside, no signs of life, and the front door destroyed. What happened here? Sidearm raised, she stepped cautiously into the glass-strewn entryway, her shoes crunching on the scattered shards.

Housemore was relieved to find the steel access door marked Lab was intact and locked. She moved down the hall into Gessner’s reception area and office.

Where is everyone?

She placed a Signal call to Mr. Finch, relaying what she had found.

“My jet just took off from London,” Finch replied, an unusual tension in his voice. “Secure the building—nobody in or out. Use deadly force if necessary.”

With that he was gone.

On the fourth floor of Random House Tower, concealed in the warren of loudly humming computer banks, operative Chinburg adjusted his headphones and listened intently to the conversation now taking place about forty feet away between Jonas Faukman and Alex Conan.

The beam of his laser microphone was aimed at the smoothest surface he could find—a pane of glass that covered an illustration of a sinking ship. Conveniently, the illustration included a blue ocean, on which the blue dot of light was fairly well disguised. More importantly, the illustration hung very close to where Faukman and his tech were talking, close enough that the sound of their voices caused microvibrations in the surface of the glass, which in turn caused microfluctuations in the laser beam. An interferometer then analyzed the interference patterns in the light beam and “translated” the vibrations back into audio.

Chinburg could hear every word. And I’m not the only one listening.

Somewhere on his private jet over Europe, Mr. Finch was patched in via satellite and Voice-Over-Wi-Fi, listening in real time. Chinburg was certain their boss would be pleased. Until only a few moments ago, the entire team was concerned that the PRH tech might indeed have found a way to identify Q as the source of the hack.

Not even close.

Chinburg smirked, listening to his headphones with amusement as the editor seethed at the young tech. “Library Genesis!” Faukman spat. “We were hacked by Library-Fucking-Genesis! One of the most notorious piracy outfits in the world! How could you have let them into our servers, Alex!”

Chinburg had certainly heard of the elusive organization, known among hackers as LibGen. Established more than a decade ago by Russian scientists, LibGen was the Internet’s largest “shadow library” of pirated academic and literary works. Despite numerous legal challenges and lawsuits from major publishers, LibGen had managed to persist, thanks to an ingeniously decentralized structure of mirror sites and backup domains.

The tech got it wrong. We’re in the clear.

Chinburg was relieved, sensing it could have gone the other way. His team had expedited the attack by repurposing existing code that, in this new era of AI-enhanced web scouring, could potentially have led back to Q’s operational division.

Thankfully, the tech missed it.

Chinburg’s best guess was that LibGen had attempted to hack PRH at some point in the recent past, and tonight the tech had discovered a digital artifact from that older hack.

Faukman continued to rail against the infamous piracy group while the tech was typing furiously, most likely searching for more information…or possibly crafting his resignation letter.

Keep searching, Chinburg thought. You’re barking up the wrong tree.

Just then, Chinburg felt a pulse on his phone, and he checked the screen.

It was a secure message from Mr. Finch, who had apparently heard enough.

Mission Complete. Pull Out Now.

Downstairs in the lobby, incapacitated on the floor behind the counter, security guard Mark Dole was still kicking himself for not handling this situation better.

It all happened so fast…I failed when it counted most.

The muscle-bound thug who had stolen Dole’s seat and security cap was now going through Dole’s phone and wallet, taking notes.

Dole wished he’d had the foresight to dial 911 when these guys arrived. The Midtown North Precinct was just a few blocks away, and officers could have arrived in minutes.

The elevator pinged, and Dole heard the second intruder returning to the lobby.

“All set,” the arriving man said. “They’re convinced we’re book pirates—we’re clear.”

“Hilarious.” The big guy swiveled around and knelt down beside Dole. “Your bosses are clueless, Mark. I hope you’re smarter…smart enough never to mention we were here.”

Dole stared into the man’s steely eyes.