DARC Ops: The Complete Series

by Jamie Garrett

  “That’s not quite what I’m asking,” said Jackson. “I know you’re not a medical examiner, but I’d still like to—”

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” interrupted Clarence as he tossed the folded up paper aside, “but we’ve only just begun our internal investigation.” He pointed to his associate, and said, “This is Eric Shultz. He runs our cybersecurity.”

  Eric said hello, his shoulders slumped, before explaining how much of an honor it was, of course, for him to meet Jackson.

  Clarence winced outwardly at that. “So, anyway, yes. We have our own people—experts—who look at this sort of thing and often times in tandem with law enforcement.”

  Jackson smiled. “Well, then, let’s forget about the body, the death. And instead we’ll take a look at what we’re experts with.”

  Clarence scoffed at that. “You have expertise in medical devices?”

  “Yes,” said Jasper, answering for himself. “I do.”

  “Okay, then,” said Jackson, directing his attention back to Jasper. “So was it a technical error, or a medical one?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know,” said Jasper.

  “He doesn’t know,” said Clarence, his lips tightening into a slight smile, his voice sounding almost grateful.

  “Not yet,” Jasper said, looking straight at Jackson. “I need more time.”

  “We don’t exactly have more time,” he replied.

  “Aren’t we getting off topic anyway?” said Clarence.

  “Perhaps,” said Jackson. “The prince will be there tomorrow.”

  Clarence was nodding. “Yes, right. So let’s focus on the prince then.”

  “Of course. This has everything to do with the prince.” said Jasper. “I’m not trying to frame your doctor. It’s not a witch hunt.”

  “And I’m not defending him,” said Clarence. “I’d just rather have our own team look at it.”

  “Well, we’re gonna look at it, too.” Jasper said with a little smile. “If you don’t mind.”

  Clarence scowled. “Of course I don’t mind.”

  “Good. We just have to look at everything.”

  “Of course you do,” said Clarence. “It’s just already such a pain in my ass.”

  The room got quiet and awkward again. Jasper wasn’t sure where to look, so he just bowed his head and stared at the bright sheen of the conference table, the fluorescent ceiling panels reflecting off the black wood like moonlight over water.

  “Why is he here?” Clarence asked with a scrunched up and scrutinizing expression. He was pointing to the fourth and so far silent member of the meeting, Jackson’s favorite reconnaissance companion, Matthias.

  “I’m part of the security team,” Matthias said. “I’ll be at the hospital tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Sorry,” Clarence snapped. “I just never met you before.”

  “What about the Saudi guards?” said Jackson. “You haven’t met them yet either, and they’ll be crawling all over the place.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Clarence had his hand to his head, rubbing his left temple. “This whole thing is just shaping up to be one big shit show.”

  “It’ll be fine,” said Jackson.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I’ve got my two best men on it.”

  Clarence was looking down, his hand at his forehead now. He let out a long sigh. “Why did I even get involved with this shit in the first place?”

  “Because you’re desperate,” Jackson said.

  Clarence laughed. “Thanks, Asshole, but that was a rhetorical question.”

  “But you really are desperate, though. You need this.”

  Clarence looked up at him with a wounded expression. “What the hell are you talking about? Why am I desperate?”

  “Because your hospital’s a few million dollars in debt,” said Matthias.

  Clarence glanced at his associate, Eric Shultz, and then back to Jackson’s shit-eating grin. “So I guess you’re experts on economics and hospital operations too now, right?”

  “No,” said Jackson. “We just hacked into your finances.”

  Eric laughed, but it was cut off by Clarence’s glare.

  “Oh, well, that’s fucking great.” Clarence had his arms crossed now. “That’s just wonderful. You’re invading my privacy and my trust now.”

  Jackson was shaking his head. “Your privacy, yes. But not your trust.”

  “Mr. Mitchell,” said Matthias. “Don’t forget that we’re a cybersecurity company. There’s not much that stays secret from us.”

  “He’s a cybersecurity guy, too.” Clarence was pointing at his associate, Eric. Then he cocked his head and asked, “Where the hell were you at? You let them just waltz right in and—”

  “Mr. Mitchell,” Jackson interrupted. “We have a far different set of resources.”

  “So?”

  “So don’t worry about Mr. Shultz.”

  “This is just part of the process,” said Matthias. “This is how we can help you, by breaking through your defenses and then analyzing the wreckage. It’s better if we do it before someone else does.”

  Eric Shultz was nodding as he looked at Clarence.

  “Your hospital needs money,” said Jackson. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “You’re right,” said Clarence. “So let’s drop it.”

  Jackson tapped a button on his laptop which powered up the overhead projector. It showed the first slide of a presentation. A table of contents.

  “So . . .” Jackson focused his gaze on Eric Shultz. “You’re in charge of cybersecurity at the hospital.”

  “That’s right,” said Eric.

  “You are? As in, you actually have a cybersecurity plan?”

  Clarence, meanwhile, was stabbing angry little holes into Eric with his eyes.

  “Yeah,” Eric croaked. “We have . . . safeguards, yes.”

  “Safeguards?” Jackson looked at Clarence.

  “Yes,” said Eric. “We have defenses.”

  “What you have is the bare minimum,” said Matthias. “With all due respect.”

  “Eric,” said Clarence. “Don’t we have that thing, though? Don’t we have cyber insurance?”

  “We have cyber insurance,” said Eric with a hint of shame in his voice.

  Matthias tried to hold in some laughter.

  “You’ll have to look into that too,” said Jackson. “You have so many vulnerabilities, the insurance company probably wouldn’t pay out for you if anything happened. They’d claim negligence on your side.”

  “What?” Clarence barked.

  Eric was nodding. “I tried explaining that to you, sir.”

  “Listen, Clarence,” said Matthias. “You’re just barely adhering to HIPAA, which just means that you’re allowed to stay licensed. Not necessarily safe and secured.”

  “Clarence,” said Jackson. “Do you have any idea when HIPAA was enacted?”

  Clarence rolled his eyes. “No. I don’t.”

  “1996,” said Jackson.

  “I don’t even know what the hell that means,” Clarence said with a disgusted look on his face. “I’m not a tech guy. So you should just talk to Mr. Shultz and then—”

  “It means we’ve got a shit-ton of work to do between now and tomorrow,” Jackson interrupted. “And even then, your hospital won’t be fully secured. Especially not for Prince Saif.”

  “So, then what?” asked Clarence. “We’re gonna wing it and hope nothing bad happens?”

  “No,” said Jackson. “We’re not going to wing it.”

  “Clarence,” said Jasper. “It just means that we’ll have to work our asses off.”

  Clarence nodded solemnly. “We’ve got to make this work . . .”

  “Okay, so back to your security plan,” said Matthias as he looked over to Eric.

  “What about it?” Eric asked. He appeared to not want to talk about the security plan, or anything else for that matter.

  “Do you have a committee you report to?”
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  “Excuse me?”

  “About cybersecurity issues,” said Matthias said with a sigh. “Is there a committee that you notify cybersecurity incidents to?”

  “Hmm . . .” Eric seemed to be stuck on that one, staring off for too long at the far corner of the room.

  Matthias went ahead, asking, “And do you have qualified people on the committee who understand these issues?”

  Eric looked at Clarence. And when Clarence noticed, he reacted like someone just tossed cold water onto his face. “Who? Me?” he barked at Eric. “You think I’m qualified?”

  “Okay, then,” said Matthias. “Let’s move on.” He pointed to the projector screen and then advanced the slide. “If you’ll have a look at our slide here, you’ll see our risk analysis findings.”

  “Eric,” said Clarence in a low grumble, “you have to tell me what all of this shit means, because they’re not explaining a damn thing to me. And because this is what I pay you for. If you can’t keep the hospital secure, then you can at least play interpreter.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Eric, avoiding any and all eye contact with Clarence.

  Matthias ran through a slew of vulnerabilities, pausing at the end of each to allow Eric to translate for Clarence. From access management, weak passwords, and unreplaced default settings to old systems that weren’t properly patched or maintained with the current security updates.

  “Your email systems are particularly horrendous. You’re letting in emails from domains that have only been up for hours. Why?”

  Clarence turned to his assistant. “Yeah. Why?”

  “And no more letting your staff use hospital computers to surf the internet.”

  “Yes!” said Clarence. “I’ve been saying that for years.”

  “If they want to surf the web, they can use their smartphone for that.”

  “But only on their breaks,” Clarence insisted.

  “Right,” said Matthias. “On their breaks and through your guest wireless network.”

  Jasper smiled as he watched the DARC Ops team first tear holes into the hospital’s cybersecurity, and then slowly, and mercifully, build them back up again. They went over all the easy changes first, the things that could be implemented within a matter of hours. It was stuff that would secure them from the average attack, but still not from anyone sophisticated enough to take down a Saudi prince. There was still much more work to be done, and much of it fell into Jasper’s lap.

  “Before we end the meeting,” said Jasper, “I need to straighten up some things about my role.”

  “What kind of things?” asked Jackson.

  “Well, I think we need to embellish my injuries. I need something a little more serious than a sore shoulder.”

  Jackson looked at Clarence and asked, “What can we do?”

  “What do you mean what can we do? We can do anything. What kind of injury do you want, Jasper?”

  “I was thinking broken arm. A full cast.”

  Clarence looked at him for a moment in silence. And then he burst out laughing. “Finally,” he said through his laughter. “Finally something that I can take care of. Something attainable. Yeah, we’ll get you a friggin’ cast.”

  “No cast,” said Jackson. “Too restrictive.”

  “No cast?” said Clarence, sounding disappointed.

  “How about a hip replacement?” asked Jackson. “It’ll be a lot easier.”

  “So just something on the records?” said Jasper. “Should we have DARC Ops hack in and create—?”

  Clarence moved on to a second round of laughter. “I can do that, too. Am I allowed to do that at least?”

  When his hysteria finally dried up and he was wiping his tears, his face finally returned to that familiar look of deer-in-the-headlights dread. “But everything else . . . I have to take this back to the board members. How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”

  16

  Fiona

  “You’re going to hate me for this.”

  Fiona had had enough. She closed her book with a dull thud and then looked up at Wendy, who had been hovering over her for the last five minutes.

  “This really sucks,” said Wendy, her face twisted with disappointment. “But hopefully it’ll be the end of it.”

  “What are you talking about, Wendy?”

  “That urine test . . .”

  “What about it?” She studied Wendy’s face for any hint. “I thought I passed?”

  “You did,” said Wendy as she slowly sat next to her. She made a sound like it was painful for her knees to bend. “God, this really bugs me.”

  “What is it?” Fiona tried not to yell, but it came out a little louder than she’d hoped.

  “They’re saying the results were tampered with.”

  “What? By whom?”

  Wendy shrugged.

  “They think I did it?”

  “No,” said Wendy. “No, of course not.”

  “Then who did? And why? Why would someone—?”

  “Maybe tamper isn’t the right word. I think they said corrupted.”

  The whole thing felt unreal to Fiona. A joke, perhaps. But the way Wendy was looking at her . . . Fuck it. Joke or not, Fiona was resolved to not participate in anymore bullshit. She was done peeing into cups.

  “I’m not going to do it,” said Fiona, feeling more emboldened by the minute. “I’m done with that.”

  “They’re going to ask you to—”

  “I said I’m done,” Fiona interrupted her.

  “You’re done what? With this job?”

  “No,” she said a little quieter. “With the tests.”

  “Well, it might be one and the same.”

  More threats. More bullshit. With this type of treatment, Fiona began wondering if she’d been the unwitting accessory to some crime, if she’d seen or done something that she needed to be silenced for. It was a type of intimidation, she had no doubt about that. Character assassination.

  She finally gathered her courage, and asked Wendy in as sincere a manner as possible, “What did I do?”

  “Nothing,” said Wendy. “It was just a mistake on their end.”

  “But what did I do to deserve all this shit?”

  Wendy sighed, her hand running through her hair. “Fiona, girl, I love you, but you need to stop with the pity party. You’re not the only nurse being scrutinized here.”

  She searched Wendy’s face for any information. Her glossy, mournful eyes, and the dark circles under them. Was Wendy being examined too?

  “Let’s just put our heads down and get to work, and just get this over with.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Fiona. “Are they testing you too?”

  Wendy looked away and said, “No.”

  Fiona kept watching for anything else.

  “But it certainly feels like it,” Wendy said. “It’s a toxic environment. And I don’t think any of the girls trust me anymore.” She shook her head. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know what the hell’s going on.”

  Maybe they were on the same side. Wendy certainly looked wounded in some deep, profound way, like she had witnessed firsthand the rotten underbelly of hospital politics. And she was probably tired of having the same discussion with dozens of nurses, all of them firing back similarly.

  “I have to get back,” said Fiona. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “Are you?”

  Fiona agreed and tried to force a smile.

  “Well,” said Wendy. “So long as you’re okay, I guess it’s good timing that you do a shadow.”

  That was another added irritation for Fiona, the month being randomly spotted with situational training for nursing students. She had already had several of these shadow her through various tasks. As if she wasn’t already tired of having preying eyes on her.

  Wendy patted Fiona’s shoulder. “It’s just coming in from all angles, huh?”

  “No, no,” said Fiona. “It’s okay.”

  But it really wasn’t.

 
“I haven’t gotten to the bad news yet,” said Wendy, cringing slightly. “It’s for a bed bath.Perineal, too, if the patient wants it.”

  “Wonderful,” said Fiona, doing nothing to hide her despair.

  She met her shadow in the hallway.

  “Hi, Chelsea, my name is Fiona.” She was speaking loudly and with emphatic pronunciation. “Have you ever done a bed bath before?”

  The girl looked like a teenager.

  “No?” said Fiona.

  A nervous teenager. “Um,” she said, her hands wringing tightly. “Well, I did in training.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” said Fiona. “With a training doll?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, great. Then this should be a great way to learn what it’s really like, then.”

  Fiona wasn’t sure what kind of patient they’d be bathing today, aside from the fact that it was a male. She almost hoped it would be some old, disgustingly perverted man. Someone who could make it memorable for the young student. Fiona really wanted to make an impact today. She wanted to expose this rookie to what the job was really like. She might skip all the stuff about bureaucratic fascism, the constant surveillance, the drug tests. She wouldn’t mention the perhaps psychotic Dr. Wahl. But in lieu of all that, the newbie could at least see what a ninety-year-old man's uncircumcised penis looked like.

  And to not only see it, but to handle it. To bathe, rinse, and dry the little noodly member. And on top of that, and perhaps the most challenging part, to do so with a gentle modesty, to view and then handle his manhood with a clinical professionalism—no matter the age, or size, or extent of the inappropriate erection.

  That was the great mystery behind every male bed bath. Not if, but when would the patient’s member recognize that it had an audience? The why was understood, certainly, as a female nurse. Especially for younger patients. But most younger patients were healthy enough to wash themselves “down there.” Everyone had that option, and most of them took it. There were, of course, some young men who Fiona could unequivocally describe as perverts. While most men, despite the erection, seemed very uncomfortable during the process, there was still that small percentage who thought it was their time to start making moves or to expect a “happy ending.”