Covert Affairs: Partnership : A Covert Affairs Romance (Book One)

by Valerie Vaughn

  “Almost certainly a hired hit, not a personal execution.” Even to his own ears, the excuse sounded weak.

  “Hired hit means willing to hire security. You beat the bastard at his own game. We’re far from safe, Syler. You especially.”

  “Well there’s a reason I have you,” he replied, slumping back in his seat. He sighed and shook his head, hoping to dispel his nerves. His next words may as well have been a personal pep talk. “If I take the time to panic right now, we’re completely screwed. We need to ID this hacker, confiscate his tech, and bring him in so we can figure out what his endgame is. I’m just here to lure him out in the open and let you handle the rest.”

  “Let me once again state for the record that I immensely disapprove of you being bait.”

  Syler hummed sympathetically as he rubbed a thumb over Arthur’s knuckles. “Noted.”

  ---

  They checked into their hotel room shortly after ten a.m., suitcases almost entirely packed with spare equipment. If all went according to plan, they wouldn’t be staying for the second day of the conference. It probably wouldn’t, Arthur sighed, lugging the last of the bags into the room. Under different circumstances, the single bed ensuite and weekend away with Syler would be something to look forward to.

  Syler darted into the bathroom shortly after they arrived, swearing enough to inspire mild alarm before stumbling back out squinting, eyes watering spectacularly. “I, and I cannot emphasize this enough, fucking despise contact lenses.”

  Arthur quirked a brow. “Thought you were meant to blend in with your fellow nerds.”

  He huffed, digging out a small case from the field equipment bag he’d packed. He slipped on a pair of glasses, the full rims thicker than his usual rectangular half-frame pair, tapping firmly on the center bridge as he slid them up his nose. “Miranda, can you hear me? Oh good. We’ve just gotten to the hotel room. I’ll check in again when my network is up and running.” He tapped at the bridge again, spinning to face Arthur as he did. “Blending in is overrated. These come with a communicator, GPS tracking, and a camera, the last two wired directly to HQ and our phones.”

  “Handy.”

  “You’d destroy them in three minutes flat and they’re the Colonel’s baby. None for you.”

  “They might help me fit in,” he muttered petulantly.

  “Nothing would help you fit in here, Arthur. Now come help me with the heavy lifting.”

  Three hours later, Syler’s laptop was hooked into a series of additional monitors, primary connection routing through his home server network and a secure hotspot, neatly set up to transmit recorded footage from the glasses direct to HQ in hopes of getting an ID on the hacker sooner rather than later. He sat back, glancing over to his escort, nerves surging back with a vengeance now that there was nothing left to prepare.

  “Right, shall we head to the center?”

  “Ground rules first, sweetheart,” Arthur murmured from his corner seat. He’d settled into it almost an hour ago, at loose ends while Syler went to work on the electronics. “Ear piece stays in place at all times. If you lose it at any point, turn on your secondary—”

  “Yes,” he snarked, “because you’re historically so good at that.”

  The blond fixed him with an impatient look. “You done?”

  He dragged a hand down his face and exhaled deeply. “Sorry, nervous reflex. And I’m not used to you being the one in charge.”

  “And I am in fact in charge today. Professionally responsible for your safety. Personally vested too.” Syler nodded slowly, conceding the point, and gestured for him to continue. “Comms stay on. You stay in my sight at all times, preferably within reach. If we get separated, it’s because this has all gone to shit, meaning you go back to HQ immediately, understood? Not to this room, not out looking for me. Home.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  Syler sighed, knowing full well there was no sense in arguing with the man on that point and frankly perfectly happy to let him stay as close as he wanted until they’d caught their target. Having a death wish was a prerequisite for field agents not operations officers, thanks. He collected his Sigs, strapping the concealed belt and ankle holsters into place before putting on his jacket and turning towards Arthur. “Come on then. Let’s get this over with.”

  Thirty

  Syler had barely made it through the entrance of the convention center, Arthur tucked up closely behind him in what could only be described as ‘full asset protection mode,’ before he had caught sight of at least a half dozen familiar faces milling around the sign in table. Of those, it just figured that the first person to notice him would be his ex. Because of course it was.

  “You know,” said asshole called, and oh god Syler hated everything ever. Behind him, Arthur stiffened imperceptibly. “I distinctly remember you swearing on your mother’s grave that you’d never subject yourself to another convention so long as you lived.”

  “Marcus.” He scrunched his nose, both at the reminder of where he was and the other man’s existence. “My employer had other plans. I’m obligated. Excuse me, I need to sign in.” He made to brush past the other man, still just as irritating as he’d been in their university days.

  The lanky brunette grinned, and really what had he seen in him? Mediocre sex hadn’t been worth the present day secondhand embarrassment. “Oh come on, is that any way to greet an old friend? And who’d you bring with you? I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  Syler snorted at his flirtatious tone, eyes rolling heavenwards. His agent remained stalwart behind him. “What was it you said to me the last time we spoke, Marcus? ‘We’re better off going our separate ways. Our lives just aren’t headed in the same direction.’ Let’s continue that trend.”

  The look on the other man’s face was priceless, although whether it was because he’d insulted him or because Arthur had taken the opportunity to slip an arm around his waist was unclear. Either way, Syler suspected he’d relish this particular memory for years to come, beautifully captured by the camera in his glasses. What came out of his agent’s mouth only added to the perfection of the moment. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get signed in.”

  Marcus’s face took on a fish-like quality. Arthur neatly extricated them both, steering them towards the check in table as Syler shot a jaunty wave over his shoulder that could’ve just as well been a middle finger. God, he could kiss the man. He was going to engineer him whatever his heart desired when they were done with this disaster of a weekend.

  “So would you say I’m a step up or a step down?” The blond inquired blandly from his position leaned back against the sign in desk. Syler paused in filing out their registration forms to take in the subtle glare Arthur was directing towards the main entrance.

  “Don’t insult yourself like that. You’re a step up in both looks and capacity for destruction. It’s why we get along.” Arthur grinned, unabashedly pleased, and accepted the name tag that was passed to him only to shove it in his pocket instead of putting it on properly. The engineer shook his head enviously, clipping his to the bottom of his jacket where he could mostly pretend it didn’t proudly declare him a doctorate holder. Fucking academia.

  “So how many more of him are there in here?” Syler winced in lieu of a reply. Arthur chuckled, resuming his position at Syler’s right side as they entered the main conference room for the meet and greet. It would be sweet if the younger man didn’t know it was entirely born of a need to keep his firing arm free forS emergencies.

  “Would you two please stop flirting and get on with it?” Miranda chimed in, previously silent on the comms. Syler flushed instantaneously, suddenly understanding why Arthur and the other agents so frequently muted their comms during lulls. Arthur snorted from his position beside him, apparently reading his mind.

  “I take it back,” he muttered. “Maybe we could do without comms.”

  “I’ll notify you if any of the attendees trigger facial
recognition,” she replied, line going quiet again. The younger man squared his shoulders back, resolving to get this over with if only to minimize the damage to his dignity.

  As soon as they entered, Syler was inundated with old colleagues, all of them just as interested in what he’d been up to and who he’d brought as Marcus had been. The problem with dropping off the face of the planet to join the CIA when you’d previously been part of a tiny community of techie gossips, he mused, was that they were as nosy as distant old relatives when you finally resurfaced. Possibly worse, given that they had the ability to keep digital tabs on damned near everyone. His disappearance must’ve been quite the talking point.

  “Syler!” A blur of blonde hair tackled him around the middle. “Where the hell have you been!?” Beside him, Arthur looked startled. Apparently, the petite woman in a neon patchwork cardigan and elephant earrings had completely flown under his radar. Well that was Emily for you…

  “Working, shockingly enough,” he replied, patting the bundle of energy that was his former robotics research partner on the back heartily.

  She grinned up at him. “And you couldn’t answer a damned text? That’s cold, Perrin. Real cold.” She glanced slyly to his right. “And who might you be, Arm Candy?”

  A startled laugh escaped his agent. “Arthur Dufault, pleasure to meet you.”

  “Emily Larson, AI robotics specialist. Former roommate and research partner to this spectacular human dumpster fire. You don’t look like one of ours.”

  “Told you,” Syler chimed in, unable to help himself. “And I’m not a dumpster fire!”

  “Second year. Room 204. Two a.m.” She grinned shamelessly. Arthur looked deeply invested.

  “We agreed to never speak of that again.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Did we? It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. I must’ve forgot.”

  “Fine, lord, drinks sometime this month, you absolute harpy.” She beamed and he couldn’t help but grin back. As another wave of familiar and entirely unwanted former classmates made their way towards them like sharks scenting blood in the water, Syler decided he was ready to get back to work. “Shall we walk and talk? You’re quite actually the only person here I like.”

  “Oh,” she teased, linking arms with him and pulling them off towards the early exhibits, guiding both of them into the small crowd and away from further annoying encounters. “Don’t let Arm Candy hear you say that.”

  Arthur chuckled, holding position on his right, eyes casually scouting over the displays and booths already set up along the periphery of the mammoth room and down the center in back-to-back rows, narrow aisles between each all that separated the first round of demos being held tonight. Full house, then. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

  “No chance buddy! I want to know everything this one has gotten up to since we’ve been apart and that apparently includes you. Did Marcus shit bricks when he saw you come in with him? I bet he did, the absolute asshole.” She cackled merrily. “So what have you been doing, S?”

  “Took a government job.”

  “You?”

  “The benefits were inescapable.” And, oh, if she only knew.

  Emily shot a look over at Arthur. “Oh, I’ll just bet they were. You two work together then?”

  “Unfortunately,” he replied, tone born of long suffering. “And you?”

  “Fucking analytics senior lab technician. I only came out tonight to network.”

  Syler hummed, considering. Beside them, Arthur remained silent. “Send me your resume later. I might know of an opening.”

  Emily looked up at him brightly, green eyes twinkling mirthfully. “See? Mission accomplished. Especially if your place comes with more of Arm Candy.”

  The younger man chuckled. They made their way through the booths slowly, dodging around the other conference attendees doing the same, Syler and Arthur with an eye towards finding the station Pyrona had left for the younger man to find. He and Emily kept up a string of banter, casually eviscerating the less promising projects in the way only seasoned professionals could. It wasn’t until they reached the back of the last row that they spotted what they’d come for.

  A computer was set up in a booth at the end, semi-enclosed by a three-sided partition wall. The desk contained a single large monitor, keyboard, and mouse, along with a sign in log and series of instructions. The small placard on the exhibit wall declared it P.I.M., Pyrona Incorporated Machine, and designated it as a modified Turing test.

  “‘The future of cyber security,’” Emily read. “Now there’s a lofty claim. Ladies first!”

  She sat in the chair with a flourish well before Syler could move to stop her. It was probably safe enough, he conceded. A quick glance at the sign in sheet confirmed she wasn’t the first to try the system out. Emily flicked deftly through the instructions, selecting defensive instead of penetrative hacker when prompted to choose her role in the test. The rules were simple—defend or attack as you had chosen and, at the end, submit your grade: AI or human on the other end of the line?

  Syler hummed as Emily waited for the prompts to load and signify that she could start. The timer was over a minute long, designed to give any potential human on the other end time to prepare or throw off anyone who might use that as justification for assuming a human opponent. It was an interesting demonstration in light of what he’d experienced while defending against their attacks. Syler himself knew it was both—a human using limited AI to amplify their own skills and improve response time. So why this?

  The simulated attack on Emily’s firewalls was an instantaneous but pointed first volley far smaller in scale than what he knew the other hacker was capable of. She laughed as she countered, already patching the hole to block the hacker out. “AI then,” she called, “and not particularly advanced!”

  Of course, those were famous last words. The attacker returned, hitting again, but this time with an understanding of her chosen defense codes, easily circumventing the first. There was that reverse engineering live time again. Syler’s eyes narrowed, watching as she volleyed each with increasing difficulty, until the program was hitting on multiple fronts in tandem, knocking her neatly offline in under ten minutes. Emily sat back with a startled huff. “Well son of a bitch.”

  Syler nodded. It hadn’t approached the full breadth of skill used in the attacks on the CIA and other agencies before breaching her defense, although, to her credit, Emily was only one person and not an entire inter-agency division. This was very much just a sampler that adapted to the capabilities of the defender. The hacker was only directing the program as needed, almost seamlessly increasing the pressure until the defense fell away.

  “Human, but augmented with directed AI,” she concluded, sending in her final notes. It was reassuring to know that someone else in the field who’s opinion he so respected agreed with his initial conclusions. Still, there was something in the way this was set up. A test, an invitation… “It’s too advanced to be fully machine learning. The opponent answers too quickly. Machines don’t have that level of adaptive thinking ability yet. Frigging trick questions.” She stood, gesturing for him to take the chair. “Your turn S. Let’s show your boy toy why you’re the best we have around these parts.”

  Arthur lounged against the booth partition that butted up to the back wall of the conference hall, eyes on the entire room as well as the desk itself, keeping a clear view of anyone who might come their way. He snorted ruefully. “Oh, I know first hand he’s the best at what he does. That’s your future boss, if he hires you.”

  Her eyebrows raced up to her hairline, earrings jangling wildly as she jerked her head to look at him. “Oh Syler, we are having a talk after this. Government employment and you’re the boss? No wonder you have Arm Candy as a minder.”

  It was Arthur’s turn to sport a surprised expression. Syler smiled. She’d always been his most clever friend. “I have a job offer for you when this is over. Now do me a favor and head out, please.”
>
  Emily narrowed her eyes, mouth set petulantly. “No. Get on with it, wonder boy. I’m waiting.”

  Syler sighed. Clever and obstinate. “Be it on your head then, but stay clear of the aisle and Arthur both.”

  Thirty-One

  Syler turned his attention to the login screen requesting his name and preferred position. May as well let the target know he was here, he thought. He could practically feel Arthur’s frown as he did, but it wasn’t like the hacker didn’t already know who he was. He opted for the penetrative attack position. Perhaps the answer to the riddle left by the booth sponsor could be found in switching strategies. There was always more to learn in attacking than in defending. It was seeing the puzzle laid out at full completion versus the piecemeal they’d experienced so far with defensive volleys.

  Penetrative attacks were very much a matter of looking for a vulnerability to exploit. As the simulation came online and the engineer began reviewing the code comprising the outer firewall, he found no shortage of them. It seemed even he was being started on easy mode. Fascinating.

  He cracked his knuckles, setting to work slicing through the first firewall like butter with a hot knife, barely blinking as he pushed through the next layer. The third came just a touch harder, and the fourth—there. His volley was met with a novel firewall, lobed up in an effort to keep him from progressing. He rerouted his attacks, opting to use a multi-prong approach and open several holes at once, hoping to overwhelm his opponent. He slipped through, working his way into the fifth layer in much the same fashion. By now, he’d narrowed his parameters to finding and dismantling the encryption surrounding the connection to the hacker themselves. If nothing else, he wanted to know who and where this bastard was located.

  Of course, the problem with fighting penetratingly is that getting in was easy. Staying in without getting evicted was the tricky part. One could always do as he had and force a system restart with a new firewall the hacker in question couldn’t bypass. The young man set up a multi-point volley, pushing against points other than the connection encryption in hopes of throwing off the system long enough to push through the last layer. Three of the five volleys were blocked, and as the fourth was being patched in his attempt to push through the connection, he launched the delayed sixth.