Red Widow by Alma Katsu (good books to read for beginners txt) 📗

While everything Mallory has just said is true, it doesn’t help the situation at hand. As Lyndsey’s about to say goodbye, however, Mallory adds, “If I remember correctly, there may have been something a few years back involving Franklin . . . I can’t remember the details. But you might talk to Reese Munroe. I think he was her supervisor at the time.”

Reese was Lyndsey’s boss in Moscow. While some time has passed since they’d last been in touch, she’d like the opportunity to speak to him again. “Where is Reese now?”

“In Belarus. He must’ve made someone very angry to get sent there,” Mallory says with a laugh.

Lyndsey makes a mental note to send Reese an email.

—

She turns her attention to the files Raymond Murphy sent yesterday. They arrived late, just as she was packing up. He pulled the access logs for all three compartments, Lighthouse, Skipjack, and Genghis. If anyone tried to access these electronic files, which reside behind a firewall, it would be noted in these logs. Raymond has already warned her that no one looks through the logs for anomalies in real time; they’re only there for backup, to check after an event has taken place. The files are nothing but rows and rows of numbers and punctuation marks and fragments of words that mean something to a computer but nothing to her. You’re looking for patterns and nothing more, which is why Raymond punted this task over to Lyndsey. I don’t have time to go through the logs, he’d written in his email. And I’ve set up a time for you to interview Kate Franklin this afternoon.

They really should have a programmer do this but there aren’t enough programmers to go around, and besides, most programmers would consider this beneath their dignity, which means she would wait for days, if not weeks, for one of them to get around to it.

She pores over the lines until her eyes sting. Eventually she identifies the code that means an attempt was made to access a file, but access was denied. Then she figures out which string of numbers is the computer ID. Most of the time she sees a computer’s ID only once, meaning that a hit on a restricted file was probably a mistake, a typo. But repeated hits from the same computer ID: that’s someone consciously trying to access restricted files.

Before long, she has a short list of IDs.

She sends the list to Raymond, asking him to pinpoint the computers with these IDs. He writes back that this will only give her the location of the computer, which doesn’t necessarily equate to a person. Someone could deliberately use another person’s computer, waiting until the unwitting person has stepped away without locking their computer: it’s a known way to try to hide your identity. It’s why most of the computers are set to lock automatically after a short while.

That’s why it’s so hard to catch these guys, he types as an afterthought.

The logs Raymond sent cover the last three months. After all her sifting, she found only a handful of suspicious activity, which surprises her but would probably make Security happy. She’s afraid the chances of the mole being one of the numbers are pretty slim. Three months may be too recent. The mole may have gone after information months ago, but the Russians only decided to act now. Perhaps she should ask Raymond to pull the logs from a year ago . . .

And then it hits her: the number of attempts to access the files, even from authorized users, is small. That means no one is reading the reports—electronically. But what about paper copies? Officers are discouraged from keeping paper copies for various reasons. It’s less secure, and then there’s the problem of storing and disposing of them. She knows, however, that it’s still done. Everyone prints copies of important reports, the ones they refer to frequently. Could the mole be getting paper copies?

Jan Westerling is the reports officer for Lighthouse. Lyndsey remembers talking to the woman the day Kulakov’s body was found, how upset she was. Her impression of Westerling is that she is inexperienced but earnest and not especially careless.

Lyndsey wanders over to Westerling’s desk. One of many gray cubicles, it takes Lyndsey a minute to remember where it sits, but at last she finds it. There are the discarded walking shoes under the desk, a stainless steel water bottle. Thumbtacked to the fabric panel is a picture of Westerling in hiking clothes, a down vest, and sunglasses, her straight black hair pulled back in a ponytail, her head bowed next to another woman of about the same age.

The cubicle is empty. The reports officer is probably away at a meeting. Without appearing too obvious, Lyndsey glances around. The computer monitor is locked, just as it should be, but there are papers in the open. A two-drawer safe sits at a right angle to the desk, and it’s clearly open, the drawers pulled out to keep it from automatically locking. People leave their safes open though they’re not supposed to, like leaving your car running while you go to the ATM. It’s convenient. You don’t believe anything is going to happen. You open them in the morning and leave them open all day, never expecting that someone would go through them when you’re not there.

She looks around. The vault is a big, open cavern made up of cubicles with partitions five feet tall. You can see into Westerling’s area from at least three other cubicles, though it would be a partial view and that’s if the neighbors happen to look up from the computer. Lyndsey could reach down and rifle through the reports in the safe, and while she might be noticed, she doubts anyone would call her on it.

She has what she needs for Lighthouse. To follow up on Skipjack, she needs to ask Maggie where she can find Kyle Kincaid, the reports officer. As it turns out, he’s in another part of the building, sitting with