Even Lovers Drown CH 10

The team were all gathered in the OPA war room. Harrison placed the picture of their possibly newest client, Shireen Davis onto the evidence wall and they all took a moment to study her face.

Shireen Davis was an attractive woman in her early thirties with medium- light brown skin, and a no-nonsense demeanor that contradicted the hint of laughter in her large, expressive eyes. She wore a minimum of make-up and wore her hair in a mass of tiny braids held back from her face in a neat updo.

“Shireen Davis.” Harrison began. “Age thirty-one, a civilian computer technician who works within the Pentagon complex. Her job is research and development. The reason she wants to hire us is because according to her, she’s either being wooed or stalked - or both by someone. Due to the nature of the contacts, she believes that it’s someone that also works with her and may be some higher-up.

“She isn’t quite sure who it is - but she doesn’t want anything happening that might affect her job. She likes what she does and just wants to be able to continue doing it.”

“So why does she need us?” Quinn asked. “If she reports the  idiot, an agency like that would hate a media scandal, so I’d think one whiff of impropriety and - poof - he’s gone.”

“You would think she’d do just that.” Abby said as her eyes narrowed. She had very little patience with abusers of any sort - with good reason from her own painful past. “Slap him with a sexual harassment suit, collect a pile of money and take early retirement.”

Harrison shook his head. “She doesn’t want to initiate a harassment suit, because she doesn’t want the attention it would focus on her. We haven’t been able to gather a lot of information about her real job, it’s buried that deep.”

“Financials?” Olivia asked. They had to cover all possibilities with a potential client before they agreed to take them on. “Is it possible that she’s just a mistress who’s tired of her lover and wants out?”

Harrison shook his head. “She doesn’t need anyone’s  money.” he continued. “She’s not only independently wealthy, but something of an heiress.”

He went on to details. “Shireen Davis does what she does because she enjoys her work and she’s very, very good at it.”  He looked to Huck, who had been working on his laptop uncovering more information to add to what Harrison and Abby had been able to uncover thus far.

Huck caught Harrison’s glance and after quick look at his laptop, took over. “It’s not on the common nets, but Shireen Davis has an alpha-zeta five point nine five clearance level. Short term - that means it will take me a  little more time than usual to get any real information on her than the regular stuff out there that any one can access.

“I can guess this much though - there are a few departments within the intelligence sector community whose work is never spoken about. They usually spend their days dealing with cyber-terrorism. And while her cover occupation is R & D, I’d bet her actual work covers a lot more than that.”

“You know all of this from her  - what - alpha-five point clearance level?” Abby asked.

“Alpha-zeta five point nine five.” Huck corrected her. “I did manage to slip in an ultra-fine ionic ping on a secured data pipeline which led me into the cortex of..."

His words trailed of as Huck watched the looks on his colleagues’ faces shifted to expressions of incomprehension. He paused for a moment to translate in his head what he knew into english before he continued.

“The simplest way to explain this is like this - officially,  in military ratings, the highest one is an alpha five point zero. Unofficially, if you test out over that, the government puts you in special ops. Officially, Shireen Davis is a alpha five point zero. Looks good on her evals, guarantees her position and her pay grade.

“Unofficially, she’s an alpha-zeta five point nine five. That high a clearance gets you the chance to play in a much more sophisticated sandbox than your average data handler.”

He paused to think. “Outwardly she's assigned to research and development; but I’d bet that she’s really assigned to some  very secret division within the military intelligence sector. Seeing how she’s assigned to the Pentagon itself, she probably works in either intelligence, code-ciphering or cyber-crimes.”

While the team was digesting that, Huck gave them a number to use for comparison -knowing otherwise they’d never understand her ratings level.  “In one of my lasting testing series, I was rated an alpha-zeta six point nine eight five.”

That explained a lot to the team. They tried not to show it, but they were further surprised at what Huck said next. What he told them let them into the other part of his life more than they were usually allowed.

“Of course, they found out that my true skills lay in other - area - so my training focus was shifted from tech-intel and development into fieldwork.”

He shrugged and the gesture was almost a casual one. “Of course, I’ve learned a little more since leaving the service.”

That caught everyone’s attention. With the exception of Olivia - and she knew that she didn’t know the extent of his former work - was mostly secret and definitely one that wasn’t discussed. But there was no doubt that he had worked in Black Ops acquiring deadly and efficient skills along the way.

But his technical skills were phenomenal and the fact that this woman’s work rating level was even anywhere close to his said something all by itself.

Olivia began walking back and forth, as she usually did when she was thinking. “Dealing with cyber-terrorism? Code-breaking? Creating or defending?” She wondered aloud.

Huck shrugged again. “I couldn’t say. It probably depends on the day of the week.”

        Olivia stopped pacing the length of the room. “You said she’s independently wealthy - how so?”

Huck pulled up the intel he’d gathered so far.  “This is all just preliminary work, of course, but Shireen Davis owns outright a few patents on a several sweet pieces of software, and has a piece of the pie on some implementation hardware as well. The government has licensed the majority of it and also pays her very handsomely not to sell or lease them to any one else. Any one at all. Her encryptions keys and intrusion marks - the ones I can get a surface glance at - are - admirable.”

His mouth quirked briefly in a smile. “If I had had access to some of her work back when in the day...” he caught himself as he saw the looks the others were giving him and came back to the subject at hand.

“I’m guessing that she doesn’t want to use her skills that way. It could tip whoever’s after her just how high her ratings really are.”

“How can you be sure of that?” Abby asked.

“It’s what I would do. The measure of response on an initial contact can tell you a lot your subject - if they’re not careful.  Her actions show that she’s careful. ” There was no mistaking the approval in his voice.

“I can say that what I got from her in our first meeting was that at the end of the day, she just wants to make the whole thing go away.” Harrison said. “Now whether we should accept that on face value or not might be hard to say.”

“Does that sound suspicious to anybody else?” Olivia asked.

They all looked at one another as they tried to formulate their responses, but it was Abby who spoke first. “I guess it depends on what kind of woman she is.  Some women would love to threaten to run screaming to the press in hopes of a big pay-day.”

“But some wouldn’t.” Quinn spoke up next. As usual, lately she was perched somewhere close to Huck. Olivia found it amusing in a way that the two of them seemed to have taken on the roles of mentor and student - of all the people in the office, Quinn had gravitated towards Huck.

“Sometimes the direct route is the truth. She might really want nothing more than to be left alone.  The question is why? First we look at the obvious,” Quinn said, looking to Huck for approval. Seeing him nod, she continued.

“We know that she doesn’t need the money, and if she’s working for the government in a highly secretive and technical levels, then she doesn’t want the fame - or in this case, infamy - either.”

“Which, of course, is where we come in.” Harrison said. “We catch the creep, we shut him down and everything else takes care of itself.”

“There’s another reason why  she might not want the attention a public accusation would bring.”  Huck picked up from there. “You get brought into a certain level of government work and this is what you are taught - any kind of outside information that concerns your identity is a bad thing for her - it might be easier to just let her go, transfer her out of her department into something a little more visible - and a little more vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable to what?” Olivia asked.

“If we take her on, that’s something I’d have to look in on a little closer before I could take any kind of educated guess. But if she’s released from a top-security position, she becomes a liability... and when that happens...”

“When that happens, we all know that sometimes the government deals with liabilities in all kinds of ways. And some of them aren’t so - nice.” Olivia finished the thought. She had already seen up close and personal what that could entail and it wasn’t anything she wanted to dwell on.  “I assume that she would know that.”

“I’d have to sit down and have a one on one with her, but -”Huck nodded. “ - with her rating, levels of access and the mind that goes with it, she would know - things.”

“There’s another piece to her puzzle that we have to factor in.” Harrison added. “Her mother is Jocelyn Davis-Martin.”

Olivia had been pacing back and forth, taking in the information her team was giving her and mulling it over. She stopped and her head came up. “The Jocelyn Martin?”

Harrison nodded.

Quinn looked confused. “Who is she?”

Olivia answered her. “Her mother is a former ambassador for the middle eastern regions several years ago who now plays a much more quiet and less visible role within the White House administration as Special Advisor to the National Security Council on Diplomatic Affairs.  She was a protege of Hilary Clinton and worked on her staff for several years.

“I’ve met her several times, but never the daughter  - she’s a lovely woman. Very quiet, very soft-spoken and usually keeps to herself, but very, very knowledgable on the who-who’s of the region.”

Olivia paused to recall what else she knew about the older woman. “Her background is a pretty open book: she was a part of the last administration as a diplomat.

“Jocelyn Martin specialized in international banking and technology. Registered Independent; but when she offered her resignation, President Grant refused to accept it and kept her on. He told her that her work was too good to be wasted in the private sector. She could have gone on and collected a huge paycheck from any number of corporations or universities, but turned them all down.”

“She put country first.” Abby commented.

“Well,” Quinn commented. “Sounds like it’s a case of like mother, like daughter. What about the father?”

“None ever named.” Abby said. “Jocelyn Davis-Martin raised her only child as a single mother, her studies led her into international finance and apparently she developed enough of a highly respected reputation that she was asked to join the last administration in the first months of that presidency as a reward for very good behavior. She married well, to a lobbyist by the name of Aaron Martin and they appear to be happy enough.”

“That could or could not be a factor in what’s happening to Shireen Davis. In your meeting with her, did she mention her mother at all?”

“No,” Harrison answered. “But that didn’t send any particular red flags up. She could just be a grown woman trying to handle a work issue without running to momma to fix it.”

Olivia thought about that.  Her gut had no opinion one way or the other yet, but she wasn’t trusting it or herself one hundred percent these days. She decided that until she met the woman face to face, she wouldn’t make any decision either way.

“Well, at the very least, it sounds like we need to have a conversation with Ms. Davis before we proceed any further. So let’s make that happen.”