to you.”
“That remains to be seen,” Ranger ground out. He glared at Nick. “Involving civilians. You should know better.”
The pinging of a cell phone saved Nick from having to respond immediately.
Ranger pulled his cell from his shirt pocket and looked at the display. “That’s Lisa at the safe house. She’s worried that we’re not back yet.” He punched in a short message, then put the phone back in his breast pocket.
“Apparently Michelle’s not the only civilian involved,” Nick said with a motion to Ranger’s cell phone.
Ranger’s eyes narrowed.
Stingray cleared his throat. “Let’s not get sidetracked here. Since it’s pretty clear that we’re all seeing the same thing, it’s important that we get the Phoenix back together. Not only are our enemies trying to pick us off one-by-one, they’re also planning something major. We have to prevent it. Problem is we don’t know the others or where they’re hiding.” He motioned to Nick. “We were lucky to find you.”
“I’ve been working on a solution for that for a while.”
Both Ranger and Stingray slid forward on the bench opposite Nick’s.
“What solution?” Stingray asked.
“Sheppard kept a private file on all his Phoenix. Names, pictures, backgrounds. Separate from the CIA’s classified personnel file—which I have the feeling has been destroyed by our enemy already.”
“And Sheppard’s file? You think it still exists? Wouldn’t whoever killed him have destroyed that one, too?” Ranger asked.
“I don’t think so. I was able to figure out that Sheppard used a second login at the CIA. The only thing is, I can’t find it.”
“I don’t get it,” Stingray said.
“It’s not easy to explain, but I’ve found digital fingerprints of somebody accessing certain files, but I can’t trace who. In the end it always loops back to Sheppard’s old login, and that’s been disabled long ago.”
“A ghost login,” Michelle said.
Nick whirled his head to her. “You know what I mean?”
She nodded eagerly. “I’ve heard of something like it.” She looked at Ranger and Stingray. “I was a hacker. Anyway, I’ve heard of ghost logins being set up by members of Anonymous to mirror a real login. But when somebody comes across it and tries to trace it, it always leads back to the real login, the one the person was shadowing or mirroring. It’s impossible to trace or find. It’s not hackable.” She locked eyes with Nick. “Was that what you were looking for when you hacked into those servers?”
He nodded. “I was trying to get into the system administrator’s logs to search for the login.”
“If it’s a ghost login, that wouldn’t have helped you. It’s not in the logs.”
“Shit!” Nick shoved a hand through his hair and tossed a regretful look at his fellow Phoenix. “Then I have no way of getting at Sheppard’s files either. Sorry, guys. That’s a dead end.”
Ranger lifted a hand and winced involuntarily. “Crap. Wrong side.” He forced a smile. “You say it’s a login, right?”
Nick nodded. “Yeah.”
Ranger exchanged a look with Stingray. “You’re thinking what I’m thinking?”
Stingray nodded, grinning. “Lisa’s bracelet from her brother.”
Nick felt his forehead furrow. “What’s a piece of jewelry got to do with Sheppard’s files?”
“It’s not the bracelet. It’s what we found inside. Talon gave the bracelet to his sister for safekeeping. Inside it, we found two strings of names and numbers, all jumbled up. We couldn’t figure out what it was, but before Talon died he told Lisa to find you and give it to you. That you would know what to do with it.” Ranger reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and removed a strip of paper from it. He handed it to Nick. “That’s it.”
Nick looked at it. Michelle reached for his hand and pulled the piece of paper closer to her face. Nick exchanged a look with her. “What do you think?”
“It’s got the right length. All logins have a minimum of ten digits. Same with the passwords.”
“Can we give it a try?” Ranger asked, sounding hopeful now.
“We sure can,” Nick said, bracing one hand on his thigh. “Only thing is, if this is the ghost login, then the only place it will work from is from inside CIA headquarters.” He’d known all along that once he found Sheppard’s second login, he would have to get into Langley to execute the rest of his plan behind the CIA’s firewalls.
“Are you telling us that we need to break into Langley?”
“I wouldn’t call it breaking in…”
Stingray tilted his head, giving him a doubtful look. “What would you call it then? A suicide mission?”
“It won’t be