Midnight Kiss (Men of Midnight #7) - Lisa Marie Rice Page 0,63
apologetically. “It’s the ring tone for ASI. Maybe they have news.”
“Yeah.” Hope looked to the side so he wouldn’t see the disappointment in her eyes. They were on borrowed time. Maybe there wouldn’t ever be a chance to make love again.
Her entire body protested when he slid out of her. When Luke lifted himself away, she felt cold, as if a blanket of ice had descended. She unfurled her hands, a moment ago full of warm hard male, now clutching the covers instead of Luke.
She reached down and pulled on the sweater and jeans next to the bed, plucking them from the floor where they fell the night before.
He rolled over and grabbed the cell on the night stand, right next to his gun. She’d noticed that he’d never been far from that gun. Like she was never far from her laptop.
He pulled on his tee and jeans, really fast.
Luke glanced at the screen and his face tightened, that grim look back.
“Felicity, talk to me.”
Hope startled, sat up to look over his shoulder. Felicity’s pretty face filled the screen. She was in an office.
“I didn’t dare call Hope’s cell so I called you. Can you pass me to her?”
“Sure.” Luke turned and passed her his cell. “Put it on speakerphone.”
She did, keeping it so they could both watch the monitor. She kept the video function off, though probably up in Portland it would be clear that they were really close to each other. It was still fairly early in the morning. They weren’t dummies at ASI.
Felicity didn’t make any suggestive comments at all. She looked pale and worried. “Honey? Our system is under attack.”
Hope frowned, turned the video function on. “Another DoS?” Troubling but not devastating.
Felicity shook her head. “Multi-vector volumetric DDoS.”
A Distributed Denial of Service. Now, that was serious. “Against ASI? Your company? Why?”
Felicity’s mouth turned down. “We — I — suspect it has to do with you.”
Hope met Luke’s grim gaze. Turned back to the screen. “Me?”
“Yeah. Under the DDoS, someone is probing our activities over the past three days. And —” She hesitated which was totally unlike Felicity.
“Yeah?”
“There was a search for your name. Specifically. It’s an attack aimed at crashing our system while finding out information about you in stealth mode. It was hard to catch.”
“How —” Hope’s mouth was dry. “How could they possibly know?”
She felt a tremor begin deep in her body, coming from the very core of her, her insides freezing. All that warmth from last night dissipating like a spaceship leaking heat in deep space. Inside her was a dark and airless space and she recognized it as something she’d lived with all her life. The past two days were an exception.
Felicity shook her head. “Somehow they — whoever they are — found out about our friendship. Emma and Riley have been hacked, too. Or attempts have been made. Emma’s bank and Riley’s company are undergoing a DDoS, too.”
“Jesus,” Hope breathed. This was — this was almost worse than Kyle being killed. She’d been fond of Kyle. But she loved Felicity and Emma and Riley. If anything happened to them because of her …
She jumped as something warm and heavy fell across her shoulders. Luke’s arm.
She glanced up at him, at that grim unsmiling mouth. He looked pissed.
“Goddamn,” he said, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “Is there any way to find out the origin?”
“No.” Felicity’s voice was sad. “It’s coming from various sources —”
Hope straightened. “Actually,” she said, “there might be a way. I developed a program that searches for underlying constants in data streams. A DDoS usually ramps up. When did it start?”
“Two hours ago. We were all asleep. I was in bed. I set up an alert system to ping me and it did at 7:07 this morning.”
“I’m so sorry, Felicity. Just when you need your rest. This is all my fault.”
Felicity waved her hand. “It’s not,” she said fiercely. “It’s not your fault.”
“Damn right,” Luke growled. “It’s this fucker’s fault, not yours.”
Hope drew in a deep breath, held it, let it out in a long slow stream, just like she’d been taught in the yoga course she took many years ago while working at the NSA. The course hadn’t lasted. Yoga had proved a flimsy defense against the massive stress of her job.
“Okay. Felicity, can you send me your records of the first five minutes of the attack? Was it recorded?”
“Of course. Good thinking. The first five minutes would be before the botnet was fully formed.”