Chapter 6 - The Federal Subpoena
The word espionage hung in the pressurized air of the aircraft cabin, heavy and impossible, as if someone had dropped a iron anchor onto the carpeted floor.
I gripped the armrests so hard my knuckles turned the color of chalk. Beside me, my sleeping five-month-old son stirred slightly at the sharp shift in my posture, letting out a soft, milky sigh against my chest. My heart slammed against my ribs with the force of a hydraulic piston.
"Federal cyber-terrorism?" I repeated, my voice cracking through the dry air. "Are you out of your mind? She is eight years old! She took a photo on her school tablet because a passenger was screaming at us!"
The man in the dark trench coat did not blink. His eyes remained fixed on Louise, cold and indifferent to my panic. He flipped the leather folder an inch higher, revealing the official Department of Justice seal embossed in gold leaf.
"The data packet transmitted from this cabin at 4:12 PM EST did not merely broadcast a civilian dispute," the man said, his tone flat, bureaucratic, and chillingly precise. "It bypassed commercial routing encryption, routed through a military-grade proxy server in Zurich, and breached the secure internal communications node of Sterling-Vance Global Logistics."
Across the aisle, a passenger gasped.
I looked down at Louise. For a second, the tiny, unflappable armor of my second-grader cracked. Her lower lip quivered just a fraction, and her small fingers tightly gripped the pink straps of her backpack, but she refused to cry.
"I only used the public air-drop link on the seatback screen," Louise said, her voice small but remarkably clear in the dead silence of the plane. "I didn't hack anything. I just wanted everyone to see how mean she was."
"The routing protocol you used, young lady, belongs to a proprietary algorithmic shield developed by a defense contractor currently under federal investigation for multi-million-dollar logistics fraud," the federal agent continued, stepping closer so his coat brushed against the armrest. "By pinging that node, your tablet unlocked a back-channel data dump containing three years of classified shipping ledgers. The board of directors at Sterling-Vance is currently facing immediate liquidation."
My mind spun into a chaotic freefall. Sterling-Vance? The massive conglomerate that had bought out my husband’s engineering firm right before the accident—the same company whose sudden, brutal contract restructuring had left us financially shattered before he died.
"She didn't know what she was touching," I pleaded, tears finally spilling over my lashes as I looked up at the agent. "She's a child. Take me. Take my phone, take my laptop—"
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"Quiet, Mom," Louise whispered, her dark eyes suddenly flashing with a terrifying, adult-like intelligence. She looked up at the federal agent, her chin lifting. "You're not here for the cyber-terrorism statute, are you? If it was a real national security breach, homeland security would have intercepted the plane over New Jersey. You're here because Julian Sterling sent you."
The agent’s expression didn't change, but a fraction-of-a-second twitch in his jaw told my motherly instincts everything we needed to know.
