“I know. Vivien had access to it too. Who else?” he said.
Harris watched Adrik’s eyes. It was as though he weren’t bothered by Vivien’s death in the least. Well, Adrik always seemed cool irrespective of how he felt. Harris cleared his throat and continued.
“There was the agent that assisted her at the white house, but the lady is out reaping now. Some guys here had access to it, but there’s just a handful of them.”
Adrik banged the table with his fist.
“Well, get them for questioning, will you? One of them must know something. Find out who is responsible for this before the end of today. All our operations are on hold because of your negligence. Get to work, now!” he said.
Harris got up slowly.
“Yes, I will get to it,” he said as he left the office.
The other two people sat in silence. Adrik thought about all that had happened. He wondered how it had been possible for Vivien to have been killed barely a day into the final lap of the mission?
And the most important question: why had she gone out despite his instructions?
He had forbidden her to go with the other agents. She had said that she wanted to lead the other agents by example and go with them on their mission, but he had maintained his stand and had instructed her to move to New York. If she hadn’t disobeyed, she would still be alive. She had become more self-willed over the past months, going where she wasn’t supposed to go.
It brought up a new question: was Vivien really dead?
Viktor, one of the members of the governing body, spoke.
“You know this means that we’ve been compromised, right?”
“I do,” Adrik said, not wanting to talk.
“What are we going to do about it, then?” Viktor asked.
“We’ll wait for the systems to come back on. When they do, we’ll report back to Russia and see what plans we can come up with,” Adrik said. He looked at the other council member to see if there was any question from her.
It was Khristina, and she was smiling in silence. She didn’t have any questions.
Adrik was sure she was pleased with Vivien’s death. He bowed his head, deep in thought.
He had already begun to make plans of vengeance on whoever had done this. The person would wish to have not been born.
Chapter Three
"I repeat for emphasis: kill on sight…"
17th November 2021
5:10 am
Ray of Hope HQ, Staten Island, Richmond County, New York.
USA.
No. she can’t be dead!
Adrik couldn’t believe that Vivien was dead. She had been trained by many experts, including himself. It was almost impossible for her to be bested in combat.
The main computer had finally been restored the night before. Immediately, they had contacted their specialists in Russia to send them the antivirus. Unfortunately, the antivirus was only a preventive measure. Once the virus was installed, nothing more could be done. The main hard drive had to be replaced, and all the files on it had to be transferred to the new hard drive except the virus- that was the tricky part since the virus couldn’t be detected. One of the technicians had to come to America with the hard drive and handle the transfer. That would take days. Till then, whoever had access to their information store would keep getting their correspondence. There was no way around it. They couldn’t stop communicating with their units.
If Vivien had been killed, the killer would probably have a link with the person who had done this. And if she hadn’t been killed… He shrugged the thought off. He didn’t want to imagine that Vivien was capable of such. She was too attached to him to do so.
He walked out of his office and headed to the information center.