Ghostwalker 04 - Conspiracy Game

the purchase of the one that went down in the Congo. That man doesn’t have a Social Security number or birth certificate that we could find.”
    There was a small silence. “It is Dr. Whitney, isn’t it?” Ian asked. “He’s alive then.”
    “We don’t know. Certainly if it isn’t him, it’s someone he worked closely with who was privy to all of his experiments,” Ryland said.
    Lily cleared her throat. “No matter who my father was working with—or for—he would never have shared all of his information. He has to be alive. In my opinion, he’s alive and he’s continuing with his experiments.” She pressed her hands protectively to her stomach.
    “He’s out there, and he’s watching us.”
    Ryland put his arms around her, leaning to nuzzle the top of her head. “But aren’t we watching him now?”
    Flame nodded. “He isn’t going to be able to get to you, Lily. Not you and certainly not the baby.”
    There was a murmur of agreement through the room and Lily relaxed visibly.

    “How are you watching him?” Ian asked.
    “I hoped I could access his computer as easily as he was accessing ours. I actually identified all of our computers and isolated his, so I knew I had the right one, but he had disallowed access.” Flame smiled. “So I changed tactics. I knew he was accessing certain files on a regular basis. He follows all of Lily’s findings and wants to see her updated reports on each of us.” She smirked. “He was particularly interested in my file.”
    “What a shocker, cher ,” Gator murmured. “I’m interested in it too.” His hand swept down her arm, his fingers tangling with hers.
    Flame relaxed, leaning back against Gator. “I created a little surprise of my own for Dr.
    Whitney. I created a Trojan and embedded it in one of the regularly viewed files. First I had Lily update my file in order to entice him to take a long look at it.”
    “What does that do? How’d you do it?” Ian asked.
    Flame shrugged. “I assumed he was using Windows XP because all the computers here are XP. So I programmed the Trojan to do one thing. It goes into the controls for Remote Desktop on his computer and adjusts the settings that allow users to connect remotely to this computer across a LAN. Of course, we had to wait for the doctor to read the file embedded with the Trojan so he could unwittingly activate the program for us, but with Lily updating, he took the bait.”
    “That’s amazing, Flame. You can actually read his computer files?” Ian asked.
    Flame nodded. “It’s so perfect. If he weren’t masquerading as another computer on our LAN, we couldn’t turn around and return the favor by using Remote Desktop control, which is only possible for other computers on a LAN. But now we’ve activated the Remote Desktop setting on the doctor’s computer, we have access to his computer as if it were our own.”
    “So what is he up to?”
    Flame nodded toward Lily. “She can explain it better than I can.”
    Kadan held up his hand. “First of all, by reading the files, is there any way to positively identify who is spying on us?”
    Lily shook her head. “We can’t see who is creating files, but certainly I recognize my father’s type of notes. He likes to put everything into numbers, a kind of code, and definitely there are many files filled with numbers. In order to read the data, I have to break the code. It’s rarely the same in each file.”
    Kadan glanced at Ryland. “Someone very high up in the government has to be helping him. How sanctioned can Whitney be?”

    There was a small silence, no one wanting to mention the inevitable suspicion. They were under the direct command of one man, General Ranier.
    Lily shook her head. “I know what you’re all thinking. General Ranier has been a close friend of my family for years, but he can’t be involved.”
    “Why not?” Logan asked.
    Lily ducked her head. “Because if one more person I love is living a lie and betraying us, I don’t think I could live through it.”
    Ryland swept his arms around her and pulled her up against his body. “We’ve got Dahlia back and now Flame. We’ll find the rest of the girls and we’ll have our own family, Lily.
    No matter what happens, you have us.”
    “I’m scared, Rye,” she admitted. “I’m really scared this time.”
    “We’re not going to jump to any conclusions about General Ranier, Lily,” Kadan assured her. “And, Logan, you’ve got your own worries with the admiral