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“Unless it’s court-ordered,” said Kari. She stood, walking to the front of the room. “If they won this lawsuit and retained control of G.R.I.P., they could take it all.”
“We can’t let that happen. We need to review everything in these files and make sure that we stop them from taking anything owned by G.R.I.P.,” said Luke.
“I know how they did it,” said Pigsty, turning to stare at everyone. “All of our personnel records were sealed. Every last one of them was considered top-secret and for the president’s eyes only. That’s the problem. Not our current president, but the one after Michael.”
“Fuck,” mumbled Michael. “Bolton. Bolton somehow found this and used it to his advantage. That’s how the lawsuit for control of weapons manufacturing sites started.” Pigsty nodded.
“They got in through his backdoor access before we were able to change the passwords and links. We do it with every new president, but remember, there was a blizzard right after the election in D.C. and Virginia. Our systems could operate, but we couldn’t access theirs to make the changes. They did a simple word search.”
“Okay. Okay, but we have everything they got. Can we change it again?” asked Cam.
“I’m doing it now,” said Hiro. “I’m actually going to delete all the files.”
“Delete them?” frowned Hex. “What about our military benefits?”
“Do we need them?” asked Luke. “None of us goes to a VA. We have better care here. I don’t need life insurance or burial benefits for my family. We have that taken care of as well. It will be as if we never existed in the system.”
“No trace of any of us? If they search SEALs from our era or Rangers, they’ll get nothing except our teammates?” asked Gaspar.
“That’s right. They’d have to interview every Ranger or SEAL or Marine to figure out who the hell we all were. It would take them years,” said Pigsty.
“Is there no other way?” frowned Rory. “I feel as if we’re erasing the formative years of our lives. We have no way of proving that we did the things we did.”
“I have another way,” said Tanner. Pigsty looked at him, knowing what he was going to do. “It was something Hiro, Pigsty, and me have been fooling around with these last few months. We’ve written a program that would ensure that veterans get the benefits and treatments they need. It’s a bit, um, sketchy, but the gist of it is we go in the backdoor, change all the codes, passwords, everything, and grant the benefits for our brothers in arms.”
“Well, that’s the shit, but how does that help us?” asked Hex.
“We can put all Special Forces names—all, even those not with us—in a secured folder that can’t be cracked. It will only say ‘SpecOps,’ but no one in Washington will be able to get into it. Normal encryption is a sixty-four-bit code. Extreme is one-twenty-eight.”
“And ours?” asked Luke.
“Eight hundred and ninety.”
They all stared at the tech boys. They didn’t know anything about encryption other than it was a bitch to get through. But they knew enough to know an encryption code that big would take someone years to crack.
“You’re sure?” asked Eric. “You’re sure you can do this, and no one will know it was you.” Code and Sly looked at their younger counterparts, then turned to AJ, nodding in his direction.
“What is this? What is all the secret spy shit within our own team?” frowned Luke.
“We were concerned something like this could happen at some point. Our servers are so secure, no one knows where they are or how to get to them. We don’t just bounce off servers around the world. We bounce off satellites and underwater servers. It’s never been done before. Never. If we do this, no one will ever know who we are.”
“What do we do about Morrison and Harlow’s parents?” asked Eric. “We can’t ignore them and what they’re trying to do.”
“And we won’t,” said Trak. “I know that we’re retired, but let us do the investigation part of this mission. We’ll find anything and everything on them. Then, you’re going to expose them to the world.”
“I like this,” smiled Kari. “Let the legal team review the lawsuit and see where it stems from. We’ll find the loopholes, the pieces that the public should know and be worried about, and we can stop that.”
“Alright,” nodded Cam. “Then we’ll all make sure we dig up what we can on Morrison and stop his rise to the White House. But how do we make this public? We can’t expose ourselves again. We’ve come too far and created too much security around ourselves. You can only reinvent the company so many times before we start to lose credibility.”
“I know how to do it,” said the voice standing at the door. “I know how to do it, and I think it’s the only way to do this. I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I need to help to make this right. It’s my crazy fucked-up family at the heart of this.
“Let me testify before the House and Senate. If they won’t hear me, then I’ll call every news agency in the world and expose every last piece of this nightmare.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Babe, have you lost your mind? I can’t let you do that,” said Nate. There were a few laughs and chuckles in the room, but mostly snorts.
“Let me? Nate, I appreciate your concern, but this is my problem too. Have you been watching any of the news coverage of the explosion at my parents’ home?” she asked.
