Free 24 Declassified: 03 - Trojan Horse by Marc Cerasini Page A

it is.”
    “Thanks, Nina, I’ll explain everything when I get there.”
    “You’d better fly.”
    Jack glanced at his watch. “Give me half an hour.”
    Nina sighed. “I’ll do what I can.”
    “I owe you, Nina.”
    “Yes, Jack. You do.”
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    THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLAC E
BETWEEN THE HOURS OF
9 A.M. AND 10 A.M.
PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
    9:00:35 A . M .PDT CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles
    When CTU’s head programmer, Jamey Farrell, ar rived at her workstation to start the day, she was surprised to find Milo Pressman at the diagnostics platform. Milo was a network and encryption specialist and head of CTU computer security. Snapped up by CTU just out of Stanford University, he had soulful eyes, black, curly hair, and still wore the earring he’d acquired in graduate school.
    Petite, wiry, and Hispanic, Jamey was only two years older than Milo, but as a divorced single mother of a toddler son, she often felt more like a decade older in maturity. Case in point: Milo never arrived early for work, yet here he was, downloading the memory from a Dell desktop.
    “Welcome home, stranger. Back so soon?” Jamey said, dropping her purse.
    Pressmen sat back in his chair. “Miss me?” he teased.
    “No,” Jamey declared, popping the lid on her Star-bucks. “It was nice not having a man around the house. When did you get back?”
    “I took the red-eye from Washington last night. Flew in with Ryan Chappelle—first class. He gave me a ride back to headquarters with him, too.”
    “Ohhh, I’m impressed.” Jamey’s tone implied she wasn’t.
    “Come on, Jamey. Cut the guy some slack. Chappelle’s not so bad. Looks to me like he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
    Jamey waved his comment aside. “You’ve been in Washington too long. You’re talking like a bureaucrat.”
    “Langley’s in Virginia.”
    Jamey sipped her French Roast—cream, triple sugar—while she eyed Milo’s set up. “What’s all this?”
    Milo shrugged. “Found it wrapped in plastic on the table. The directive clipped to it said Jack sent the PC over for analysis. Arrived this morning, according to the manifest.”
    “You need any help with that?”
    “I got it under control,” Milo replied. “Where’s Fay?”
    “She’s in the field with Tony Almeida. Down in Mexico looking for some guy named Lesser.”
    Milo gaped. “ Richard Lesser.”
    Jamey looked up. “How did you know?”
    “Let’s say I’m not surprised. I knew ‘Little Dick’ Lesser at Stanford. He was a total asshole then. Called himself the Goddess Silica’s gift to programming.”
    “The Goddess Silica?”
    Milo shrugged. “Some gaming shit. Let’s backtrack a bit...Did you say Fay’s looking for Lesser in Mexico?”
    “It’s all in the daily update. Red file seven.”
    “Who’s got time to read the update? I just got here after two weeks at the Puzzle Palace, and another week spent almost entirely in an emissions-proof and windowless cave at Foggy Bottom. I haven’t slept for twenty hours. Anyway, I’ve—”
    Suddenly Milo was on his feet. “What the hell? I just got an unknown virus warning.”
    Jamey heard the warning tone a moment later, and nearly dropped her coffee. “Where did it come from?”
    “I was downloading the memory from this desktop and my security protocols went crazy. How long has it been since the archives were updated?”
    CTU’s computer security archives stored a copy of every worm, virus, spyware, and adware program released onto the World Wide Web as soon as it made an appearance. The ongoing collection and analysis of computer “mayhem ware” as Milo dubbed it was one of CTU’s mandates, and the Cyber-Unit’s most important tasks. Jamey was scrupulous about updating the system at least twice a day and Milo knew it.
    “Listen, Milo...I updated the archives last night at nine o’clock, before I went home. You can see the update log right on the