Free Manipulator by Thom Parsons Page B

conclusion that this was a professional job. The fact that it has even made it through onto our work server is impressive, only authorised people can do this,” Owen said, more for the benefit of Kate than Nick, as she wasn't exactly up to speed on how a lot of this team's processes worked.
    “This is clearly something of high importance,” he continued. “Somebody went to a lot of effort to make sure that this video would be seen by us… However, there’s just one thing which I don't understand about all of this.” Owen felt all eyes on him. “Annie’s death was an accident. I’ve accepted that. It doesn’t make sense that we’ve received this information stating otherwise.“
    “Sorry for speaking bluntly,” Nick said. “But should we run with the assumption that maybe this was a targeted attack? Maybe someone, God forbid, was actually out to cause your car crash all along?”
    He was clearly, yet uncomfortably thinking outside of the box already. It was why Nick was a part of this team. His logical thinking and ability to look at any situation differently was second to none.
    “I’d like to say yes,” Owen responded cautiously, not put off in any way by Nick’s brazen statement. “But I was there Nick, and I know it was an accident.” How could I forget? He thought solemnly, as the group sat in silence for a few seconds.
    “However,” Owen continued, his voice perking up slightly. “This is definitely worth following up. There’s a lot of information that’s been sent to us in this video,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Too much information to just play it off as some kind of elaborate hoax. Although saying that, I’m going to remain skeptical about this until proven otherwise. Luckily for us, we’ve got a clear calendar for a while. I’m still waiting to hear back on how we should proceed with Eli. So until then, I want a bit of an un-official investigation done on this.”
    “Kate,” Owen announced, spinning himself in his chair to face her so that he could talk to her directly. “I want you to call your boss at the Bureau and see if you can get us some sort of sanctioning to carry out an investigation. Play it down a bit, don’t mention the personal connection. Mention that this job means that we’ll be able to keep you on here for a little while longer to continue training. It will give them a reason to say yes.”
    “No problem,” she responded, standing up and heading off to complete her assigned task immediately. Owen had asked her to do this because it was all politics. He knew that it was going to be frowned upon, looking into something like this. Something personal to one of the members of the team. If he went and told the FBI’s Special Projects Division about it, they’d probably bring in one of the other six teams to deal with the situation.
    “We’ll start running preliminary investigations now, while we wait for the official sanctioning on this,” Owen said to Nick, carrying on with his briefing whilst Kate completed her task in the background. “See what you can pull up on those three names… Marcus Ortega, Alex Morgan and Ethan Darkes. Start locally, see what you can find, then branch out. See how many people pop up across all the databases with those names. Then look for links, run some algorithms, see if you can find a connection between any three of them.”
    “On it,” he said, turning away and getting on with it.
    Marcus Ortega, Alex Morgan and Ethan Darkes.

Chapter Sixteen

    Date: December 9th 2035
    Location: New York PRoGRaM Analytic Base

    It wasn’t hard for them to find some privacy. In fact, it was relatively easy, purely due to the fact that the other two people that were dotted around the PRoGRaM Analytic Base were too busy doing their own thing to notice them. Reaching into the inside of their jacket pocket, they took out their second cellphone which nobody else on the team knew existed.  
    Punching some numbers into the phone, they called