addressed Slavin as they picked their way closer to the center of the devastation.
Hunching his shoulders, Slavin stuffed his hands in his front pockets. “Someone is always threatening to blow shit to hell, but we’ve crossed off the usual suspects.”
“You don’t detail a bombing like this without wanting to brag,” Navarro stated in his matter-of-fact tone, a tone that made Honey want to argue just for the sake of arguing. He pulled out his comm then glanced over her to ask Slavin, “Did you send the info to the First Responders app?”
“Doing it now.” The other man did an oops, shoulda-done-it-already shrug. He took his own comm unit from his front jeans pocket and tapped in the required information.
Honey wished she’d invented the First Responders application. Brilliant technology and groundbreaking programming provided rough damage and injury contours, standoff distances, and points of interest query capabilities.
Hooked to T-FLAC’s equivalent of Google maps, the imagery supported all platforms, ensuring all team members displayed the same map and user functionality. It had never been easier to keep everyone on the same page. She felt the vibrating buzz of her comm in her pocket. Just like that, they linked to all intel on the bank bombing site. Efficient and timesaving. Two things she admired.
Rafe read the information then glanced at Honey. “Let’s listen for chatter online, see what the word is on the street.”
Since she presumed he didn’t mean right this second, with the wind whipping their hair and rubble underfoot, she said mildly, “Monitors established just after our reroute. Are we thinking anarchists? Private sector? Bomb for hire? I’ll need to review current data and adjust the parameters before updates are sent via the First Responder app.”
Studying the smoldering embers, all that was left of a thriving city block, she itched to get her computer set up. While the bank had been the focus, the bombers were responsible for tremendous collateral damage, destroying lives and properties for who knew what reason.
“Nationalists, left wing, right wing, militia resistance…” Slavin listed the known local bad guys.
“We’ll know more once I get a closer look at what we find here.” Navarro tucked his comm back in his coat pocket. “Bombs are like angry snowflakes, no two alike-they all have their strengths and weaknesses depending on the imagination of the bomb maker. They all kick ass.”
Navarro was looking for intel on the bombing, but to Honey, the bombing was an outward display of terror; she’d bet there was cyber terrorism involved. “Because the target was a bank, my first thought would normally be cyber terrorism, but that wouldn’t explain the bombing. Unless the bomb is a cover-up.”
“Politics?” Navarro flipped his collar against the biting wind.
“If they were trying to make a political point, they would’ve chosen the government offices a few miles over.” Part of solving a puzzle meant establishing the meaning of the pieces they already had. She shook her head. “Point: This is not a single issue.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Probably. We haven’t ascertained an Athens connection.” Navarro shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yet.”
It was fascinating to watch him. Watch as he thought the situation through. She felt an unwanted thrill of appreciation, then quickly put the feeling down to hunger. They hadn’t stopped for breakfast.
“I’ll look at the bank records see if we’re dealing with a cyber attack as well. The estimated cost of cybercrime is around a trillion dollars. Much of that from financial institutions.” She chewed the corner of her lip as she considered the ramifications.
“DoS?” he asked.
A denial-of-serviceattackwas an attempt to make a business or government website unavailable to its intended users. But utilizing thousands of high-powered application servers, pointing them at targeted banks to make websites crash- while