The ghost at the table – Draft 03 – Chapter 9

Logan

The server room hummed like a nest of hornets. Stephanie McBride stood at the threshold, her sharp gaze sweeping across the banks of blinking machinery. She was the new blood at SAPOL, fresh talent with a sniper’s precision for cybercrime detection. Early forties, hair the colour of wet earth pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, and eyes that could cut glass—green and piercing. She didn’t just look determined; she was determination, moulded into a woman’s form and let loose on the digital underworld.

“McBride,” said a voice behind her, “welcome to the front line.” The greeting was warm enough, but Stephanie barely acknowledged it. There was work to do.

—

Keys clacked under Logan’s fingers, a staccato rhythm against the silence of his Meningie sanctuary. A small business in Adelaide had caught his eye—soft security, ripe for picking. He’d been inside their system for weeks, ghosting through files, learning the contours of their digital footprint. Tonight, he was ready to bite.

“Time to eat,” Logan muttered, his voice barely rising above the whisper of his computer fans.

The breach was silent, invisible. Data bled out—a steady stream of customer names, credit card numbers, personal addresses. It oozed into Logan’s waiting folders. He felt a rush, a surge of power as he watched the lifeblood of commerce spill into his hands.

Adelaide slept, unaware that one of its own was bleeding out, byte by byte.

—

In the morning, the news hit like a sledgehammer. The business, a mainstay in Adelaide’s community, had been gutted online. Customers raged, phones screamed without pause, and the owners faced the ruinous landscape of financial loss and a reputation in tatters.

Stephanie McBride leaned over the printout of the report, the words telling a tale she knew all too well. This was more than petty theft; it was digital savagery. Her green eyes narrowed. Someone had taken a cleaver to the business’s lifeline, and it was her job to find them.

“Whoever you are,” she whispered to the unseen predator, “I’m coming for you.”

And somewhere in the vast, rural quiet of South Australia, Logan Robinson felt the first twinge of a hunter’s shadow creeping upon him.

In the sterile glow of her office, Stephanie McBride was a portrait of focus. Her workspace was a battleground, screens alive with streams of data, each window a glimpse into the chaos sown by an unseen adversary. She poured over lines of code, a symphony of keystrokes punctuating her analysis. Patterns emerged under her scrutiny—repetitions, habits, a signature style in the digital debris.

“Same entry vector as the last one,” she murmured, her voice steady. The hacker had a taste for small business systems, low security—a predator picking off the stragglers from the herd. It was meticulous work, piecing together the puzzle left behind. Each attack was a clue, and Stephanie was fluent in the language of cybercriminals.

She called up a log file, eyes darting across timestamps that marked the intruder’s path. “Gotcha,” she breathed out as she isolated an IP address, a potential fingerprint amidst the smudges of random traffic.

“McBride, you find something?” A voice over her shoulder; her colleague Peter, another specialist in the digital trenches.

“Maybe.” She replied without looking up. “This IP shows up too often to be coincidence.”

“Could be a VPN mask,” he suggested, the caution in his tone a testament to their foe’s cunning.

“Could be,” she conceded, “but we’ll trace it back anyway.”

Together they delved deeper, employing forensic tools that sifted through the net’s murky waters. They were hunters casting wide nets, every catch scrutinized, every false lead discarded. Collaboration was key—two minds deciphering the web woven by their quarry.

“Look at this,” Stephanie pointed to a sequence on her screen, a breadcrumb trail left unwittingly by the hacker. “These timestamps don’t align with the rest.”

“Time zone slip-up?” her partner ventured, leaning closer.

“Or deliberate misdirection.” Stephanie’s fingers danced over keys, cross-referencing, confirming. “No, this is intentional. He wants us to think he’s offshore.”

“Smart,” her colleague admitted, “but not smart enough.”

“Exactly.” Stephanie’s lips twisted into a wry smile. It was a game of cat and mouse, but the mouse had underestimated the cat.

“Let’s map out these access points, see where our ghost likes to walk,” Stephanie decided, her no-nonsense resolve galvanizing their efforts. They were building a case, brick by electronic brick, and somewhere in the sprawling, dusty expanse of rural Australia, a line of code might just spell the end for a hacker named Logan.

The fluorescent lights of the SAPOL cybercrime unit hummed a constant monotone as Stephanie McBride scrolled through lines of code and digital records. Her eyes, piercing green, didn’t miss a beat. Every anomaly, every inconsistency was a whisper in the vast digital void, and she was listening intently.

“Got something,” she murmured, her voice steady, her focus unbreakable. The common thread she’d been chasing for weeks finally materialized on the screen before her—a series of transactions linked to a single IP address. It sat there, almost mocking in its static simplicity amidst the streams of data.

“Persistent, aren’t you?” Stephanie spoke to the hacker as if he were right there with her. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, each keystroke a step closer to him. She input commands, tracing the IP through layers of obfuscation. “You left breadcrumbs, and that’s all I need.”

A printout now lay beside her—a warrant, freshly signed, granting her access to depths of data previously sealed away. Midnight oil burned as she worked; the only sound in the office was the clack of her keyboard and the occasional sip of coffee. The chase consumed her.

Logs piled up, gigabytes turned into terabytes, but she sifted through them with unwavering determination. Each IP address she uncovered, each timestamp she cross-referenced, tightened the net around the elusive hacker. Her mind was an archive of patterns, a library where no detail could hide.

“Adelaide sleeps, but we don’t, do we, Mr. Hacker?” she whispered to herself, half-smile creeping onto her face. The solitary glow of her monitor painted her in shades of blue and grey—detective and sentinel, standing guard against the unseen threat.

“Steph, you should get some rest,” came the concern-laden voice of a colleague, Mel, her silhouette leaning in the doorway.

“Can’t,” she replied curtly, not taking her eyes off the screen. “He’s close.”

“Alright, just—” Mel started, but she cut her off.

“Make sure the team’s ready. When I find him, we move fast.”

The colleague nodded, disappearing back into the shadows of the precinct, leaving Stephanie alone with her quarry once more. In the stillness of the night, only Stephanie and the hacker were awake—two architects of a digital showdown that loomed on the horizon.

The cursor blinked in a sea of encrypted code on Stephanie’s screen—a mocking beacon in the darkness of cyber-labyrinthine. She leaned forward, knuckles white as she gripped the edge of her desk, eyes scanning line after line of incomprehensible data. A sigh escaped her lips, frustration brewing like a storm inside her.

“Dead end,” she muttered. Encrypted files glared back at her. The hacker had covered his tracks with layers upon layers of sophisticated techniques. She shook her head, strands of brown hair falling over her piercing green eyes. But the resolve in those eyes hardened. “Nice try.”

She started another decryption algorithm, fingers flying over the keyboard. Stephanie McBride didn’t buckle under pressure; she thrived. Each obstacle, a challenge. Each dead end, a detour to a new path. Her determination was ironclad.

“Crack one code, ten more spring up,” she said to no one in particular. “But I’ll get you. I’ve got all night.”

—

“Shit.” Logan’s voice was a harsh whisper in the quiet of his cluttered office. His monitor flashed warning signs of intrusion attempts. He knew someone was onto him, hunting him through the digital jungle he thought he’d mastered.

“Can’t let them catch me.” He started routing his connection through multiple VPNs, bouncing from server to server across continents. Fingers blazed across the keys. Skills honed in military precision now served to shield him from the law’s grasp.

“Encrypt everything. Leave nothing behind.” He spoke to himself, a mantra against apprehension. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Acne scars itched—a reminder of past insecurities, fears he couldn’t afford now.

“Adelaide’s new bloodhound is good,” he conceded, watching the logs fill with failed access attempts. “But not good enough.” Logan’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. He’d slip through her fingers yet again. He had to.

“Disappeared without a trace,” he said, a final declaration before powering down. The screens went dark, leaving Logan in shadow. He lived in these shadows, moved within them. And tonight, they were his salvation.

The screen flickered with lines of code, dancing in the dim light like fireflies on a summer night. Stephanie McBride leaned in closer, her green eyes reflecting the cold glow of the monitor. She was onto something—a digital breadcrumb in the vast wilderness of cyberspace.

“Gotcha,” she murmured, noting the anomaly. The pattern was subtle, but there it was—the same signature move that had eluded her for weeks. It led to Meningie, a sleepy town that hardly seemed the epicentre of cybercrime. But appearances could deceive.

“IT consultancy in Meningie,” she said, “Let’s see what you’re hiding.”

Stephanie jotted down the details, cross-referencing data points with meticulous precision. Each click brought her closer, each piece of evidence tightening the noose around an invisible neck. The hacker was good, but Stephanie was relentless.

“Team,” she called out, her voice slicing through the hush of the office. Heads turned, attention snapped to her command. “Briefing room, five minutes. We might have our lead.”

They gathered around the table, eyes fixed on Stephanie as she laid out the plan. A map of Meningie projected on the wall, pinpointing the IT consultancy that now held their collective gaze.

“Here,” Stephanie pointed, “This is where we hit them. We go in hard and fast, expecting the unexpected. This hacker won’t go down without a fight.”

Nods went around the room. They knew what was at stake—careers, reputations, justice. Stephanie’s team was ready, fuelled by the fire of the chase.

“Gear up,” she instructed, her tone leaving no room for doubt. “We leave in one hour. I want this hacker in handcuffs by the end of the day.”

The team dispersed, each member lost in their own ritual of preparation. Weapons checked, vests secured, minds sharpened to a razor’s edge. They were a machine, and Stephanie the engineer, fine-tuning every cog and wheel.

“McBride,” a voice cut through the buzz of activity. “You really think we’ll catch this guy?”

Stephanie turned, locking eyes with her second-in-command. “I do. And when we do, it’ll be because we did our job, not because they slipped up.”

“Let’s bring this bastard down,” he said, a determined echo of her own resolve.

“Let’s.” Her agreement was a promise, a vow etched in the steel of her will.

An hour passed, and the convoy rolled out, silent and ghostly against the rural backdrop of South Australia. Stephanie watched the landscape pass, the green of her eyes darkened with purpose.

Meningie loomed ahead, its tranquillity about to be shattered. The hacker was there, somewhere amid the innocence of the countryside. And they were coming for him, a storm of law and order ready to break.

“Ready up,” Stephanie’s voice crackled over the comms. “This is it.”

Hearts pounded, hands gripped weapons tighter. The moment of truth was upon them. In the quiet before the breach, friendship was their anchor, trust their armour. They were more than colleagues; they were comrades bound by the pursuit of right.

“Go, go, go!” The command was given, adrenaline surged. Doors flew open, boots hit the ground. They moved as one, towards the building that housed their elusive quarry.

Stephanie led the charge, the first to reach the door. With a swift kick, it gave way under her strength. She stepped into the lion’s den, her team close at her heels. This was it—the confrontation they had all been waiting for.

The raid began.

Sweat trickled down the side of my face, a salty rivulet marking the path of my panic. I stared at the screen—its glow a beacon in the darkened room. They were onto me. The cursor blinked, a silent metronome to my racing heart. Keep going or run? My fingers flew across the keys, the rhythm once comforting now a staccato tap-tap-tapping of dread.

“Dammit,” I muttered, each keystroke an echo of the past. RAAF taught me speed, precision. But not how to evade a cyber dragnet. The command-and-control structure that had once chafed now seemed like a distant paradise compared to this tightening noose.

Clicks filled the silence—the emails, the encryptions, the endless loops of code. Mental anguish was my shadow, depression my cloak. The military doc’s words still stung. No antidepressants, no recognition. Just the dark.

“Disappear,” the word hung in the air, a ghostly whisper. Could I leave it all? The screens, the data, the thrill of the chase? Meningie was small, quiet, it had been my refuge. Now it felt like a trap.

“Logan?” The voice came from within—a memory. Andy’s face, his easy smile. He’d understand, wouldn’t he? Friendship was a lifeline, but it bound you to people, places. And right now, I needed to be a ghost.

“Sorry, mate,” I whispered to no one. Fear was a cold companion, urging me to flee. I yanked the hard drives free—one, two, three—each one a piece of my soul.

I took one last look around. This dingy room, once my empire, now a prison cell. Grabbing my jacket, I slipped into the night. The cool air hit my face, the stars above indifferent to my plight. I could vanish, become a rumour, a shadow among the gum trees.

But as I turned to go, I hesitated. A part of me yearned for the fight, to prove I was more than my mistakes. I clenched my fist, the weight of decisions heavy in my gut.

The sound of engines broke the night’s calm. Headlights pierced the darkness, a convoy slicing through the countryside. My pulse quickened. It was them—SAPOL’s finest, led by her, Stephanie McBride. Cybercrime’s best. A no-nonsense huntress on my digital trail.

“Time’s up, Logan,” I said to myself. The game was changing, and I was the prey.

Stephanie would be thorough, meticulous. Her green eyes missed nothing. Every lead followed, every pattern analysed. She didn’t know it was me. Not yet. But she was close, so damn close.

“Could be anyone,” I tried to convince myself. But deep down, I knew. It was only a matter of time before the personal connection surfaced. Before the hunter and the haunted stood face to face.

They were preparing to breach. I could imagine Stephanie, focused, commanding. “Go, go, go!” That’d be her style. Direct, unwavering.

“Logan Robinson,” they’d call out, expecting a monster. Instead, they’d find a bloke with bad acne and a heavier frame, frayed by life’s cruel twists. Would they see the man who typed secrets for Intelligence Officers? Or just another criminal?

“Get it together,” I snarled under my breath. Fight or flight? My heart hammered against my ribs, a war drum summoning me to action. To face the consequences or disappear into the bushland, leaving only whispers behind.

“Decision time.” I took a breath, letting the cool air fill my lungs. One way or another, this was the endgame.

“Let’s see what fate has in store for Logan Robinson.” With that, I stepped away from the shadows, my future hanging in the balance as the raid began.