Jordan Shaw had been working for the FBI for the past twenty-two years. And in that time she had seen some very outlandish cases that she thought would not be what they were. Her mind automatically goes to when she was working the case with Detective Beckett. Together they had solved what ended up being a man who had become a serial killer. It wasn't that long ago and she had made a friend in Kate Beckett.
There are still certain rules and regulations she must adhere to when she does her job. She is a profiler for the FBI but that's not to say that she can't be moved to a certain division or job if it suits the FBI. She startles herself from her daydreaming when an agent dropped a banker's box right near her office. She looks back down at the report she has up on her computer screen and gets back to finishing it up. This case was one for the books. She had profiled her suspect as a mid 30's white male who was a loner. Her profile was right but her reasoning for his motive was all wrong.
Their suspect was never a violent person by nature. But when he walked into the Republic Bank of Phoenix, everything changed. The teller who took his note and read it laughed out loud at his written demand. It was then when she looked up at the man that he had a handgun pointed directly at her she knew that he was serious. She quickly pulled all the cash from her till activating the silent alarm and then proceeded to empty the till from the teller next to her. It came to a point where the drawers were all emptied and then he wanted cash from the safe. The teller that he initially got his note had told him that the safe was locked down and could not be opened by anyone until later in the morning. He demanded that the safe be opened and if it wasn't he would start shooting. It was only a bluff but it sounded like he meant it. But fate had intervened. When he stepped to his left to return to the first teller's window, he tripped over his foot, and in a move to stop himself from falling his index finger he had on the trigger squeezed off a round striking the teller he gave the note to. She fell to the ground and he took off with the cash he already had.
The teller died of her wounds later that afternoon. But what baffles Jordan is the fact that he didn't stop there. He robbed three more Banks in the Phoenix area that week all without any violence thank God but she was the one who profiled him to run to a secluded location. It was later found out that his parents had a parcel of land not far from Flagstaff, Arizona. The shack that was on the property was just that, a shack. It had no power, no comforts of home, just four walls and a roof. It was not long before they had him in custody and he traded in the shack for a concrete cell.
Xx
The director of the NSA had been in talks with the director of the FBI. What was discussed in depth was the recent attack on the New York-Presbyterian Hospital in NYC. They knew that the NYPD's cyber division was called in to get a handle on any future attacks. But there was something that needed to be addressed. The NYPD cyber division is good at what they do but the directors of both agencies want assurances that it won't go any further than what has already happened.
"William, I have a game plan forming in my mind and I think I'm going to act on it." The director of the FBI said.
"If I know where you are going with this, I am in one hundred percent agreement. She's legendary in her profiling but does she have the time?" William asks.
"She just solved the bank robbery case in Phoenix. She should be just about ready to hand in her report from the incident."
No sooner did Christopher finish that sentence than Jordan walked up and knocked on his door.
"Jordan, please come in."
"Director Wray. Director Burns. It's a pleasure." Jordan says as she sits down.
"Jordan, you know all the players in the room so we're going to get down to business. Recently in New York City, there was a cyberattack on New York-Presbyterian Hospital. We've been monitoring the ins-and-outs of what was going on but now we want to intercede. What I'm going to request you to do is hop on the agency's Learjet and head to New York City first thing tomorrow morning. Once you touch down at Teterboro, I need you to get into the city as quickly as possible. Your contact is a lieutenant named Hannah Baker. She runs the cyber division for the NYPD. And from what I am told she is very good at her job. Any questions?"
"Sir, a while back I was working on a case with Detective Kate Beckett. I'm wondering if I could request her as backup? I trust her with my life."
"It seems that you're in luck, Jordan. Captain Rhodes at the 12th Precinct has assigned this detective Katherine Beckett of yours to the cyber division for the homicide part of it. It seems that a man was being operated on in the hospital when the servers were held for ransom. He died later that morning."
"Right. I'll be on the plane first thing tomorrow."
Jordan got up off the chair and started for the door but before she could leave the director said one more thing. She stopped mid-step.
"Jordan I don't need to tell you that I need you to be on your A-game. This might get a little dicey. You have full authorization to do whatever it is necessary to shut these guys down. Have a safe flight."
Jordan knew that he meant what he said. So much so that she never turned around to look at his face knowing that she had carte blanche to do whatever she wanted to do to get the job done.
Xx
The next day Jordan was exactly where she should be sitting in the agency's Learjet heading north towards New York City. The good thing about having a Learjet at your disposal is that you can leave whenever you feel like it. She was on the plane at 7 in the morning and she touched down at Teterboro slightly before 8:15. By 9 a.m. she was sitting in the 12th Precinct's war room getting an update and progress reports from lieutenant Baker.
"Lieutenant Baker, are you telling me that you might have actionable intel on our suspect?" Jordan asked.
"We might agent Shaw. We performed a basic reverse signal search and came up with what might be the perpetrators who held the Hospital server for ransom. But the funny thing about it is that when we got down to trace where it was coming from, we came up against a wall. Whoever these people are, they cover their tracks very well. They sent us to a cold war station on the tip of Alaska. So why we might have had a lead as to who they could be we know what signal to look for.
"When you say signal Hanna, just what exactly do you mean?" Jordan ventures.
"Each IP address has its very own signal pattern. It's almost like a fingerprint and while it might not be 100% accurate it is still in the 90 percentile range. If we could find that signal again I can guarantee that we could probably trace it back to its source even if it does reroute us back to the tip of Alaska." Hanna said confidently.
"Good. Because I expect another attack very soon. They were pissed that they didn't get the money they were looking for the first time around so I think retaliation will be next. And it won't be small potatoes. They'll attack something that will cripple the city."
Before Jordan and Hannah can talk more, Kate and Rick round the corner and enter the office that has now become the FBI's war room.
"Jordan, what are you doing here in the city? Kate asks as Rick just stands next to her not saying a word.
"The powers to be thought my expertise could be beneficial in helping your department solve whoever was behind the recent attack on New York-Presbyterian Hospital. I heard there was a death involved?"
"There was. Dr. Garcia was in the middle of a heart operation when whoever it was that took over the servers. Once that happened everything went into shutdown mode. The lights in the operating theater never came back on and from the interview, we just conducted it seems that they did everything humanly possible to save the man they were working on."
"I'm guessing that the good doctor is beside himself."
"He is. He holds himself responsible. But he had no control over the situation so I'm not sure how to classify this. Granted it is a homicide but now we have no one to pin it on to get a conviction."
Jordan looks over at Kate and motions her head in the direction of the break room.
Kate picks up on the subtle movement of her friend's head and exits the conference room first with Jordan following behind. Before she leaves the room she tells Rick to sit tight and that she'll be right back.
Once Jordan enters the break room she secures all points of entry so they can talk without being interrupted.
"So Kate, who is he?"
Kate knew that Jordan had picked up on Rick by her side decided to play dumb just to give her a run for her money.
"Who is who Jordan?"
"The hunk that was standing next to you not less than a minute ago."
"Oh him. He's my partner. We've been working together for about a month now and he seems to know his way around crime scenes. He's become quite helpful."
"Hang on a second, this is not the Kate Beckett that I know. The Kate Beckett that I know is a workaholic who never has time for a partner. So tell me Kate how did you two get together?"
"Define get together Jordan? If you're meaning that we're more than what we present here at the 12th, then I can tell you that you're wrong. It seems that your profiling skills aren't up to par." She lied to get a rise out of her friend.
"Kate, my profiling skills are never wrong. I know something is going on here and I will find out what it is before this case is over."
"We'll see about that. So what can you tell me about what you know? Or is it some state secret that you can't release any information to me?"
"Quite the opposite detective Beckett, I can tell you whatever you want to know. Starting with who we think the hackers are. They are not operating on U.S. soil. They are most likely operating from Europe. So with that little fact, we're going to start running a search for certain hackers who have come up the ladder very quickly. The list isn't as big as you think. So I'm hoping before they strike again we will have some sort of idea of who they are."
Kate simply nods and they both leave the break room together. When they return Rick is in a conversation with Hannah and they are going over what they already have about the case.
"Hannah, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that your signal theory is a positive lead. But it's going to be hard to track down their signal unless they attack something new. They're not going to just broadcast their signal for anyone to find."
"Rick, there's no other way to catch them until they do strike again. I agree with you there but there has got to be some way to trace them before they do start transmitting. We can identify their signal and follow it, but I do not want to get caught up in a dead-end like before. I want to get into their system and plant some sort of virus just to shut them down. That way if they're disabled permanently it's one less hacker we have to worry about."
When Jordan clears her throat, Rick and Hannah look over to see them standing there watching them talking. It's Jordan who speaks next.
"Mr. Castle, I am the senior special agent in charge Jordan Shaw. I am a profiler for the FBI and I have been assigned to this case. While I appreciate help where I can get it, I need to make it known that having a civilian consultant working with this team is highly unorthodox. So for now, I would like to have the sworn officers do all the heavy lifting. Detective Beckett tells me that you can see outside the box. If that's true then we will need every theory that you can give us."
"I see," Rick said as he moved towards Jordan to shake her hand. The second he does it happens again. His vision has Kate and Jordan in a no-win situation. Knowing that she will know that something is wrong he breaks the handshake before seeing everything in the vision so as not to make her suspicious.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Agent Shaw. I'm looking forward to working with you."
Jordan simply nodded. There was something about this man, what, she didn't know but she would figure out what he was hiding from her.
"Likewise Mr. Castle. Why don't we get down to business and review what we know so far? Meeting with all teams in fifteen minutes." Jordan shouts out.
Xx
Piter never realized what the end game here was. Now that the Germans had laid out the next part of their plan, he has regrets about why he agreed to run the operation here in New York.
Even if he didn't like what they were about to do he still needed to inform his top hackers of what was going to happen next. He called in Kim and Rodolfo and had them sit down at the conference table in the small office opposite the pit.
"I just got off the phone with the people in Germany. What we need to do is set up an attack that will disable the New York City transit system and everything in the financial district. That means shutting down the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, the commodities market, and anything else that we can think of. The powers to be in Germany want to want to send a message and after the hospital flub, they want to see results.
"Piter, as aggressive as the Germans want to be, this is going to take some time to plan out. You're talking about two different strikes that will disable this country's financial system and system and the city's entire transportation system. Why not try to concentrate on just one and then attack the other at a later date?"
"Rodolfo, I understand your concern but I have my orders. Whatever the organization in Germany wants they're going to get. So you have two hours to draw up a plan on how to infiltrate and disable the subway system first and then a plan for holding the New York Stock Exchange and its counterparts hostage. I suggest you have Kim work on one problem and you work on the other. I am not getting caught with my pants down again. It's bad enough that we lost the flow of cash that we were going to have from the hospital job but we have to send a message that means we mean business. Am I clear?"
Rodolfo nods his head and then he looks to Kim hoping that they can come up with something in the time frame he put forth. They both turn to leave his office for their work area.
"Rodolfo, did you see how scared he looked? It's as if he knows something bad will happen to him if we can't pull this off."
"Kim I would be shaking in my shoes if it were me as well. He dodged a bullet on the last job and that was no fault of our own. Somehow someone is keeping tabs on us and I want to find out who it is. You start working up a way to access the MTA and I'll start working on a plan for the New York Stock Exchange and figure out who is tracking us."
Xx
They were hard at work trying to figure out where the last intrusion came from. They had everything they needed from the cyber division and Kate and her team. But what they needed was a solid lead. So Jordan and her FBI contacts in D.C had set up a trap and trace system. If the signal would present itself anytime in the near future they would have a head start in tracking it down to its source.
Jordan had come into the conference room that now was the new war room and pulled Kate aside. She wanted to have a very short and quick conversation with her regarding her partner and she felt this was the best time to do it. She had looked into Mr. castle and knew what he was all about. She wanted to see if her friend would give her any information as to his past life.
She escorted her to the break room, closed and locked both doors, and then looked at Kate.
"Kate, you need to tell me everything about Rick. Some things just don't add up in my book."
"Jordan, I don't know what you're talking about. What things don't add up?"
"He's been all over the country Kate. He worked many odd jobs and he moved around a lot. To me, that's a red flag right there. There was even a four-year stretch where he didn't do anything. It's like he just disappeared off the face of the Earth and then there was no more Rick. Don't you find that odd?"
"Jordan wow I do know about his past, elusive as it may be, but he is one of the most honest men I have ever met. If you ask him for the shirt off his back he would gladly give it to you. If you need a thousand dollars for whatever you needed it for, he would supply it. He is simply a man who has been on the bad side of life. And now I'm glad that he's on the good side of mine."
"I see. So you're more than partners?"
"Jordan I don't see how my personal life is any business of yours. Even if he was more than a partner off the job would that have any impact on how he can work with us?
"No Kate. But I like to know who I'm working with. I have no problem if or if you are not together. That's not my issue. My issue is I want to make sure that he's able to hold his own in a situation that could be deadly."
"Jordan I promise you that if the time or need arises he would selfishly give of himself rather than to see me or even you for that matter in danger."
"Kate for your sake I hope he does. Now tell me what we have so far."
"Hannah and her team have a line on what they think would be the equivalent to a fingerprint in the signal. With the FBI's help, we should be able to track where they're coming from. The only bad news is that they have to start using that signal before we can track them. As it is right now the cyber team is diligently working to find a backdoor into the hacker's system that they know about to see if the signal matches what they have. But as it stands right now so far there's been no luck."
"I'll have a word with her cyber team and I will hook them up with the FBI's cyber team and see what they can do. Until then why don't you and Rick work the murder angle maybe we can clear that case before they strike again."
Kate turned and left Jordan sitting in the break room. When she turned towards the conference room to find her partner there was a feeling of unease. It wasn't long after that feeling that she was almost run over by Hannah as she stopped directly in front of her.
"Kate, where is Jordan?"
"Hannah, she's still in the conference room. She is reviewing some of the facts of the case that we were looking at concerning the hospital homicide. Why what's going on? What seems to be the…"
Before Kate could even finish her sentence Hannah had practically knocked her over to get to Jordan. Being curious as she is she followed in her footsteps toward the conference room.
"Jordan! They're doing it again."
"Hang on a second, who's doing what?"
"Whoever engineered the attack on the hospital is doing the same thing. Now they're going for more of a threat. They just shut down the entire Metropolitan Transportation Authority. That means all buses, subway, and any other city-run transportation is now disabled."
"Oh my God! All those people stuck down in the subway and the buses that now don't have GPS for direction and correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the buses themselves on the grid?" Jordan asks Hannah.
"Yes, they are and from what I have already received in a preliminary report is that the buses have shut down right where they stood. Some are at bus stops, and some came to a stop in the middle of the street simply disabled."
"Hannah, see if you can get a handle on what we were talking about earlier. There's got to be a way to track this signal and since they have initiated another attack we just might be able to stop them from going any further."
"I hope we can Jordan for the city's sake. I hope we can."
Xx
Rodolfo was proud of what he had done. In one swift keystroke, he had shut down the entire New York City Transit System. Buses, subways, and ferries were now at his disposal. There was no movement of any transportation within the city.
The only thing he couldn't control were the yellow cabs and of course, Uber's private cars that shuttled people and packages to and from their destinations.
He went back to Kim's workstation and started inquiring about her progress on the NYSE intrusion. She had told him that yes, she was close to infiltrating their system as well but needed a little more time. For now, until she was ready he would go back to Piter and tell him that he could send the demand for the release of the servers that ran the MTA.
Xx
This was an election year. And everyone knows that in the election year you kiss a lot of ass. Bob Weldon has known many candidates who have failed in their quest to become a second-term mayor only because they did not heed to the political protocol.
He would not succumb to the same fate. When his phone rang ten minutes ago the message he got was one of disbelief at first. Someone had told him that they had the transit system hostage and required the city to pay five million dollars in cash to an offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands. To the city and his office, in particular, five million dollars was not a lot of money. There were many lawsuits filed against the city that was worth ten times that. But this one was different. He knew that without the city's transit system operational they were going to be a lot of pissed-off people. People who vote for him. He needs to call a meeting with his top advisors and get their opinion on what should happen next. He was given a deadline of four hours to pay the ransom or there would be another attack.
He knew that Rick was working with Detective Beckett. This might be his only saving grace. Ever since he had asked what Precinct the detective worked out of they had become close friends. There were many times when his celebrity status came into play. Bob was a man who believed in the underdog. He always looked out for people no matter what race, color, or creed they were. With Rick, they were able to raise money for many worthwhile causes. Now he needed to talk to his friend. In the past, they would joke around about what would happen if the city was attacked not by hackers but by physical attacks, similar to 9/11. They came up with scenarios with were disturbing, to say the least. Rick had always gone above what was his imagination allowed. And that scared Bob. But now he needed to talk to his friend about the current situation the city was in. He knew that the 12th Precinct currently had their hands full with the New York-Presbyterian attack but this trumped what they're working on now. Reluctantly he picks up the phone and dials the one number that he thinks can help him now.
Xx
Rick watches as Kate walks out of the conference room leaving Jordan to deal with Hanna. He didn't quite finish the vision he saw when he shook her hand and, to be honest, he doesn't want to see how it turns out. But it seems to him that he is becoming more and more visionary when he touches people directly. It used to be when he felt a situation arise he could fast-forward three minutes and twenty-two seconds. Now it seems on top of that he can simply just touch someone's flesh with his and get the same results for that person's possible future. It often includes other people that that person knows. This is what scares him the most. The first vision he saw was Kate being shot. Now he had shaken Jordan's hand the old vision is now gone replaced by a new one.
"Babe, what's up? What's got you so involved with your thoughts?" Kate says as she walks into the war room where she left Rick.
He takes her hand and interlocks their fingers together and moves her to the corner of the conference room where they can talk in a semi-private setting.
"Kate, there's something that you need to know and I need to tell you before it happens."
The second he said 'before it happens' she knew that he had seen a vision that involved someone on their team. It was just a feeling and usually, her feelings are never wrong. She looked him directly in the eye and just as he was about to tell her his cell phone rang.
"Richard Castle speaking," he said as he answered his phone.
"Rick, it's Bob. Listen I need your help on something. Something big. I need your advice as to what I should do. But be warned this could be a life or death situation."
Rick puts up a finger to Kate telling her to hold that thought while he talks to Bob on the phone. Kate being as curious as ever wants to hear what the mayor has to say so she motions to Rick to put the phone on speaker so she can hear what he is saying too.
Rick does exactly that and then he says,
"Let me take a wild guess, someone is holding your transit system, hostage. And now they want an insane amount of money for them to release it back to you. Am I close?"
"Damn it man are you psychic or something?"
"Nowhere close Bob. I'm at the 12th and we already received the initial report on the attack against the transit system. We're working hard with the cyber unit and we think we might have a lead that could get us to who is doing this. If we can shut them down we can save you a ton of money."
"Rick the money is not the issue. The time frame they put forth is. The ransom to release the transit system needs to be paid in less than four hours. They're asking for five million in cash to be wired to a Cayman account."
"Bob get the cash ready. But don't send it. I am sure that Hannah and her team along with the FBI's cyber division that's helping our team track down these people will find out who they are before things get that drastic."
"All right Rick. I have a meeting with my advisers in ten minutes. I will listen to their concerns and I will bring up what you have already found out. Hopefully, we can catch these bastards and stop them from attacking anything else."
If mayor Weldon only knew how wrong he was.
Xx
Rodolfo and Kim and finally finished with the security parameters that allow them to gain access to the New York Stock Exchange servers. The government was smart. But they were smarter. At the end of the day's trading on every index, all the information was transferred to a small town north of the city in New Jersey named Ramsey that held all of their information before being moved on to a more secure location. The town itself knew little of what went on at this facility but it was staffed with armed guards 24/7. Nothing was allowed to come in or out unless authorized by certain people. There were many times when a disabled motorists or kids who try to access entry to the property were challenged. They were turned away at gunpoint and told to go elsewhere. The guards who guarded the building that housed all the information that the stock exchange sent them on a daily basis did not take any excuse for what your problem was. Their mentality was if you didn't stop when they told you to you would be shot. No questions asked.
Kim was the one who found the back door into the servers that had all the information. She along with Rodolfo had installed a way to get into the servers after they are in so they could get back in with ease. It was like they had carte blanche they could do whatever they wanted and no one would be the wiser. So now while the back door was still open they waited for Piter to make his demands.
"Piter, we have completed the intrusion on the servers for the New York Stock Exchange and associated indexes. From our end, you're good to go so make your calls to whoever you need to call."
Rodolfo had a bad feeling about what was going to happen next but what he needed to do was find out who was trying to gain access to their system. He had an idea of who it could be but he wasn't one hundred percent sure that she had the smarts to pull off something like this. But then again maybe he put too little faith in someone like her….
Xx
Hannah had found it! It took a lot of work but she and her team were able to track down the signal and trace it back to its owner. It was re-routed many different times through different sites that made no sense to her whatsoever. But they were able to track it back to New York City. That's when everything fell apart. Whoever was making the demands had shut down their system after the demands were made. She had this signal traced to midtown and that was the extent of where she had gotten. It was just South of Central Park and it was a thirty-block radius South of the park. Now all they need to do is narrow down where and they should be closer to finding who this was.
Xx
After the phone call with Bob, Rick needs to tell Kate what he had seen in his vision. He knows that this is going to be a hard discussion to have with her. He knows that he loves her and he doesn't want to see anything happen to her. They had moved to a secluded part of the homicide floor and he couldn't understand why but that question would be answered in less than thirty seconds. The second he opened his mouth to start talking, she took hold of his hand, and then they both disappeared from New York City.
Jordan who had been looking for Kate and Rick turns the corner just as she sees something that is way out of place in a police station. There are remnants of static electricity dissipating where she thought she saw Kate. She rubs her eyes to clear them and when she returns her sight back to what she had seen there is absolutely nothing there. But as she moves closer to where she thinks they were there is fine black soot on the floor where their feet would have been. That in itself is intriguing to her. She thinks to herself that something is definitely going on here and she will figure it out. Her concentration is broken when she hears Hannah coming up behind her acting very sure of herself. Hannah pulls Jordan away back towards the war room to show her what she has found. Jordan will not forget what she has just seen.
A/N: The secure facility that's mentioned above is right next to my hometown. It is hidden by very tall arborvitaes and there are security measures to keep anyone from entering the property with steel pop-up barriers. There are armed guards with a sidearm and automatic rifles patrolling on foot for the entire location. If you look up Google Maps you'll see the facility on North Central Ave in Mahwah, NJ. This I was not making up. It does really exist. Here are the coordinates. 41.078147, -74.150264