Chapter 3: The Ghost in the Cloud
Chapter 3: The Ghost in the Cloud
Mariana had personally overseen the security upgrades on the Oceanic Majesty six months prior. Rodrigo had demanded top-tier physical security, but Mariana had insisted on a fully automated, off-site cloud backup system for the surveillance cameras. The cameras rolled 24/7, and the data was beamed directly to a secure, encrypted server hosted in Switzerland. Rodrigo didn't even know the password; he had dismissed it as "IT nonsense."
To access it, Mariana needed a secure terminal and a way to bypass the two-factor authentication tied to her old phone—which was currently at the bottom of the ocean. She needed help. She thought of Julian, an ex-corporate hacker she had quietly kept on retainer during her time as the Chief Financial Officer of the Salcedo enterprise. Julian owed her his life; she had kept him out of federal prison when he accidentally breached a Salcedo shell company five years ago.
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Using a burner phone purchased with the few damp dollar bills she had found in the shack, Mariana dialed a memorized string of numbers. "The ocean is cold this time of year," she whispered into the receiver, using their old distress phrase.
A heavy pause on the other end. "I thought you were dead," Julian’s voice crackled, laced with disbelief. "I am," Mariana replied. "And the dead want revenge. I need a ghost protocol, Julian. And I need a secure rig."
