Olympus

Chapter 24

"Olympus has been infiltrated," Megan said to Dennis the moment the door slid open to admit her into his office to see him sitting behind his table with his head buried in the tablet in his hand.

He looked up from the device, the expression on his face a cross between surprise and confusion. "Please tell me that's a joke, Miss Months," he said.

"Unfortunately, Director, that's something she won't be able to do," Ricardo returned, coming in after Megan.

Dennis seemed to stop for a few heartbeats at the statement, unable to respond as he watched Megan take the seat opposite his desk and Ricardo make himself comfortable resting against the glass wall.

"Do you have any evidence to support this wild theory of yours?" he finally asked.

"Nothing concrete at the moment, actually," Megan admitted, "but we discovered that two of the men that interrupted the meeting in Havana were actually colleagues of Mr. DiSanto here and Sammy respectively."

"And if the "Item 13 theft" group could have had Os Buscadores and Sammy's organization infiltrated enough to order clear hits on us," Ricardo completed the thought process behind her, "it's safe to assume that they have someone in Olympus too keeping an eye on your progress to recover the weapon."

Dennis didn't take the accusation lightly at all as he stood up immediately to refute it in anger. "All due respect, Mr. DiSanto, but Olympus isn't Os Buscadores or a weapon smuggling ring," he said. "Every operative you find here is loyal."

"That was what I thought about my colleagues too before they tried to kill me twice," Ricardo returned, daring him with a look to counter it again.

Dennis met Ricardo's look head-on and the both of them stared one another down in some sort of mental wrestling that always seemed to occur whenever they were in close proximity to one another.

Okay, this is so not the time for a macho standoff, Megan thought to herself and stood up between the duo, purposely obstructing their view of each other. "We need to get back to the matter at hand," she reminded them. "Item 13 is still in the hands of the enemy group and we don't know where to retrieve it yet."

That seemed to get to Dennis and he broke off his stance; Ricardo doing the same soon after. He adjusted his suit in a thoughtful movement that led to him walking up to the glass wall to tap on it and its view immediately becoming opaque; a privacy mode activation, as Megan realised.

"I'm not saying that I believe a single word of this infiltration story that you're telling me, but for your peace of mind, and mine, I'm ordering that whatever we discuss from here on out be limited to as few number of individuals as possible unless absolutely necessary," Dennis said when he got back to his seat and Megan and Ricardo nodded their understanding.

"Now, what do you have for me?" he asked.

"Sammy was able to provide us with a list of transport vehicles active in the Arctic region as at the time of the theft," Ricardo said and stepped forward with the flash drive in hand. "Unfortunately, it's heavily encrypted and decrypting it will take me at least three months; unless of course, I somehow happen to have access to a high-level supercomputer with incredible processing capacity." He cocked his head to the side a little as he shot Dennis a meaningful look.

"Wait, are you asking me to give you access to Olympus's system?" The director caught on to the look and scoffed.

"If Olympus's system is a high-level supercomputer with incredible processing capacity, then yes, Director, that's exactly what I'm asking," he retuned without hesitation.

Dennis's look moved from Ricardo to Megan and the look she saw on his face was that he was seriously contemplating just shooting the man in front of him right then and be done with it. She quickly returned him with one that had him stopping with a sigh.

"Will you say I can trust this man here, Miss Months?" he asked after a while.

Megan looked at Ricardo and he turned to face her with an openness that seemed to say that he was giving himself completely over to her scrutiny. Can he be trusted? she asked herself.

Thing is, even before she posed the question, a part of her mind had already leaped to the forefront and demanded that she trust him, but as with many things with her ever since their paths crossed, she couldn't ascertain that she could fully trust her judgment.

In truth, Megan had developed a sort of bias for Ricardo, whether it was for good or bad in any situation. It affected her reasoning regarding him; muddling her mind to never be able to read anything clearly; to read him clearly, to be precise.

So, can I trust Ricardo DiSanto? she asked the pressing question again.

Megan sighed after a long while. "What I can say is that Mr. DiSanto is a man who would do anything to stay alive and in a safe environment," she said, "and right now, his only option to have those is us." She looked at him intently for a second before turning her gaze to Dennis. "If that's enough of an equivalent to trust in your book, Director, I'll leave you to decide."

But Dennis didn't take long to contemplate before saying, "Put your hands on the table, Mr. DiSanto."

"What for?" he asked, suddenly looking apprehensive.

"Just do as I say and stop asking questions." He made a stern glare to drive home his point.

Although still looking a bit unsure, Ricardo complied and Dennis placed his hand on the table too. No sooner did the latter's hand make contact with the glass of the table that the computer came alive.

"Dennis Ahmad, Director, requests that limited access, alpha level decryption boost be granted to Ricardo DiSanto, Guest," he said.

A scanner appeared underneath Dennis's hand at the statement and the AI voice responded, "Director's identity confirmed. Request processing." It then proceeded to scan Ricardo's palm for a few seconds before adding, "Guest's identity confirmed. Request granted."

Immediately, a port opened in the table next to where Ricardo stood and he slotted in the flash drive; a virtual keyboard popping up soon after alongside a screen for him to work with.

About thirty minutes of keystrokes later, he shouted, "Got it!"

What Megan saw displayed on the screen when she looked was a comprehensive list of different transport vehicles that were active in the Arctic region like Sammy had said alongside their time of activation and coordinates of their destinations, including data logs of their suspected transported cargos.

"This information's huge!" she gasped at the sight of it. "It'll take us hours to sort through to it to get even a tiny bit of what may prove useful to us."

"Not necessarily, Miss Months," Dennis countered, and with a gesture, he highlighted the list and said, "Computer, accounting for Item 13's specifications, classified and otherwise, in relation to transport average speed, carrying capacity, stealth, and time of activity, determine destination."

Immediately, the big map monitor on the wall became active and zoomed in on the Arctic region. Numbers, presumably representative of the factors Dennis had listed, ran across the screen alongside the list.

"Destination determined with ninety-seven percent match accounted factors," the AI announced a few seconds later.

Dennis smiled when he saw what coordinates the AI had picked out. "Miss Months, gather the kids," he said, "looks like your next stop's Chersky, Russia."