27 My Colonel Cut My Badge In Half And Called Me A Security Breach — He Didn't Know The Audit Showed His Own Office Cloned It

The mistake was Priya's.

It came on Friday evening, after the OSI had been working for three days and before the warrant for Derek Vaughn's apartment had been executed, and it came because Priya had not slept in five nights and because she had spent five days being told by everyone around her that she should let the investigators do the investigating and that she should go home and rest and that everything was going to be fine.

She did not go home and rest.

She went to Derek Vaughn's apartment.

She did not do it to confront him. She did it because she wanted to see the building. She wanted to see where he lived. She wanted to see the door of his apartment and the parking lot and the street, and she wanted to see the place where the person who had cloned her badge had been living for eight months.

It was a mistake. She knew it was a mistake before she did it. She did it anyway.

She parked on the street across from the building at 20:30 on Friday evening. She turned off her engine. She sat in her car and looked at the building. It was a three-story brick building with a parking lot in the back and a sign that said The Overlook Apartments on the front. There were lights on in three windows on the second floor. One of them was Derek Vaughn's.

She sat in the car for twenty minutes.

Then a car pulled into the parking lot and a young man got out.

He was twenty-six years old and he was wearing a gray hoodie and jeans. He had short brown hair and a narrow face and he was carrying a paper bag from a sandwich shop and a bottle of water. He walked toward the building with his head down and his keys already in his hand.

Priya watched him.

She did not get out of the car. She did not roll down the window. She did not do anything. She just watched.

The young man reached the door of the building.

He stopped.

He turned around.

He looked at the street. He looked at the cars. He looked at the car across the street. He looked at the car for a very long time.

Then he walked back to his car, got in, and drove away.

Priya's heart was pounding.

She sat in her car for another five minutes. Then she started her engine and drove home.

She did not sleep that night either.

—

The next morning, Michelle Okafor called her at 07:30.

"Specialist Shah," she said, "I need you to come to my office."

"Is something wrong?"

"Something is right. But I need you to come in."

Priya went to her office.

Okafor was sitting at her desk with a folder in front of her and a look on her face that Priya had not seen before. Lauren was sitting in a chair against the wall. Lauren's face was careful.

"Specialist Shah," Okafor said, "did you go to Derek Vaughn's apartment last night?"

Priya's stomach dropped.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Did you get out of the car?"

"No, ma'am."

"Did you speak to anyone?"

"No, ma'am."

"Did you call him?"

"No, ma'am."

"Did you send him a message?"

"No, ma'am."

"Did you do anything other than sit in your car on the street across from his building?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then why is he gone?"

Priya stared at her.

"What do you mean he is gone?"

"I mean that when my agents executed the search warrant at 06:00 this morning, the apartment was empty. Derek Vaughn was not there. His clothes were gone. His laptop was gone. His passport was gone. His car was not in the parking lot. He has been gone for at least twelve hours. And the neighbor who lives across the hall told my agents that she saw him putting suitcases in his car at 21:00 last night — which is exactly half an hour after you sat in your car on the street across from his building."

Priya closed her eyes.

"Specialist Shah," Okafor said, "I need to ask you something and I need you to answer it honestly. When you sat in that car, did you do anything that could have alerted Derek Vaughn to the fact that you were there?"

"No, ma'am. I did not roll down my window. I did not get out of the car. I did not speak to him."

"Then how did he know?"

Priya opened her eyes.

"I don't know," she said. "But I can tell you something else. When he saw me, he did not act like a person who had just seen a car. He acted like a person who had already been told that there was a car to look for."

Okafor looked at her for a long moment.

"Specialist Shah," she said, "are you telling me that you think someone inside the OSI alerted him?"

"I am telling you that somebody did. And I am telling you that the only person who knew I was there — other than me — was the person who saw me leave the office yesterday afternoon and did not say anything about it until this morning."

Okafor's face did not change.

"Go home, Specialist Shah," she said. "Go home and do not leave your house until I tell you that you can. And if anyone contacts you — anyone at all — you call me immediately."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Specialist Shah."

Priya stopped at the door.

"Ma'am?"

"You made a mistake," Okafor said. "And I am going to tell you that mistake in a way that will make you remember it for the rest of your career. You went outside the investigative chain. You inserted yourself into an active investigation. And because you did that, a foreign asset who has been operating inside the base's classified network got away. That is on you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Now go home. And while you are sitting in your house, think about this. The person who told me you were at that apartment was not Derek Vaughn. The person who told me you were at that apartment was your own security director, Colonel Adam Keene. He called me at 06:30 this morning and told me that you had been observed outside Derek Vaughn's apartment last night. He told me that he knew this because Derek Vaughn had called him last night to say that a strange woman was sitting in a car outside his building. And he told me this, Specialist Shah, with a tone in his voice that suggested he was very sorry to have to report it."

Priya's blood went cold.

"He called you," she said.

"He called me."

"And he told you he knew where Derek Vaughn was."

"He told me he had a phone call from Derek Vaughn. He told me that Derek Vaughn was frightened. He told me that Derek Vaughn had decided to leave town because of the harassment from a technical sergeant who had been investigated and cleared — cleared, Specialist, that is what he said — and he told me that he wanted me to know that the OSI was pursuing a lead that was not going to go anywhere."

"And what did you say?"

"I said thank you, Colonel, and I hung up the phone, and I called my agents and told them to move the warrant up to 06:00." Okafor paused. "And then I called Ray Vance, and I told him that I was pretty sure a colonel in the United States Air Force had just used his own contracting company to hide a foreign asset from a federal warrant."

Priya sat down in the chair across from Okafor's desk.

"Specialist Shah," Okafor said, "I am going to tell you what is going to happen next. I am going to find Derek Vaughn. And I am going to find him before Colonel Keene has a chance to tell him to run anywhere else. And when I find him, I am going to arrest him. And when I arrest him, I am going to question him. And when I question him, I am going to find out who paid him. And when I find out who paid him, I am going to find out who told him to use the programmer in the colonel's office. And when I find out who told him to use the programmer in the colonel's office, I am going to have a very interesting conversation with Colonel Adam Keene."

"Ma'am," Priya said.

"Yes."

"Please let me help you find him."

Okafor looked at her.

"Specialist," she said, "why would I let you help me?"

"Because I know how to read a badge log. Because I know how the programmer works. Because I know how Derek Vaughn would have moved a cloned credential from one location to another without being detected. Because I have been studying access control systems for six years. And because — with respect, ma'am — you are going to need someone who can read the audit faster than you can, and I am the only person in the Air Force who can read the audit I wrote faster than anyone else."

Okafor was quiet for a moment.

"Specialist Shah," she said, "you are going to come with me. But you are not going to be an investigator. You are going to be a subject matter expert. You are going to sit in a chair and you are going to read audits and you are not going to say a single word about anything other than audits. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And Specialist Shah."

"Ma'am?"

"You are going to remember, for the rest of your career, that you went outside the chain of command. And you are going to remember that the only reason you are going to be useful is that you are useful. Do you understand what I am telling you?"