Can't stop the signal

Intelligence boils down to three distinct parts. Gathering information. Analyzing information. And acting on information. It doesn't matter what kind of Intel you're working with, it all comes down to those three fundamental parts.

Now, each of those parts was it's own speciality with its own paradigms, assumptions, techniques, what have you. And each of those specialties had its own sub-specialties. Folk who focused on photo-reconnaissance, for example, had a different set of operating parameters than the Signals Intelligence guys.

Most of my Intel career was spent in the first and last categories. Either gathering Intel or acting on it. Analyzing it was never my speciality, but it wasn't outside the scope of my skills. In the immediate situation, I would be putting all three aspects of Intelligence work into play.

Whoever hired M&J Communications to jack into out communications net was, at the very least, well funded. These guys had probably pulled down more for this job than any of the mining families here would see in a year. That was understating it. Hiring specialists of that caliber wasn't cheap, which meant they were willing to spend a good deal extra to make sure the job was done correctly.

In fact, if it hadn't been for Genni's subtle paranoia, possibly a result of working for me for as long as she has, we'd never have spotted it. Chances are I wouldn't have caught their taps even if I'd looked right at them. Taps. Multiple. Which was where the counter-intelligence operation would be able to start.

I'd allowed the Odokeshibai Twins to finish their work for several reasons, but, ultimately, it came down to two. The first: not wanting to get them killed. The second: wanting to know who'd hired them and why. By waiting 12 hours or so to "find and remove" the first tap, I'd give them a bit of cover in case it got back to their employer that they'd been seen talking to me. They placed multiple taps because they expected at least one of them to fail or be found. By leaving the other taps in place, I'd be able to feed information back up the pipe and see where it popped out.

There was always a bit of "They know that we know that they know that we think they think we're onto them" in this sort of thing, but that's where carefully crafted information came into play. All of the most important stuff was encrypted anyway, and, contrary to some of the Cortex vids, cracking encryption wasn't as easy as "Try a G cypher" on the data. Given that reality, they were probably more interested in traffic analysis than content: seeing who's talking to who, rather than what they're saying.

Still. For the time being, or until I found out who it was and what they were after, I'd leave at least one of the taps in place. Just have to arrange lunch with x0x0 and gently remind her that it'd really be best to make sure she's encrypting all the important stuff. That, and reroute some of my own classified traffic through another pipe...