“Oops, sorry. What I mean is that we have a special system–” Lana continued typing as she spoke, with her gaze flitting between her monitor and Sonja’s phone. “It’s far more advanced than what humans use, and it basically allows us to determine the physical location of a data source. So with this Craigslist ad, we might not be able to find out who sent it but we can at least pinpoint the sender’s exact location when this was ad was first uploaded.”
Countless rows of numbers kept zooming up Lana’s monitor while the screen of Sonja’s phone remained black.
“How long will this take?” I asked worriedly.
“Any moment now...”
Another minute passed.
“Lana—-”
“Be patient. It’s an automated search so I can’t do anything—-”
Sonja’s screen suddenly lit up, and the numbers on her monitor disappeared.
Lana’s face broke into a smile. “We got it, Blair.”
A map showed up on her monitor, zooming closer and closer until both of us inhaled sharply as we realized at the same time what we were staring at.
Pinpointed on the map was...the office of the CIA.
Chapter Twelve
RAIN HAD RESUMED LASHINGthe ground outside headquarters as I entered the CIA’s block of offices. Zeus was starting to wake, and a countdown had begun.
The whole place was still quiet and empty, with agents either out on the field or in the interrogation room. It was my first time to be here, and I tried to contain my anxiety as I looked down the rows of doors that lined up the long, high-ceilinged hallway.Don't panic. You can still solve this in time, Blair.
“Are you in?” Lana’s voice whispered out of my earpiece.
“Yes." I kept my voice low.
"Ready when you are."
My footsteps fell silently against the floor as I slowly moved forward, fingers curling helplessly against my thighs as I mentally lamented the loss of my wand. Without it, I was reduced to manual spells and hand-to-hand combat, two things I were absolutelynotgood at.
Looking back, I counted five pairs of doors that I had walked past. “Still nothing?” I asked under my breath.
“Just keep walking,” Lana urged.
Using the IP address provided by the Craigslist posting, Lana had wielded her kind of magic to hunt down our anonymous perp in the form of a GPS-tracking virus. After, she had installed a program in my phone that would allow her to locate whateveragency-issued device or equipment the perp had used, now made identifiable by Lana’s virus.
It was honestly too complicated for my not-so-technical mind to understand, but right now the only thing that mattered was that I trusted Lana – and the fact that we had so little time left before Zeus ended up torching the whole of New England with his thunderbolts.
"Stop."
Lana's half-shriek had me jerking as I forced myself to a screeching halt. "Cast it, Lana," I muttered, "you didn't have to shout."
"I know, I'm sorry, I'm just...you're near," she ended lamely.
We were about halfway down the hall, and I had one door on each of my side. I walked towards the left when Lana suddenly said, "Not that. The signal's weakening."
I backed up and moved towards the right door.
"That's it.” Lana’s voice tinged with trepidation.
The knob vibrated under my fingers as its identification spell worked on verifying my credentials. A clicking sound followed as the door unlocked itself, and I exhaled, realizing only at that moment I had been holding my breath the whole time.
Even now, as I advanced warily inside the office, I had a hard time believing it was truly a CIA agent responsible for poisoning Zeus. Why would one of us do this? It just didn't make sense.
