Chapter 6
There was a heartbeat behind his eyes.
That was the first thing Steven Surry noticed as consciousness slipped over him as softly and gently as his mother’s long, dark hair had slipped through his fingers when the chemotherapy had begun to take her crowning jewel. She had been in so much pain. And the doctors had been at a loss on how to further attack the tumor eating away at her brain. Their last hope had been an experimental operation. The trouble was that the procedure was so new and so risky that it hadn’t been covered by insurance, and Steven hadn’t had the quarter of a million pounds necessary to pay for it from his own pocket.
Enter Spider. The man had approached Steven one dreary April afternoon with a deal. A deal, it turned out, that was made with the devil. Now Steven was stuck well and good in Spider’s sticky web.
Spider…
The name prowled through his head on prickly feet. It was followed by a cascade of memories, each more disturbing than the last. The breach to the computer system. That stupid, lying twat of a PA. The three masked men who had stormed in to save her like the horsemen of the apocalypse. The dart gun…
Bloody hell!
He lifted a tentative hand to pat the small puncture wound in his neck—someone had been smart to remove the dart and any fingerprints it might have sported. A drop of warm blood smeared across the pads of his fingers. He wiped it on his shirt before digging into the front pocket of his trousers, searching for his mobile.
He wasn’t surprised to find it missing. Trained agents knew to confiscate and/or destroy any hardware they found. And those three? They had definitely been trained. The way they had entered the room in formation? The way they had handled their weapons? The swiftness and accuracy of the one who had pulled his trigger? It all spoke of years of preparation, practice, and discipline.
And he would know. He’d done the same, after all.
In myotherlife.
His eyes sprang open to a world of mist and a room that spun in a slow circle. Despite this, he pushed to a seated position, blinking rapidly. That helped to clear the fog and right the world, but it did nothing to mitigate the terrible pulse at the backs of his eyes. And, brilliant. The sudden movement had his stomach threatening a revolt.
Whatever those daft prats had drugged him with was some seriouslyun-fun stuff.
Glancing at his watch, he was relieved to see very little time had passed. Which meant he wasn’t completely buggered.
He groaned, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. When he pushed to a stand, he stumbled and retched. His stomach felt full of poisonous stones. He wished for nothing more than to toddle to that lovely red sofa and sleep for a year. But as the old saying went,If wishes were fishes, we would all swim in riches.
He wasn’t a fish. He wasn’t rich. And sleeping on the sofa would be the beginning of his doom.
Spider…
The nickname skittered through his brain again like the eight-legged horror it was.
Staggering to the big desk, kicking the shattered remains of his phone, he spared the old man a cursory glance, watching that scrawny chest rise and fall with deep, even breaths. Steven’s hands shook when he picked up the phone, hesitating when he couldn’t remember the number for Benton, the computer whiz kid Spider had hired straight out of Oxford University. His mind was sluggish, struggling to wade ashore through the waves of narcotic still swimming through his bloodstream.
Come on, man. Think!
He licked his lips, grimacing at the metallic taste the anesthetic had left on his tongue. Lifting the handset, he realized he’d dialed the wrong number when a woman’s voice cheerily answered, “Halloo?” Slamming the handset back into the cradle, he blew out a breath and willed his hammering heart to slow.
He spared another glance at the man lying on the tiles, and picked up the phone again. Forcing his mind to go blank, he dialed the number by muscle memory. Benton answered on the first ring.Thank bloody Christ!
“Mr. Morrison?” Benton sounded harried. “Did you find it? Whatever she used to upload the virus?”
“It’s Surry,” Steven said, then immediately filled Benton in on recent events. His voice grew thick with fury when he recounted the part about the three men who’d had the audacity to break into the penthouse. “The thumb drive I confiscated off Miss Duvall’s person is gone. They took it. Can you keep out whoever is trying to hack in without it?”
“Sodding mess,” Benton grumbled. The sound of his fingers flying over the keyboard was a droning hum in the background. “I can delay them for a day or two. Perhaps even three or four. But I can’t keep them out forever.” Steven’s heart sank. “Not without the original virus. It’s very sophisticated. Just when I think I’ve eradicated it, it changes form and attacks a new variable. I need to reverse engineer the nasty bugger if I have any hope of squashing it.”
“Shite. Fuck. Damn and prick!”
“That pretty much covers it,” Benton agreed.
Steven was breathing hard, his vision still a little hinky. But he forced calm on himself.Work the problem.That’s what he had been trained to do. That’s what hewoulddo. “Okay. I understand. You worry about protecting the digital information for as long as you can. I’ll worry about finding Chelsea Duvall and that sodding thumb drive.”
The line went dead without Benton first signing off. The kid was odd, no question about it. But that didn’t matter because he was the best hacker Steven knew—maybe the best hacker in the world—which meant that, for now, Steven could stop worrying about the data and turn his full attention toward finding Chelsea Duvall.
The first place he should look was her home. But he had no idea where she lived. His understanding was that she had been somewhat of a gypsy after moving to London, living with friends and acquaintances while she looked for a flat. And since her initial background check came back clean, he hadn’t bothered to follow up on her living arrangements.
