“Why the hell not?” I barely recognize my own voice, indignation, worry, and desperation mixing to thicken my words. “You’re my only family, Rolls. There’s nothing you can do tostopme.”
His eyes water, and damn if a tear doesn’t race down his stubbled cheek. We both look away, unwilling to own up to our own weaknesses, but I reach out and squeeze his hand, and he holds on for a few seconds before he clears his throat andpullsaway.
Glancing down at his watch, he scowls. “LaCosta’s waiting for me. We’re good to go,right?”
For the first time in more than a week, my response doesn’t come full of wishful thinking. “Oversight is ready. The network resources are still a little higher than I’d like, but nothing the system can’t handle. I think I’ve finally eliminated the last of the corrupted code. As of ten minutes ago, the entire system’soperational.”
Relief lightens his expression, and a genuine smile —one I haven’t witnessed in more than ten years—deepens the lines around his eyes. I can still see him as he was in Afghanistan. Thirty-eight and full of fire, he didn’t let anyone or anything stand in his way. Now, the reality of his years and his illness sinks in, and I can’t ignore the gray mixed in with the sandy brown at his temples or the tremble in his arms as he pushes tohisfeet.
“Great. Hang out until I’m done meeting with him then have a drinkwithme?”
New Royce isn’t doing much for my equilibrium, despite how much I wanted my friend back. I twist my messy curls into a bun so I can secure them away from my face, giving me a moment to process this shift. I’ve been looking forward to my recliner and a couple of episodes ofSupernaturalall day, but I can’t say no. Not when I might not have many morechances.
“Sure. Just one, though. I haven’t managed to get to bed before 2:00 a.m. all week, and I’mwiped.”
“Just one.” He laughs, as if the idea of us stopping at a single drink is the best joke he’s heard all day, and then yanks open the door. As I return my attention to the screens showing the feeds from our cameras, my heartstops.
The hallway outside the server room is empty, yet I know Royce is only steps away from the door. Five seconds. Seven. Ten. Why the hell don’t I see him on screen? At twelve seconds, Royceemerges.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.Pushing to my feet, I groan as my hip screams a sharp protest. Ignoring the throbbing pain, I throw open the door and try for a pathetic run, but the elevator doors shut before I can get more than a few feet downthehall.
I try to call, and when I’m shuttled off to his voice mail, I send him an emergency text, then head back to the server room. Once there, I dig into my bag of tricks—shallow as it is—to try to trace the traffic from Oversight to the internet. That’s next-level-hacker shit, though, and all I can tell is that a highly compressed data stream is leaving the hotel for parts unknown. “Son of a bitch. What the fuck isgoingon?”
Running system diagnostics doesn’t return anything useful. “Dammit. Why won’t you talk to me?” Oversight hums along, oblivious to my pleas, and I’m about to try blatant threats when Royce shoves the door open hard enough to rattle the server racks. “What’swrong?”
My heart pounds as I meet his gaze. “Someone’s sending Oversight’s data outside the hotel. They might be watching oureverymove.”
What little color he has drains, and he takes my arm to help me up. “We’ve got to tellLaCosta.Now.”
“Not until I shut thesystemdown.”
As I go through the controlled shutdown procedure, Royce’s expression mirrors my hopelessness. All the crap that I’ve dealt with the past two weeks comes down to this. The network traffic spikes make perfect sense now. All those extra lines of code, every single corruptedfunction.
“How could this happen?” He gives voice to the question on my lips, and I shakemyhead.
“I don’t know, but this isn’t just corrupted code, Royce. This issabotage.”
* * *
“Sit,”Phillip says with a smile. “How soon can you turn onOversight?”
With a quick glance at Royce, I fold my hands in my lap to stop fidgeting. “We can’t.” I explain what’s happening—at least what I understand of it—as Phillip’s facepales.
“C-can you tell who did this? Where the data’s…um…going?”
If the man thinks much harder, I’ll hear the wheels turning. “No. I tried a quick packet trace, but someone sophisticated enough to hack my code wouldn’t leave their data unencrypted. They’re probably bouncing the signal to hell and back with two dozen different points in between. I’m good at what I do, Phillip, but this is next level shi—err, stuff. You’d need a true hacker or maybetheNSA.
“What I can do,” I shift slightly to relieve a deep ache in my hip, “is pull every programmer we have off their other assignments and analyze the code line by line. We’ll lock these bastards out for good before we turnOversighton.”
When I chance a quick look at Royce, he offers me an almost imperceptible nod of approval as he hands me his iPad. I’m not ready. Not like this. Not…without knowing if he’ll be around to see this job to itsconclusion.
He saves me from my momentary panic. “You’ll have to keep your old system running a little longer. Cam, how long doyouneed?”
“Five d-days should do it, but I’d like fourteen to be safe.” Thankful he has my back, yet terrified that Royce is going to be in a hospital bed for a large portion of this time, I try to force some confidence into my voice.“I’ve been chasing these hackers for two weeks now, I just didn’t know it. But that means I have their signature—code is a lot like handwriting in some ways. My team canstopthem.”
“I can’t believe this is happening again,” Phillip mutters, half to himself. He drops his head into his hands and stares down at his deskblotter.
“Again?” Royce leans forward, bracing his hands on the edge of the desk. “What the hell do you mean ‘again’?”
