“Names, accounts, video files…” He pointed with a finger. “I could see most of it on the surface, the whole time I was breaking through the timing algorithm. But now I can see everything. It’s all decrypted. It’s all available.”
“Anything useful?”
He nodded slowly. “Deals you wouldn’t believe. Dirty deals. Filthy deals…”
“With who?” I asked.
“Politicians, judges, CEOs. Key members of royal families in not-so-small countries. A few A-list celebrities,doing things that are going toreallydisappoint you.”
“I doubt it,” Peyton sniffed. “My expectations are so low, nothing disappoints me at this point.”
Theo shook his head. “Yeah, but… well… just trust me.”
He pointed to something on the screen, then laughed as he tapped it with a finger. “See what Donovan labeled this one?”
The object was a folder. It was labeled CONTINGENCIES.
“What a complete fucking idiot,” Ripley scoffed.
“Yup. Good news and bad news, by the way,” said Theo, still typing away. “Which do you want first?”
“The bad news,” everyone else said at once.
He chuckled, then sighed again. “Alright, so when I finally broke through, the system had a failsafe all ready for me. At first I thought it was an integrity-triggered purge, and everything would be wiped. Thank fuck it wasn’t.”
“No,” I agreed. “This data means everything to him, and this was his only copy.”
“Yup”
“Besides, Donovan’s too cocky to risk losing it like that.”
“If the drive didn’t delete itself, what did the failsafe do?” asked Peyton.
“It… sorta sent out a data packet.”
I stiffened, as a cold wave of fear stole over me.
“Our location,” I frowned. “We’ve beencompromised?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Theo explained. “The locket’s GPS transmitter is long destroyed, so the packet went out through our internet connection. Which I’ve routed and rerouted through, oh, I don’t know, a least two hundred different VPN’s that shift every hour.”
“So what’s the good news?”
“On its way out, I attached a packet of my own. Nothing overt, just a few digital breadcrumbs. Subtle ones, that when decoded, reveal our location.”
“Our location…”
“Yes,” Theo grinned triumphantly. “In Vanuatu.”
“Vanu-what?” Ripley wrinkled his nose.
“It’s an island chain in the South Pacific,” I told him.
“Oh.”
“It’s where they film Survivor,” Theo laughed merrily.
I rolled my eyes. “You watch too much reality TV.”
“Yeah, and you don’t watch enough.”
Theo went back to work, quickly tuning us out in his usual computer nerd fashion. I couldn’t complain. That computer nerd probably just saved all our lives. Plus, it was amusing to think of Donovan’s resources crashing the Survivor set. Scaring the contestants. Fucking up Jeff Probst.
Peyton quietly slid a hand into mine. She looked up at me with those bright blue eyes, and my heart skipped a beat as I was reminded about what we were fighting for.
“C’mon,” I said, jerking my chin at Ripley. “We’ve got all new things to figure out.”
