The last one held a charger cord that snaked behind the buffet with the minibar.
Yardley extended her electronics scanner along the path of the cord, watching the meter carefully for a reading. Nothing.
She got down on her hands and knees and followed the cord. Crackling static told her that Atlas was trying to speak—probably to tell her again to get the hell out—but Yardley’s stomach had swooped with déjà vu. The adapter on that fourth charging cord looked eerily familiar. She reached behind the buffet, following the cord, and then felt what she’d been hoping for.
A second laptop.
“Hurry,” Atlas said.
“Mm-hmm.” Yardley thought of KC.Thatwas what the state of the tabletop and the mess of cords had reminded her of—when KC was up to her neck in her freelance work and set up a command station in the living room. Food shoved out of the way, laptop balanced on the edge of the remaining surface, empty drink bottles everywhere.
The size and weight of the boxy black laptop pinged a similar memory. She opened the lid, already half certain what she’d see. The screen lit up with the icon of a dragon eating its tail.
“Bingo.” Yardley clicked the computer shut. “I don’t think Kris Flynn’s a wild goose chase, everyone. I don’t even think she’s an intermediary. I think she’s the person we’ve been looking for.”
Once, on a rainy Sunday afternoon when Yardley and KC were still on naked Sunday morning terms, KC was working ona big project for a blue-chip brand. Their app had been hacked, and their engineer fixed it, but they’d wanted KC to check their security. Yardley vaguely knew KC sometimes dabbled in internet security, but when she’d dragged a couple of laptops into bed, Yardley started asking questions. She liked to keep up on her tech. It came in handy.
KC had explained the basics—mainly, that she kept a special computer for jobs like this. The heavy, boxy laptop had enough capacity to allow KC to remotely load the contents of a server over a private network she set up. Yardley had lazily watched her connect the client’s servers one by one to run the laptop’s program, searching for holes in the servers’ security.
“Flynn’s either a network security specialist with the Irish equivalent of two weeks’ vacation and a 401(k), or else she’s a hacker,” Yardley said. “Like, a hacker’s hacker. And this laptop was cloaked against scanning, so she doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“Something’s wrong.” Atlas’s tone was suddenly urgent. “The Sisters are scrambling. Get out of there.”
Yardley shoved the laptop back behind the buffet. She knew from KC’s lesson that there wouldn’t be anything on it but the program and a lot of drive space and memory to run it. “Going.”
“Use the elevator. Drop your cover before you hit the lobby and wait for my okay to leave the building.”
“Copy that.”
Yardley slipped on her shoes, and then she was out the door, making sure to show the camera her waist-length beachy waves, a practiced walk in heels, and nothing else. The elevator doors shushed closed as soon as she stepped inside. “Status?”
“The target’s gone.”
Yardley’s scalp prickled. “Meaning what exactly?”
“Meaning disappeared. She turned a corner, and the Sisters didn’t pick her up on the other side. They’re checking their cameras, but likely she caught on that we had eyes on her and took evasive maneuvers.”
“Or someone picked her up off the street,” Yardley said. “Could be a hit. Anyone on their way up?”
“So far, you’re clear. We have multiple angles on the lobby.”
Yardley ran a fingernail under the lace front of her wig where it was adhered with hairspray. It was the work of a moment to twist the wig into her clutch, loosen her own dark layers from the braids she’d pinned them up in, swipe on a deep red lip, put on Ray-Bans, and drape her shoulders in a dark brown silk scarf that covered her black minidress enough to render it unremarkable.
“Car’s waiting,” Atlas said. “Lobby’s clear.”
She breezed out the front doors into a cool early November afternoon and slid into a black sedan parked near the alley. “Hi there, Joe.” She unzipped the bag on the seat next to her to retrieve a pair of soft joggers, a T-shirt, a cardigan, and—bliss—socks and tennis shoes. When she’d finished changing, she rested her head against the back of the seat and watched urban Toronto roll past the window, briefly wondering if Kris Flynn really was the person who’d made that terrible device. Where had she gone? Had she run or been captured?
It was a setback. The agency needed, desperately, to know what Kris Flynn knew.
But then, drawing on the hard-won wisdom of a hundred-plus field missions, Yardley made herself stop. Her work was done. She’d made it out in one piece. The rest of that mess was for the analysts to figure out.
“What’s next, Joe?” she asked.
“Your plane’s ready at CFB Trenton. It’ll land at Dulles en route to taking some Mounties to Vancouver.”
“Tell me it’s not a Skyvan, though.”
“I could.” He expertly wove through traffic. “But that wouldn’t mean it’s not a Skyvan.” He laughed at his joke.
