Page 16 of Dark Soul

Dark realized he’d completely zoned out, had missed most of what had been said in the last few minutes. Across the table from him, Ash’s brown eyes stared down at him, as if he could read Dark’s mind.

“Want to know how the run went?” Slate asked, pointing his finger at the first set of pictures from the ones he’d spread out on the table. “I’ve never taken that many selfies in my life.”

“I didn’t even realize you knew that word,” Griffin drawled.

“Asshole. I know many words.”

Dark nodded. That morning, Slate had dressed up like a hobby jogger, in a red-and-black outfit with color-coordinated running shoes and a fanny pack. Dark had feared the vein in the man’s temple would pop when he’d first seen the fanny pack. But, past that first moment of shock, Slate had taken on the role with gusto, taking hundreds of pictures of himself and the surrounding area over the course of the ten-mile run.

The pictures spread out in front of them now mapped out almost the entire neighborhood where Kvyat was renting his house. Dark glanced through from left to right.

Lots of big, ostentatious houses.

That, Dark had expected already. From what they’d read about him, Kvyat was not one to deny himself any luxuries. Then he realized there were dozens of pictures of one particular house.

“Are you serious? Is that Kvyat’s chalet?” he asked.

Slate smiled broadly, the smile transforming his serious, gruff face. “I got lucky. There was a fucking Amazon delivery van parked in front of the house, with the driver yelling into the intercom. I swear he must have yelled ‘package for Mr. Kvyat’ three or four times before the security team finally came over to meet him. Don’t worry. They didn’t notice me.”

“I guess even billionaires order from Amazon these days,” Rogue said in his relaxed Australian accent. He sounded almost disappointed.

“I’ll be damned,” Dark said. “Good job, Slate. I thought it would take us days to find him.”

“So this is the house. And these are two of the security team.”

“They look Russian.”

Griffin picked up the original folder they’d been working on. “Yup, here they are, the same guys, photographed at an event at the Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg that Kvyat attended last year.”

“Were there others?”

“I only saw these two.”

“I’ll pull out the layout of the plot and the house,” Rogue said, his fingers flying on the laptop in front of him.

Moments later, the land register’s website appeared on the projector screen they’d installed along one wall. Dark imagined there’d be hell to pay with the landlord when they left, but that wasn’t his problem.

And then, with complete and apparent ease, Rogue logged on, gaining admin access to all properties in Gstaad.

“Won’t alarms be ringing in some office somewhere?” Slate asked.

Rogue rolled his eyes in a who-do-you-think-you’re-talking-to way. “This is a Swiss canton’s land register’s office, not the Pentagon.

The way Rogue said not the Pentagon made Dark wonder if the man had hacked into the Pentagon before.

“Even if they end up detecting the fake login—which they won’t—they’ll never know it was us. When we’re done looking at the things we’re interested in, I’ll make sure it spends some time clicking around at other things. Trust me.”

And it was hard not to trust him, when he seemed so confident.

Soon, they were staring at an image overlay of Kvyat’s property and the neighboring houses.

“The house doesn’t look that well-protected,” Ash said. It was the first thing he’d said all morning, and maybe that’s why everybody stared at him. “Look at those overhanging branches between him and his neighbor. They’d block the cameras, if they have them.”

“Who do those two houses belong to?” Dark asked. Ash was right. One of the best ways of getting to Kvyat might be by going through his neighbors.

“Forget about the house on the right,” Rogue said. “That belongs to a long-time Gstaad resident—bit of a hermit. Looks like he never leaves the house.”

“How the fuck did you find that out so fast?” Slate asked.