Page 96 of The Game

Mila has stopped trying to fight him and is watching the screen, too. Would she do that if she was doing something nefarious?

Several red lines appear as the software churns through the phone, and Fabian grunts.

“What’s this?” I ask, gesturing at the alerts, but he shakes his head.

Don’t talk until we know they can’t hear us.

I nod, and he starts writing again:

You have some additional bits of code stored on your device. I’m not sure what it does: It could be benign or something more sinister.

He turns the pad toward Mila so she can see. She purses her lips, not saying anything.

The program has taken a copy of what it’s found, and he scrolls down through it for a few minutes as I examine it over his shoulder. The code is peppered with Russian words in Cyrillic, with keywords in English.

Looks like some kind of tracking software to me.

How can he tell? But he’s probably examined a lot of tracking programs. Mila’s face goes red. Then she blows out a long breath.

Fabian writes on the pad:

I can fix it. Did you know it was there?

She shakes her head, then takes the pen from him.

How do I know I can trust you?

Fabian laughs.

You don’t. But I’ve got to be better than the other side, who are the people that sneaked this onto your phone. But depending on what it’s doing, they might realize something’s up if I stop it working.

She purses her lips again, then Fabian writes:

Any idea how it got on there?

She shakes her head. He makes a face and gestures to me.

We spend the next hour sweeping the apartment. Eventually, Fabian writes:

If they like tracking phones, perhaps they’ve done something to Anna’s too, so they don’t need anything in the apartment.

“Can we talk now?” I say.

“Yeah,” he answers. “I’m pretty sure there’s nothing here. I’m quite surprised. Perhaps Anna already had it checked.”

“That would make sense.”

Mila is sitting on the couch. Fabian has put her phone in the bathroom at the other end of the hallway so, if the phone is listening, it won’t hear what we say. Maybe Mila was trying to distract us with her suggestion of bugs. Frustration burns down my spine.

“Do you want to tell us why you suggested there might be bugs, and what’s on your phone?” I say to her.

“Not particularly. You could be anyone. You, too,” she says, waving her hand toward Fabian.

“Fine,” I say.

“You want a coffee?” he says to me.

“Sure.” I follow him into the kitchen.

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