Page 267 of The Black Trilogy

“So that means it’s going to be even harder for the new team?”

“Yes. And Emmy described it as practically a suicide mission when she went in the first place.”

“So who’s going this time?”

Please, please don’t let it be Mack.

“Logan’s going back, Jack and Evan, who I don’t think you’ve met, Dan, and either Nick or Nate. They’re arguing about which right now.” Mack put her head in her hands. “First Black, then Emmy, and now this. I can’t believe it’s actually happening.”

Luke breathed a sigh of relief that Mack was staying put and gave her a hug. She looked as if she needed one.

“From what you’ve said, nobody can stop them going, so let’s do everything we can to make sure they come home safely.”

“You’re right. Of course you’re right. I need to pull myself together and get on with doing my job.”

Lunch forgotten, Luke followed Mack into the control room. She linked up with the States, and the processes she worked her way through left him mystified. Not wanting to disturb her, he kept out of her way and carried on with his earlier search.

But he kept getting distracted. Every so often, Mack gave a little sniffle, and he knew she was trying to hold back tears. He’d never been one for emotional women, but he liked the way Mack wore her heart on her sleeve. Far better than trying to read a woman’s mind all the time.

After she gave a particularly loud sigh, he reached over and tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. “You okay?”

“No.”

“We’re doing everything we can.”

“But it’s not enough, is it? I’ve already lost two friends in the last year, without more dying.”

“We don’t know Emmy’s dead.”

“Even she isn’t invincible, no matter what Black thought.”

Luke gave Mack’s shoulders one last squeeze and turned back to his laptop, holding back his own sigh. All he could do was carry on trying to crack this code.

Except when he looked at his screen, it had changed. The frustrating, blinking cursor from his previous attempts was gone, replaced with a string of Arabic words. What did it say? He ran the text through his newly improved translation software and found it was the beginning of a file directory.

Luke let out a yell. “Get in there!”

“What? Get in where?” Mack asked, distracted.

“Nowhere, it’s just an expression. I finally got into that email system we’ve been trying to crack for the last couple of days.”

She scooted her chair over and pressed against him, her body heat turning the words on the screen into a blur.

“How? What have you found?”

He forced his mind out of the gutter. “I think it’s to do with timing. I didn’t type anything while I was talking to you, and when I went back to where I left off, it had advanced through the process by itself.”

“You mean if you constantly keep trying to get in, it throws more locks?”

“Something like that.”

Together, they tried the same trick on Mack’s laptop. “Holy guacamole, it worked!” she squealed, then threw her arms around him. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

With Mack pressed against his chest, Luke most certainly agreed. But did the computer trail lead anywhere?

They set the search program they’d written together to work, leaning forward on their elbows as they watched it scroll through files, looking for keywords. Every time it flagged a message, one of them would scan through by eye to see if it looked important.

It was close to midnight when something piqued Luke’s interest. “This is odd. It seems Emmy wasn’t the only person irritating the Syrians that night.”

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