Page 75 of Duplicity

It was all there, inside his mind.

If he focused hard enough, he could hear Peter’s voice talking in a low, comforting tone, praying for their meal. He could hear his mother in the kitchen, making soup and singing a hymn.

The men had walked him up several flights of stairs, enough that his thighs were beginning to burn. The floor under histennis shoes had turned from concrete to a thick rug that probably cost more than his car.

A chandelier hung from the ceiling.

Paintings decorated one wall, people from years past all looking super uptight in their Sunday best. Someone had their hand on someone else’s shoulder in every family portrait. Each one had a thick gold filigree frame.

Across the room, a stout glass clinked against a whiskey decanter. The tall man pouring his own drink had on white linen pants and a powder-blue collared T-shirt with three buttons. His biceps were tanned like someone who played more golf than they worked. Rings on at least two fingers. A gold watch. Hair that had been styled with mousse and was mostly blonde but with some streaks of gray he probably left there on purpose.

“Simon Olson.” He rounded the armchair over to the right, high-backed and burgundy-colored with wood edging.

“Lance North.” He stared the guy down. How could anyone who saw him on social media or even at some event or in his office believe he wasn’t evil to the core? It lived there in his eyes like a living, breathing thing. Waiting to strike.

Lance’s expression remained impassive, as though Simon was an ant on the sidewalk in front of him. “So you do know who I am.”

“You’re the guy who terrorized Catalina Alvarez and made her bleed.” He rolled his shoulders. They hadn’t even tied him up this time. What did they want?

If God was on board with Simon’s plan to shut down the whole network, that meant the server was housed here on this estate. Where North could keep an eye on it when he was here. But how could Simon find it in what was likely a maze of rooms—especially if these men were chasing him while he searched?

“Ah yes, your girlfriend. Nice woman. Didn’t want to exchange herself to save one of the girls, though.” He sipped from the amber liquid in his short glass.

If only Simon could steal it from him, slam the drink back in one go, and then start a fight. Instead, he kept himself still. Stayed where he was. Controlled himself.Please, Lord.God could pitch in anytime… Anytime… Now…

But that wasn’t how it worked, was it? God didn’t magically set the curtains on fire or cause the fire alarm to go off.

But if he could pull the alarm and then run for the server—wherever it was—maybe he had a shot at taking it down. Destroying the whole phone system by destroying the hardware that housed the program. If he could find the physical server he could do some serious damage.

Fire sounded pretty good right now—assuming he could find fuel and a way to start a blaze. If God wanted to make a way for Simon to do all that, he’d be totally on board with fixing everything.

First, Simon needed to get this conversation moving along so he could get to the plan where he stuck a wrench in North’s entire empire. “What do you want?”

Lance North flashed a few perfect white teeth. “I do, in fact, have a job for you.”

Big surprise. “What is it?”

“An upgrade, as it were.” Lance settled onto one end of a ridiculous couch. Same burgundy velvet and wood accents. It looked uncomfortable.

Simon said nothing, letting him explain because the man liked the sound of his own voice so much.

“My company has secured exclusive use of a botnet.” Lance sipped. “You’re going to transfer hosting from my single centralized server to this botnet. The network will continue tofunction and be even more untraceable when you add a program that assures me of a rotating connection algorithm.”

Of course he would.

Actually, it was pretty smart to move it from one server in a particular geographical location to distributed servers. Simon had been trying to find the site so he could destroy it and take down the whole network. That was a serious vulnerability.

If he moved the communication network to be hosted on a distributed server, that would spread it across the globe since the botnet would worm its way through the internet and find existing cloud infrastructure. The botnet would piggyback off other servers, and they would never know the network was there.

If law enforcement ever got wind of it, by the time they connected the dots—figuratively and literally—the network would have moved to a new series of servers, and they would never find it.

Even Simon wouldn’t be able to find it.

“The fact you believe it’s a good idea speaks volumes.” Sip. “I’m assured it’s the best option for continued success, and it all comes down to you.”

Simon couldn’t jump on the idea, not just because his expression was apparently giving away far too much.

It would be too obvious if he came across as eager to do the job—just so he could get access to the internet and the chance to wreck it all. But if he could get to the server, he could destroy the hardware before the transfer happened, and the network would be crispy burned toast.

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