Page 97 of Lethal Legacy

“You made that clear enough in your report. That doesn’t change my question.”

“We’re running it through analytics, trying to track it back.” Pavel is becoming increasingly nervous. “But like I said, whoever wrote it—”

“Knows what they’re doing.” I finish the sentence for him. “Let’s hope they don’t know as much as you lot do, or I might have to start paying them instead.” I almost smile at the indignant expressions on their faces. They’ll work doubly hard to find the problem now. Nothing pisses a tech head off more than being outsmarted. I could offer a million-dollar reward for finding the origin of the trojan, and it wouldn’t motivate them any more than the sheer satisfaction of gaining revenge. In their own way, the tech heads are just as ruthless as any gun-wieldingpakhan. I can respect that.

“We did find one clue.” It’s one of the younger guys. He’s so skinny he looks like a big wind could blow him over, but he’s got the killer look in his eyes that tells me he wants this bastard almost as badly as I do.

“Talk.”

“The programmer did a good job of bouncing the virus around before bumping it into our system. But we’ve managed to track three hard points that give us the approximate location the programmer was when they first tapped into our system. They’re too smart to still be there,” the guy adds. “And it isn’t a hundred-percent accurate. But they’ll have needed an extremely fast connection, so that should narrow down your search.” He turns his screen toward me. It shows a map with a fifty-kilometer radius.

At the center of which is Pillars nightclub.

Dimitry and I both look at the screen, then at each other. He doesn’t have to speak for me to read his mind, because I’m thinking the same goddamn thing.

Are you fucking kidding me?

“Are you sure about this?” I look around the room, zoning in on Pavel.

“It could be coming from a yacht,” he says uncertainly. “Although it would need to be one of the superyachts. This kind of work would need a lot more than a simple Wi-Fi connection to set up.”

“It didn’t come from a fucking yacht.”

“Right.” Pavel looks between Dimitry and me. “Well, basically, whoever originally created the trojan uploaded it to an external site, then waited for someone at the software center to download it, thinking it was a required update. Dimitry’s already taken care of that particular individual,” he adds hastily.

I nod. No less than I would have expected.

“That initial upload point we’re still trying to track back. But after they’d uploaded it, the programmer had to wait on the external site until someone took the bait. Fortunately for us, that took long enough to leave a trace. The position you can see on the screen is as close as we can get to establishing where they were at the point the trojan got downloaded.”

“Good work.” I grip Pavel’s shoulder, trying not to grin when he flinches. “Keep it up, and let me know the moment you find anything else.”

“Boss.” The geeks exchange relieved looks as Dimitry and I exit.

“There’s fuck all down at that part of the docks,” I say as soon as we’re out of earshot. “And only one place I can think of that has high-speed internet hardwired in.”

“Only one place with someone dumb enough to be looking into your business, at least.” Dimitry’s face is equally grim. “Does this mean we’re heading to Pillars?”

I pause at my bike. “I think that would be a mistake. At least for now. We need to let the tech heads do their thing first. Tipping Nikolai off that we know what he’s up to will only confirm his suspicions and send him further underground. I’d rather the littlemudakthink he got away with it. It will embolden him to make even dumber mistakes. But I do want to know who he’s using to do his dirty work. It isn’t like Nikolai has a whole lot of friends with enough brains to pull this kind of shit off.”

“Pavel is already hard on that trail.”

“Yeah, I did get that impression.” We exchange a grin. For all our impatience with the tech heads, Dimitry and I have learned a healthy respect for their competitive nature—and their abilities.

Without them, there’d be no Mercura, and we both know it.

“The real question,” Dimitry says, frowning, “is what the fuck Nikolai is looking for. Has he really got enough brains, balls, or resources to even suspect what we’re doing out here? Let alone actually attempt to sabotage it?”

“Nikolai’s always been jealous of Hale. He ran that meeting with Cádiz FC behind my back. He met that fucking pap, Ryder, for reasons I still don’t understand. And he’s clearly in closer contact with Inger than I’m comfortable with. Let’s just say that combination adds up to a fuckton of trouble in my book.”

Dimitry nods. “Agreed.”

“Reach out to that kid from Pillars, the one who helped us out the other night. Gregor. Do it discreetly; we don’t want Nikolai freaking out. Find out what he knows, if anything.”

“Boss.”

“While we’re on the topic of that journalist. Ryder.” I look sideways at Dimitry. “Have you got anything on him yet?”

“I had Pavel on it, as you asked. This blew up before I had any answers.”

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