AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Brett shot him an annoyed look. “No. And if you ask me that question five minutes from now, the answer will still be no.”
Derek clamped his mouth shut. He was getting impatient. Brett came in five hours before and had immediately gotten to work. He was a lankier version of Jack. As an environmentalist, Brett was more than eager to go after Blackstone International’s secure data network. And he was in his geek zone. Potato chips, a 64-ounce soda and a couple of Snickers bars. Viktor had strict rules about eating in the datacenter, but what Viktor didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“Tim, can you bring up the network on the Morocco server?” Brett asked the data analyst. After a few minutes of rapid keystrokes, Brett said, “Bingo.”
When Derek did not say anything, hacker boy angled his eyes at him and said, “Now is the time to ask your question.”
If he did not need Brett, Derek would gladly strangle Jack’s brother. He was such a dickhead.
“What do you have?” Derek asked through grit teeth.
“Blackstone International made a sizeable deposit to a bank in the Cayman Islands,” Brett said as he popped a piece of gum in his mouth. “The deposit was divided among nine banks in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Singapore. Eighty percent of it coalesced into a bank in Johannesburg, South Africa— an account belonging to one Damian Stoltz.”
“And the rest?”
“Eric Opperman.”
“Blackstone was the moneyman the whole time,” Derek muttered. How could he sit there, have dinner with Sophie while plotting to steal from her?
“That was our assumption,” Tim said. “We just didn’t have enough evidence.”
Brett went back to his fiddling on the keyboard. “Damn, they found me. They’re throwing wrenches at me in their network.”
“Blackstone?”
“Opperman.”
Brett was hacking through several networks simultaneously.
“Just one more file. I think I can get it. Oh no you don’t, you fuckwad.”
Derek stood rigidly behind Brett as he watched what looked like a war game on screen. Files disappearing, Brett grabbing it, transferring it out through his firewall until finally pushing a file to Tim’s computer. “Open it, I’ve already decrypted it,” Brett said tersely as his frown deepened, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
Tim opened the zipped file which unloaded several documents. “This is a rental for a farm in Culpeper, Virginia. Owner of the farm is one John Wilkinson, rented out to a Dan Brown.”
“Huh, Dan Brown, does that name sound fishy to you?” Derek said. “Any driver’s license?”
Tim pulled up the DMV database and searched by the license number given on the rental form. “Holy shit.”
“We got him, the son of a bitch,” Derek grunted when a face fitting the description of Bishop as provided by Layla filled the screen.
“Uh guys,” Brett said. “Here are more files.”
“Great job, Brett,” Derek muttered, looking over Tim’s shoulder. The remaining files were surveillance photos and data. He got what he wanted. A possible location for Sophie.
“Can you bring up satellite images of the farm?” Derek asked.
“On it,” Tim replied. “Should show up on the widescreen in a sec.”
Sprawling satellite imagery appeared on the LCD display that spanned the length of the datacenter. A dilapidated ranch style home and an old red barn were surrounded by tall grass and weeds. A long dirt road led to the house.
“Can you pan closer?”
“Definitely the place.” Derek was sure of it. Two men with assault rifles were patrolling outside.
“So they decided to build the bomb here,” Tim said. “Gutsy.”
“It makes sense,” Derek said as he grabbed control of Tim’s track ball, ignoring the glare that the analyst shot him. He selected the area of the barn and enlarged it. “Bald man in a lab coat.”
