Page 167 of Protecting You

Evelyn sagged with relief.

Delaney said, “Come on, Mom. Let’s sit down.”

But she gripped Callan’s hand and met his eyes. In hers, he saw his own terror and hope reflected.

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

He left them to keep up their prayers, knowing that what they were doing was as important, more important,than what he and the guys were doing.

Callan found the men’s locker room and changed his clothes.

He was shoving the pockets of his jeans inside when he felt something unexpected.

A thumb drive.

Alyssa had given the bartender/FBI agent the one containing the files she’d downloaded from her cloud server, which meant this was the zero-day exploit she’d been working on.

It should be a way for him to get access to SJSS’s systems. Alyssa had left it for him, which meant she’d have to recreate it for Ghazi.

She was buying time.

And, he realized, a way to communicate.

Heart thumping, he shoved his feet into his shoes and raced back to the small room that had become their staging area.

When he burst through the door, Gavin straightened from his perch against a windowsill. Beyond him, night had fallen. “What is it?”

Grant had a phone pressed to his ear. “Hold on.” He gave Callan his attention.

“I think she might be able to communicate with us.” Maybe. If she could do it. If nobody who understood code was watching.

A lot of ifs, but it was worth a try.

Grant stepped closer, lowering the phone. “How?”

“She left me the program with the steps to hack into SJSS’s computer system.”

“How does that help?” Gavin asked.

“She’ll have to recreate it. Which means she’ll beinthe code.”

Neither man displayed theahalook he was expecting.

“If I’m in there, too, I can see what she’s typing. She can type anything, don’t you see? And I can watch.”

“She can leave you a message?” Grant asked. “Can you reply, tell her?—?”

“No, no. Too risky. And she can only do it if nobody’s watching or if she finds a way to leave it in code. Even so?—”

“Good thinking.” Gavin shifted a tablet so Callan could see the map displayed on the screen. “They stopped.” He tapped a tiny dot. “They’re on this island.”

Grant returned to his phone call. Before Callan had left, he’d said he was going to see if he could gather some men to help.

“Should we start heading that way?” Callan asked. “At least get to a port, or?—”

“There’s a dock on the property we can use once we have a plan,” Gavin said. “I’ve already got a boat en route. And the state police are on standby.”

“How far away is she?”

---