Page 94 of No Questions Asked

I had no idea where or how Slash had found these documents, but they were a freaking gold mine. I didn’t know if they were the reason why he’d unexpectedly gone into town or if he had another reason, but it didn’t really matter at this point.

What Ididknow was that Pharma Star was one of the primary competitors to Vaccitex and had been one of the competitors under suspicion for the hacking. The most recent email was from someone named Vihaan Singh, the Director of Security at Pharma Star, to Martim. It confirmed his latest payment for work directly related to the successful delay and disruption of the Vaccitex project. Additionally, it offered him a bonus if he could send them samples of the vaccine being tested, as they wanted to compare it with their research.

That pompous jerkwad was working for a drug cartelanda company trying to steal the vaccine from Vaccitex? Could he be any more smarmy?

Anger swept through me. Pharma Star was about to go down and so was that total slimeball, Martim Alves. I started to read through more of Slash’s email trove when I received an alert letting me know that someone had accessed the honeypot and begun downloading the false data.

Score! They’d taken the bait!

I considered logging in to monitor their progress, but ultimately decided I didn’t want to risk them discovering me hovering. Instead, I forced myself to be patient and wait for them to open my loaded files. Soon enough, my bots would phone home and I’d be in.

I pushed away from the computer so I wasn’t tempted to log in. I walked over to Natelli who was sitting at a desk, comparing data on two spreadsheets side by side.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Making sure we’ve enough supplies for the anticipated trips we are going to take. What are you doing?”

“Taking a break. I needed to clear my head.”

Natelli took off her reading glasses and leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms over her head. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that we’re restarting the distribution. I’m glad you’re okay, Lexi, and that all turned out well. I know Slash must be really relieved.”

“He is. I’ve been thinking how cool it is that you both attended Sapienza University in Italy, although at different times. It must have been fun to study abroad.”

“Oh, it was. Italy was magical and I was so young. It was a really exciting, heady time for me.”

“Did you have a lot of friends when you were there?” I asked.

“I did. The Italians, they’re so friendly, and the men, oh so handsome, as you well know.” A faraway expression crossed her face.

“So, how did you meet Father Armando?”

She blinked and then frowned. “Excuse me?”

“How did you meet Father Emilio Armando? You’re friends with him, right? You thanked him in your dissertation.”

She stared at me for a long moment. “You read my dissertation?”

“Not entirely, but I happened to notice the part where you thanked him for his friendship in the acknowledgments.”

“Yes, he’s a friend...” Her voice trailed off and a wary light appeared in her eyes. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

“I just wondered if you knew that Father Armando is like a surrogate father to Slash? What a coincidence that you both know him so well.”

Guilt, nervousness and something else streaked across her face. She was definitely hiding something. “I... I may have heard something like that.”

Emboldened, I pressed on. “Why did you ask me so many questions about Slash, Natelli? Why do you have such an interest in him?”

Tension and silence stretched between us before she finally answered. “Of course I’m interested in him. He’s on my team, and I always like to know my team members well.”

“So that’s why you asked me when he’d be returning to the NSA?”

She seemed bewildered by my question. “Why does that matter? I just assumed he’d return to work when this project was over.”

“How did you know he worked there? No one said anything about him working for the NSA. So, how did you know? I’m just curious.”

At this point, alarm flashed in her eyes. She was clearly flustered, which only made me think I was on to something.

“How did I know that? I... I must have heard it somewhere. Yes, that’s it.”

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