Page 87 of Insidious Threats
She stayed in that position for a full minute after he disappeared from view. She listened to his footsteps overhead as he walked down the hallway, presumably headed for the bullpen. When her heart rate slowed, she resumed her silent trek up the stairs.
She had just reached the top of the stairwell when she heard the entrance door down below click shut. She slipped into the kitchen and flipped her knife closed.
* * *
Sasha ranthrough the office park, sucking air into her burning lungs. Between the cold, the elevation, and her lack of sleep, she knew she was running too slowly. She tried to pour on the speed, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate.
Come on, she urged herself.
But it was no use. She felt like she was running through syrup. She stumbled to a stop and pulled out her phone. Panting, she pulled up an old text thread with Connelly and typed out a hurried message:
She stopped following me. I don’t know where she is.
Then she stowed the phone and resumed her labored running.
When she reached the building, she drew up short in front of the card reader at the door and checked the time. Eight minutes until Petra and Connelly should be in the car waiting, and fourteen minutes until they would expect to see her leading the blonde their way.
They needed to come up with a new plan that accounted for the fact that the woman working for Delone had vanished. She was pulling her phone out to call Connelly when she noticed that the door wasn’t actually fully closed.
She frowned.Sloppy.He should have made sure the door had locked behind him and Petra. But she decided not to be too cranky about it, as it inured to her benefit. She eased the door open and stepped into the dark, silent lobby.
“Hello?” she called. Her voice echoed and called back to her.
She spotted an emergency staircase and remembered that Petra had said she worked on the third floor. Sasha entered the stairwell and began to climb the steps. When she reached the third floor, she exited into a hallway and stopped to get her bearings.
As she stood there, the smell of coffee—stale, overheated coffee, but unmistakably coffee—wafted through the air. She turned to her right and spotted the entrance to a kitchen or break room. A cup of bad coffee would make everything better. She walked inside and hit the wall switch to turn on the overhead lights.
* * *
While the fluorescentbulbs overhead were still coming to life, she crossed the kitchen. A large industrial coffeemaker sat on the counter next to the sink, its ‘Rewarm’ button flashing red.
Sasha turned to her left to open the cabinet where she imagined the mugs were kept and came face to chest with the tall blonde woman.
Play dumb.
“Oh, you scared me,” she said truthfully. Then she flashed a smile. “Are you working late, too? I’m just grabbing a cup of coffee. Want one?”
She watched the blonde watching her, saw her calculating her next move.
After a moment, the woman returned Sasha’s smile. “Sure, why not?”
Sasha gestured for her to move to the side, then opened the cabinet, and pulled down two mugs. Her heart raced, and her mind raced faster yet. Petra was almost finished deploying the worm. She could only need another minute, maybe two. All Sasha had to do was stall. She could do that.
She filled both mugs with the muddy-looking coffee and handed one to the blonde. “Careful, it’s hot.”
The blonde took it and placed it on the counter behind her.
Sasha gave her a questioning look, then raised her mug to her lips and took a cautious sip. She grimaced. It was as bad as she’d expected and even hotter than she’d imagined. The ideal drinking temperature for coffee was, in her personal judgment, one hundred and fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit. She estimated that this swill was hovering somewhere around two hundred degrees. Maybe the blonde had the right idea to let it cool down first.
Sasha turned and rested her mug on the counter, and a glint of metal flashed on the periphery of her vision. She turned back and found herself staring at the blade of a wicked-looking knife.
Her stomach sank. She hated knives. Knife fights were tricky under the best of circumstances. And she was decidedly not in top form at the moment.
“So, we’re doing this?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.
“Looks like. But you can decide if we do it the easy way or the hard way. Where are your husband and Petra Vukovic, and what are they doing?”
“They’re at Petra’s desk uploading a virus to Pinpoint Partners’ server to destroy Mjölnir.”
