Chapter Ten
It turned out that Bec was a good cook. It was just bacon and eggs, but as far as Iris was concerned, it was exactly what she needed.
She’d shoveled it in quickly so she could return to her work, which wasn’t unusual.
What was unusual was how she didn’t want to.
She wanted to linger over breakfast with a beautiful woman and enjoy her company.
Had they been in any other situation, she may have, but lives were on the line, and she couldn’t—wouldn’t—put her team’s lives at risk for her desires.
Maybe once she got the containment system working again so Bec had control, she could take a rest, but not before then.
Since they still hadn’t heard from Ace, she could only hope he didn’t realize that she’d broken his code and got part of the system back.
“No,” Bec said from behind her. “No, no, no. Don’t do that. No.”
Iris spun around in the chair immediately. “What’s the matter?” Bec pointed at the screen on her computer, which had gone blank.
“Did he just brick it?”
Iris walked over to her desk, unconsciously inhaling deeply when she got within range of the woman sitting there.
Bec’s body wash smelled of flowers and sunshine, bringing fond memories of her childhood.
At least her childhood before her accident.
She was seven when she’d been injured and rarely had memories of anything before that time.
The scent reminded her of being at a park with her mother.
They were laughing as they sat on a swing together.
Whether it was a real memory or one fabricated by the injury was a question she’d have to ask herself later.
“Did you touch it?” Iris asked, leaning on the desk as she stared at the screen.
“No. The screen blinked, which caught my attention, and then went black. Did the cord get knocked—”
A cursor flashed on the screen, and a message started to scroll across as though someone was typing.
“‘If you want to protect the world and see your colleague alive, you’ll have fifty million dollars ready in forty-eight hours,’” Iris read. “‘More instructions to follow. Try anything funny with the police, and you and half the world will be dead.’”
They waited silently, but nothing more came across the screen.
“We knew it was coming, but fifty million is a lot of money,” Bec said as Iris texted the team. “Why cash? Why not cryptocurrency?”
“Cash is harder to trace,” Iris answered, pulling Bec’s chair back.
When Bec looked at her in confusion, she pointed at the computer.
“I don’t want you to touch something and have it disappear.
” She opened her phone camera and took a picture of the screen.
“Every cryptocurrency transaction is recorded. Especially one the size of fifty million.”
“There must be a way to put tracers in the cash, right? Isn’t that how they catch people all the time?”
Iris snorted, finding a little levity in the situation.
“I’m certain that was the point of the ‘try anything funny’ line that he added.
Besides, it’s harder than you may think to trace the cash.
They’ll move it to a new bag, remove any wrappers and immediately convert it to gold bars or other untraceable currency. ”
“Secure One, Charlie!” Cal called as the stairwell door burst open, and he, Declan and Zac ran in.
Surprised, Iris jumped, juggling her phone as it flew up into the air until Bec grabbed it and put her arm around her waist to calm her. “Deep breath. You’re safe.”
Iris nodded as the team gathered around the computer to read the message.
“Doesn’t seem like he knows you already have the vents back,” Cal said after he read it. “We need to keep it that way.”
“Agreed,” Bec said. “My question is, how will he know that we will do it? We can’t respond.”
Iris glanced back at the computer and then held up her finger. “The cursor is still blinking. Let’s see if we can reply.”
She put her hands on the keyboard, but Bec’s warm fingers wrapped around her wrist to stop her. “What if that bricks the computer?”
“That’s a risk we have to take,” Cal said from behind them. “Do you have a backup of your research?”
“Of course,” Bec agreed. “But the cost to replace these machines will be astronomical for our investors.”
“Not as astronomical as the cost of another global pandemic,” Zac pointed out. “I’m sure they are well insured.”
Bec tipped her head in agreement and motioned for her to type. Iris took a deep breath and hit the U key, but nothing happened. She felt everyone’s hopes deflate, knowing they couldn’t communicate with the kidnapper. Getting fifty million dollars together in two days would be extremely difficult.
“Fantastic,” Bec moaned. “I’ve got to call the board. If I can find their contact information.”
“You don’t know how to reach them?” Cal asked, and Bec shook her head.
“That information was need to know, and I didn’t need to know. Walter took care of the administration side of things. I could find the contact information easily if I could access his computer, but I can’t.”
“Do the investors have fifty million dollars?” Zac asked.
“I have no idea. I know some of their names, but I haven’t been here long enough even to have met them. Again, I’d need Walter’s computer, which I don’t have access to.”
“Yet,” Iris said. “If I work all night, I might be able to break the code.”
“You can’t work all night,” Cal said.
“But we only have forty-eight hours!” Iris exclaimed. “Do you think I can sleep knowing this virus could slip through our fingers?”
Bec lowered her hand onto Iris’s shoulder, giving her a place to focus her mind other than on the anxiety. “We won’t let that happen,” she said. “All we need is access to the containment room. I can protect the world if you can get me inside there.”
“But you can’t save Walter if you don’t pay them,” Iris said. Cal sighed heavily, and she glanced at him. “What?”
“I think we all know that even if we pay them the money, they won’t let Walter go, right?”
“Doubtful,” Zac agreed.
Iris slid her hand up to her shoulder to squeeze Bec’s hand. “We have to try.”
“We haven’t gotten proof of life,” Bec said matter-of-factly. “Chances are, he’s already dead, but on the off chance he’s not, we have to try.”
“Then we try,” Cal said. “All I need is one name for an investor, and Mina will dive in and find the information. Once we have that, we’ll get back together. In the meantime, Iris, you know what to do.”
“I’m on it,” she said, returning to her computer. “And I’m close.”
“How close?” Cal asked on his way to the stairs.
“An hour. Two at the most,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted, but please don’t come running in here like Rambo. You shave ten years off my life every time you do that.”
Cal’s laughter was loud as it bounced around the cavernous space. “I make no promises, but I’ll try. While you’re working on that, I’m heading to the motel to fill in Mina and the team at Secure Watch. Charlie, out.”
Once the door to the stairwell closed, Iris turned and walked to Bec, who was standing in the same place.
Without hesitating, she put her arms around her for a hug.
When Bec slid her arms around Iris’s waist, holding tightly to her as she buried her forehead in her shoulder, Iris felt a settling in her soul she hadn’t felt with anyone ever before.
For just a split second, she could be herself and offer comfort without being judged.
“We’ll figure this out,” Iris promised the woman in her arms. “You’re not alone.”
“I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’re here, Iris. It’s awful to feel so useless.”
“I know it’s hard to feel like you can’t help, but you can.
” Iris leaned out of the hug and sat at her desk.
“While I’m working on this, you can make a list of the investors’ names to send to Mina.
Even if you have one name, she can start tracking them down.
” She paused and tipped her head. “Do you think he’d have that information in one of the file cabinets? ”
Bec’s lips jumped into a small smile. “He might! I’ll check it out while you keep working on the code.”
“Mina said I need to record it whenever we mess with Walter’s office.”
Bec tipped her head back and forth a couple of times.
“Really, what’s the point now? Walter is being held for ransom, which we can prove.
Recording our movements in his office proves nothing.
Unless we put a camera on it that runs all day, the police can say we messed with the office when we weren’t recording. ”
“The interior of the building isn’t under surveillance?”
“Not like the outside,” she said. “There was no need to record the labs all day. We go long days without messing with anything besides computers and research. If I work in a lab or with a pathogen, I turn on the cameras, which are only set up in the labs. At this point, it’s worth the risk to tear apart his office and not worry about what the police will think.
If we don’t get the name of someone on the board, we’re dead in the water.
No pun intended. I can’t be certain I have the correct name, so if I give it to Mina, she could chase her tail trying to track it down. ”
Iris thought it over and finally nodded. “You’re right. We’re out of time now that Ace contacted us. See what you can find while I code.”