All Chapters of Cracking His Code: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

OliverBratislava is over and done with. Senator Augustus Scott is next and I honestly can’t wait to know he’s no longer breathing.There are a few things to take care of before we move on though.One is my mother.The other is sending the package to Kenzi Molina.The security firm we hired to guard her has been informed that the risk will be increasing soon and so should their vigilance.Chana spent the last two days running the package through every test possible.She sent it to my dummy inbox on Saturday. I spent six hours trying to trace it and got nowhere. It was annoying and impressive.Chana’s spent the past two days crowing about being a better hacker than I am, which is such obvious bullshit I’m not even going to dignify it with a response.We’re about as confident as we can be.We’re sending the package as a single encrypted bundle with a key that decrypts to a structured archive Kenzi can browse on her own machine.The cover note is one line.Use it as you see fit."Last

OliverThe hangar at Vienna-Schwechat is the kind that asks no questions. Oba's man at the desk barely looks up when we come in. The plane is a Bombardier with the registration plate covered in matte vinyl and a flight plan filed for Reykjavík that we will deviate from somewhere over the Atlantic. The pilot is one of two men Oba has used for this kind of work for six years and the co-pilot is a woman who has not introduced herself and never will.Eleven of us climb up the airstairs at four in the morning.Saint is the second-last on. Tariq is behind him, watching the subtle way he protects his left side. The graze across his ribs is healing clean, but Tariq makes him sit in the second cluster of seats and not the back where Saint usually goes, because Tariq wants eyes on him through takeoff."You’re fussing.""I’m not fussing, I’m keeping an eye on my patient. Stop being a big baby.""Tariq.""Sit."Saint sits. Tariq settles across the aisle from him with his medical bag in his l

OliverSunday night. Three days from the breach.I’ve been pacing the upstairs of the rental for an hour because I can’t make myself sit still. Tariq drove down from Beaufort this morning to check on me. He didn’t call it that, but he insisted on checking me over, told me my pulse was higher than he liked, asked me when I last slept, looked at the back of my eyes with a small flashlight, and informed me I was running on adrenaline and stupidity in equal measure. He told Kir the same thing. Kir nodded at him and said I know. That is his default. I’m insulted, annoyed and a little bit touched that Tariq cared enough to come all the way out here.That was at noon. The closer we get to D-day, the higher my anxiety is climbing. I can’t stop feeling like something is going to go horribly wrong.The first time I tried to hack Senator Augustus Scott, my entire life blew up and I was very nearly killed.What if he takes Kir from me this time?It’s now almost seven and I can’t stop pacin

KirTuesday. Nineteen-fourteen.The estate's south property line runs along an old fieldstone wall built in 1923. We’re on the wrong side of it. The wall is shoulder-height. The gravel access lane runs ten meters beyond it, then six meters of cleared ground, then the east wing of the house.Dom is at my shoulder in matte black tactical gear and a soft cap. Saint is at hers. Butcher is twenty meters west with the breaching kit.Jozef is sixty meters east on the cleared ground side, having approached through the state park boundary the team running this estate confidently expects nobody will use, because the team running this estate has been told to confidently expect that. They are correct, in a sense. We’re not coming through the state park. Jozef came through there because he can move through underbrush like a man who was raised by wolves. Which honestly he may have been. I know only what Jozef wants to share about his past, which is very little.We need somebody on the east app

OliverMy body gave up on the concept of sleep around four in the morning.It’s just past six now. I’m sitting on the back porch of our Norfolk safe house. It’s a low, single-story ranch designed strictly for medical contingencies. I don't know what’s past the porch railing because it’s still pitch black outside, but the air off the pine trees is freezing and cuts right through my thin cotton t-shirt.I don't care. The cold is a good anchor.Saint is in the middle bedroom down the hall with a bullet hole in his shoulder.Tariq is passed out in the chair next to Saint’s bed. He was awake for almost forty-eight hours straight, and if the house catches fire, I’m letting Kir carry him out because I’m not waking him up.Kir is in the kitchen making coffee.My laptop is open on the cheap patio table next to me. The screen glares in the dark.I hit refresh.I’ve been hitting refresh every six minutes since five-thirty.The story is finally crawling across the major networks. The headline