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The last one was sent at four forty in the morning. It was now six.
I cursed again, then punched in his number as I paced, trying to get my breathing under control. Leo picked up before it even finished ringing.
“Are you okay?” I asked immediately, fearing the worst.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m still at the office. Everything’s fine here.”
I blew out a shaky breath. “What did you find?”
After a beat, Leo said, “I’m not…sure.”
“Hold on,” I said. I fired up my laptop and logged into Paragon remotely. “I’m in the system. Send me what you’re looking at.” I waited quietly while he worked. After a few moments, images of emails appeared on my screen. “This is all encrypted, right?”
“Of course,” Leo said. “I feel like the stakes are getting even higher. It’s not like I would forget.”
He sounded upset, which was a red flag. Leo was difficult to rattle. Most of the time, he was completely monosyllabic. I opened up the email. It was from an address I didn’t recognize, at a numeric dot-com. “This is being sent from somewhere in China,” I said. China was the only country I knew of that operated with a numeric online address system.
“I know, but I can’t trace it. Not yet. That’s part of what has me worried. I traced it from that proxy server in Russia, but I can’t get any farther than this.”
I scrolled through the email. It was a form letter to Clive, addressed “To Whom It May Concern.” Attached were ten documents. I opened them one by one, my stomach plummeting. The files contained updated plans for my prototype, along with a materials list. Whoever was sending these emails was working furiously on the patch. They’d even made progress overnight. They must have an army of brilliant scientists tackling the outdated specs.
I shook with outrage. “Well, this is fucking horrible.”
“Lauren?” Leo sounded worried. “Are you okay?”
I hung up without answering. I couldn’t talk. I scrolled through the emails again. I felt my world spinning completely out of control.
Fuck you, Clive. I’m going to gut you.
“What’s that?” Gabe asked, walking up behind me. He rubbed his eyes and peered over my shoulder at the screen. His voice was still groggy with sleep.
“Clive Warren sold my technology to the Chinese.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were true. I also knew this was worst-case scenario.
Gabe looked at me sharply, instantly more alert. “What’re you talking about?”
I pointed at the screen. “This.” My voice trembl
ed. “This is an email Leo picked up from Warren Technologies. It’s from China. Whoever sent it is working around the clock on the specs for the patch.”
Gabe scrolled through the documents, not saying anything. His mouth was set in a grim line as he went to the kitchen and fired up the coffeemaker. He ran his hands over his head, looking lost in his own thoughts.
I looked at the email again, wincing. “You don’t seem that surprised.”
“Are you?”
I nodded. “I’m floored.” I was also afraid—afraid to lose this race, and so angry that I scared myself.
“I wish I was.” Gabe handed me a mug of steaming coffee, then leaned back against the island and stared out the windows at the sun coming up. “I should have planned for this. Clive’s too much of a weasel to have done all this on his own.”
“If he were just a weasel, I’d run him over with my car.”
“I can arrange that.” Gabe didn’t sound as though he were kidding.
“I’m so angry, I might let you.” I got up and started pacing. “This is it. This is full-scale war. I’m calling Leo, and I’m going to tell him to let a virus loose on Warren Technologies.”
Gabe let me pace for a minute, then he spoke up. “We can’t.”
I whirled on him. “Why the hell not?”
