“I have many tricks no one has ever detected. Zatan will never spot anything wrong.”
Niko opened his laptop to catch up on the news. One headline grabbed his attention:
Quickly scanning the article, Niko spotted the detail he was looking for:
A reliable source inside the Loudoun County Medical Examiner’s office verified previous reports that Marko Kozel, CEO of Kozel Group, may have been intentionally poisoned. Toxicology results are not expected for several weeks, but a suspicious wound on Kozel’s leg seems to indicate poisoning.
Even two weeks after Marko’s death, these details brought back feelings of anger and sadness.
When he told Vyper, she closed her eyes and held her hand to her cheek. “Did you see a needle mark in Marko’s calf?”
“At Alpha World, I saw a sore spot, like a bee sting. I didn’t have a chance to study it up close.”
Vyper rocked her head back and forth, much as she had done when she first heard about Marko’s death.
Niko read through two more reports on the poisoning, then his thoughts drifted to another victim. “Gato suffered a heart attack—two heart attacks—in the hospital. Those bastards could have slipped him the same poison.”
He looked up from his computer and saw Vyper, curled up in a ball at the other end of the couch, holding her cheeks in her hands, her head rocking back and forth.
Niko couldn’t bear to see her in such pain. He wanted to help but wasn’t sure how. The last time she acted this way, she recoiled from his touch.
“Are you okay?” He set his laptop on the table. “Is there anything I can do?”
She didn’t respond. The rocking continued.
He reached for her left hand, still firmly pressed against her cheek. When he touched her, she pushed him away. “Leave me alone.”
Niko backed off but didn’t move from the couch. He sat silently, trying to think about something else—the Russians, Zatan, and Sokolov. But his eyes never left Vyper. He would wait and be ready for whatever she needed.
Ten minutes passed. The rocking stopped. She moved her hands from her face and looked at Niko. “I will be fine, now.”
He wanted to reach out—to hold her—but didn’t want to spook her. “I miss Marko, too.”
She sat upright. “It is Christmas Eve.”
What? Christmas is special to her. It wasn’t special to Niko. He spoke softly. “I wasn’t sure what you did for Christmas, but I got you a card.” He stood up.
Vyper took his hand and pulled him back on the couch. “Marko always came over for Christmas Eve. He was my only family.”
“You and I can celebrate. I’ll buy a tree. We can decorate it.”
She shook her head. “No tree. I do not want one in the house.”
“They have artificial ones. No mess.”
“You do not understand. When I was a child, I had a different family almost every year. When they gathered around the tree, it was noisy—everyone talking at once. Each time I tried to get away, to be alone, they would force me to come back.”
“That must have been difficult for you.”
Vyper studied his face. “Do not pretend to be interested. I know what you are trying to do. I will not have sex with you.”
Niko didn’t know what to say. Although sex was often on his mind, certainly when near a pretty woman, this was one time when it wasn’t. He genuinely wanted to know her better. He wasn’t trying to get into her pants—not right now, anyway. “You’re a beautiful woman, Vyper, but I’m not attempting to seduce you. You once said you trusted me. Can you trust me now?”
Her eyes locked onto his. She seemed to be searching his inner thoughts. “People have warned me about men since I was a child. They trained me to be suspicious. I have also learned about men the hard way… But you have treated me well for two weeks. Marko trusted you… I will, too.”
Niko relaxed. “I’m glad we trust each other. I truly want to know about your life. Not everything… but I’d like to know about all those families you lived with. Were you an orphan?”
“My father left us when I was very young. I think it was my fault. Autistic children can be stressful for a family—for a single parent, too. When I was twelve, my mother took me to a day care center and did not return. I never saw her again.”
Niko wanted to reach out. To hold her. Stroke her hair. But he resisted his instincts, keeping his distance. “It must have been hard to understand at that age. Were you adopted?”
Vyper shook her head. “No one adopts autistic children, especially at that age. They placed me in one home, then another—and another. This was Salt Lake City, so the families were large. Lots of people. No privacy. And I knew nothing about their religion, which was important to them.”
“There’s one thing I know about you. If you want to learn something, you’ll study it. Did you learn how to be a Mormon?”
“I learned, but some things were confusing. When I asked questions, people became angry with me. I learned to keep quiet and study something I could understand—computers.”
“We can celebrate Christmas without a tree—and I promise not to be noisy.”
Vyper smiled. “How do you celebrate Christmas?”
“My mother never had a tree. Said it would bother her customers.” Niko made finger gestures to give air quotes around the word customers. “She was a prostitute and a grifter. I don’t know who my father was, and I don’t think she knew either.”
Vyper placed her free hand on Niko’s arm. “Did your friends celebrate Christmas?”
“Sure, but in the Ukraine, they celebrated it in January. And it was more about religion, less about gifts. They do trees, which they decorate with spiders and—”
A warbling sound drew Niko’s attention. A message flashed on his laptop:
Chapter 11
Cybercade
Niko studied the screen on his laptop. “Denial of Service. With thousands of messages hammering Fairfax County’s systems, they won’t be able to respond to any emergencies.”
Vyper typed in a few commands and pulled up a lengthy list of IP addresses. “The bogus messages are coming from all over the map. A large network of bots. It looks like the same botnet that attacked the banks when you were taking Sokolov’s money.”
“Cybercade’s gotta be the target,” said Niko. “They’ll be preoccupied with stopping the cyber-attack on the county while the Russians come after them with drones. With County dispatch down, they can’t send out help.”
“There are many targets the Russians could attack in Fairfax County. I agree they are probably going after Cybercade, but we cannot be sure.”
Niko stood up. “Listen. We both believe the Russians are about to attack somewhere, and we both agree Cybercade is the logical target. If we’re right, we have to do our best to stop it.”
Vyper began typing. “I am warning Cybercade. Reston is twenty minutes away if we take the toll road.”
“I’m getting the jammer ready.”
“Are you sure it will work from the car?”
“Only one way to find out.” Niko ran to the spare bedroom and grabbed the jammer, along with its antenna and power pack. Then he raced to his room and grabbed the Glock, a magazine, and extra rounds of ammo. When he came back to the living room, Vyper was gone, and the door to the garage was open.