Zero Day, стр. 20
He wasn’t sure how long it was going to be. Perhaps the judge and jury would see that he had tried his best to correct the errors of his ways.
When he found out what Aspasia wanted him to do, he installed a kill switch that brought down the old MedusaNet.
Now he was activating not only a homing beacon so the calvary could find them, but also installing a malware that would destroy any failsafe measures in the new Telemachus VPN.
Thank God this wasn’t more than a virtual private network.
Perhaps all these good deeds he had done or were doing would help him get a lighter sentence. However, if they did not, Kelvin was prepared to accept whatever came his way.
If he had to go to prison for many years, then that was what he deserved.
His only regret would be losing Yona.
God would still be with him in prison, but would Yona wait for a convict?
Why would she?
Chapter 17
At lunch the next day, Kelvin whispered to Yona that the peanut butter and jelly sandwich almost tasted homemade.
Yona had no idea what he was referring to, and there was no way to ask him to explain without listening ears and prying eyes on the ceiling and all around them.
He mentioned home a few more times.
Oh.
Maybe he was referring to the homing beacon.
Danika started to cry and Vivek comforted her.
Yona prayed for them silently. At some point, people could break under a tremendous amount of stress, especially if they hadn’t slept much all week.
“Maybe they’ll let you rest for a few days,” Yona said. “What’s next?”
“Whatever they want us to do, I guess,” Kelvin said.
“I’m surprised that Ulysses broke so easily.” Yona ate the little breadcrumbs left on her paper plate. The bread was stale, but food was food. There was probably too much sugar in the jam.
“It’s only been about eighteen hours,” Vivek said.
“That’s an eternity on the internet.” Yona drank some water.
“Maybe, but considering Ulysses is not a techie, maybe they have no idea their network has been compromised.”
“True, Viv.” Kelvin folded up his paper plate into a half-moon shape.
Yona didn’t know why he did that. Something to do, perhaps.
Lunch was over and they were separated again after the guards tied up their wrists. Yona nodded to the trio and headed in another direction from them, back to her room upstairs, which she called her holding pen.
Every now and then, after lunch, Reuel talked with her, as if that would absolve him of his sins. It did nothing for Yona. She couldn’t even pray for him.
Reuel had betrayed her trust.
More importantly, he had used Bible passages to gain Yona’s trust. He knew that Yona was a Christian who believed that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of the world. The Savior. The Redeemer. The Lord of all.
And he had exploited her belief and shaken her faith.
Perhaps it was a good thing.
I don’t know.
Walking on both sides of her were her two usual guards. They would remove her ties before they locked her into her pen. She had thought of fighting back, but the two men were like Goliaths to her David-sized self.
She didn’t have five river stones.
Walking along the upstairs hallway, Yona heard the noise of people fighting in a room with its door ajar.
What on earth?
At first the guards ignored the commotion.
Yona heard voices. Reuel and Issachar were yelling at each other.
Then Yona heard a shot. And another.
Weapons raised, one of the guards let go of Yona’s arm and rushed to the room. The other guard held Yona back.
The door opened.
On the floor inside the room, someone was sprawled on the floor.
Standing over him, Reuel put away his pistol. “Now I get a hundred percent.”
Yona lunged forward, pulling the guard with her.
As she got closer to the door, she saw the face of the man on the floor. A growing pool of blood spread on the floor beneath his torso.
“Issachar!” Yona choked out the words.
“Shut the door!” Reuel waved frantically.
A guard slammed the door in Yona’s face.
The guard took her back to her room, leaving her alone to weep.
Chapter 18
“Truth be told, he was already dead to his family, and at one point, to you as well.” Reuel sat on a chair that his guard had brought into the holding pen.
Yona sat on her small bed, her back against the wall, and her chin on her folded knee. She didn’t know how to respond to Reuel, who had felt the need to explain away what he had done.
It might look weird for her to converse with a murderer. However, there was no one else to talk to the rest of the day—not until dinnertime, anyway.
Besides, if she could gain Reuel’s trust—in their new non-relationship—perhaps she could find a way to defeat him.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Still, she was willing to give it a shot—uh, try.
“I know you don’t care what I have to say, but we had a fight, and I won.” Somehow Reuel must have felt a need to explain his actions.
“Must everything be about you winning?” Yona sighed. Ever since she had known Reuel, he had always been competitive, but must every competition end in the death of his opponents? “I thought Issachar was your friend, or at least a business partner.”
“He outlived his usefulness.”
“As will I.” The solemn realization hit Yona harder than she expected.
“Yes, but I need you alive. Issachar—well, he was redundant, to be honest with you.”
“What was that about anyway? What couldn’t you resolve with a discussion rather than death?” Yona wiped tears on her sleeves.
She didn’t know why she grieved so much a second time. Together with Issachar’s family, she had come to the point of accepting that he had died, only to find him very much alive in the Czech Republic, and trying to become the next terrorist leader after Molyneux.
“He wants fifty-one percent of Telemachus.”
“What’s one percent?”
“It cost him his life, didn’t it?”
Yonan sniffed. “How about living to fight another day?”
“You think I’d be compassionate toward him tomorrow? He wants another