Zero Day, стр. 24

“She’s thirty-three, at least.” Esperanza smiled.

“I haven’t been there for her since birth.”

“I’m sorry. Must be hard. I’ll take good care of your Sentinels, Inc.” Esperanza sat down. “And you’re still going to be our advisor.”

“What are you going to call the new company?” Yona asked.

“Watchfire Security.” Esperanza looked at Yona. “You Mossad?”

“Former. I retired.” Yona guessed that Esperanza probably knew that and more.

“Dmitri speaks highly of you,” Esperanza said.

“We just met two weeks ago.” Yona glanced to find Dmitri chuckling.

“We might have,” he said. “But I’ve known about you for a long time.”

“Since when?” Yona asked.

“Issachar and I go way back.” Dmitri sighed. “Before he turned.”

“Did they bury him a second time?” Esperanza asked.

“His body was never found.” Yona found that unusual as well. She had been the only witness outside of Reuel’s circle. Perhaps Issachar was still alive. Who knew?

“How’s Kelvin?” Esperanza’s eyes were still on Yona.

See, she knows too much.

“According to Dmitri, he’s hanging in there. I haven’t seen him myself.”

“Not once?”

“No. I don’t see any reason to do so.” Yona tapped the table with her fingers. “My goal here is to find Aspasia and Ulysses. Their testimonies could help reduce Kelvin’s sentencing.”

“I agree.” Dmitri pushed a button on his remote. A screen came down from the ceiling in front of them. “Let’s get started.”

Esperanza swiped her tablet. It connected to the larger screen. She showed a few slides of burning buildings. “Tel Aviv, five years ago. Molyneux’s handiwork.”

Yona remembered. “I was there, helping out wherever we could.”

“We never met,” Esperanza said. “It was tough for your country.”

Yona nodded. “For every country in Molyneux’s path. Glad she’s in prison now.”

“For the rest of her life. But it took a while to catch her. Years.” Esperanza played a news clip.

Yona watched a tour bus burn in Vienna.

“This was five miles from here,” Esperanza explained. “One sunny December day three years ago, my team and I were still hunting for Molyneux.”

Dmitri offered the ladies bottled water. “Cold, pure spring water.”

Yona thanked him. “She might be gone, but her remnants are still around.”

“I can’t believe Ulysses took over MedusaNet,” Esperanza said.

“And renamed it Telemachus,” Yona reminded everyone.

“He was in Project Pericarp, wasn’t he?”

Yona nodded. “I was an observer. I didn’t interact much with him then. I didn’t know about Aspasia until she showed up in Prague last month.”

Dmitri rubbed his temple. “I mentored Ulysses. I brought him into the project as an independent contractor. I vouched for him. Everything he knew, he learned from me.”

“It’s not your fault.” Esperanza’s voice was cold.

“Ulysses had five heart attacks by the time he was fifty-five. You’d think he’d take it easy, but no.”

Yona felt sorry for the poor man. “He was so deep in the project that he decided it was worth throwing away his entire life to take over a crime syndicate?”

“A global terrorist organization. He thinks there’s glory in there somewhere.” Dmitri shook his head.

“Yeah. It happens. People can change for the worse,” Esperanza said. “Kelvin is the guy I don’t understand. He was the system administrator at Binary Systems. He wasn’t in Project Pericarp directly.”

“He knew all about it, though,” Yona said. “They heavily used the Binary Systems computers and networks. Kelvin was the one in charge of those systems. He kept them running twenty-four-seven. Everyone knew him. If we needed computer help, we’d go to him. He was our tech support.”

“And no one had any idea that he was also a hacker by trade,” Esperanza said.

“A burned-out hacker who found system administration more his type of work.”

“Yet, when Aspasia hired him, all he did was hack.”

Dmitri laughed. “Money can make people do anything, Espy. Money.”

“And money has brought Ulysses back to Vienna.” Dmitri drank more water. “Our contacts told us that he has called several of Molyneux’s associates who were left high and dry after she went to prison. He wanted them to know they can be back in business again.”

“Ulysses doesn’t know how I look or who I am,” Esperanza said. “I’m meeting him at a coffee house. It shouldn’t be hard for me to put on a Spanish accent, considering I was born in Barcelona, and worked for years in Madrid.”

“What’s my role?” Yona hoped she hadn’t flown all the way here just to sit behind a monitor.

“You sit behind a monitor with me,” Dmitri replied.

What did I say?

“And sip coffee—or tea, whatever your preference—while we watch Espy there handcuff Ulysses.”

“They won’t let us do that in broad daylight.” Esperanza laughed.

“I’d like to be closer to the coffee house,” Yona said. “Maybe I can help somehow.”

“You want to sit in a crammed van all day long in the sunny month of June?” Esperanza asked.

Yona nodded.

“It’s going to be very hot.” Esperanzas swiped her tablet again. “Ninety degrees this entire week. No rain.”

Yona nodded again.

“You got it then. Let’s go.”