“‘Farm girl’?” asked Malnikov, shaking his head in disgust as he steered past potholes. “Who the hell wants to fuck a farm girl? You come out with me sometime. I’ll show you what a beautiful woman looks like.”

Malnikov slashed right, then slowed and came to a stop.

“There it is,” said Malnikov, shutting off the Ferrari’s lights.

Two blocks away, an ugly office building sat midblock. Four stories tall, it looked like the countless other structures on the street, concrete, shaped like a rectangular block, with small windows. Lights were visible in the building’s top floor.

Malnikov’s cell suddenly started ringing. He looked at the caller ID, muted it.

He turned to Dewey.

“In the glove compartment. Get a weapon.”

*   *   *

As Igor waited for Calibrisi to call him back, he set the phone down on the desk and began typing, pulling the noose even tighter around Cloud’s neck.

First, he built redundant pathways into Cloud’s network, in case Cloud somehow shut off the system or was able to contain him. Next, he looked for Cloud’s alternative egress points, quickly cataloging the various digital pathways out from the network to the Internet. In all, he found sixteen different arteries out of the single building at 17 Vostochnyy. He infiltrated them all, inserting trapdoors.

Suddenly, his third computer screen lit up. Words appeared:

X:\Users\CX7-44>              who is this

Igor thought for a split second, then started typing:

C:\Users\002>                     where is it

As he waited for Cloud’s response, the screen came alive again:

X:\Users\CX7-44>              where is what

Igor paused. He knew that right now, every second mattered. He needed to try to delay Cloud long enough for Calibrisi to get people there.

Igor’s phone started to ring.

“Igor?” asked Calibrisi.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“What do you have?” asked Calibrisi.

“He’s in a city called Elektrostal,” said Igor.

*   *   *

Polk opened his laptop, quickly bringing up a digital map of Russia. He narrowed in on Elektrostal.

Igor spoke: “Hector, you need to know something. He initiated conversation with me.”

“How?”

“Text.”

“What did he say?”

“‘Who is this?’”

“How’d you respond?”

“I asked, ‘Where is it?’ He just responded, ‘Where is what?’”

Calibrisi looked at Polk, who was deep in thought.

“We need time,” said Polk. “We need to get Dewey there. Let’s ask him where the money is. He might think Malnikov has found him.”

“Got it,” said Igor.

“Control,” said Calibrisi. “I need you to add another number.”

*   *   *

On one screen, Cloud studied the hack, trying to assess where it had come from.

A second screen showed his opponent’s words in white text on black:

C:\Users\002>              the money

Cloud found the point of intrusion. First, his opponent had discovered an error in one of the networks Cloud had used to send one of his attacks.

Once his opponent discovered the error, he went directly after the jugular, seeking to break the encryption algorithm that safeguarded all of Cloud’s network. The attacker had employed a so-called brute-force attack. Armed with a vast amount of computing power, the person or institution had eventually broken his encryption key by systematically enumerating all possible variants of the encryption key until finding the right one.

Now that he was in, there was no way to get him out. His attacker had already commandeered the network and architected a new layer of encryption, which he, not Cloud, controlled.

“How did he get in?” asked Sascha.

“A fucking fencepost error,” said Cloud, shaking his head in disgust.

“I’ll do a registry scan,” said Sascha, beginning to type. “Send me the bad code.”

“It’s no use. He broke the key.”

Cloud watched a separate screen, which displayed security flags. One by one, so fast he barely had time to read the individual lines of code, his DNS addresses were taken over. Whoever was out there was now commandeering every computer and every program Cloud possessed.

“Mother of God,” said Sascha. “It’s like a tidal wave.”

Whoever it was wanted him to believe they worked for Alexei Malnikov. Perhaps they did work for Malnikov. But Cloud doubted the Russian mobster cared about the money, certainly not enough to invest in the sort of sophisticated attack that just broke through his defenses and brought down his network. Even the response, “the money,” gave him pause; he knew Alexei Malnikov would rather kill him than get his money back.

It had to be the United States. Langley.

Cloud turned on his cell, making sure he could use it to continue the dialogue with the attacker. He typed into the phone:

I want to cut a deal

He looked at his computer to see if the phone was still working. On the screen, his words were displayed exactly as they had been written:

X:\Users\CX7-44>              I want to cut a deal

Cloud stood up.

“Leave everything,” he said to Sascha. “Leave it all, exactly as it is.”

*   *   *

Dewey opened the Ferrari’s glove compartment. There were four handguns inside. All were the same: Desert Eagle .50 AE. He grabbed one of the guns, then popped the mag, making sure it was full. He grabbed an extra mag and stuffed it in his pocket.

“We need to loop in Hector,” said Dewey.

“The time is now, Dewey,” said Malnikov. “We call Hector and all of a sudden it’s five minutes from now.”

Dewey stared at the windshield as rain pelted the glass. He knew they needed to tie in Hector, yet he knew Malnikov was right. It would take time they didn’t have. There wasn’t anything Hector could tell them that would alter the plan right now, anyway.

“One of us stays here,” said Dewey.

“We both go in.”

“No,” said Dewey. “One of us needs to watch the exits. That’s you. Remember, we need him alive.”

Though angry, Malnikov nodded. He reached for the door pocket and pulled out another cell.

“Here,” he said. “Speed dial one is me.”

Dewey opened the door and charged toward the building.

*   *   *

Cloud picked up his gun. He walked to the window. On the street, a block away, he saw the bright cherry red of a Ferrari. They were here already.

“But Cloud,” said Sascha, “if we don’t at least wipe it—”

“Leave it,” snapped Cloud. “Don’t even sign off. They’re inside. They know precisely where we are. We couldn’t wipe it if we wanted to.”

Sascha picked up his backpack and started running to the door. Cloud followed. Sascha held the door open for Cloud. As Cloud approached, he raised his arm and aimed the gun at Sascha.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” said Cloud. “You will only slow me down.”

He fired. The slug struck Sascha in the chest, dropping him. Blood rapidly spread out in a dark pancake through his shirt. Sascha appeared neither surprised nor angry.

From the ground, he looked up at Cloud, staring for a final moment, then shut his eyes.

Cloud heard his phone chime.

C:\Users\002>              I don’t negotiate

Cloud stepped into the stairwell, clutching the gun, staring at the screen. He descended to the next landing, then stopped and typed:

I’ll tell you where the bomb is going but I want something in return

C:\Users\002>              what do you want?

Cloud didn’t answer. He pocketed the phone, then ran down the stairs toward the basement.

*   *   *

Dewey sprinted toward the building’s entrance. He pulled open the door and was standing in a dim stairwell, lit by a single lightbulb that dangled from the ceiling of the top floor, four flights up.

Dewey scanned the landing, gun out, water dripping from his hair and face. The entrance was quiet and deserted, and yet he’d heard something. Or had he?