Chapter 43

forty-three

DYLAN

While Alex went through his exercises with Jonathon, I added the ingredients to the mixing bowl. I remembered to fold, not beat the batter and, at the last minute, I added a few drops of vanilla essence. If this cake didn’t work, nothing would.

Hot air blasted out of the oven as I opened the door. In forty minutes, I’d have an amazing chocolate cake to show Alex. My days of pretending to know what I was doing in the kitchen would be over, and Alex’s patience would be rewarded. Or maybe not.

My cell phone beeped.

I quickly slid the cake tin into the oven and looked at my phone. Someone had sent Alex an email.

After checking the hallway, I closed the kitchen door and opened my laptop. Unlike most hacking programs, I wasn’t directly logging into Alex’s email account. I’d created a gateway account on a different server. It collected all of Alex’s incoming emails, only releasing them after I’d checked them. As long as I marked them as unread, Alex wouldn’t know what I was doing .

The email was from someone called Harry Blake—the same name the terrorist cell used to send their emails. The FBI already knew it was a fake account but, so far, they hadn’t managed to find the original sender.

I double-clicked the message, holding my breath as I opened the attachment.

A photo of the man they claimed was Alex’s brother appeared on the screen. But this time, he had a little blonde-haired girl with him. If the image wasn’t enough to send chills down my spine, the message was. If Alex didn’t send them the program he’d created, the little girl would be killed.

With a trembling hand, I forwarded the email to my boss and deleted it from Alex’s account. If the terrorist group’s intention was to force Alex into handing over the program, they were doing everything right. I just hoped they never realized their emails were being intercepted. If they did, no one would be safe, including the little girl in the photo.