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Vengerov closed the tablet computer, calmly tucked it in his pocket, and said in a deadly soft voice, "I think it was foolish of you to assume I’d simply let you walk out of here with this Surely you’re not that careless"

"You know me, after all I’m touched Of course I didn’t think you’d let me walk out with my plunder, no That’s why I made sure the inforo with the trainees I distributed it between their processors as I stole it, and as soon as those kids were outside this building, they transe sites"

Vengerov seized the rail "I will cull every last file location out of you!"

Blackburn rocked back on his heels, a ferocious grin on his face "They’re set to a dead man’s switch I have to send a password infive hours and six minutes, or they’ll auto to the entire world Oh, and here’s the best part: the password I wrote for them? It automatically deletes itself from my processor if I’m incapacitated, if any unauthorized code from, say, a census device finds its way into --hindersto let ree to my tererov straightened "I see you’ve been very thorough So you’ll sit on this data, and in returnwhat? I assuonal Spire?"

"The breaches end today," Blackburn said flatly

"One is conditional upon the other, yes"

Toot the confirerov behind the breaches, behind the hijacked drones--and blurry as his head was, Toht It hadn’t been Medusa

"Now, Lieutenant," Vengerov said, "I suggest you tend to your eavesdropping trainee"

Blackburn juh, Tom abandoned the pretense of sleep and heaved himself up as far as he could in the bed His entire body was exhausted, his mouth bone-dry "Where are we?" His voice came out cracked

"We’re still in Obsidian Corp," Blackburn said,for some of our own people to retrieve you Do you reave a shaky nod

"Try to rest," Blackburn ordered hith"

But Toerov there at the foot of the bed It was like closing his eyes with soerov had an unblinking gaze like a reptile’s "I ize for your incident earlier, Mr Raines I never thought to assign any personnel to attend to the external surveillance ca machines in the middle of Antarctica, after all Your medical expenses are, of course, co for? Tom kneas the one behind what happened Blackburn had to have guessed

"Yeah, I bet you’re real sorry," Tom said, his voice raspy He assessed hiht foot where he’d kicked at the door Bandages confining his hands Restlessly, he shoved one under his opposite ar to see how badly hurt his hands were "Funny how that door swung open and closed a bunch of times"

"No hardware is perfect Certainly not our autoe To in his eyes "But it does trouble htened child was trapped out in the cold, begging to be let in"