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My gut draws tight with anticipation as I take the call Nelsky wouldn’t callfor frivolous reasons

“I hope I didn’t wake you, sir,” he says with a soprano pitch to his voice

“What’s going on?” I ask, facing my reflection in the mirror

“We found it, sir”

I go still Ti

“Sir? The file We found the file”

My heart goes into overdrive, thu with triumphant beats in my chest “Where?”

“In iCloud, sir Mukha hid a copy there, maybe to use as insurance if his life happened to be at risk”

Much good it did him

“It wasn’t easy,” Nelsky continues, “but our hacker eventually unraveled enough cyber threads to lead us there”

“I assuinal”

“Yes, sir We couldn’t risk so it”

“Good work,” I say, keeping my voice down so I don’t wake Katerina “Send it to me”

He coughs “There’s still one little hiccup we have to deal with before I can send it, sir”

I clench my jaw “What hiccup?”

“The file is encrypted and we can’t break the code” He adds hastily, “Not yet”

“Fuck,” I say under my breath

“I’ll let you know as soon as there’s an update”

“Do that” I scrub a hand over ht”

“Yes, sir”

“And Nelsky?”

“Sir?”