Page 76 of Run

Rachel sucked in a breath. “My screen’s gone blank.”

“Check your local files,” Joe said. “Julia, can you check the cloud?”

She picked up her phone and used it to enter their cloud location. “I can’t get in.”

Joe picked up his phone and dialed. “Lake. Check to see if you still have access to the information Elle stored for us.” He paused. “Son of a bitch. No, we’ve got nothing either. Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Another pause. “I don’t know how many copies she made or where she saved them. We were in a hurry. Callum told her to give you and him access, but beyond that…”

“She wouldn’t save it to our servers,” Julia said. “Not until the code had been thoroughly checked. It would have been too risky to put something that dangerous in our vault.” In visible distress, Julia turned to Rachel. “Could she have left a copy at TayFor?”

“Harvard and I told her not to, for the exact same reason. Nobody could guarantee there wasn’t something malicious in the data she’d downloaded that would corrupt our servers.”

“Did you catch that?” Joe said to Lake and then nodded. “Portable hard drives?” he asked the women as he put his phone on speaker and set it on the table.

“She must have saved some hard drive copies,” Rachel said. “She’s Elle; she thinks about that sort of thing. Doesn’t she?”

Joe ran a hand through his thick hair. “We’ve been under a lot of pressure, especially Elle. Time was moving fast. Is it possible she didn’t save a local copy?”

“The amount of data is vast,” Julia said. “We paid a fortune for a cloud vault large enough to store it in. I’m not sure she could have gotten it onto a portable drive. Also, I’m sure we would have noticed if she’d saved another copy. It would take hours to transfer. It took that long to get it onto the cloud.”

“I’m calling in Harry,” Lake said. “If the data’s out there, he’ll find it or restore our access to it. Worst-case scenario, he can tell us what happened to it.”

“We know what’s happened to it,” Rachel said, grimacing at her former teammates. “Someone found out we have it, which means there’s a leak amongst the people we’ve told. Obviously, Tommy James has set his Russian hackers on the trail of his data. What else could it be?”

“Who’s in the loop about the data?” Lake asked.

Everyone looked at Julia. “Us, Abasi, Tessa and whoever she trusts at the station, and our lawyers.”

“Did anyone think to check out the identities of the lawyers’ other clients?” Rachel asked. “I met Ms. Patel a couple of times and didn’t take to her.”

There were no jibes about her not taking to anyone. Instead, there was an answering silence that made her stomach lurch.

Julia held up her phone, the color gone from her already pale face. “I can’t get through to the team.”

Rachel scooped up her phone and tapped on Harvard’s image. It rang but went straight to voicemail.

“It doesn’t mean there’s trouble,” Joe said evenly. “We don’t have comm units, so they’re using their phones to communicate with each other. It could be that their phones are just busy.”

“I’m calling the Met,” Lake said. “Joe, call the law firm. Julia, keep trying to get hold of the team. I’ll be in touch.” The line went dead.

For once, Rachel couldn’t think of even one bitchy thing to say. Instead, she tapped Harvard’s image once again and hoped this time the call went through.

* * *

“Okay,”David said. “There’s the law firm on the corner. We’re on the home stretch, people.” The sight should have made him relieved, but instead, all he felt was wary. Every instinct he’d honed over the years in the field was telling him that something was off. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Callum?” David called out to the speakerphone. “How’s it looking up ahead?”

There was no reply. Although it was clear their car was fine, as it was still in front of them.

“Callum?” David repeated. No answer. “Dimitri?” Nothing. A chill ran up his spine. “Check the phone, Ryan.”

Ryan reached for the phone as Elle twisted in her seat. “I can see Dimitri and Megan. They’re fine.” She waved at them, then mimicked for them to call. “Megan’s holding up her phone. That girl can’t mime to save herself. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s lost reception too.”

“This cell’s dead.” Ryan tossed it back on the dash.

“Dead!” Elle beamed. “That’s what she’s miming. Hold on. I’ll check to see if there’s a connection from my laptop.” She tugged the machine out of her messenger bag and opened it.

“Don’t bother, Elle. We’re aborting,” David said. “Ryan, open the window and signal to the other cars.” He pressed the accelerator, speeding up until he was almost bumper to bumper with Callum’s car.