Page 93 of The Lazarus Protocol

Kraus had shadows under his eyes, but they didn’t have anything to do with grief. The man didn’t feel a thing, and rarely got tired. She’d long ago decided it was good that he worked for the CIA, because if Kraus’ loyalty was to their enemies, she’d be terrified.

He shook his head and started toward the kitchen. “You think it’s a good idea to have an open conversation in a room that’s not secure?”

“If Division Zero is correct, then nothing is secure.” Emanuela looked around. “Help me out here. I’m a psychologist. I have no idea what I’m looking for.”

Kraus only made that huffing sound in his throat. “The scanner found a signal.” He moved from the kitchen to the hall and stopped under the light fixture. Living room behind him. Kitchen to his right. Front door to his left. Bedrooms in front.

Maybe the device needed line of sight to as many parts of the house as possible.

Kraus dragged in a chair from the kitchen and climbed on it.

The wood creaked, and Emanuela made a face, picturing the chair collapsing under him and her boss falling to the floor, where he would probably break his leg. That would get her at least a few days to run the office before he was back, cranky and barking orders once again.

Probably not worth it to push him.

Kraus rotated the round light fixture and lowered it, revealing the inner wiring behind the lightbulb. Another device, small as the palm-sized serving of plain chicken or fish she was supposed to be eating if she wanted to stick to her diet.

She put her hands on her hips, wishing they were slender. But that was one in a long list of wishes she was never going to realize. Like running her department out from under Kraus. “That’s it?”

He set the light fixture cover on the chair and plugged the phone into the device. “Audio and video. If he was murdered, we’ll be able to see who did it.”

“And if it was one of the Division Zero team?”

Kraus ducked his head to the device, looking at the screen. Apparently, he was going to watch the footage and not even tell her what he saw. If he didn’t like it, he’d probably delete the surveillance the Agency had installed in Simon’s house and claim it was corrupted.

She moved next to him, smelling the awful tang of garlic and red onions from his lunch. Trying not to breathe through her nose while she peered over his arm. “Well? What if it is one of them?”

“I suppose we’ll have to suddenly care who’s on the team, rather than using that knowledge to our advantage later.”

“You’re playing a complicated game.” But the bottom line was, Kraus could have Division Zero destroyed at any time and no one would know they’d ever been part of a CIA strike force.

“It’s the nature of the business. Don’t forget that.”

“I’m a psychologist. I remember everything I’m told.” Like how he was going to leave his wife for her. How he loved her. How much he valued having her at his side.

Now? Emanuela wanted to be sick thinking about it.

She wanted to request a transfer and go work in intelligence gathering somewhere as far from Thomas Kraus as she could get.

“If it’s one of them,” Thomas said, “then I guess we won’t be able to deny we know who they are any longer. Or that we know which of them are wanted, and which were flagged as assets for foreign entities.”

“And if they piss you off, you’ll turn them over to whoever wants them? That’s as good as signing their death certificates.”

“You’re right,” Kraus said. “It would be more expedient to shoot their plane out of the sky and call it a tragic accident. I don’t want Colonel Montrose owing me any kind of favor.”

She swallowed. “Just tell me who killed Simon.”

“It was probably the AI that infiltrated our whole system.” Kraus sounded amused by that but didn’t smile.

“You don’t believe the tip is correct?” Several members of their team were working on who the tip had even come from, but evidently someone connected to Division Zero had reason to believe they’d been infiltrated by a worm.

“We both looked over his terminal,” Kraus said. “There was nothing in his activity to suggest someone else was feeding him orders.”

“We should loop in more of the team. Task a couple of them with going through his financials, looking for inconsistencies in his online activity. Anything that might indicate he was being contacted.”

Kraus straightened. “You do it, if you think it’s going to get you a result. But don’t come crying to me when you come up with nothing.”

“So you flat out don’t believe it? You think there’s no way an AI program could slip into our system as a worm and infiltrate our network without us knowing?”