“Where to?” the cab driver asked.
Behind him, White heard a big engine roar to life and then the squeal of tires. He turned in time to see a black Range Rover speeding toward them.
“Just drive,” White urged him, knowing it was already too late.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Naval Air Station Fort Worth, Texas
Veronica stared in shock at the screen of her phone, paralyzed by the conversation she’d just had with Noah and two other SkyCU team members. She felt as though she had been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. In the stillness of the moment, her phone slipped from her hands and her body swayed slightly, forcing her to steady herself with one hand against the wall.
Confused and angry, she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs or lash out at someone, but she was alone. There was no point. What they had feared for the last two days had now been confirmed by the engineers. Everything they’d worked so hard to accomplish . . . all of it was gone. It would take them months to rebuild the app from scratch.
Her throat tightened; tears stung her eyes. She clenched her teeth and squeezed her fists in anger.
For the hundredth time, she wondered who would feel so threatened by her or by Drain to justify coming at her in such a destructive way. A rival corporation? That was crazy. There were other ways to acquire the technology. None of these giant and publicly traded tech companies would risk losing their reputation, and their market capitalization, for sabotage and murder.
No. To be willing to go to such lengths and to risk so much just to kill the Drain mobile app and the brain behind it, somebody somewhere had to fear for their life. There was no other explanation. But again, who?
Frustrated, she kicked the wall with her bare foot, at once wishing she hadn’t.
“Fuck!” she yelled out in pain.
She leaned her back against the wall, letting herself slide slowly to the floor as she gave vent to her emotions. But she was too angry to cry. Besides, she had to think. She had to stay focused.
Clay had assured her that her father had had nothing to do with the wiping of the servers. He’d told her, almost reflexively, that the CID men must have been there to protect the place. But that was just speculation, wasn’t it? One of Clay’s greatest qualities was that he was loyal. It was why he’d agonized about keeping their relationship secret from the Secret Service and her father. But what if his loyalty now was causing him to trust her father when he shouldn’t?
The expression on her father’s face, his disapproval of Drain, came back to her. SkyCU’s servers had been well protected, according to Noah. It had taken someone with high-level resources to do what had been done.
Maybe the resources of the US military.
Somebody somewhere had to fear for their life.
But why would her father fear for his life?
She sat with that a moment. Then she laughed and shook her head. Clay was right. She was being paranoid. The attack at the hotel, coupled with the loss of her passion project, had her emotions stretched way too thin.
Speaking of Clay, she had promised herself she wouldn’t contact him unless it was an emergency, and as much as this whole thing upset her, it wasn’t an emergency. Still, she’d hoped he would have at least sent her a quick text to let her know how he was doing, and to check in.
Her anger flared again. She was pretty sure that whatever her father had tasked Clay with was related to what had happened in San Francisco and Palo Alto. But why was it up to Clay when there were undoubtedly plenty of others her father could have assigned to the task? And didn’t she deserve to know where her fiancé was and what he was risking his life for?
She glanced at her watch. Her father was scheduled to return to Fort Worth in less than an hour. Impulsively, she sent him a quick text asking him to stop by the house. Then her thoughts switched again to Clay, and her mood darkened. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she suddenly grew very worried.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Cape Town, South Africa
The taxi driver reacted to White’s voice and accelerated too quickly. He pulled out from the curb in front of the hotel without looking or signaling and almost nicked the rear bumper of the car parked in front of him. The taxi had barely left its parking spot when the Range Rover slammed into its driver’s side panel with the solid crash bar mounted on its front, trapping the cab between the Range Rover and another parked taxi. White heard metal creak as the impact threw him off his seat, his head cracking hard against the window. Slightly dazed, he tried to open the door, but it banged against the parked taxi. Having no idea this wasn’t accidental, the cab driver had gotten angry and was yelling obscenities at the Range Rover’s driver.