Split Second Read Free

three,
nodding at Nathan. “Miss Morrison. Sorry about the intrusion. But I’m afraid
you need to come with us. If you cooperate,” he continued, “I can promise that you
won’t be harmed.”
    The man’s two companions, a short,
stocky black man, and a pale blond who looked to be of German ancestry, remained
silent and alert.
    “Who are you?” repeated Wexler.
“And what is this about?”
    “This is about the discovery you
just made. I need to bring you to someone who wants to discuss it with you.”
    “How do you have any idea of
what discoveries I might have just made?”
    “Look, my mission parameters are
very tight. I’ve already disclosed more than I should have. My job is to bring
you in, gently, but ask you to put off all questions until you meet with my
boss. Apparently, any discussion I might have with you is above my pay grade.”
    “And if we refuse?” said Jenna.
    The man shook his head while his
two colleagues maintained a calm but hardened look. “I’m afraid I can’t take no
for an answer.”
    Jenna’s mind raced. The man
hadn’t made an explicit threat, nor had he drawn a gun. But then again, he
didn’t have to. She had no doubt that just one of these men, unarmed, could
probably best her and Nathan if they both had machine guns in their hands.
    What had Nathan discovered? How
did they know about it so quickly? And Nathan had said his discovery was
largely theoretical, with unclear real-world applications, so why the intense interest?
    “We’ll be leaving in a moment,”
said the gang’s spokesman. “Apologies again, but we first need to take care of
a few things.”
    He nodded toward his two
companions who began to carry out what were obviously pre-planned tasks. The
blond made his way to Wexler’s desktop computer and produced a small
screwdriver, expertly dismantling the computer and removing the hard drive in
less than a minute.
    His colleague searched the house
for several minutes and returned holding Wexler’s laptop. “I’ve confirmed that
he only has the one desktop and one laptop, as per our intel,” he reported. “I’ve
also removed all of our bugs.”
    The tall man nodded while
Jenna’s heart leaped to her throat. They had been bugged? For how long? And
why?
    But if this was about Nathan’s
recent discovery, she reasoned, he had only spoken of it out loud minutes
earlier. They couldn’t possibly have carried out an operation with this little
notice. The conclusion was inescapable. Along with the bugs, they must have
been monitoring Nathan’s phone and computers as well. Nathan had told her that
he had sent an e-mail about his discovery to Dan Walsh recently. This must have
set the wheels of this raid on their home in motion.
    The tall man lifted a phone to
his face. No 3D image hovered in the space before him, which meant he had
purposely kept the call audio-only. “I trust you’ve copied everything in
Wexler’s cloud storage account, correct?” he said into the phone.
    He listened to the response,
which must have been an affirmative. “Great. Go ahead and wipe the account,
then,” he ordered, and then ended the call.
    He turned to the two scientists.
“I’m afraid I need you to give me your phones,” he said, holding out his hand.
    Jenna glanced at Nathan. He blew
out a long breath and nodded, handing the tall spokesman his phone, and Jenna
followed suit. Once this was done, the man gestured toward the front door,
ignoring Jenna’s laptop that was still packed in her carry-on luggage. She was
somehow certain that these men knew her laptop was there, but had no interest
in any of her work.
    “I’d love to be civilized,” said
the tall intruder, clearly the group’s leader and spokesman. “So can I count on
the two of you not to scream or attract attention? These actions won’t change a
thing, and I’m sure you’d prefer not to be gagged. We’ll be gone before anyone
can intervene or call the cops.” He shrugged. “And to be honest, even if