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her. “Yes.”
    “He sells weapons on the international black market, and his deals have gotten bigger. We could take him down right now on what we have, but. It’s more complicated. We think he’ll be brokering a deal for some nuclear material. It’s going down next week, and if can get into the auction as a buyer or as part of his team, we can take him down as soon as he finishes the auction on the dark web.”
    “Nuclear material?” Stunned, she blinked at him. “But he owns factories. Breaks EPA rules.”
    “It’s not that we don’t care about his dirty water, okay? This is more critical. This is a sale of enriched uranium to terrorists. Do you have the slightest concept of how deadly that could be for any and every city in the world?” He didn’t phrase it like a question.
    “But you’re not sure he’s involved in the auction?”
    “Pretty sure from the chatter we’ve analyzed. We need to find the information that will let us get into the auction. We have some of the best hackers in the world, and some contacts in the underworld, so far they’ve been able to keep all traces of the entry point hidden.” His voice was frustrated. “He contacts his potential clients through secure methods. He’s the broker for this deal. We need the seller and the eventual buyer. We’re willing to let him think he’s free until we get them.”
    “Sloan, but the water plant is important. He hurt a lot of people, including Ella and her grandson. Don’t you care about the people who drank, and are still drinking, that contaminated water? I need to get my article out there so we can stop him before he makes more people sick. You don’t even know for sure if he’s even selling the nuclear thing, but I am positive about his plant. I can show you! We need to go public and shut him down, at least get him investigated. Then you’d have him and could, you know, interrogate him. Make him tell you stuff about the auction. If I could just have my laptop—”
    “That’s gone. They took it at the park with your purse.”
    “No! I have another one, it’s on my desk at home, it’s—”
    “Kate, it’s gone. Understand? They’ve been to your house. The data is long gone. All of it. And any backups you have, even on the cloud. They’ve wiped you clean. And whatever Ella had? That’s gone, too.”
    She shuddered. “God. Can’t you just call in the cavalry? Like, a thousand men in black SUVs with machine guns? Take him down and torture him and make him tell you about the nuclear stuff?”
    His voice was taut. “We don’t just want him. We want his buyer, his seller. The other bidders. Sure, we could take him. If we do? They disappear forever, and our hunt starts over from zero—and the nuclear material will still be out there, changing hands, somewhere we don’t know about. He needs to know that his life is proceeding right on plan all the way up until that auction starts and ends. And my team needs to be there when it does.”
    “I don’t even understand why he’d want to—kill me.” Her voice cracked. “I was so careful. I swear I didn’t tell anyone besides my boss what I was working on. And Ella was careful, too. And if you’re right, that the water is nothing to him compared to him other… deals, then why even bother with me?”
    He looked at her evenly. “He was keeping an eye on you because of your public stance on the corruption at the plant, and your lead-up articles. I suspect he knew you had someone inside the plant, and he figured out it was Ella. He must have gotten to her, made her confess to whistleblowing and handing you all the data. That’s when he decided to take you out, and he used her to set you up.”
    “But why?”
    “That’s what has me confused. He can make the water plant issues go away easily. So having him suddenly, on such short notice, decide that you are a threat that needs immediate action, especially when he has a huge arms deal looming? It makes me curious.”
    He