Rogue Angel 52: Death Mask Read Online Free PDF

core temp is rising. I think it’s trying to blow my battery. Ingenious bastard. Well, at least this is going to be
fun
now.”
    He turned the machine slightly so Annja could see what was happening—not that she knew what she was looking at beyond a guy hammering out what seemed to be random letters on a keyboard.
    “I’m just making sure I’ve got a backup of everything here. Assume the worst,” he said, but even as he spoke, streams of numbers and letters filled the screen, superimposed with picture after picture. The deepening furrow in the hacker’s brow worried her. So much for “shouldn’t be too difficult.”
    He swore again and killed the Net connection, disabling the Wi-Fi. That didn’t slow the virus now that it was in his hard drive, and it continued chewing up data and spitting it out again, faster and faster until trying to focus on it hurt Annja’s eyes. The fan whined as the first faint whiff of smoke curled up from beneath the laptop.
    Oscar acted quickly, closing the lid and flipping the machine over.
    It took two hands to release the catch and pop the battery, but the second he did it heads turned, drawn by the stench of burning.
    He dropped the battery, staring at the smoldering plastic housing as if his entire understanding of the world had just been betrayed.
    “What the hell just happened?” Annja asked.
    “Some serious piece of code. Some seriously serious piece of code. The virus overloaded the system resources, then created a surge back into the battery. That’s not an easy thing.”
    “So we’re up against someone who knows what they’re doing—IP masking, making computers burn up...”
    “Yep, we’re not talking spotty teenagers in their bedroom, that’s for sure.”
    “Is there anything you can do?”
    He looked at the sorry state of the battery. “This thing’s fried, but there’s always something that can be done if you’re resourceful enough,” he said, fishing inside his laptop bag for a small device that he connected to her phone. “I’m going to make an image of your phone—basically clone it—and see if I can trick the code into thinking it’s your phone that’s trying to access the file, not my laptop. It could take me a while, but sooner or later I’ll crack it.”
    “Unfortunately, time’s the one thing I don’t have.”
    “This is personal now. Trust me. I’ll get you what you need. There’s something I can tell you right now, though.”
    “What’s that?”
    “You were watching a recording. It wasn’t a video chat.”

5
    21:05
—Valladolid
    Plaza Mayor was already a hive of early-morning activity, bustling with tourists and locals when Annja reached Valladolid.
    Even with the steady hubbub, the huge plaza still felt like a wide-open space in the claustrophobic Old Town. The city wasn’t what she’d been hoping to find, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what that had been. The buildings might not have been as thoroughly modern as many of the cities she’d visited around the world—all glass, concrete and steel—but everything here was still far too new to be hiding any ancient secrets. Almost all of the buildings appeared to have been built in the past hundred and fifty years. There was absolutely nothing amid all of the banks, gift shops, cafés and restaurants that could have been standing even two hundred years after Torquemada’s death, never mind the early days of the Inquisition.
    Annja slammed down the kickstand and parked the bike up. She walked around the outskirts of the plaza, taking a closer look at each building, but no matter how desperately she willed it, she found nothing of interest. Feeling her mood darkening, she realized she hadn’t eaten all day. She didn’t want to stop the search, not when time was so short, but she wasn’t going to be any use to Garin if she starved herself, so she went inside the nearest café and ordered a coffee and a Caesar salad. It would be enough to keep her going.
    There were a dozen