Rage (Benson Security 3)

“To text. To surf the net. To play games and take pictures. To look cool. What else?”

“When I was your age, a phone was for talking to people.”

“Dude, when you were my age, dinosaurs roamed Scotland.”

“I’m only forty-two, you cheeky wee arse.”

“Ancient,” Jack coughed into his hand, and grinned at Callum.

“Dinosaurs!” Sophie shouted. “I like dinosaurs.” She smacked the top of Callum’s head for emphasis.

Elle pressed the phone against the chip and swiped across the screen. A few seconds later, it beeped. “Got it. Let me send it to my laptop and we can see what it is.” She tapped at her phone screen, then sat back at her keyboard, her fingers flying. Which looked very strange with the fluffy cuffs around her wrists.

“Right,” she said. “We’ve got a couple of things on here, but not much. Remember that RFID chips only hold about two kilobytes of data. Which is nothing. It’s enough to store your name, bank account number, the code to your door, that sort of thing, but not enough to store massive amounts of information. Basically, these chips point the way to something else. The one in your bank card sends the reader to your bank, that sort of thing.” She leaned into the screen. “We have a bank account number, an IP address, and a code for something. No name.”

“Where’s the bank account located?” Dimitri said.

“Caymans, by the looks of it.”

“Can you hack the account, see who it belongs to?” Megan asked.

“I doubt it. The security is multi-layered. I could try, but there’s no knowing how long it would take and whether I’d be arrested before I got in.”

“I don’t get it,” Megan said. “You hack governments all the time. Isn’t a bank easier?”

“No. Banks are way harder.”

“I thought you could do everything,” Megan said with a pout. “You’ve shattered my illusions.”

“Delusions, more like,” Callum muttered. “Where does the IP address take you?”

“Checking that out now,” Elle said.

Everyone in the room seemed tense, expectant, waiting for the information they’d been chasing to be revealed.

“It’s dark web,” Elle muttered. “This will take a few minutes.”

Isobel looked at Callum, ready to ask what Elle meant. Callum felt her move and looked down at her. “The dark web is an area of the internet where information is exchanged anonymously. It’s where you can buy and sell anything. If it’s illegal, it’s on the dark web.”

“Oh.” She spied Sophie’s grinning face peering over Callum’s head and couldn’t help but smile at her. Her fingers were tight in Callum’s hair, but he didn’t say a word. “She’s hurting you. Let me take her down.”

“Darlin’, she’s three. There’s no way she can hurt me. Leave her be. She’s happy.”

And that was when it happened. Isobel felt the bottom fall out of her stomach, and her head felt light. And she knew.

She was falling in love with Callum McKay.

She felt him still. “What is it?” He searched her face, looking for answers, and Isobel looked away, afraid that she gave away too much.

“N-nothing.” She felt her cheeks burn.

“You’re lying.” It was barely a whisper, but she heard the steel in it.

“I’ll tell you later. I promise. Okay?” She looked back at him and saw the worry there. “I promise,” she said again as she leaned into him.

“Oh,” Elle said. “That isn’t good.” Her fingers flew and she leaned into the screen. “That isn’t good at all.” She suddenly switched the laptop off, turned it over and removed the battery and the hard drive. She looked at Callum. “They backtraced me.”

“Oh crap,” Ryan said, and immediately lost interest in his food.