White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(79)

Without warning, he yanked hard on the steering wheel, drove through the grassy median, and merged aggressively into the eastbound lanes of the interstate to a chorus of honking horns and squealing, skidding tires as they narrowly avoided being mowed over by a passing semi. Kate curled into a ball, bracing herself for impact, but Zach remained calm and seemingly unaffected.

She had no idea where they were headed. Would he go somewhere to wait out the ban on air travel? Or was he driving her to wherever he’d planned to fly? She’d assumed his final destination was somewhere outside the United States, but maybe it wasn’t.

She didn’t dare ask him. Mostly because she was too scared to hear the answer.



Ian scanned the Porsche’s network, looking for the Remote Access Trojan, or RAT, which was not unlike following an actual rat into a maze. There were dead ends and plenty of backtracking as he hit one virtual wall after another. He’d scanned the network three times and hadn’t found the RAT yet, which told him whoever had done this possessed a decent level of technical skill.

“Thought you’d be in by now,” Charlie said.

“It’s a little different when it’s your wife and child.”

“Wait. Kate’s pregnant?”

“Yes.”

Charlie watched him struggle. “Come on. This is child’s play for you.”

Kate had to be terrified, but she’d done what she needed to do to get her message to him.

Turn off your emotions, he told himself. Use your brain to help her.

Ian might identify as a hacker, but in reality it was his programming abilities that made him so good at what he did. His skills were far superior, but he’d allowed anxiety and fear to invade his normally calm state and had wasted time using an automated program that should have easily found and eliminated the Trojan but hadn’t. He switched to a custom tool he’d designed himself and launched it. He would find the Trojan and destroy it, and then he would take back control of what was his.



They needed Phillip back in the war room, so Charlie now held a phone to each ear. Chad had stayed on the line to let Charlie know when he and Steve reached Kate, and Charlie was using Ian’s phone to relay Kate’s location to the dispatch officer.

“He just turned around,” Charlie shouted into the phone. “He’s heading east on I-68. Tell the officers he’s going in the opposite direction.”

“What?” Ian said without taking his eyes off the computer screen or his fingers off the keyboard. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. The officers haven’t reached Kate yet.”

“What’s his speed?”

Charlie ignored his question, which told Ian it was fast enough that it would only bother him to know. “Are you in?”

“Almost.”

He heard Charlie tell Chad and Steve they were now behind Kate instead of heading toward her. “Let me know when you catch up to her. You’ll have to drive faster.”

A few more clicks of his mouse, and the RAT was history. Ian accessed the Porsche’s network, and this time the door might as well have been wide open as easily as he was able to get in. He was so focused on the task at hand that he didn’t hear Charlie saying his name until he yelled it.

“Ian!”

“What,” Ian said without looking at him.

The most profound feeling of relief washed over him when Charlie said, “The police can see her.”



Kate’s head rested on the glass of her window, which meant she was looking right into the passenger-side mirror when a row of flashing red lights appeared in the inky darkness of its reflection. She lifted her head as a feeling of sheer joy washed over her. Her celebration was short-lived when Zach shoved her head against the window where it connected with a dull thud.

“You bitch!”

She brought her arms up to shield herself from another blow, but he’d turned his attention back to the road and punched the gas pedal. She stole another look in the mirror. The police cars were closing in, and there seemed to be an awful lot of them. Zach’s driving became more erratic as he attempted to elude them, and he clipped the guard rail and sent a shower of sparks into the night as the speedometer inched up past 150 miles per hour. At 180 miles per hour, the steering wheel started to vibrate.

Kate watched with near-hysterical fear as the needle continued to rise until the speedometer maxed out at 210.



The first thing Ian did now that he had control of the network was cut the engine, and the second was apply the brakes. The car was traveling at an incredibly high rate of speed, and it wasn’t going to stop on a dime. Operating the brakes remotely wouldn’t give him quite the immediate control he’d have if he were pushing the actual brake pedal with his foot, but the speedometer reading began to fall.

With the police closing in, whoever was driving the car would be feeling the pressure, possibly starting to panic, and the likelihood of them losing control was high. He tightened Kate’s seat belt. Then he disconnected the driver’s side air bag and seat belt.

“What are you doing?” Charlie asked.

“Ending this.”



There were too many sirens for her to notice the sound of the engine cutting out, but the car jolted violently and Kate knew immediately that the brakes had been engaged and who had done it. Her seat belt tightened and it felt like a hug. Hold on, sweetness. I’ve got you now.