Doctor Who by Kate Orman Read Free Book Online Page B

it. It’s the story of the century.’
    â€˜Oh, quit exaggerating,’ grumbled Mondy.
    â€˜Think about it. It’s got to be something she can use for hacking, that’s all she’s interested in. Maybe it’s a program for breaking into military systems. Or some new protocol for connecting computers. Or a successful artificial intelligence! Isn’t your curiosity piqued?’
    â€˜Maybe Swan is a Russian agent and it’s a KGB supercomputer,’ said Mondy sourly.
    â€˜Shit, we’re losing them.’
    â€˜Will you slow down!’
    â€˜I will if they will. Relax, he won’t get far before he gets stuck in the traffic like everyone else.’
    It was only a few minutes later that we both wound up in the queue of cars creeping around DC, bumper to bumper. Ismoked and thought while Mondy fidgeted. What if Bob and Peri were Russian agents, I thought? Come on, I told myself, they’re just a couple of kids. But what about the Doctor? What if the English guy was working for a foreign power, conning a couple of unsuspecting hackers into feeding him secrets? Visions of Kim Philby danced in my head.
    We crawled through Beltway traffic for half an hour, keeping Bob’s car within sight, but never quite catching up with it. It must have been the slowest car chase in history.
    In the end, we pursued them to Tyson’s Corner, a giant mall in McLean. Bob and Peri wove through the Christmas Eve crowd in the parking lot, trying to lose us in the toing and froing of cars. Tyres squealed as cars braked, trying not to back out onto us as we continued our slow-motion pursuit.
    They finally managed to shake us off after five dizzying minutes when we got stuck behind a dingle. ‘It’s no use,’ said Mondy. ‘They’ll burn on out of here and we’ll never see them again.’
    â€˜I think they came to Tyson’s for a reason,’ I insisted. ‘I want to look for them inside the mall.’
    â€˜Have you
been
in there?’ said Mondy.
    Miraculously, we’d found a parking spot. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said. ‘You check the payphones. If you see them, gimme a page. Got the number?’
    â€˜Memorised,’ he said.
    We jumped out and hurried through the rows of cars into the vastness of Tyson’s. Mondy obviously knew the mall better than I did – he immediately vanished into the crowds, heading for the payphones. He’d know where every phone was.
    I looked for computer stores, jogging through the mobs of shoppers. I reckoned Bob would want to stock up on equipment after having to make a run for it. But maybe he justwanted to get thoroughly lost.
    After ten minutes, Mondy paged me. ‘I’ve got them,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m right near them.’ He gave me directions to another row of payphones. And he gave me the number of a phone right next to them.
    I wish I could have seen Bob and Peri’s faces when the phone next to them rang. (Mondy did, of course – he was standing just a few feet away.) It rang several times before Bob picked it up.
    â€˜Hello?’
    â€˜Bob, please don’t hang up. My name’s Charles Peters. I’m a journalist. Your “little expedition” into the TLA building got me interested.’
    â€˜Jesus, does the whole world know about it?’
    â€˜Excuse me, but we have to leave now,’ said Peri, tugging at his arm.
    â€˜It’s OK. Swan doesn’t know who you are. All I want is the story – I can guarantee your anonymity.’
    Peri shook her head. Bob said, ‘Over the phone I don’t think I can tell a real journalist from an FBI agent. Bye.’ He hung up. They both looked around, wondering where I was. I must be watching them, right? They couldn’t know I was in a completely different section of the mall.
    Mondy called me back. (Don’t ask me how he knew what number to dial.) ‘They’re heading back to