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Arjun absorbed the good news cautiously. “Why?”

“It wasn’t part of the plan, but apparently one of the American staff has gone missing. Even better, no one knows why or what happened, not even our contact. The situation remains fluid, but for now the trials are completely shut down. We couldn’t have asked for better luck.”

“Interesting.” He was both intrigued and worried. Was there something else going on he didn’t know about? Still, a complete shutdown of the trials was exactly what he needed for the moment, so he permitted himself to relax a fraction. “How are you communicating with our contact?”

“Through an intermediary. We’re still working on a permanent shutdown, but our contact requires more money. Apparently, keeping the appropriate government officials blind to the operation is not cheap.”

He threw out his hands in disgust. “Is it no wonder that country is in shambles? Corrupt officials don’t stay bought and now they demand pay raises? What mockery is that?”

Wisely, Vihaan remained silent. Arjun’s tongue and actions were sharp when he was riled, and right now, he was looking for a fight.

He took deep breaths to calm himself. He needed his brother to keep their contact in Brazil happy and working. He looked for other options, but found none. At this critical juncture, he had no choice but to pay.

“Fine. One more payment, and the promise of a payout bonus, but only if the job has been done to our satisfaction,” Arjun said. “They will not receive one cent more.”

“Understood, brother.”

“Good. Now, Krish, explain to me what’s been happening on the cyber front.”

The hairs on Krish’s chin wobbled. Arjun had to resist the urge to pick the scissors off his desk and start cutting the damn things off.

“Yes, sir. Our computer intrusion has remained undetected. We continue to monitor all emails, but have received nothing of major importance other than generic planning and progress reports for the trials. To our knowledge, they have only managed to inoculate one village before the shutdown of the operation. We did lose access to the datasets that contained the research results for several days when they changed the passwords, but one of the IT admins foolishly included the new one in an email to a coworker, so we have access once again. None of the new data from Brazil is being added, as that’s being collected and managed offsite by a subcontractor.”

“What subcontractor?”

Krish pulled out his phone and flipped through some screens. “X-Corp Global Intelligence and Security. Located in Crystal City, Virginia.”

Arjun had never heard of them. “I don’t care about that right now. How close are we to obtaining the files on the vaccine and the vaccine replication process?”

“We’re close.”

He slammed his fist so hard on the desk, his laptop almost fell off. Both Vihaan and Krish jumped. “Close isn’t good enough. Do you understand? Imusthave something soon or we’ll be out of business.”

Krish swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “I understand, sir, but I’m getting a little worried the longer this goes on. My intuition is they’ve detected our intrusion already, although there have been no indications to prove that.”

“On what do you base that conclusion?”

Krish shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “While the communication traffic is normal, we aren’t getting anything really useful.”

“Why is that a problem?”

“Well, if I put myself in their shoes, I might do the same thing to see what we’re after and determine who might be attacking them.”

“Are they that knowledgeable?”

“Not if their computer security to date has been any indication. But something feels off. They’ve changed up some things and I worry they may have a plan of their own.”

“I don’t give adamnabout their plans.” He kept voice deadly calm, but he was barely keeping the lid on his frustration. “Can we, or can we not, get the vaccine and process details we need?”

“W-we can, sir,” Krish stammered. “But if we attack their system using brute force, they’ll know they’ve have been hacked.”

“I don’t care if they know, as long as they can’t trace it back to us. Weneedthat vaccine data right now. You have forty-eight hours to get it. I want a team of people working around the clock on it. Don’t disappoint me. Have I made myself clear?” He let the threat hang in the air.

Krish nodded nervously. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now both of you get out of my sight and get to work.”

After they left, Arjun made a note to himself that once this crisis was over, Krish would shave the stubble on his chin or be fired.