Slaton returned to the computer, his last task being the most delicate. He called up the website for the Physician’s Group of Eastern Virginia, and logged in with Christine’s username and password. As the machine whirred and the connect icon circled, he felt a surge of anticipation. Or was it dread? After an interminable wait, the log of Christine’s messages from work finally lit the screen. He saw three contacts from patients and four from associates, subject lines ranging from “My Gallbladder” to “Softball Canceled.” There was also one message from an unknown address, nothing in the subject line. It seemed the only possibility. His finger hovered over the mouse button, and then one click later Slaton was staring at the simplest of messages: BRICKLAYER111029.

The release of tension was massive and immediate. Those sixteen characters brought Slaton’s eyes closed, and the air that had been locked in his chest purged. Only then did he realize how heavily Christine’s disappearance had been weighing on him. He had fallen so readily into his old rhythms—op plans, objectives, contacts—that he’d lost sight of what was truly at stake. The simple message in front of him brought undeniable relief, yet there was also a sense of unease. It served as a reminder that he was walking a very narrow wire. No room for error.

Slaton again referenced mapping software before typing a final group of characters into the browser window, an impossibly obscure sequence of numbers and special characters. He doubted the site had been disabled because its function was as relevant now as it had been a year ago. The page that came to the screen was like a million others—an advertisement for cheap Viagra, complete with a picture of a little blue pill. Below that, highlighted in red, was a lone file available for download. It was the kind of web link that anyone in their right mind, on the miniscule chance they should navigate here to begin with, would immediately write off as spam. They would close the page and never go back. More to the point, the download link would be treated by any casual user as the web equivalent of a bomb. Which, as it turned out, was exactly what it was.

Slaton clicked on the download and the computer began to hum, extracting a Mossad-designed malware that worked with ruthless efficiency. First, all information on the hard drive would be destroyed. Subsequently, the program would corrupt the operating system in a manner that left it useless and completely unrecoverable. After three minutes—or so Slaton had been briefed—the machine he was using might as well have spent a month at the bottom of the sea. He pushed back from the workstation and placed the OUT OF SERVICE placard on the keyboard.