Ruskin got up on one elbow and, with his free hand, touched the back of his head, then looked at his bloody hand. “Shit,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Joe. “Mr. Ruskin, it’s time to cut the bullshit. Do you know how to disable the virus?”

“What?” Ruskin was still in a mental fog, although he’d now managed to open his other eye.

“When I get into Lisa Carver’s computer, what do I do about the virus? Is there some kind of fail-safe procedure?”

“You still think I had something to do with it,” Ruskin said. “I didn’t. I’m not working with Kyle. Never even met the man.”

Gently, Joe said, “I’m not accusing you of anything. I just want to stop this. It’s gotten out of hand. I’m sure it was never anyone’s intention that things would get this bad. Someone wanted to gum up the works, make Lisa Carver look like a fool, but it got out of control. Does that sound about right to you?”

Ruskin blinked a couple of times. “I suppose so.”

“So, the virus. How can it be disabled? How can we make the cars stop?”

Ruskin started to shake his head, then winced. The movement was painful. He looked again at his bloody hand. “I need a doctor. I need to get to a hospital.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see what we can do about that. But how can we make the cars stop doing what they’re doing?”

“I honestly don’t know. I talked to tech support . . . to see if they could pull the plug on the network. They hadn’t found a way. And if it’s ransomware, it’s out of our hands. You have to pay the money, trust that the hackers, whoever they are, will turn control back over to us.”

“I don’t think it’s ransomware,” Joe said.

“Huh?” Ruskin said, squinting at him. “How would you know?”

“I just don’t think it is,” he said. “If we could get back into the computer, we might be able to do something.”

“But even if there was a way, the laptop’s gone back to sleep. It’s password-protected.”

“You must know it, being her personal assistant and all?”

“No, she never trusted me with it. So all this talk . . . about shutting everything down, it’s pointless.”

Joe nodded. “I’m not worried about the password. It’s shutting down the Arrivals I need help with.”

Ruskin’s brow wrinkled. “How can you not be worried about the password? Did you read her mind this morning?”

“No,” Joe said. “I had another way.” He paused. “I’m sorry about this, Mr. Ruskin. But if you can’t advise me on the shutdown, I think we’re done.”

Now Ruskin looked even more puzzled. “How—”