The silence in the room was absolute, save for the faint, rhythmic hum of the computer’s cooling fan. Evelyn’s finger remained frozen a fraction of a millimeter above the ‘Confirm’ button. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the tremor in her hand ceased.
She lifted her head and straightened her posture. The hunched, fragile silhouette of a woman nearing eighty transforming into the rigid, composed frame of a seasoned operative. She didn’t click the button. Instead, she reached for the keyboard with both hands, her fingers dancing across the keys with the blur of a concert pianist.
“Officer Miller,” she said, her voice dropping an octave, losing every trace of the quaver that had fooled him for the last twenty minutes. “I’ve been tracking your bounce server for the last twelve minutes. It’s a clumsy setup, really. Did you think a simple VPN was enough to hide a static IP in a commercial district in Mumbai?”