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sweat to his palms. His pulse raced.
    Only one thought coursed through his burned-out circuits—someone wanted to produce output that was a less-than-accurate prediction of terrorists and their activities.
    Could Peter be in on this? And if so, who had lined his pockets? The only reason Vance knew about it was due to a lost disk. Nothing was a coincidence.
    “Okay, Lord, You wanted me to see this. I get it. Now what?”
    What should he do about it?
    Both hands on his head, he squeezed. Despite today’s adept computer forensics, Vance could potentially go down with the mission creepers, if they were caught. How could he prove he wasn’t involved? Especially since Peter was a long-time friend—even though he’d changed a lot. And if Peter—assuming he was involved—was willing to go this far, might he actually try to set Vance up?
    The last thing Vance should do was touch this—but his fingerprints were already all over it. His impulse was to do something now. But that’s what he’d done when he’d joined ANND Systems. He’d listened to Peter’s persuasion, rather than praying first. No. This time he’d pray for direction.

    Construction noise stirred Vance awake the next morning. He’d lain awake most of the night, his thoughts in turmoil, then finally fallen asleep in the early morning hours. Rubbing his eyes, he sat up, sure Andi had a meager opinion of him for sleeping late and forgetting to let her in as per the agreed upon protocol. She’d shown him the intercom, but he never heard her calling. He should tell her to dispense with the protocol since it wasn’t working anyway.
    After pulling on jeans, he headed to the kitchen where he poured a cup of coffee, compliments of the auto brew. He squeezed his eyes as the dark liquid slid down his throat. It would give him the kick he needed. After the first cup, he added fillers. Sugar, vanilla syrup, milk. That was more like it.
    He hadn’t exactly gotten an earful from God last night, but he’d come up with a plan. He’d write a viral worm or some other slow-to-discover interference for their project until he could gather enough information to make a rational statement to the authorities.
    Trading his algorithm out for the imposter was the only difficulty.
    Cup of sweet coffee in hand, he propped his back against the kitchen side of the island in an obvious leave-me-alone-I’m-thinking manner.
    “You really should take better care of yourself,” Andi suggested, her voice sounding lighthearted.
    Couldn’t she read his mind? Didn’t she know he had to concentrate on his own problems?
    Conceding the error of his thought, he turned around. “What are you talking about?”
    Though his question had sounded much too brusque, Andi didn’t appear to notice. Leaning over the island on her elbows, she indicated the junk food he’d left out last night. “Let’s see, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, potato chips of every variety. What sort of diet is that?”
    Vance watched her, confused by her unusually friendly demeanor. “Well, it gets me through. I need those sudden bursts of energy.” He couldn’t seem to inject any warmth into his tone this morning.
    “That’s what you call brain food, yeah?”
    Andi playful and teasing? Why couldn’t she act like this when he was in the mood to enjoy it? He frowned, studying the woman who looked similar to the photo on his desk. Andi Nielsen was nothing like he’d imagined the woman in the photo would be. Andi might bait him with her momentary charm, then an instant later her defenses would go back up, secreting her away behind guarded walls.
    Was she a Christian? He didn’t see a cross hanging from her neck, or any action to indicate one way or the other. With what he was about to do, he had to wonder if he was a Christian himself. Trusting God had been easy enough while things were going smoothly at his job. While life was good. But when life became volatile, that’s where the true test of faith came in—how much muscle