Chapter 25
Michelle reached out for a phone that had been buried under a fallen stack of books beside the glass-topped coffee table. She dialed a long series of numbers.
She noticed Valerie’s curiosity, “A trunk call between software systems is a really long number. Different area code, very different.” She jerked the phone away from her ear and slammed it down, “What in the name of Heaven?”
“What’s wrong?” Peter started out of his seat.
“That was a bloody pizza parlor in Chicago.”
“Maybe you misdialed.”
“Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, you try.”
Peter did.
Peter finished, listened for a moment, said something in a foreign language and hung up the handset. “I don’t like this. That was the president’s personal line in Zimbabwe. The software must be unraveling faster than we’d thought.”
He s
