Page 1 of Avenging Jessie
One
Jessie
Code scrolled across the monitor,fast and furious. The glow lit Jessica Mendoza’s face, casting sharp shadows across the angular planes reshaped by surgeons and survival. She kept her head turned slightly so the light only touched one side. The other half stayed in the dark, like the part of her soul still clawing its way back from what Harris Brewer had done.
Two in the morning inside the counterterrorism division was a symphony of silence—just the hum of servers and the occasional echo of footsteps from a security patrol. She liked it this way. No eyes on her. No pity. No suspicious whispers when they thought she couldn’t hear.
Pulse keeping pace with the scrolling code, her fingers flew across the keyboard, chasing anomalies. Something had been off all night, hence why she’d stayed past her shift. There had been too many queries pinging from too many places that didn’t belong. An intrusion into a restricted DOD subnet. Cloaked. Sophisticated.
And familiar.
Brewer. She leaned closer to the string of data that her program was working on. “Son of a bitch,” she whispered, making certain connections that the computer software couldn’t.
Her heartbeat quickened as the signature buried in the breach decrypted itself on her screen—a digital fingerprint she hadn’t seen since right before Brewer had escaped custody. During her time as his minion, she’d memorized the code he used, and there it was, bold as hell.
Like he wanted her to see it.
Probably did.Bastard.
Accepting the challenge and his taunt, she shoved back from her desk and grabbed her tablet. The artificial lighting overhead flickered on as she passed beneath the sensors, her boots echoing across the polished floor toward Director Flynn’s office.
She didn’t care that it was still technically night. Flynn showed up early. Always did when something important broke. And the DOD breach was pretty damn important.
She stood outside his door, arms folded over her sweatshirt. As expected, the legend himself walked in moments later, travel mug in one hand, file folder in the other. Dark hair, matching eyes that assessed her as paused when he saw her, and an air that smacked of pure ego. “You look like hell, Mendoza.”
He’d earned the right to be full of himself. As the CIA’s former number one spy, he’d done things that made even her, with all of her underhanded past, cringe. “Always so full of compliments, Director. You always know how to make a girl feel good.” She hugged her tablet, her hands tight on the device. “I need a favor.”
He set the coffee down. “This about the breach?”
She passed him the tablet. “It’s Brewer. He’s back.”
He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “That’s why I’m here before the butt crack of dawn. Washington is on high alert. Everybody. The Pentagon, White House, the Bureau, even the Justice Department.”
“This signature?” She tapped the screen. “It matches the algorithm from the Berlin servers.”
“Funny thing about signatures…anyone can fake one. Or plant one.” He plopped into his black leather ergonomic chair and met her eyes. “Makes me wonder why Brewer’s prints keep showing up on your watch.”
The accusation clawed under her skin, same as always.Bastard number two. Her jaw tightened, her words filled with classic annoyance. “I didn’t fake this, Flynn. It’s Brewer. And if you let me back in the field, I can prove it.”
He didn’t answer. Not directly, at least. He woke his computer and entered his encrypted passcode. “He’s flexing his muscle to send us running around like chickens. It’s working—he’s got every ABC institution freaking the hell out right now.”
“This isn’t about scaring us. He’s looking for something.”
“Aren’t we all?” He scanned his screen, his face hard as granite. “He wants to rule the world, and he’s letting us know he’s back on the chess board.”
Adrenaline coursed through her system, making her antsy. Under his designer suit, Flynn was still an elite spy. One who understood her drive and ambition, but who’d been holding her back for the past six months since Brewer had escaped from the hospital. “He’s looking for something specific. In the Pentagon.”
He glanced at the signature code she still pointed to, faint purple shadows under his eyes. Like her, he wasn’t sleeping, either. “Like what?”
“Could be a dozen different things. In Berlin, it was high-level security documents. But this feels different.”
“We don’t run on feelings, Jes.”
Gold medal bastard. She regrouped, finding the words he would listen to. “I believe he’s looking for the AIs.” At her boss’s raised brow, she continued. “Specific AIs the Pentagon uses for drones.”
“So he can take control of them?”
Now, he was catching on. “Can you imagine the fallout?”
