Page 74 of The Geek and the Sheikh

“Let’s go,” Mark said, handing her a covered tray filled with tools and a weapon instead of food.

She took the tray and gave him a sharp nod. A grim smile curved her lips. Before the night was over, Junebug would find out they had a lot more in common than hacking.

* * *

“This is actually kind-of fun, Mid. If I had known, I wouldn’t have been scared about leaving the vault,” Junebug murmured to her sister as they stood off to the side of the ballroom.

“Everything is fine as long as you are the one behind the scenes, Junie. You know you hate real blood,” Midnight replied.

“Oh, yeah. Blood—”

She grimaced at the thought. Some of the wounds Midnight had come home with had made her gag. Game blood and wounds were a lot different than the real thing.

“Don’t feel bad. I hate it as well. That's why I went into computers instead of medicine like Junayd,” Jameel chuckled.

Junebug sipped on her fruit drink and surveyed the room. Nearly a hundred people were in attendance for the event Raja Hadi, King of Simdan, was giving with his new bride, Katie Ashe, an American sign language translator who had saved his life. The whole thing was a ploy contrived between Raja and the older Saif-Ad-Din men to catch Raja’s uncle Zulfiquar Kaffir and Colin Coldhouse who was still somewhere off the grid.

Junebug had barely recognized Raja. He had come to live with Harlem shortly before Rainbow had left. It was pretty awesome to be in the same room with two of the best agents in the world—and know who they were.

This is like watching my favorite James Bond movie playing out in real time,she mused.

“Are you doing alright?” Jameel murmured.

She looked up at him with a startled expression. “Are you kidding? This really is very dramatic.”

And Junebug didn't even know the half of it. It wasn't long until Katie was telling one of Raja's guards that Coldhouse had kidnapped her mom! Kathleen Ashe had been on her way to surprise Katie. Bugs had known and kept the secret, believing that since Kathleen had only gotten onto her radar at the last minute, no one else would know about her either. And then she was snatched at the airport!

Aimee, Midnight, Idella, Junebug, and Raja's guard Hussain hashed out the details of what to do. The men in the Jawahir family were left out of it in order to keep attention on them instead of the women who were going to rescue Kathleen. Junebug promised she would do everything she could to help the rescue plan go off without a hitch.

Midnight hugged her. “I’m glad you are on our side, Junie-bug.”

“Always. Be careful. The guys are going to be furious when they find out what you, Idella, and Katie are doing,” she warned.

Midnight softly chuckled. “It won’t be the first time and I know it won’t be the last. They’ll live.”

Junebug stood in the corridor as her sister disappeared. Dread knotted her stomach. The excitement of the night had been replaced with anxiety. What if this was the last time she saw them? What if Coldhouse was successful? For the first time in a long while, Bugs wished Harlem were here to help.

“It won’t be the last time I see them,” she murmured to herself.

Use your superpower, Junie.

The whispered words her mom used to tell her flowed through her mind. A slow grin curved her lips. Harlem may not be here but she knew someone else who might be, someone who could help.

* * *

Junebug made her way through the corridors to the security room. She had been there earlier, which made navigating the endless maze of corridors easier. The security room was located in the sub-basement area of the palace. The lower level probably helped to keep the equipment cool, connect with underground utilities, and it was probably safer from a security point-of-view.

She showed the pass that Idella had given her earlier to a guard who bowed his head. Swiping the badge across the keypad, she mused that it might not hurt to do some updates on their system if she had time. This was Raja's palace now, after all, and it never hurt to have a world-class superhero hacker try to break in to test a system.

She by-passed the main room where two security analysts were sitting in front of a bank of equipment. What she wanted to do needed to be done in private. She didn’t want to cause anyone to have a heart attack.

Turning the corner, she continued down another long corridor until she came to a heavy metal door. Everything still had that fresh, new look to it from the construction that had been going on for the past year. She hummed under her breath as she swiped her keycard again to the panel. The click of the lock made her grin. She had tweaked the security clearance on her badge after Idella handed it to her, and could now go anywhere in the palace that she wanted.

She pushed the heavy door open and entered the server room. The room was chilly. She looked down the long bank of servers. The area was half the size of an Olympic swimming pool, with thick concrete walls, massive lines of conduits that protected the wiring, and a line of power walls behind a fireproof glass enclosure.

It didn’t take her long to find and access the server control keyboard. She dragged over a stool that had been placed to the side and sat down. Pulling the tray with the computer forward, she typed in a series of commands.

“Hello, Junebug. My, you look lovely tonight.”

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