Read the book: «Code Conspiracy»

Chapter One

Jerrica turned her head and sucked in a quick breath as the man behind her ducked into a doorway. She hitched her backpack over her shoulders and darted into the street.

A taxi blared at her, and she smacked her hand on its hood, yelling. “Watch where you’re goin’!”

She crouched behind another taxi, the heat from the exhaust pipe burning her leg as the car lurched forward.

For a half a block, she stayed in the middle of the street, navigating a straight path between two lines of cars. Drivers yelled at her from their windows, the obscenities pinging her coat of armor but never piercing it. What did she care about a few dirty words tossed her way? She’d endured worse—a lot worse.

She twirled around and negotiated the traffic while walking backward, keeping her gaze pinned to the surging crowd on the sidewalk, trying to pick out her tail.

She’d lost him. Damn, she’d gotten good at losing people.

She threaded her way through the cars back to the sidewalk and slipped down a small alley. Two doors down, she formed a fist and banged on the metal. She had the access card that would gain her entry, but she knew Amit would be working away and she preferred not to surprise him by slipping in unannounced.

He really needed to adjust his schedule every once in a while—predictability could be dangerous in their line of work.

A lock clicked from the inside, and Jerrica eased open the door just widely enough to insert her body through the space. She placed both hands against the cold surface to make sure the door closed with a snap. Then she glanced at the video display above the door—the alley remained empty.

Her heavy boots clomped on the stairs as she made her way up to the work area.

Amit looked up from his computer monitor, adjusting his glasses. “I thought you were coming in earlier.”

Jerrica swung her pack from her back and settled into a chair in front of a scrolling display of numbers and letters. “Did Dreadworm turn into a nine-to-five gig while I was busy programming?”

“Don’t bite my head off.” Amit ducked behind his screen. “I was just asking.”

“I think I was being followed.” She held her breath, waiting for Amit’s outburst.

He sniffed and wiped his nose with a tissue. “What else is new?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She leveled a finger at the crumpled tissue in his hand. “Do not leave that thing lying around. Nobody wants your germs…or your judgment.”

“I’m not sick. I have allergies.”

“Whatever. I’m getting tired of picking them up.”

“All right. All right.” Amit stuffed the thing into his front pocket.

She narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t answer me. You’re not worried that someone was on my tail?”

“You think someone was on your tail. When is someone not on your tail, Jerrica? Or trying to hack into your computer? Or peeping in your window at night?”

Blinking her lashes, she cocked her head. “They caught onto Olaf, didn’t they? Do you want to go into hiding like him? I don’t.”

Amit slumped in his chair and pushed his glasses to the top of his head, making his hair stick up. “What did you uncover last week that has you looking over your shoulder again?”

“I’m not ready to reveal it yet.” She double-clicked on the screen to stop the scrolling and entered another command.

“You don’t have to reveal it publicly, but you can tell me, Kiera and Cedar in the other office.” He circled his index finger in the air. “We work together. We’re coworkers, remember?”

“Coworkers?” She brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “We’re hackers. Olaf always wanted us to work on our own stuff. That’s why the two of us are here and Kiera and Cedar are…somewhere else. I’ll reveal it when I’m ready.”

Amit shook his head and attacked his keyboard. “You and Olaf are two of a kind. Do you know where he is?”

“Why would he tell me? Why would he tell anyone? It’s safer to keep to yourself.” She turned away and stashed her backpack under her desk.

“It might be safer, Jerrica, but there’s more to life than safety.” His long fingers hovered over the keyboard. “You wanna go to a party tonight with me and Kelly?”

“I have work to do.” She batted her lashes at him. “And, as you so kindly pointed out, I came in late.”

“I’m going to take off in about two hours. Are you sure you want to stay here by yourself?”

“I thought you weren’t concerned about safety? You were here by yourself.” She wiggled her fingers above the keys. “Besides, this is one of the most secure places in Manhattan—cameras, locks, motion sensors. I’m good.”

“The person supposedly following you didn’t see you come into this building, did he?”

“There was no supposedly about it, but no, he didn’t follow me here. I lost him.” She wrinkled her nose. “I gotta get back to what I was working on.”

“I can take a hint.”

The steady clicking from Amit’s keyboard indicated a dogged determination and concerted commitment. Amit might pretend that it was Jerrica who was the obsessed one, but the fire blazed in his gut just as hotly as it did in hers.

They each had their own reasons for their dedication to hacking into government systems and exposing the lies and corruption. Amit just did a better job of functioning in society.

She’d had a life once. She’d even had a boyfriend. Her nose stung and she swiped it with the back of her hand.

As if that was ever gonna work out.

After a few hours of companionable tapping, Amit pushed his chair away from the desk and reached both arms up to the ceiling that was crisscrossed with pipes. “I’m calling it a night. You sure you don’t want to hit that party with me and Kelly?”

“I’m on a trail, so close.” She grabbed the bottle of water she’d pulled out of her backpack earlier and chugged some. “But say hi to Kelly for me.”

“Yeah, yeah. She’s gonna give me hell for leaving you here by yourself.”

Jerrica choked on her next sip of water. “She doesn’t know we’re Dreadworm, does she?”

“Who do you think I am?” Amit yanked a flash drive out of the computer. “You?”

“That’s not fair.” She wound her hair around her hand and tossed it over her shoulder. “I didn’t tell anyone anything. He figured it out.”

“Yeah, the last person who needs to know about Dreadworm—someone in the military.”

Jerrica’s cheeks blazed and she pressed the water bottle against her face. “Maybe that’s why he was able to figure it out. He was Special Forces…is Special Forces.”

Amit crammed some personal items into his bag. “And he never told anyone?”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“Dude must’ve been crazy about you to keep that to himself.”

“Crazy about me?” Jerrica snorted. “Yeah, so crazy about me he dumped me.”

“Kinda hard for a guy in Delta Force to hang with someone who’s trying to expose all the secrets of the federal government.” Amit slipped his bag’s strap across his body. “Dumping you is the least he could’ve done. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

Jerrica pressed a hand over her heart and the dull ache centered there. “Don’t you have a party to go to?”

“Outta here.” Amit saluted and then tapped the monitor of the desktop computer. “Leave this running, please. I’m looking for some files connected to the attack on the embassy outpost in Nigeria. I know we didn’t get the full story on that one, and I programmed a little worm that’s chewing through some data right now.”

She eyed the flickering display on Amit’s computer. “See you later.”

When the metal door downstairs slammed behind him, she shifted her gaze to the TV monitors to make sure nobody slipped into the building before the door closed.

Could she help it if paranoia sat beside her and whispered in her ear day and night? She’d been raised on conspiracy theories—and so far nothing in her life had belied that upbringing, nothing had stilled those dark undercurrents that bubbled beneath the surface of every encounter she had—even the most personal ones.

Amit disappeared from the security cam and Jerrica jumped from her chair and hunched over Amit’s, folding her arms across the back and studying the data marching across the display. The attack on the embassy outpost in Nigeria had been on her radar, too. And not only because it involved someone she knew, peripherally, anyway.

Delta Force Major Rex Denver had played a significant role in the Nigeria debacle, as he’d visited the outpost days before the attack. He’d also, allegedly, played a role in the bombing at the Syrian refugee center, although the witnesses in Syria had been walking back that narrative for a few months now.

She drummed her fingers against her chin. And Denver’s name had come up again as she scurried down the rabbit hole of her current hunch—or maybe she’d been scurrying down a mole hole, if moles even burrowed into holes. Because she’d bet all the settlement money sitting in her bank account that the intel she’d been tracking was going to lead to a mole—possibly in the CIA itself.

Rubbing her hands together, she returned to her own chair and continued inputting data to dig deeper into the CIA system she’d already compromised.

After a few hours of work, she rubbed her eyes and took a swig of water. As she watched her screen, a blurry message popped up in the lower-left corner of her display.

She blinked and the words came into focus. She read them aloud to the room where all sounds of human intercourse had been replaced by the whirs and clicks of computer interaction. “Who are you?”

She huffed out a breath and growled. “You show me yours first, buddy.”

So, someone at the other end had detected an intruder. She entered her reply, whispering the words as she typed them.

Who are you?

Not terribly clever, but she had no intention of showing her hand. She fastened her gaze on the blinking cursor, waiting for the response.

Her eyeballs dried up watching that cursor, so she set the program’s command to keep running in her absence, just as Amit had done on his computer. If Amit came back to the Dreadworm offices, he would know to leave the program running, but just in case, she plastered a sticky note to her screen before packing up for the night.

Jerrica scanned the video feed showing the alley while she scooped up her backpack and hitched it over one shoulder. She swept up her black fedora, which she’d left here the other night, and clapped it on her head.

Flipping up the collar of her black leather jacket, she jogged down the steps from the work area. She tipped her head back to check the video from outside and then, pausing at the door, she pressed her ear against the cold metal, not that she could hear anything through it.

She took a final glance at the monitor above the door before easing the door open. She looked both ways up and down the alley. She shimmied through the space, the zipper and metal studs on her jacket scraping against the doorjamb, and pulled the heavy slab of metal shut behind her.

This alley had just a few doorways and a couple of fire escapes, so it didn’t attract much traffic. Olaf, Dreadworm’s founder, had searched high and low in Manhattan to find just the right locations, and then had secured those locations—but he hadn’t been able to secure himself.

Someone outed him and his residence and he’d had to go on the run or face federal prosecution. She didn’t want to be criminally charged, but she couldn’t give up this job…mission…especially now that she’d hacked into the CIA databases.

She emerged from the alley onto the crowded sidewalk and joined the surge of people. Darkness hadn’t descended yet on this cool spring evening. Summer with its heat and humidity waited right around the corner, and Jerrica wanted to soak up the last bits of May with its hint of freshness still on the cusp of the air. She closed her eyes and inhaled, getting a lungful of exhaust fumes and some guy’s over-ambitious aftershave.

She headed underground to catch the subway to her neighborhood. Just as she plopped down in her seat, an old man with a cane scraping beside him shuffled onto the train.

Jerrica’s gaze swept the other passengers in the car, their heads buried in their phones, earbuds shoved in their ears, noses dipped into tablets, reading devices and portable game consoles. Nobody budged, nobody stirred from the online, electronic worlds sucking up their attention and their humanity.

Jerrica hoisted her backpack from her lap and pushed up from her seat. She tapped the old man’s arm and pointed to the empty spot.

He nodded and smiled, the light reaching his faded blue eyes.

The train lurched around a bend, and Jerrica grabbed the bar above her head, swaying with the motion of the car. Maybe she should’ve accepted Amit’s invitation to the party. She didn’t even have her cat to greet her at home. Puck had disappeared last month without a trace just as seamlessly as he’d entered her realm. Even cats had a way of passing through her life, perhaps recognizing her rootless existence and most likely identifying with it.

With both of her hands holding on for dear life, she shook her hair from her face. Yeah, she definitely needed to get out and socialize. She’d call Amit once she got home and had some dinner and put on her best party face.

The train rumbled into her station and she jumped off. She emerged into the fresh air but hung back at the top of the steps.

If someone had been following her this afternoon, they must’ve picked up her trail around here—her neighborhood, her subway stop. No way someone just started tracking her in the middle of Manhattan. She took a different route to Dreadworm every time she went there. This place, this neighborhood, comprised her only constants.

She zeroed in on a few faces, attuned to sudden stops, starts and reversals. She moved forward by putting one foot in front of the other because she had to start somewhere. Sometimes the fear and uncertainty paralyzed her.

She ducked into her favorite noodle shop and ordered a spicy vegetarian pho with tofu, inhaling the aroma of the rich broth while she waited for her order.

Kevin, the shop’s owner, placed the bag in her hands. “Special for Jerrica. You find your cat yet?”

“No, I’m afraid he’s gone for good, Kevin.”

“I look out for him.” He tapped his cheekbone beneath his eye with the tip of his finger. “Cats come and go.”

So did people.

“If you do see Puck, give him some chicken and call me.” She waved as she shoved through the door, sending the little bell into a frenzy.

She loped to her apartment, her pack bouncing against her back and the plastic bag containing the soup swinging from her fingertips. She could’ve afforded fancier digs, but this neighborhood on the Lower East Side suited her—and she’d found a secure building without a nosy doorman watching her comings and goings.

She made it up to her apartment, got through the triple locks and shut the door behind her. Her gaze flicked about the room, and a shot of adrenaline lanced her system.

She dropped her dinner, plunged her hand into the front pocket of her backpack and pulled out her .22.

“Get out here with your hands up or I swear to God I’ll shoot you through the bathroom wall.”

The door to the bathroom inched open and a pair of hands poked through the opening, fingers wiggling. “Don’t shoot. I even brought a bottle of wine.”

Jerrica lowered her weapon with unsteady hands and closed her eyes as she braced one hand against the wall.

Just like that, Gray Prescott had slipped past her best defenses…like he always did.