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“What’s wrong?” Zane was beside her, causing her to jump. “Hey, easy. I thought something was wrong.”
“No, I was lost in my thoughts. That’s what caught my attention.” She pointed to the message board.
Zane bent down and read the message. He stood and rubbed his neck. “I understood ASAP. I have no idea what the rest of that means.”
Jewell hadn’t even thought to translate. Zane was such a quick study, but yeah, they did have their own language. She lumped herself in with the super hackers of the world. “Oh, QOTK is me. Queen of the keyboard. TIRL is talk in real life. ASAP you got. Con is his handle. He wants to talk.” She shoved her nail in her mouth and started to bite it.
Zane rubbed her shoulders. “Why is that bad?”
“He’s the person I know who works in the NSA. I asked him to do a rush investigation on Smithson Young, but we’ve never spoken. I’ve known him for ten or fifteen years but never talked to him. It’s kind of … weird.” She didn’t know if talking was a good idea.
Zane kissed the top of her head. “So call him. I’ll be here.”
“Yeah, not that easy. I don’t have his number. Hold on.”
She pulled the sliding keyboard out of the tray of the shielded computer and typed.
> Now.
She sat backand looked at the phone. Three seconds later, it rang. “That’s freaky,” Zane mumbled.
She picked up the receiver. “That was quick.”
“I was waiting.” The deep timbre of the hacker on the other side of the connection wasn’t how she’d imagined he’d sound. Somehow, in her mind, she pegged him as an acne-marked teenager with a nasally, whiny voice, even after fifteen years.
She shook off the surprise. “You’ve got me. What’s up?”
“First, I’m glad that fucker didn’t kill you when the building went up in smoke.”
She swallowed and looked at her husband. “It was a close call. I lost most of my team.”
“I heard. Keep me in mind when you start rebuilding. I’m losing my mind in the tedium over here. Which leads me to the reason for the call. Thank you for giving me something interesting to amuse myself. Since POTUS directed us to support Guardian, I put away all the other mind-dulling must-dos and focused on your Smithson Young.”
“Wait. You can’t drop a bomb like that. You’d come to work for us?” Jewell looked at her husband and smiled wide.
“Yeah, of course. Brando and Ring would, too. We were discussing that the other night over drinks.”
“What? Do you guys know each other? Why haven’t you invited me for drinks?” She may or may not have shrieked that.
The smooth laugh that came over the connection didn’t assuage her shock. “Well, for one, we don’t know who you are. Brando is my brother, and Ring is our cousin. So we get together occasionally. D.C. is an exceedingly small place.”
“If you’re serious, when Guardian is ready, I’ll float a message to you. But it could be up to a year, and the concept will be different than how we manage things now.”
“Makes sense. No promises, but I’ll take a serious look at moving.”
“The money’s good,” Jewell added.
“We both know we don’t do this for the money. It’s the thrill.”
“Amen,” she agreed. “Now, what about Smithson?”
“Okay, I’m sending this through secure channels, which means management is going to delay it getting to you, but no one said I couldn’t brief you on what I found.”
She chuckled. “Did you ask?”
“Why would I?” He laughed. “Better to ask for forgiveness than beg for permission. Besides, I don’t beg. So there’s that.”
“All right, I’m ready. Spill.”
