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The man took off and the MPs finally let Jody go. As Boomer put the vest into the truck, the driver closed the door, and he and Boomer moved quickly away. Jody threw herself into her husband’s arms as he gathered her up and kissed her hard on the mouth.
Kaiya said, “Let’s go.” As they exited the ute, Jody turned and her face crumpled. She waved them over, giving Kaiya a thank-you look.
“I love you, Daddy!” Hanna said, kissing his cheek.
“I love you more, baby girl,” he said, then he looked at Taylor. “And you, son! You both are so strong.” Taylor nodded, then buried his face against his dad. Larkin knelt down and hugged his children.
All Kaiya could do was try to swallow the lump in her throat and keep her stinging eyes from embarrassing her with tears. But she shocked herself. When Boomer got back to the team, she went to him and kissed his cheek. He blushed like a schoolgirl and huffed a laugh.
“I told you guys. I got it.” They all shoved his shoulder and razzed him until he shook his head and took the praise.
Take that, you fucking NSH bastards. Counterterrorism one, NSH zip.
11
Celeste wrote a spate of code,then cursed under her breath. Rose’s head lifted and she eyed her friend, the raw emotion in her eyes masking her expression seeming almost stark. She held Celeste’s gaze for a long moment, then looked away, the muscles of her throat contracting.Her resistance was alive in her, and she missed GQ, wondering and worrying about where he was and what he was doing.
She let out an unsteady breath, and said, her voice roughed with emotion. “Steady there, lady.” Rose reached out and squeezed her forearm. “We’re all pissed and annoyed.”
Celeste’s gaze moved to Karasu, and she nodded. The firm sound of Rose’s voice made Celeste’s heart contract, and she clenched her jaw against the sudden ache. There was enough pressure on her to complete this code. Stuck in the middle of nowhere in a landscape of ice and snow, at the mercy of a merciless despot, literally depending on him for all their basic needs like heat and food, she had to write another virus that would decimate the NSA. Now with the added pressure of Rose’s pregnancy, Celeste rolled her shoulders to ease the tension.
Her resistance was making creation difficult, so she shifted her focus and started to work on a backdoor into the NSA. Ever since she gave up her clearance, she hadn’t been inside the NSA, instead working with other databases to narrow her search to discover the mastermind behind NSH, Aaron Trasker. But she knew the system like the back of her hand, since she helped to define and refine it.
It barely took much of her brain power to circumvent her own safeguards, and once she was inside, she felt sick to her stomach. They had to come up with a plan to defy Trasker. None of them wanted to actually launch another virus or give Trasker the means to do so with another hacker. Celeste could actually write something into the code to make it self-destruct, or some other failsafe to protect the vulnerable machine, but then she gave Rose and Karasu sidelong glances. She’d be risking Rose and her unborn child, and Karasu. How could she live with herself if something happened to them?
Feeling frustration and despair, she went to take a sip of her tea, only to find her cup empty. She glanced at the screen, then started to rise, but something caught her eye, something that made her pulse stutter and then speed up.
A heart.
A stationary, cursor-beating heart.
Ailee?
A spurt of joy slammed through her, then she tamped it down. No, that wasn’t possible. Her AI had been destroyed. She hadn’t heard a word from her friend in months. She was convinced the AI sacrificed herself for the good of the country. But now, her breath suspended, she watched the evidence of Ailee’s presence, the cursor, and suddenly, another heart appeared. With no forewarning, Celeste’s vision suddenly blurred as an overpowering gratitude welled up in her. Trying to ease the tightness in her throat, she swallowed hard. But before she could communicate with Ailee, Celeste needed to build a secret communication app to mask her contact with Ailee, like the one she used to have on her own destroyed laptop. It was imperative that Trasker couldn’t see what they were saying.
Suddenly, she was energized, galvanized. Even with the threat of losing their lives, something she believed Trasker would carry out, he couldn’t leave any witnesses, she had mixed emotions. Relief for the fact that they had a way forward. Uncertainty for what the future could hold. Uneasiness about how they would pull it off. But sheer, complete joy to know Celeste hadn’t only been Ailee’s creator, but she hadn’t been the instrument of her death either. Ailee, through her own sheer grit and determination, had survived! Against all the odds!
She didn’t want to give anything away. She would converse with Rose and Karasu at the nightly bathroom powwow. She was going to find it difficult to contain her excitement.
There was no mistaking that deliberate second heart, knowing without a doubt it had to be Ailee and with that hope beating hard in her chest, her resolve to defeat Trasker, at his own game, suddenly became possible.
* * *
With the excellentoutcome for David Larkin and his family, Kodiak could only take a short victory celebration. The SEALs and AFP were still faced with four terrorists at large and a noncommunicative man who could blow the whole situation open if he would only talk. There was very little information on Archie Baker, nothing with which to use to gain the man’s trust.
He was traumatized by his past, and now he had been kidnapped and held hostage, hell, he was still being kept hostage, except it was for his own good. He just didn’t see it that way.
There was only one piece of Archie’s life that they knew for a fact. He played the violin and Mickey had said the life went out of him when that violin had been stolen.
Currently, they were at the AFP headquarters, and Kaiya was debriefing her boss on, not only her fitness for duty, but the outcome of the question-and-answer period with David Larkin. Anna and the team were once again on the hunt for their four NSH suspects.
Larkin hadn’t been able to tell them anything other than he’d been kidnapped, forced to wear the vest, and given instructions. They had threatened his family, and he felt he’d had no choice. He was going to have to face his commanding officer for his part in cooperating with NSH, but other than being AWOL, no one had been injured and that was due to David’s willingness to sacrifice himself for his family and the Navy.
By the description of the men who had taken him, it was clear it had been the now-deceased Billy Coen and his slow sidekick Allambee Mitchell.
Those two thugs had been busy.
Mitchell had been no use to them. He simply knew nothing about the deal Cox had struck with the NSH middlemen.
