Paired Objective: Matched Desire, Book 2 (17 page)

Of course, that had been in the time before. For all she knew, ninety percent of them had been killed and she was the now ultimate post-Invasion hacker.

“You know enough to be dangerous,” Cam said. “That’s good enough.”

“Depends. They might not be able to stop the missile in time.”

Cam coughed. “About that…”

She stepped back, eyebrows raised. “What?”

“There’s nobody else close by. So orders are for
us
to proceed to the launch site and sabotage the launch.”

Chapter Nine

The only way this would suck more, Abby reflected, was if they’d taken the van. She watched the world roll by, grateful that the massive wheels of the Humvee cushioned her from most of the road’s lumps and bumps.

Well, the Twins cushioned her too, but they were silent, focused on the task that lay ahead. She almost didn’t dare break the silence. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Russ fiddle with his commtab. She’d surreptitiously read most of his messages, gleaning information as they traveled. The messages sounded strained enough for her to think everyone was pretty damn concerned about the situation.

“There are more of us heading to the area,” Russ said, as if reading her thoughts. He turned his head, looking down at her. “Cam tried to talk the general out of sending us, but we’re the closest to the launch site. The Triplets are on their way to a potential alternate launch site, in case the Shadow Feds change plans at the last minute.”

“What about just bombing them?” Abby asked.

“The general won’t risk air support since the missile could easily take down a plane. He wants us to strike quietly and quickly. Sabotage things and get away.” Cam kept his eyes on the road while he talked. “Reading between the lines, I’d say he’s got most of our trained pilots supporting the president while they evacuate her.”

“She’s being evacuated? I thought Chicago was as safe as you can get these days.”

“It’s a necessary precaution. There’s a few different spots they can take her—all of them apparently extremely secure. The missile we think the Feds have has a sizeable payload—enough to wipe out nearly a quarter of Chicago. If President Wright is in the wrong spot at the wrong time, that’s lights out.”

Abby nodded. She could understand the caution—especially since the vice president was a weak man who couldn’t unify a sports team, let alone a fragmented country. She glanced at the bag leaning against Russ’s feet. They’d taken the looted commtabs along.

She frowned. “Senator Green saw me logged on. Did you mention that in your report?”

“Yep.” Cam navigated them around an abandoned car, eyes sharp as he scanned for a potential ambush.

“Okay, so this could be a trap,” Abby said. “That was a recent email trail I was following, and Senator Green knew I was logged into the system, even if he couldn’t trace my precise location. This might be designed to lure me to their operatives.”

“Us,” Cam corrected. He flashed her a quick, tight smile. “They have it in for you, of course, but they’d give multiple eyeteeth to kill a pair of Twins.”

“It
could
be a trap, but there’s a strong possibility it’s not,” Russ said, steering them back on topic. “We can’t afford to call their bluff—if there is a bluff. If we didn’t respond, and they blow a hole in Chicago’s wall…”

Abby blanched. “Okay. Let’s get there and…um, dismantle the missile or whatever stops them.”

“We’ll need to case the area first,” Russ said. “Abby, you’ll need to sysop the entire time and warn us if anything changes. Can you do that without them pinpointing your location?”

“I can do it without them even noticing I’m online.” She’d poked around long enough to figure out how to mask her presence in the system. The Shadow Feds had two choices—scrap their entire system, or work with what they had for as long as they could. Understandably, they’d chosen the latter. There were plenty of personal commtabs floating around in Headquarters. Enough for them not to torpedo internal emails just yet.

Still, they weren’t stupid. They’d keep working, find a way to wipe her off their servers. If she had constant access, she might be able to keep thwarting their attempts at rebuilding. For now, she could override their commands, because she was sole admin—but she wouldn’t always be able to see their commands.

She explained as much to the men and thought she saw the lines of Russ’s face relax a touch. When he cuddled her to him, she leaned into his warmth with a soft sigh. Judging by the map in front of Cam, they had a fair way to travel. So she closed her eyes and let herself drift off, safe in the knowledge that Russ would wake her if things got hairy.

Abby was dreaming about being on a boat when she registered Russ stroking her hair. This time she woke almost immediately, clutching briefly at his arm when he set her upright in her seat. They were still in the Humvee, but the engine was off and they were in what looked like a secluded area. The overgrown path behind them was chock-full of deep ruts. That explained her dream.

She scrubbed at her face. The view through the tinted windshield would have made a good Norman Rockwell painting, save for the peeling paint on the clearly abandoned barn they were parked next to.

And, to be fair, its lack of roof.

“We’re here?” she asked.

“Yep.” Cam clicked his seat belt off. “An hour ahead of schedule. I took the back way around what’s a pretty damn deserted area. I’m ninety-eight percent confident we weren’t seen.”

“Ninety-eight percent?”

“They could have a solar-powered drone patrolling the area.”

“Great,” Abby muttered. She reached into the bag at Russ’s feet and pulled out the commtab she’d been using.

“What are you doing?” Russ asked.

“Disabling the drone.” She logged on, confident that she was invisible to the casual user. Even so, Senator Green’s name in the online list gave her a chill. She tabbed through various areas, a little self-conscious under the Twins’ fascinated gazes.

“How’d you learn all this?” Cam asked.

“My mom couldn’t buy me all the latest electronics, so I had to mod what I already owned. That led me into more hardcore stuff. You could say Minecraft was my gateway drug. Seriously though, once you have the basics of a couple programming languages, it gets easier to learn new ones. The biggest hump for people to get over is being comfortable with messing around. Some people can’t function without icons to tap or click and a pretty GUI.”

“Gooey?” They spoke in unison.

“Man, they really didn’t let you around tech, did they? Graphical User Interface.” Abby typed another command on the fold-out keyboard, eyes narrowing. “Dammit.”

“What’s wrong?” Cam asked.

“The drone isn’t controlled through this system, so I can’t knock it off-course. But,” she said, pausing for effect, “I
can
intercept the internal emails from the drone’s remote pilot.”

“And edit them?” Cam grinned.

“Just so.” She grinned back. “Already changed one. Apparently, the operator spotted us a few miles back. He sent a message two minutes ago. I changed ‘Humvee’ to ‘tractor.’ It’s possible someone already saw the message, but the likelihood they’re getting their emails precisely on time is low. Besides, this is a top-of-the-line commtab. If their people here are operating lesser models, they’ll have even patchier satellite service.”

“All right,” Russ said, opening the door. “Gonna recon while you stay here.”

Abby put her feet up, keeping an eye on drone emails all the while. Deep down, she was nervous, but the Twins’ confidence was infectious. Besides, they could pull out if they discovered this was all a set-up. Even if they had to abandon the Humvee, the Twins were more than capable of fighting aliens if they had to stay out overnight. They’d need to find some sort of shelter, of course…

“Damn, this is for real. It’s not a trap.” Cam spoke suddenly, startling her. “There’s five guys about half a mile northeast of us. They’re setting up a launch now. It’s a smaller missile than we expected, but it’ll cause real damage if it scores a direct hit.”

Okay, so they couldn’t pull out after all. Abby swallowed hard. “What now?”

“Can you sabotage the launch via the system?”

“No. I checked already. The launch system is separate and manual. The only things I have access to are internal messages from the drone pilot to the launchers, and from the launchers to Headquarters. I can dick around with those or even delete them entirely, but I can’t remotely stop the missile.”

“Can you get info on who’s down there? Any snipers?”

That thought made her quiver. Twins healed preternaturally fast, but even they were susceptible to bullets. A fatal headshot…

Okay, she wasn’t going to think about that.

“No concrete information on numbers—wait.” She paged through an innocuous-looking message with the subject of
Lunch?
and frowned. “Ah-ha. Seven names total. So there’s two floating around unaccounted for.”

“That’s reasonable enough to deal with.”

Abby wasn’t going to ask what
deal with
meant, but she had an approximate idea. She looked back at the screen, monitoring all the communications flying through. A surprising number of politicians and their lackeys still used internal email. Either they didn’t realize she was privy to their communications or they didn’t care.

Likely it was a combination, bolstered by natural arrogance. Since they were ensconced in the former White House, many of them felt they should run the country by default. That was despite the fact that none of them had run in a non-rigged election since pre-Invasion days. At least the current president had won the last election fair and square.

Voting hadn’t been nationwide, of course. If a City couldn’t afford to send a representative, their votes weren’t counted. So in a way, President Wright wasn’t as legitimate as she could have been.

Still, she’d won by a landslide. A former military woman, she was reputed to rule Chicago strictly but fairly, doing her best to send government aid to Cities who needed it most. Abby rested her eyes by looking away from the screen for a minute, relying on her peripheral vision to let her know if a new message pinged through.

“How come you’re still with me?” she asked Cam.

“Safer if I stick around.”

“I don’t need babysitting.”

“Out and about, two people are more easily spotted than one. Besides, Russ is trained for this. His specialty is ground maneuvers. In training, I stuck to the flight simulators.” Cam stretched his legs casually while keeping his full attention on the world outside. “I’d only get in his way out there. Besides, this way if he needs a fast getaway vehicle, I’ll be able to act instantly, since we communicate mind-to-mind.”

Those were all solid points. “All right.” She turned back to the screen, noting the latest drone report. Nothing out of the ordinary, the pilot reported, stating an intent to turn north again. Five minutes later, the request was belatedly granted. Decent lag time on receipt, there. She could exploit that.

“Sniper one down,” Cam said abruptly.

“Make sure Russ doesn’t leave the gun behind.” She’d played too many first-person shooter games to simply leave weaponry lying around.

“He bent the magazine in half. Now the rifle is unusable.”

“That…works.”

Occasionally, she forgot the men weren’t entirely human. The press had labeled them
genetically modified
, and
so-called Supermen
, referring to them in a vaguely pejorative way at first. That had put a lot of people off until they remembered that there were aliens barreling down on Earth at roughly nine-tenths the speed of light, ignoring all attempts to engage in peaceful communication.

At that point, the Twins had become military men of the highest order. Able to leap tall trains in a single bound, or however that saying went.

Two messages from Senator Green scrolled by. Every single message he wrote was written in ALL CAPS, which suited the asshole to a T. Abby rolled her eyes.

“Any info on when the launch is go?” Cam asked.

She shook her head. “Far as I can tell, it’s up to the individuals on the ground.”

“Okay. And…that’s sniper number two down. I’d better make a report to General Coniston.”

She listened with half an ear as Cam briefed Chicago. That was when she spotted the drone coming their way. It stopped, and she held her breath. Fuck. The drone hovered over the roofless barn directly above them. It was surprisingly large, an older model with four rotators and multiple cameras. Big enough for long-distance work and able to sustain higher altitudes, it was formidable up close.

At this point, this situation was likely unsalvageable. Even if she edited the drone pilot’s message before it got through, the pilot would expect acknowledgment.

“We’ve been spotted,” she snapped, typing commands. An idea blossomed. A crazy idea, one she needed a few minutes to execute. But if she got it right…

“Compromised, sir,” Cam said tightly. “Orders?”

“Do whatever you can to sabotage that launch, 03656.”
The voice crackled through so loudly Abby heard every word.

Five messages came through at once, including two from Senator Green, whose all-caps messages stood out from the rest. Abby frowned at the lag. Seemed as if she’d briefly lost satellite contact. Great. She’d missed the window of opportunity to edit the pilot’s message. He’d marked the government plates on the Humvee and sent the info through.

What was worse, Senator Green knew the admin account was compromised. He was busy typing that to all and sundry—including the drone pilot.

DON’T TRUST ADMIN ACCOUNT. QUESTION ALL SOURCES BUT ME.

“Okay. The jig’s up. They know I’m screwing with them. Can Russ stop them?”

Cam shook his head. “He’s taken three men down so far, but the other four are more than capable of getting the missile airborne.”

Abby watched internal messages scroll by. “Shit. Someone on the ground just messaged that the launch process was executed. Commencing in…” She calculated quickly, looking at sent versus received time. “Two minutes, give or take ten seconds.”

Cam relayed that to the general, his voice bleak. Abby frowned, reaching for the keyboard. For a moment she’d felt helpless, but now her earlier idea didn’t seem quite so crazy after all. She squinted at the list of online identities. Yeah, there was one last thing she could do…

“Russ says launch in one minute, forty,” Cam confirmed. She took in the info without acknowledgement. There was no time to spare.

Above them, the drone quit hovering over them and sped north.