Page 14 of Girl Lost
“This is the new office. It’s shared with all the trainers.”
The darkened office wasn’t what Luna had expected. It looked more like the analyst room at Langley. Each of the four desks had multiple monitors with some running video footage of the gym. The hexagonal ring had cameras from every angle, and Luna imagined the trainers reviewed the fights for improvements. The room was empty except for a woman sitting behind an ultrawide curved display.
“Brought you something.” Tori hoisted herself up onto the small conference table and sat with her legs pretzeled.
Harlee Bay swiveled in her chair and pinned Luna with a look somewhere north of the Arctic. Aside from the sleeves of tattoos high on both arms, a scar cutting through her eyebrow, and a general air of menace, Harlee hadn’t changed much. The Kingdom MMA Gym logo, a roaring lion wearing a gold crown, emblazoned the front of her tank top.
Luna wiggled her fingers in a wave. “Hey, Harlee.” Well, that was pathetic.
“Hey.” Harlee was on her feet, crossing the room. “Missed you round here.”
They hugged, stilted and awkward. Harlee avoided eye contact,glancing at Tori, her computer, the floor. Everywhere but directly at Luna. Frosty reception aside, it was good to see her friend.Werethey friends?
Harlee wore her blond hair pulled into a chignon with stray tendrils falling around her heart-shaped face. She’d grown to somewhere around five-ten, and her athletic frame was firm and toned as ever. Tori and Luna used to envy Harlee’s six-pack abs.
Harlee swiveled her seat to face the screens and began clicking the mouse. The monitor had several windows covering every inch of the screen. A terminal window ran lines of code while another window flashed through photos one after the other. Harlee had paused a video at the moment the Taser hit Stryker.
She peered over Harlee’s shoulder. “What’s all this?”
Harlee didn’t look at Luna. “While you were away, our boy Jett developed this software.”
“Facial recognition?” She wasn’t sure how that would help since the men wore masks.
“It goes beyond that. Pulls video from any camera connected to Wi-Fi for biometric surveillance. It’s military grade. Used by the NSA. It sees everything.”
Luna’s heart did a little stutter. “Jett created this for the National Security Agency?”
“He created it for his tech company and licenses it to the NSA and pretty much every other American intelligence agency.”
Oh, she knew about the software. It analyzed body shape, gait patterns, heartbeats, the cadence of a voice, even the pattern of an individual’s iris. The kind of tech that made privacy a myth.
Had Jett or Harlee tried the algorithm on her? Had they seen her working with bomb brokers and arms dealers all over Asia?
Possible, but not likely. The CIA specialized in countermeasures, one of which included hacking into systems to delete the agent’s biometric data linked to an alias.
Tori asked, “Anything on Stryker’s home computer?”
“Pretty sure he hasn’t touched it—except to check the weather—since I set it up for him.”
“Were you able to access his deleted browser history?” Luna asked. “Sometimes what’s been erased tells you more than what’s still there.”
Harlee’s shoulders stiffened. “I’m not some amateur.” She didn’t even dignify Luna with a glance.
Luna bit her tongue, recognizing the verbal slap for what it was. Apparently, her habit of questioning everything had only worsened the already frosty reception. Before she’d called Stryker, she’d done a bit of recon. Pulled files. Tracked career movements. Checked relationship statuses. Not because she intended to rekindle anything with Harlee or the others but because walking in blind wasn’t in her nature.
“So, you’re with the ATF?” An olive branch disguised as small talk.
Harlee offered something like a grunt in response.
Luna looked to Tori for help, but she only shrugged.
It seemed clear Harlee wanted Luna to pay for leaving without saying goodbye. Luna couldn’t blame her. Corbin had done the same thing by shutting her out after the breakup, and look what it had done to her heart. Those sleepless nights included mourning their friendship even more than their romance.
Luna grabbed a chair from the desk behind Harlee and rolled it to sit beside her. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever return to the CIA, but her job as a covert agent was all about changing adversaries into friends. And she was good at her job.
Very good.
She studied Harlee. Her deep blue eyes scanned the computer screen behind thick, dark lashes. The monitor cast a soft blue hue over her skin.
