Page 57 of Avenging Jessie
“The CIA won’t stand a chance.” He closed his eyes, sick to his stomach. “And I believe he’s already got control or will have it soon. According to the project logistics, a whole fleet of them is armed and ready in a warehouse in Virginia.”
They all shook their heads at the bad news that just kept on coming.
“He’s never forgiven them,” Tessa said, voice quiet and certain. “The CIA let him rot in prison. He expected a medal, or at the very least, a rescue.” She slid the tablet aside. “He was a consultant in an unofficial capacity. Deep-level black ops. He trained agents, designed psy-op programs, and did worse. And never got credit for it.”
Tommy added, “And he expected them to bail him out after he killed your mom.”
Tessa’s eyes were steel. “He thought the CIA was his gold card to do whatever he wanted. But when they let him go down for her murder, even if it was only manslaughter, he turned on them. Faked his death. Escaped. And has been slowly working his way back for his revenge ever since.”
“And now he has the perfect weapon to do it,” Spence muttered.
Jessie scrubbed a hand through her hair. “Okay, so what does that look like? Who does he go after?”
They were quiet again.
Tessa broke the silence. “The director?”
Tommy shook his head. “Too easy. Brewer thinks bigger. He wants to show the world what he can do.”
Jessie nodded. “He’s all about crippling infrastructure and systems. He’ll go after their data, their agents, all of it. Expose everything and make them bleed with the world as his stage, watching.”
Spence’s pain was momentarily forgotten. “The Cyclones could be programmed to infiltrate the CIA’s mainframe. They could fly into the building itself—into Langley—and deploy nano-viruses that wipe their databases clean or dump it all onto the dark web.”
Tommy whistled under his breath. “Damn, man, when you design something brilliant, you go all out, don’t you?”
“Public exposure is his goal,” Tessa said grimly. “And that would do it. It would show the world what he can and will do, as well. He’ll take full credit and bring this country, and plenty of others, to its knees.”
“He might also cause a mass infection,” Tommy offered. “Arm the drones with a biological agent. The drones release it inside the building, everyone breathes it in, then goes home and spreads it. He could infect half the Eastern seaboard if he times it right.”
The drones can do all of that,” Spence said, “and more. Brewer’s a sadist with a genius-level grudge. He won’t stop at one payload—he’ll deploy every option he’s got.”
Jessie’s brows furrowed. “Wait a second.” She snapped her fingers. “Flynn said something in his office the other day. He was answering emails and muttered something about an interagency review committee meeting being moved up because of the Pentagon breach. He said, ‘Kill me now,’ like it was the last thing he wanted to deal with.”
Jessie rushed over to the desk, and her fingers flew over the keyboard. A second later, a schedule filled the screen. “It’s behind closed doors, but it’s not a secret. They have one every quarter. The CIA, Pentagon, Homeland, NSA, Feds, and certain White House staff convene to analyze some of the big, ongoing operations and discuss future ones. The long-term type of missions that involve multiple agencies and often span years, or even decades. They hold the meetings at different locations, and for this one, they’re convening at Langley.”
Tommy swore under his breath. “How the hell could Brewer find out about this?”
She shrugged. “Hacking a staffer’s phone, hacking someone’s calendar? Like I said, it’s off books when it comes to the public, but everyone in these agencies knows about it.”
“That’s his moment,” Tessa said, nodding. “It would be the most devastating attack on U.S. intelligence since 9/11. He’ll make history.”
Jessie straightened, her whole body tense. “And he’ll watch,” she added. “Up close and personal because that’s what gets him off.”
“When is the meeting?” Tommy asked.
Jessie peered back at the screen. “Today. Fifteen hundred hours.”
Three o’clock. Spence went cold. “We’ve got less than five hours to stop him.”
Twenty-Three
Jessie
The safehouse crackled with tension,even in silence. The team had spread out again. Tommy stood by the kitchen island, arms folded and brow furrowed. Tessa was seated near the window, scrolling through intercepts on her tablet. Spence paced behind the dining table, his boots thudding softly on the hardwood, his injured wrist cradled against his chest.
On the screen in front of her, Jessie scanned the Cyclone schematics, a digital autopsy of every spec, every payload chamber, every line of Spence’s stolen code now potentially a weapon in Brewer’s hands.
“No official Agency channels are gonna believe us in time if we try to warn them about the attack,” Tommy said. “Even if they did, the minute they trace a call or ping back to us?—”
