Page 61 of Avenging Jessie
Spencer dropped his head into his hands and swore. “Change of plans.”
The three members of his team gathered around him. Jesse peered over his shoulder at the screen. “What’s wrong?”
He hated the fear in her voice. The dread. He wished he could wipe it away with what he was going to say next. He couldn’t. “The cyclones are on a local hub only.”
“What does that mean? “Tessa asked.
Tommy let go of a flurry of curses under his breath and whirled away. “It means we can’t access them unless we are on site.”
Jesse straightened. “Are you kidding?”
Spence dropped his hands into his lap and shook his head. “The only way for me to activate the failsafe is to go to the warehouse and hack into the separate control hub that Brewer has set up.” He rubbed his eyes. “Bastard. Of course, he set it up this way. I would’ve done the same thing.”
One of their phones let off a chirp. “That’s mine,” Tessa said, scrambling back to her chosen chair. She held it up and flashed the screen at them. The readout said ‘Solomon.’ Flynn’s codename back when he was an agent.
Tessa hit the answer button and put it on speaker, returning to the dining room table and setting it down. “Hello, sir.”
Flynn’s voice came through low and taut. “We’ve got a situation. Hastings is inside Langley.”
Jessie sucked in an audible gasp. “He survived the data center explosion?”
Spence rubbed his eyes again as he listened to Flynn drop the next bomb on them. “He’s taken the director and multiple senior staff members hostage.”
Another gasp from Jessie. Tommy swore vividly once more. Spencer’s guts clenched hard. Tessa put her hand to her mouth and walked away from the table.
“We knew it was possible,” Spence said. “But for the love of the Queen, we can’t catch a damn break.”
Flynn’s next words made it worse. “He walked in disguised as a DoD courier, shot two guards, and barricaded the ops wing. He’s demanding to speak directly to me.”
Spence didn’t need to guess why. Hastings had been, and maybe still was, Brewer’s right hand, and both of them knew how to play the game. Was this another distraction? Was Hastings operating on his own? Or had this been part of the big plan all along?
Spence’s pulse picked up, a too-loud drum in his ears. “Then you need to know this—the DoD took my Cyclone drone prototype and created a warehouse full of them. They’re stored at BIA Solutions, ten miles from our safehouse. BIA is one of Brewer’s shell companies. In essence, he has access to hundreds of deadly drones carrying payloads that could wipe out everyone and everything along the Eastern seaboard.”
A beat of silence on the line. “The Cyclone project was shelved.”
“Yeah, so we thought, but guess what? Someone lied, and Brewer is planning an attack on Langley as we speakwith those drones. I need to get to his control hub. We take that hub, we cripple his ability to activate them.”
Flynn’s tone hardened. “We don’t have time for detours. I want all of you at headquarters now. The hostages come first.”
“That’s exactly what Brewer’s counting on,” Spence said, leaning forward over the table, jaw tight. “You’re asking us to walk into a kill box while he sits in a warehouse pulling the trigger.”
Jessie was nodding beside him. “He’s right, sir. If Spence can get into the hub and upload his failsafe, Langley won’t have to dodge an aerial strike in the middle of a hostage crisis.”
Flynn swore under his breath, weighing it. “You’re certain you can take control?”
“If I can get on site.” Spence stared at this screen, wishing he had better answers. “I left a failsafe in the plans. I believe it’s still there, but I can’t access it remotely.”
Another pause. Then Flynn made the call. “Fine. Swans three and four—you go to the warehouse. Five and six, meet me at Langley.”
The line went dead, and Spence pushed away from the table. “Gear up, folks. The clock’s ticking.”
The two-lane backroad cut through flat stretches of scrub and sagging chain-link, the kind of nowhere in rural Virginia that looked like it hadn’t seen daylight in weeks. Spence kept the speed just under reckless, one hand on the wheel, his injured hand resting on his thigh as the odometer ticked them closer to BIA Solutions.
Industrial skeletons rose on the horizon—truck yards, half-dead warehouses, a grain silo tilting toward collapse. Somewhere in that maze of corrugated steel and asphalt sat the Cyclones’ nest.
Jessie’s voice had taken on the kind of tone that happened when adrenaline started to sharpen every thought and movement. Her focus was on the map on her tablet. “South fence line looks like our best bet. It’s closest to where the service bays back up to the main floor. If we can get over without tripping the perimeter sensors, we can hug the shadows until we reach the catwalks above the control hub.”
“Hub’s not marked on the interior schematics,” Spence said, eyes still on the road, “but it’s always the same. It will be an isolated room with its own cooling system. Look for extra venting on the roof. That’ll be our landmark.”
