Spies Don’t Fall for Their Neighbor (Romancing the Spy #3)

1. Fire and Flood

FIRE AND FLOOD

CHARLIE

I am on fire!

Not literally, of course. But right now, my brother, Jace, is on a critical mission, and it’s the final task in what has been a very long operation to take down an evil mastermind, Callid Aragundi, along with his entire network.

So many of us here at the Clandestine Services Agency have been working for months to get to this point, so everyone in this room is holding their breath and watching the big screens as I support Jace in the field.

Or, in this case, a super yacht docked in Monaco.

“You’ve got about ten seconds before that camera resets,” I say through my headset to Jace. “So unless you want the ship’s security to catch you in that two-sizes-too-small uniform, you might want to?— ”

“Got it,” Jace says as he gets the door open and slips inside.

The urgency in this room is thick as everyone’s eyes flick between the big screens at the front and analysts and operatives murmur updates.

So, I’m on fire, and all eyes are not on me. Which is exactly how I like it.

But, I guess that means I’m not figuratively on fire, either, or all eyes would definitely be on me. It’s more that I’m in my element. Maybe my element is fire.

This is the final phase of the operation, and somehow, I’m the calmest person in the room.

I don’t look around because I’ve got everything I need on the three screens at my workstation and in the data coming from the comms. One shows Jace’s glasses cam, one has both the yacht’s heat signature map and a live feed of every hallway camera I’ve overridden in the last six minutes, and the third has my screen where I make all the magic happen.

“Take your next left,” I tell Jace. “The guard on your right just broke pattern. You’ve got maybe fifteen seconds before he comes back around.”

He moves silently through corridors as I scan my screen for potential problems while getting everything we need for the break-in. I glance at the screen that shows Jace’s glasses cam and the heat map.

“You’re two doors away from the brain of Aragundi’s criminal empire. Maybe even the key to unlocking who’s behind the smuggled artifacts.”

“Glove on,” Jace says as he finishes tugging it into place.

Seven weeks ago, when we first found this super yacht but Aragundi wasn’t on it, my brother, Miles, snuck in and placed a relay node into the ship’s network junction at a maintenance panel, cleverly disguising it.

A little ghostie in the wires. It’s been quietly collecting biometric traffic and system behavior information ever since.

Now it’s going to do exactly what we created it to do—make Jace look like a trusted associate of Aragundi’s, so we can get past security.

I scan the heat map once more as Jace flips open the cover for the fingerprint scanner.

I’ve already loaded Aragundi’s print to the reader using the spoof relay, and my finger hovers over the enter key as Jace’s gloved hand nears the fingerprint scanner.

The moment Jace touches his finger to it, I press Enter to accept the fingerprint as valid. I think everyone in the room is holding their breath just like Jace and I are. The moment the fingerprint scanner lights up green, we let out a collective breath.

“Okay,” I say through my comms, bringing up the retina spoof, “time to dazzle the scanner with your windows to the soul.” Timing on these is everything.

If I’m off by even a half-second, the system will flag it as a breach.

I watch Jace’s glasses cam as the scanner does its thing, and I press Enter the same moment it finishes.

A second green light appears, and I can feel the adrenaline coursing through me, clarifying my focus as Jace brushes the ring that’s been spoofed to mimic Aragundi’s against the proximity sensor on the side of the door frame. The door unlocks with a hiss.

“Boom!” I say as Jace walks in, closing the door behind him.

We made it in, but there is no time to celebrate.

We’ve got work to do. “Head to the center rack—row three, second bay. That’s the control core.

No sudden movements or the temperature sensors might flag you as a ‘non-whitelisted presence.’”

Aragundi is an important take-down because he’s got his fingers in so many pies.

And one of them deals with the fencing of priceless artifacts and aiding in antiquities trafficking.

Ancient objects have been getting stolen in large numbers while being transported, usually from archaeological sites to museums or from one museum to another.

We’ve found a few buyers of individual pieces and a few of the couriers, but we haven’t been able to find the person behind it all. We haven’t even figured out who it is.

But we think that among the information about Aragundi’s criminal empire, we’ll find more information about the thefts and smuggling. Possibly even the identity of the person orchestrating it all .

When Jace gets to the core, I say, “Okay, insert the jammer first. Move to the left a bit…” I’m squinting to find what I’m looking for. “There! That green port on the far left.”

Jace inserts the signal jammer, and I say, “That buys us twelve minutes of blackout.” Now, if anyone off-site tries to ping the system, they’ll think the yacht hit a dead zone.

Which is super important when you know the bad guys will just shut down the system remotely if they catch wind of you tampering with it.

And that would be bad. First, because Interpol is moments away from a raid to capture Aragundi, and we don’t want him getting any advance warning.

And second, because before he’s captured, we want to get that information about the antiquities smuggling, the buyers, and the guy at the top, and we want to take down Aragundi’s entire network so it won’t live on even without him.

And taking it down will surely alert his off-site computer geeks, so we have to get this timing perfect.

Things are getting intense. I feel it. Everyone in this room feels it. Based on Jace’s heart rate, he’s feeling it, too.

“Okay, the jammer is live. Drop the download drive in that port to the right.” This sucker’s pulling everything—contacts, transfers, asset routing, call logs, shipment manifests, museum transport schedules, even grocery lists if they’re in their system.

A progress bar lights up. 12%, 29%, 41% …

Jace’s heart rate is still a little high, so I start talking to help ease the tension. “If you were wondering, this part of the plan is officially called Operation: Don’t Let Aragundi’s Evil Influence Carry On Even After He’s Gone. ”

“If this doesn’t work—” Jace says.

The bar ticks past 70%.

“It’s going to work. Remember when we were kids and I rigged the backyard with trip wires, and you still made it to the tree fort with the intel? It’s going to work just like that did.”

“Even the bee sting extraction part?”

I laugh. “Even the bee sting extraction.” The progress bar reaches 95%, but as it is counting up, our twelve-minute window is counting down.

“Get the virus drive ready. When I say go, pull out the download drive and put the virus drive in the back slot. Not the blue one. Stick it in there, and the whole bay shuts down before the virus releases.” I keep my eyes on the download timer until it gets to 100%. “And…go!”

Everyone in the room watches as the progress bar on the virus ticks up, so I narrate. “Erasing mirrors, corrupting backups, frying the OS… It’s basically lighting this place on fire with code.” Oh! Because I’m on fire. See? “He’s going to feel this.”

“It’s nice to know that when Interpol drags Aragundi off this yacht,” Jace says, “his empire goes with him.”

“Interpol is on their way,” my mom, the CSA director, says.

Aragundi’s computer geeks are going to discover there’s nothing left and know what we did any minute now, which means they’ll notify their boss moments after. We don’t want them to get that chance.

“And, it’s done! Now, unless you want a front-row seat to your own arrest or capture, you need to get out of there now .”

I watch Jace’s glasses cam and the heat map as I direct him through the maze of corridors and up out of the belly of the ship, trying to keep him away from obstacles as Kella remotely guides the eVTOL to the yacht’s helipad. It’s what will ferry Jace away to safety.

As Jace ascends the stairs to the main deck, I frantically scan the dozens of people I see on the heat map.

“Oh, monkey bolts! A hornet’s nest has been overturned.

” I am checking ship schematics against heat maps, looking for any way to get him to the extraction point, but all paths up are blocked.

There isn’t one. I can’t even get him to the upper deck, let alone the top deck.

“Jace, there isn’t a way to get you to either of the other two decks. You’re going to have to leave from the deck you’re on.”

Jace is looking casual as he strolls through the crowds of people, heading in the general direction of the stairs leading up, when he sees an officer blocking them and takes a quick left. “You’re just going to send a passenger drone right here, to where all the people are?”

I look over at Kella. She nods. “Have him jump. I’ll catch him.”

I relay the message to Jace.

“She’ll… catch me?”

“Tell him not to worry,” Kella says. “I’m the reigning Microsoft Flight Simulator champion.”

I mute my comms and ask, “Like, worldwide?”

Kella shakes her head. “Against my brother.”

I unmute and say to Jace, “She seems confident.”

I glance at the director, and she nods.

“Okay, then,” Jace says, “let’s do this.”

I guide both Jace and Kella to the side of the ship furthest from where Interpol is pouring aboard.

When Jace looks over the edge of the ship toward the water, everyone in this room can see the drone soaring toward him.

He climbs up onto the bulwark, waits a beat as the drone nears, and then he jumps overboard.

All of us, me included, hold our breath as he falls. My eyes keep flicking between Kella, whose sole focus is on manning the drone, and the video I’m getting from Jace’s glasses. Kella does, indeed, manage to catch Jace on top of the cabin and swoops him away .

A few quick minutes later, seconds after we get word that Interpol successfully captured Callid Aragundi, Jace and the drone land at Héliport de Monaco, where he’s going to get into a CSA helicopter and start heading toward home.

The operations room here at the CSA erupts in applause.

And, honestly, relief. Aragundi has been on Most Wanted lists worldwide for ages.

After so much tireless work, we just took him down.

I am so relieved that it’s Jace they’re cheering for, and that they’re all looking at the big screens as they’re cheering.

He’s the one who will get credit for the mission, which is just how I like it.

With me, not in the spotlight, just executing everything in the background like a boss. I take a moment to revel in the win.

And, since Monaco is six hours ahead of us, we’ll all be home in time for dinner. Well, except for Jace.

I meticulously plan for every possibility in every mission.

But not all of them go this smoothly. Sometimes one doesn’t, and I have to mask a helicopter extraction with a symphony flash mob or remotely reprogram a smart refrigerator to send out a false distress signal to distract some guards. But when it does go this smoothly?

I definitely feel like I am on fire.

I step into my townhome after work, and the first thing I notice is water.

“No, no, no!” I say as I drop my bag and keys by the door and race over to the big puddle on the floor of my kitchen, right in front of my sink.

I fling open the cabinet doors but can’t immediately find the source of the water.

I race up the stairs to the bathroom and grab all the bath towels, then run back downstairs and start laying them on the puddle.

At work, I may feel like I’m on fire, but at home, I usually feel like I’m drowning. Real life and I don’t get along so well. Somehow, a water leak right now feels appropriate. So maybe my elements are fire and water. Fire by day, flood by night.

I pull out my phone, my finger hovering over my family group chat. No, I decided I was going to stop running to my mom or my brothers whenever I need help. I am going to get better at figuring things out on my own.

That had been my plan. Right now, my plan doesn’t feel like the best idea ever. But still, I manage to not text my family and instead tap on my browser and type in What do I do if my kitchen is leaking?

Maybe it’s because I’m so flustered right now, but nothing I’m seeing feels like it makes sense. But I do get the gist that I need to turn off the water to my place, find the source of the leak, and clean up the mess.

Not only can I not find the shutoff valve (I have a great need to always be prepared in case of emergency, so I have no idea how I overlooked learning this detail when I moved in), but I also can’t find the source of the leak.

I’m in the middle of pulling out everything from the cabinet under my sink when my roommate, Reese, comes home. She’s hanging her keys and her Cipher Springs Middle School lanyard on the hook when she says, “Got a sudden urge to clean enthusiastically?”

Then, she must notice that I’m still in work clothes, the bottom half of my slacks are soaked from kneeling in the water, my sleeves are pushed up to my elbows, and I probably look as rattled as I feel. She rushes over. “It’s leaking?”

“Yes. I just can’t figure out from where.” I’ve got the cabinet emptied, but none of the pipes I can see are the culprit. Reese sticks her head in, too, but can’t find anything.

Then both of our heads turn in the direction of the front of our townhouse as we hear the now familiar sound of our new neighbor’s truck pulling in.

Reese grabs my shoulder. “You should go ask Owen to come and look at it! He’s in construction. He probably knows just what to do.”

I shake my head as I stand, hands on my hips, as I look down at the water mess that is continuing to grow. “We’ll figure something else out.”

Reese is silent for a beat, so I look over at her. She gives me a sly smile. “You know, they have therapists you can talk to about your fear of people.”

“I don’t have a fear of people! I just don’t like all their attention on me.”

“So it’s a vulnerability thing.”

“Which makes it just your run-of-the-mill human nature issue. No big deal.”

Reese must not like my plan of figuring something else out because she walks straight to our front door. I follow because I’m curious about what she’s going to do. She opens the front door, waves, and calls out, “Hi, Owen! Perfect timing.”

And then she gives me a push out the door.