He’d been assigned three different partners in four years, and Nora Brooks was by far the best.
Randall understood code.
Nora understood people.
She had an intuitive nature that put her ahead of everyone else. Or maybe she was just able to think like a criminal. Whatever the reason, the woman was quickly becoming a legend within the agency, and she didn’t even know it. She seemed to have no life other than stopping the next cyberattack. Her thoughts were always on the cyberbugs.
He’d almost laughed when he saw Nora sitting at the elegant table. Not that she wasn’t elegant—in her blue pantsuit and heels, and with her short red hair cascading around her face....Nora belonged anywhere she wanted to. No, it was more that sitting at the table crowded with china, she’d reminded him of a caged jaguar.
“Why did you change your clothes?” He asked as he pushed the cup of coffee into her hands.
“Seriously?”
“I didn’t even know you owned anything other than black.”
“Well, I didn’t see any reason to make you privy to the contents of my wardrobe, Randall.”
“Wardrobe. Ha. That’s funny. I don’t think you can call five identical pairs of black pants and five black tops a wardrobe.”
He liked to dress well. Not too well, no need drawing attention to yourself, but pressed slacks, medium starch in his shirts, high-end quality. Dolce & Gabbana was currently his favorite brand.
“This came in while you were catching your beauty sleep.”
Randall accepted the tablet from her.
DFW Metropolitan Area
Level 4 Cyberattack: Code Name Artemis
0300 Update
Motor vehicle accidents up 12%
9-1-1 response time delayed by an average of eight minutes
Rolling brown outs across municipal grid
Medical systems compromised
“How bad is the media response?”
“They don’t know yet.”
“How can they not know yet?”
The plane hit an air pocket and bounced. Randall reflexively grabbed the arm rests. Nora didn’t seem to notice.
“They’re scrambling. Everyone’s scrambling, so they haven’t put it together.”
“My granny would notice a 12% increase in car wrecks caused by traffic lights not working.”
“Nope. Your granny would be in bed.”
“Granny has some issues sleeping.”
“Granny would be playing solitaire, maybe, but she wouldn’t be out cruising the streets of Dallas.”
Randall frowned at the tablet. “I thought cyberbugs wanted to make the biggest bang for the buck—the most chaos for the code. Why do this in the middle of the night when apparently no one is noticing?”
“Because this is the warm-up.”
Nora took the tablet and stored it in her backpack. Only Nora could make a black backpack look cool. Randall wondered how it would look with his $400 poplin dress shirt and quickly dismissed the idea.
“Still no ransom?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then it’s some psycho, like the bug in San Francisco who thought it was his job to help push California over into the ocean...as if a cyberattack could move land mass. That guy was a nut and so is this one.”
“You’re showing your prejudice, Randall. No one said this was a guy.”
“I was using the term generically.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Women can be psychos, too, and they can be cyberbugs.”
“Equal opportunity.”
“Exactly.”
Nora flashed him a smile, and Randall enjoyed the fleeting thought that this was going to be fun.
Then the captain came over the speakers. “Folks. We have a problem.”
Security Breach Page 6