Perfect Cover (The Squad #1)(23)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

I remembered Zee’s analysis of April: independent, charming, intelligent, rich.

At least she wasn’t Hayley Hoffman.

“So I see you two have met.” Her tone of voice was so very Chloe that I recognized it right away.

“Yup,” I said.

April shrugged.

“Come on, April,” Chloe said, placing herself between the two of us. “I want to show you some of our more advanced cheers.”

Chloe spared me a single look as she said the phrase more advanced. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had noticed that I belonged in the remedial cheer class.

April leaned around Chloe. “See you on Saturday?

I was about to say no, but Tara answered for me. “Of course,” she said.

Before either of us newbies could say another word, Chloe dragged April away.

“Let me guess,” I said evenly. “Chloe’s April’s partner?”

Tara nodded.

“We’re only going to have to do a Stage One on April, I think,” Brittany piped up suddenly. “Her highlights are gorgeous, but I want to even out her skin tone a little.”

I nodded. As awkward as I’d felt during our little mall mission, this was a million times worse. Now it wasn’t just me trying to adjust to the Squad: it was me and April. April, who could cheer. April, who Chloe had selected as her Mini-Me. April, who barely needed a makeover at all.

And then, as if things weren’t already bad enough, the torture started back up again. We went through the routine time after time, until I was the only one messing it up.

“That’s it for today,” Brooke said. “Let’s hit the showers.”

“Finally,” I groaned under my breath to Tara as we headed into the locker room. “I feel like my legs are going to secede and wage war on the rest of my body. All I want is to go home, and…”

I recognized the look on Tara’s face.

“I don’t get to go home, do I?”

Tara shook her head.

“Are we really hitting the showers?” I asked.

Tara bit her bottom lip and then nodded.

“Is this going to be anything like when we hit the showers this morning?” I asked.

Instead of answering, Tara walked from the gym into the locker room, and after casting a single sheepish look over her shoulder, she walked into one of the shower stalls, reached out, and twisted the shower knob. Left, right, and then left again, 180 degrees this time.

When the shower wall rotated and gave way to a staircase, I wasn’t all that surprised.

At least, I thought as the shower wall closed behind us, no one is going to tell me to point my toes in the Quad.

CHAPTER 14

Code Word: Party!

I didn’t see Brooke place the digi-disk into any kind of player, but before I could say “Go Lion(esse)s,” the index was up on the screen, and the other girls, sweaty from practice, were taking their seats at the table. Stiff and drenched in the fruits of my cheery labor, I slipped into the last available seat at the table, in between Tara and Zee.

“Chlo, can you decode?” Brooke asked. “Here’s the second disk.”

As soon as I heard the word decode, I leaned forward in my seat. I was new to this, but wasn’t decoding supposed to be my area of expertise?

Chloe tossed her ponytail over her shoulder and held my eyes with her own. “No problem,” she said, reaching forward to take the disk Tara had acquired from Brooke. She pulled something that looked like a makeup compact out of one of her shoes (how had she high-kicked with that in there? how?), and a split second later, she flipped it open, inserted the disk, and lifted a powder puff to reveal a tiny circular keyboard.

“Chloe’s compact has some basic decoding formulas programmed in. When she puts in the decoder disk, it runs the specifics through the formula and decodes the file,” Tara said.

“All of that in a makeup thingy?” I could feel my eyebrows rise as I asked the question. Tara might not have realized how complex the type of program she had described was, but believe me, I did, and the very fact that it was programmed into a unit that came with a powder puff was the equivalent of technological blasphemy.

“Voilà.” Chloe leaned back in her seat, and after another hair flip and another oh-so-pointed look in my general direction, she turned back to Brooke. “Looks like we have something we can work with.”

In response, Brooke hit a few keys on the arm of her chair, and a thin green line appeared on the middle of the screen. “Play audio,” she said, her voice loud and clear.

The lights dimmed slightly, and as a voice filled the room, the green line on the screen began to move in sync with the words. I could only infer that whoever our bosses were, they were even bigger drama queens than the girls in this room—which, as you might have guessed, was really saying something.

“Hello, girls,” the voice said. I had an incredible urge to respond with “Good morning, Charlie,” but somehow, given the sudden seriousness that had settled over my teammates, I doubted anyone would appreciate the reference.

“As you know, the CIA databases have been accessed by an unknown entity twice in the past week. While neither of the hacks lasted more than thirty seconds, we have reason to believe that the limited window of time allowed the hackers to access highly classified information.”

The voice didn’t expand on what that information was. I was beginning to hate the word classified.

“We’ve managed to track the source of the breach to somewhere in Bayport, and have therefore included our most up-to-date analyses of the Peyton firm’s activities this month: financial records, interaction logs, and limited audio surveillance. You’ll want to go over it all with a fine-tooth comb. For the duration of this mission, you should refrain from using your database to access ours. Since there’s no link between the two and no mention of the Squad program in any of our files, your system should be secure.”

Somehow, I was less than shocked that the CIA didn’t have an electronic paper trail detailing its use of teenage cheerleaders as secret agents. This whole operation had top-secret written all over it.

Without warning, the green line on the screen was replaced with a picture of a guy I vaguely recognized as an international playboy who had recently broken up with a celebutante heiress who shall remain nameless.

“Girls, this is Heath Shannon.”

There were a couple of girly sighs in the room, and my resultant eye roll was nothing short of reflexive.

“According to our surveillance, his contact with Peyton, Kaufman, and Gray has increased significantly since the first leak earlier this week. Whatever information the firm has managed to acquire, they’ll be looking for a buyer, and right now, Heath Shannon is our best lead. We have reason to believe that he has contacts on the information black market who would be more than willing to pay for the kind of information accessed during the leaks.”