Perfect Cover (The Squad #1)(38)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Brooke turned to the twins. “Prepare wardrobes for all three scenarios,” she told them. “And get ready to hyperdye us.”

Our great and mighty captain stopped talking then, and without being told, the rest of the Squad began to disperse. Lucy skipped off to prepare “goody bags” filled with firepower, bulletproof bras, and stun guns; the twins sauntered toward the salon; Zee whipped a laptop out of her designer bag; and Brooke disappeared through an unmarked door without another word.

Bubbles, Chloe, April, Tara, and I stayed at the table, staring at each other. The second Brooke was out of sight, Chloe sat up a little straighter, tossed her perfect hair over one shoulder, and took the bull by the balls (or, in cheerleading terms, took the pom by its handle).

“If the actual exchange is taking place inside the firm, I think we can assume that we’re not getting in, which means that our best bet to stop the transaction from going through is to take Heath Shannon out after he picks up the data, but before he can send it to his clients.”

“What if it’s an online transaction?” I said. “I know the Big Guys seem to think it’s going to be a physical exchange, but what if Heath delivers the money and then Peyton just sends the info electronically?” With the speed of modern internet connections, we wouldn’t stand a chance at intercepting the information before it made its way into enemy hands.

“Peyton’s system is secure,” Chloe said. “Annoyingly so, but one of the reasons we haven’t been able to pin anything on them over the years is that they don’t leave a paper trail of any kind. Witnesses disappear. Data self-destructs, and when it comes to stuff like this, they don’t risk exposure online.”

“So we’re looking for what? A flash drive?”

Chloe nodded. “Something like that.” She pursed her lips, thinking. “We’ll want to keep our numbers down,” she said. “Sending agents anywhere near Peyton, Kaufman, and Gray is risky, and we can’t take the chance of exposure. We’ll go in undercover.”

“Define we,” Tara said. I noticed a marked change in her. Ever since Libya had come up, most of the tension in her body had melted away until all that was left was the cool exterior the school knew and loved. I didn’t need Zee’s PhD to infer that Tara’s parents were probably not stationed in Al Jawf.

“You’re in on this one, Tare,” Chloe said. “I’m going, obviously, and Lucy, since we might need some weapons analysis.” Chloe stopped talking and had to actually force herself to continue. “And I guess you.” She was absolutely thrilled to be talking to me, but since we were talking about a mission that involved data technology and hand-to-hand interaction with a very dangerous guy, the black belt/ hacker of the group was an obvious choice. So obvious that even Chloe had to make it, despite how much it obviously pained her to do so. “I’ll have the specifics by seventh period.” Chloe tossed her hair over her shoulder, a motion I interpreted as indicative of how drunk on power she currently was. “For now, we need to concentrate on the Infotech hack.

“I got some basic surveillance reports on Infotech off the disk our superiors sent,” she said. “According to the reports, Infotech operates under two different wireless units. The first is broader range and could feasibly be accessed from the street in front of the building. The second is confined to the executive wing, and the general wireless more or less serves to insulate that area from outside interference.”

Translation: to hack into the executive database, I didn’t just need to be inside the building; I needed to be inside the executive wing.

“Security?” Tara asked.

“Lax on the rest of the building, tight on the executive wing,” Chloe replied.

“Methinks I sense a pattern,” I said.

“You thinks?” Chloe asked. I didn’t know which was more deadly: her smile, or her tone.

“Our best bet into their system is to plant a device that magnifies the wireless signal and transmits it to our receiver,” Chloe said.

“Can you do that?” I asked.

“Duh,” Bubbles said. “Chloe can do anything.”

“Unwhelmable,” Tara coughed under her breath, and I smiled.

“So how do we get the device thingy into the executive whatever?” Bubbles asked.

My mind produced no sarcastic reply to this comment. It was just too easy.

“I think our best bet is to Doublemint it,” Chloe said.

“We send one of the twins in as a decoy, and the other can plant the device.”

“That works?” I asked.

Chloe smirked. “It has the last eight times we used it,” she said. “Brittany can be very distracting.” Chloe let the word hang in the air a moment before continuing. “As long as security doesn’t figure out there are two of them, we can sneak the second one in without anyone noticing.

“And if that doesn’t work, we’ll Plan B it,” Chloe said.

I refused to ask her to clarify.

“Ohhhhh!” Bubbles said. “If we Plan B it can I plant the thingamawhatsit?”

Tara scrawled a quick note on a piece of paper and slid it toward me without anyone noticing. I read it, and understood within seconds what Plan B was. If twin # 2 couldn’t get in unnoticed, she joined her sister at distracting the guards while a third, slightly more stealthy operative did the dirty work.

If one of the twins was distracting, two was more or less a three-ring (four-breasted) circus. After having gone to school with Brittany and Tiffany for a year and a half, I’d gotten a firm hold on the mathematical property known only as the Exponential Hotness of Twinness. Each twin, by virtue of the fact that there were two of them, became infinitely more attractive to the average male than either of them would have been on their own. Since neither of the twins was exactly a dog to begin with, the resulting attention when they were together was usually astronomical in proportions.

“After we plant the device,” Chloe said, looking slightly to my left as she addressed me, “it’ll be up to you to break through their safeguards and find what we’re looking for. Locate the program they’re using to hack, download any files pertaining to information that they’ve already acquired or sold, and fry their system.”

Even for someone with as much recreational hacking under her belt as me, that was a pretty tall order. I was practically giddy with techie anticipation. Or maybe that wasn’t giddiness—maybe it was dizziness, pure and simple, based on the fact that my mind was swimming with dictates and schedules and master plans. This morning: hack Infotech. This afternoon: take down Heath Shannon. Tonight: plant a bug in the evil law firm.