“Yeah, yeah,” he replied. “Just don’t die out there without me, or I’ll be dropkicking your carcass across Satan’s Airbnb and stealing the thermostat remote.”
At the top of the main staircase, Chase huffed a laugh and looked over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Griff. And FYI, when I get back, you’re fucking explaining that name to me.”
Demand dropped, he dipped his chin in farewell, and then he was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Eyeballs feeling like they’d been scraped with eighty-grit sandpaper, Jay exhaled a slow breath of relief as he leaned back in his chair. Hours deep into scraped code, intercepted chatter, and tin-foil-hat conspiracy threads across dark web forums—and nothing.
No verifiable information regarding their operation on Big Diomede. No hint of a Russian retaliation. No red flags, no leaked footage, no whispers in encrypted backchannels tying anything to the JTT or their Canadian counterparts.
For now, they were boogeymen.
In the world of blood-soaked deniability and bodies that never officially existed, nothing else mattered.
His eyes burned as he blinked, a soul-deep yawn catching him off guard. Yeah, he needed sleep, but no rest for the weary, his computer pinged a quiet notification. With a quick glance at the screen, he came fully awake in an instant.
Holy shit! They’d done it.
Jay stared at the combined lock and key codes while Becca dozed beside him, her body slumped over the desk, her head resting on her forearms, her dark hair spilling from a loose bun.
Jesus. What day was it?
He twisted in his seat. Left than right. Muscles spasmed and vertebrae popped. Yeah, time had collapsed into nothing—hours and minutes losing all relevance as they’d worked together to stop Dominion.
Step one complete, he slid his hand beneath Becca’s sweatshirt, and palm soaking up her sleepy warmth, he rubbed gentle circles on the small of her back. “Becca,” he said, his voice soft. “Wake up, baby.”
“Mmm?” she grumbled, wiping the cuff of her sleeve over the corner of her mouth. “Did the testing suite come back?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And you need to wake up now.”
“Ugh,” she replied. “Just tell me. Did the CIA’s supercomputers simulate the interaction, or do we need to shift the entire program to a quantum format and lock it into a lattice structure instead of a linear cipher?”
“Fuck you’re sexy when you talk dirty to me. Say something else.”
Becca slow-blinked her eyes open as a teasing grin formed on her full lips. “I think you’re punch drunk, doofus.”
“Oh, I’m definitely punch drunk, sugar cube. Look.” He hitched his chin toward his main screen.
She didn’t lift her body but rolled her head to brace her chin against her stacked arms. Then eyes flicking back and forth, she read the lines of script, verifying what he already knew. “Holy shit,” she said in a breathy whisper. “We did it.”
“Yep.”
Her gaze glued to the screen, she bolted upright, scooched her chair closer to the desk, and pulled the keyboard toward her. “We need to build the middleware protocol and start the hacks on IBM and Google. Have Chase and Gray touched base? Have they secured the location for the meeting with Maya? Has she taken the bait and responded? Maybe we need to up the ante? Give her?—”
“Whoa, slow down,” Jay said, taking her hand and pulling it into his lap to get her attention. “We’ve been going at this for almost forty hours straight. We need a break, some real food, and a nap to recharge our brains.”
“But—” Her frazzled gaze swiveled back and forth between the cereal bowls littering their station, Jay, and the computer screens. “There’s so much to do.”
“Yep, and five hours won’t make the difference in terms of getting shit done any faster.” He stood and pulled her up with him. “We need to eat and sleep, sweetheart. Adam will monitor the burner for a response from Maya and wake us if anything changes.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He let go of her hand, unplugged the air-gapped laptop they were using to connect to the darknet, and closed the screen. “Five hours.” He picked up the computer and tucked it in against his hip, his movements awkward with his arm still in the sling. “Trust me. You won’t regret taking a break. I promise.”
