Triple Team: A Military Reverse Harem Romance, page 5
“How’s this for a test?” Juliana asked.
“Mother fucker!” Gregor growled.
“The camera lights are on,” Michael said. “Is she watching us? Are you watching us, Juliana?”
Laughter came through all three laptop speakers simultaneously. Juliana’s giddiness filled the room in surround sound. “I’m watching three military bros circle jerk themselves about whether or not to hire someone an order of magnitude smarter than they are. That’s what I’m watching.”
“How the fuck did you do that!” Gregor shouted.
“You don’t need to yell, jackass. This isn’t an Arby’s drive-thru speaker. Your little domain was about as tough to crack as an iPhone screen dropped on the pavement. Who’s Seth?”
“Nobody,” I said.
A video popped up on the first laptop: Rick Astley dancing. The beginning of the Never Gonna Give You Up music video. It appeared on the second laptop, then the third. She was rick-rolling us.
“Seth Parkinson doesn’t sound like nobody,” she said. “Phone number 757-869-9929. Email address seth.parkinson@protonmail.com. Encrypted emails—watch out, we’ve got a badass over here! Too bad he sends text messages in plain text. Whoops.”
“Juliana, listen to me,” I said. “Stop talking. This is sensitive information.”
Gregor started ripping network cables from the laptops, yanking them out so hard the plastic connectors broke.
“Wow, you guys did your homework on me. Family history and everything.”
“Juliana, please!” I said. “Let’s discuss this like adults.”
The rick-roll video kept playing on the screens. Gregor held up the disconnected network cables, a horrified look on his face. “How?”
“What a bunch of creeps. Stalking an innocent little girl.” Juliana’s tone dripped acid. “What else do you want to know about me? I got my first period when I was 13. Late bloomer. The first boy I ever kissed was Aaron Schitzman, but it was on a dare from his friends so it doesn’t really count. Want more? The first guy to go down on me? When I popped my cherry? The time Private Jenkins and I sneaked into our sergeant’s office, drank his liquor, and then fucked on his desk?”
While she taunted us, Gregor unplugged the power from the network router. It did no good. Finally Juliana’s voice and the rick-roll videos cut off when he closed the laptop lids. The silence in the room felt like safety.
For a few seconds, at least.
“That’s not nice,” came her voice again, muffled strangely. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. “Has anyone ever told you guys you’re not nice?”
“How!” Gregor shouted. “How are you doing this?”
Michael gazed around the room like it was haunted by the ghost of an angry hacker.
“Ask Donatello how I’m doing it. I gave a demo in my presentation today. Even you three jack-offs should be able to figure it out.”
The presentation. Of course! I grabbed my phone off the bed where Gregor had dropped it and there she was, Juliana Ellersby, staring back at me with a huge smile on her face.
“The app on your phone,” I said. “The one that’s always scanning open Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth connections.”
She clapped her hands together. “Give the man a prize!”
Michael came around to look at the screen. “Hello. Juliana. You have demonstrated your ability more clearly than any test we could have configured.”
“No shit, Adolf.”
“Excuse me?” the Israeli said.
Before he could get angry I turned away from him so only I was looking at the screen. “We want to offer you an opportunity. A job. You’re the perfect person, exactly who we’ve been searching for.”
She laughed again. Not the laugh of mischief, but the laugh of incredulity. “After all this, why the hell would I take your stupid job?”
“It pays well,” Gregor said across the room. “We’d be giving you—”
“I make plenty of money in my current job. But more importantly: I wouldn’t want to work with a bunch of presumptive assholes like you. Luring me back to your hotel room just to spring a ridiculous hacker litmus test after I’d had three beers, giving me two measly minutes, then telling me I failed? Fuck your money, Gregor.”
“Juliana…” I began.
“And fuck you most of all,” she said. “And not in the literal sense. You already did that. I don’t care if the job pays double what I make now. Triple. I’d rather jump off a diving board into a swimming pool full of broken glass. I don’t want to hear from you again. Don’t contact me. If I so much as see you in the same airport terminal as me I’ll fill your cell phone so full of kiddie porn the cops will never let you stand trial. Juliana out.”
Her face disappeared from the screen.
8
Juliana
I trembled with adrenaline as I cut off the connection to Donovan’s cell phone, then did the same for the laptops on the wireless network I’d accessed from his phone hotspot. It was tempting to keep listening in, but I was technically breaking the law by hacking into their equipment. Best not to push my luck.
“Juliana out,” I muttered. It sounded stupid in retrospect but I didn’t care because I’d rubbed their stupid noses in the fact that I was better than them. Far more skilled than whatever they were looking for. Overqualified by leaps and bounds.
I leaned back in the hotel chair. My hands were shaking, literally shaking, with excitement. It had been a while since I’d felt the rush that came from digital mischief. It was intoxicating. Addicting. More satisfying than even the most delicious meal after a prolonged fast.
Speaking of that…
The hotel restaurant was half-empty at this time of night. I took a table in the back corner where I could watch anyone who entered. I doubted Donovan or the others knew where I was staying, but then again they’d run a pretty thorough background check on me. They had connections. I felt safer with my back against the wall and the rest of the room in view.
“What’s your best cheeseburger?” I asked the waitress.
“That would be the dry-aged sirloin burger, ma’am. It comes with slow-caramelized onions, thick melted muenster cheese, and an avocado salsa spread.”
“What’s your quickest cheeseburger?”
“The single-stack bacon cheeseburger.”
“Then that’s the winner,” I said. “With double fries and a vanilla milkshake, please.”
“Would you like the fries to come out first, as an appetizer?”
“Cathy,” I glanced at her name tag, “that’s the best proposition anyone’s given me all day.”
I wolfed down my fries four at a time, then dug into my burger after that. It was juicy and hot and the bun was toasted perfectly, and I was too hungry to care that grease ran down both sides of my chin.
Only when the burger was half gone did I slow down. Now that I had a clear head—and a fuller stomach—I could examine the events of the night more objectively. I’d been picked up at the convention and offered a job. Or at least, I’d been offered a job after I hacked into their network. Their method was unorthodox and overly dramatic, but I’m sure lots of people did recruiting at these events.
Shit. Who did they work for? The military wouldn’t take too kindly to a random woman hacking into their network and phones. God forbid they worked for the CIA or FBI. I should have clarified that detail before going all crazy on their asses.
Hopefully I didn’t wake up tomorrow morning to a pair of FBI agents knocking on my door and asking me to come with them.
Now that it was over, part of me was curious about the job. I’d been offered jobs before, but always through traditional channels like LinkedIn or emails from recruiters. I’d never been brought back to a hotel room, fucked hard and fast, and then given a pop quiz on network security.
And goodness gracious, it had been fun! And I wasn’t talking about the sex.
Both the initial test and hacking into Donovan’s phone from the safety of my room had been fun. Sliding-down-a-waterslide fun. Working for Mr. Pendleton at the CSCG was nice, but in a deep, fulfilling way. That was entirely different from the exhilaration of smashing a digital padlock and snooping around inside.
But whoever those three muscular stooges were, they obviously hadn’t done enough research on me. If they saw why I was dishonorably discharged from the Army they would have cut ties with me faster than a network ping.
Random recruiting attempts were all fine and good, but I was lucky to be at CSCG. There was something to be said for consistent, honest work.
I returned to my room a much happier woman. That’s the last time I choose sex over food.
Shoot, I was lucky as hell it was only a recruiting attempt. I’d allowed myself to be honeypotted into a stranger’s room. What if they had been malicious actors working for Russia? Or Iran? That happened all the time in this industry, though usually it was men getting lured by the promise of sex with young women.
Never again, Juliana.
Feeling wiser for the experience, I unlocked my room and went inside. I deadbolted the door behind me, then opened the closet and started unbuttoning my pants. I couldn’t wait to change into comfortable pajamas and curl up in the big hotel bed.
“Stop!”
I screamed and whirled with my pants halfway down my ass. Across the room, half veiled in darkness, Donovan jumped up from the chair.
A lot went through my mind in that moment. Someone was in my room, a place which was supposed to be safe. I’d just hacked his equipment so he was probably pissed off at me. He was probably here to harm me.
But now that we were alone, rather than with his two asshole colleagues, the intimacy we had shared before was back. Just the two of us in a hotel room. I could still feel the heat from his body, the way his tongue ran along the ridges of my spine, and despite all evidence I didn’t feel like I was in danger around him.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said carefully. “But I didn’t want you to get naked or anything before you knew I was here.”
I found my voice and shouted, “What the fuck are you doing here!” while hastily pulling my pants up.
“I fucked up tonight,” he said. “I played coy with the job recruitment. I should have been upfront about it rather than flirting and inviting you back to my room. I know it’s too late, but give me the chance to explain everything? And if not, I’ll leave right now.”
My first instinct was to tell him to pound sand. He was an intruder in my hotel room, an intruder who could snap me in half like a used toothpick. And there was no way I would take the job, no matter how attractive it may be. Nothing he could say would make me change my mind now that my trust had been shattered.
“Wait,” I said. “That chair wasn’t over there before. Did you move the chair across the room?”
Donovan ran a hand through his wavy blond hair, every silky lock falling perfectly back into place. “I was sort of going for a theatrical reveal. You’d come in and turn on the light and bam, there I would be sitting in the corner.”
“Sorry to ruin your dramatic moment. How the hell did you get into my room?”
“You have your tricks. I have mine.” He took a step forward, cheekbones harsh in the dim light coming through the window. His voice was low and threatening. “I’m sorry, but you know too much. I’m here to kill you.”
I jumped toward the table to grab the pepper spray out of my bag, then opened my mouth to scream at the top of my lungs.
“Wait!” he said, bursting into laughter. I closed my mouth. “I’m sorry. I had to make the joke. It was too perfect. I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to talk.”
Heart pounding, I slumped against the wall. “Holy fuck, dude. What if I pulled out a gun and shot you?”
“You don’t have a gun,” he said simply. “Haven’t carried once since you were discharged.”
“This whole knowing-too-much-about-me thing isn’t as charming as you think,” I said. “Give me one reason not to empty this can of spray all over your face and then call the police.”
He held out both palms to try to placate me. He was a god of rippling muscle, all veins and tan skin. He really did look like a G.I. Joe in civilian clothes. Pepper spray be damned, he could have tackled and subdued me in the blink of an eye. Yet he was choosing to give me my space. Sure he’d broken into my room, but now he was trying his best to make me feel comfortable.
It worked a little bit.
“I just want to talk,” he said.
I’d done enough talking for one night. I very nearly told him to go fuck himself out in the hall before I called the cops on him anyways. Most of my instincts demanded I take that course of action.
But I was a curious woman. All hackers were; it was in our nature. When we saw a locked door, we wanted to know what was behind it. If I let him walk away I’d spend the rest of my life wondering what the job was. It would eat away at me.
If I was going to pass on the job, I first needed to know what I was turning down.
“Why did you come alone?” I asked. “The other two stooges cleaning up the mess I made of your hardware? The drives should be done wiping by now.”
He smiled and approached. I gripped the pepper spray tighter but deep down I knew I wasn’t going to need it.
“I came alone,” Donovan said, “because I wanted to do this.”
He pushed me back against the wall, cupped my head in his two huge hands, and kissed me fiercely. He pressed his body against mine, firm and strong, like he was trying to make every inch of our bodies touch. His thigh wedged my legs apart and then pressed into my mound with wonderful pressure, and I felt the bulge of his manhood against my thigh, hard and hot and full of potential.
I wanted to keep going. I wanted to let him take this to its natural conclusion, our clothes discarded on the floor and our bodies smothering each other on the bed again. I wanted so many things.
But most of all I wanted to know about the job.
I broke off the kiss with a firm hand on his chest. He kept his face close to mine, searching for what was in my mind.
“It wasn’t a honeypot,” he whispered in a voice like smooth caramel.
“That’s what all the honeypots say.”
“I wasn’t just leading you on. We really hit it off at the convention.” His smile deepened. “And the chemistry we had in my hotel room…”
“Sit,” I said, pointing to the chair. “Talk.”
He backed away like a hostage and lowered himself into the leather chair. He filled every inch of it with his frame. I couldn’t help but want to see him shirtless again. Chopping wood with an axe in a snowy forest.
Focus, Juliana.
“First off, I bet you’re wondering who we are,” he began.
“Yes and or duh.”
“We’re a private mercenary company. A small one—just the three of us. I was in the Marines. Gregor was Army like you—explosive ordnance. Bomb defusing and shit. Michael was Sayeret Matkal. Israeli special ops.”
“Israeli,” I mumbled, finally placing the man’s mysterious accent.
“We accept government contracts for special operations. The kind of missions the military deems too politically damaging for the government. Or too dangerous. If a truckload of Marines gets ambushed on a mission in Pakistan, it’s months of national news and congressional hearings. But if it happens to three civilian mercenaries…”
He shrugged.
“Most of the jobs we take are straightforward. Go here, blow up a chemical weapon facility. Airdrop there, take out a convoy of terrorists. But we’ve been given a new opportunity that requires more finesse. And it requires technical experience with computers. So we’re recruiting.” He spread his hands. “That’s the gist of it. I should have come right out and told you after our second beer back at the convention center. Too little too late, but now you know the full truth.”
A mercenary company. Soldiers of fortune. Not any specific branch of the military or government agency. Thank goodness for that—I wouldn’t get in trouble for hacking their hotel setup and phones.
“My turn to ask some questions,” I said.
“Go nuts.”
“Who’s Seth Parkinson?”
“Someone who helps us gather intel,” Donovan said. “Former NSA with a lot of connections. That’s why I didn’t want you shouting his name to the rooftops when you hacked our setup.”
I eyed him warily. “What’s he know about me?”
Donovan’s shrug was noncommittal. “Whatever’s in your background check. Nothing more personal than that.”
“Who do you take contracts from? Whoever pays you the most money?”
Donovan shook his head. “We don’t work for foreign governments. That’s a strict line in the sand for us. We’re not traitors.”
“What kind of hacking is required for this job?”
“That’s part of our problem,” he admitted. “We don’t know what we don’t know. We have some leads, but… I have the info back at my room. I can show you if you accept the job.”
“I’ve seen enough of your room for one night,” I said. “Would we have government protection? If we take a mission and I get caught hacking into, like, North Korea or something, will Uncle Sam give me a get out of jail free card?”
He grimaced. “Afraid not. That’s the point of hiring mercenaries: if things go south they can cut ties and pretend they don’t know us. But that’s why the pay is so good.”
“Since you bring it up…” I said. “How much are we talking?”
“You’d be paid $250,000.”
I gave a start. “Is that salary? Are there benefits?”
He laughed. “Jules, that’s how much you’d get paid just for this job.”
Holy shit. I wondered if he was pulling my leg. Donovan just stared back, stone-faced.
“I like the job I have,” I said. “It’s good, honest work. My boss cares about my career. I can’t just give that up.”
“You wouldn’t have to,” Donovan said. “This is a two-week job. Maybe three.”
