Athena Force: Books 1-6

by Justine Davis, Amy J. Fetzer, Katherine Garbera, Meredith Fletcher, Catherine Mann

  But in that first year at the Athena Academy, Sam had been assigned to an orientation group with girls who had become known as the Cassandras. Groups were assigned at the beginning of each year as thirty new students were brought into the school and divided into five groups of six members, each group delegated to a senior mentor. The groups of first-years were pitted against each other in several friendly competitions. Tory, Josie, Darcy, Kayla, and Alex had seemed about as different from one another as they could be, but Rainy—Lorraine Miller, at the time—had been made their mentor.

  In spite of her best intentions to simply survive the school, get an education and get out, Sam had ended up making friends who she was sure would remain in her life forever. No matter how hectic things became, they still got together on special occasions.

  Kayla Ryan had gone on to become a police officer. Alexandra Forsythe had become a forensic scientist with the FBI. Josie Lockworth was an air force captain. Victoria, or Tory, Patton became a reporter and now worked for a national news agency. Darcy Allen had worked in Hollywood as a costume designer and makeup artist before marrying a famous movie producer. Rainy Miller Carrington was now an attorney.

  And they’d sworn at the end of that first year that they would always be there for each other. They’d called their vow the Cassandra Promise.

  Unfortunately, Sam felt that none of her closest friends could currently help her. But the Cassandras weren’t the only friends Sam had made through Athena.

  Given her present situation, only one person came to Sam’s mind. If the woman wasn’t there, Sam had no choice but to either proceed without information or hunker down and try to wait out the storm that had overtaken her.

  Allison Gracelyn, daughter of Senator Marion Gracelyn, had graduated the Athena Academy with Rainy. Like Rainy, Allison had maintained close ties with the school. Currently, Allison worked as a computer programmer and mathematician at the National Security Agency, the most top-secret spy organization in the United States. However, she also served as a board consultant and overseer at Athena.

  When Sam had applied for the CIA, Allison had stepped forward and written a letter of recommendation on Sam’s behalf. The act had surprised Sam, because she hadn’t been close to Allison. Not that she was terribly close to anyone outside of the Cassandras. But Allison was a good friend of Rainy’s. Sam had guessed that Rainy had triggered the letter from Allison.

  Since that time, Allison had kept in touch with Sam and had provided some guidance while Sam worked with the Agency. On a few occasions Allison had asked Sam to translate some of the HUMINT and SIGNIT intelligence the NSA’s spy satellites and agents had gathered.

  HUMINT was human intelligence, conversations and confessions garnered or overheard by NSA agents in the field. SIGNIT was signal intelligence, stolen away by listening devices and computers. Although she’d been able to help with the translations on most occasions, Sam still didn’t know for certain what significance those brief bits of information had. Allison had been appreciative of the help and had written more letters to the CIA directors that had helped Sam’s career.

  That doesn’t mean I can e-mail Allison and expect help, Sam reminded herself.

  In point of fact, there was a good chance Allison could trace Sam through the Internet Service Provider and give her location to MI-6, in return for an espionage favor, or to the CIA. Sam had no doubt that Riley McLane was desperately hunting her.

  Lightning flashed outside the cybercafé, startling Sam. Then the dark heavens opened up and rain drummed the street.

  She turned her full attention to the computer. She went online and tapped into one of the Web sites where she stored her computer tools and programs, then downloaded them to the computer she was on.

  All of the tools were cutting edge, programs that she had either written herself or modified. Some of them were designed to break into sites. Others allowed her to trace people through the Internet. And some, like the ones she downloaded now, allowed her to mask the ISP she was logged on at.

  Her configuration set, she typed, ONLINE?, hesitated a moment, then sent the message.

  Chapter 5

  The computer pinged to let Sam know the message had been successfully sent.

  She took a sip of her latte and waited. She was just about to give up when an Instant Message box opened on the screen.

  I’M HERE.

  IT’S MIRAGE. Whenever Sam contacted Allison, she always used e-mail that pertained to mythological beings and places.

  WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU, MIRAGE?

  Sam quickly logged on to the IM box and opened the dialogue. She typed rapidly. I THINK I’M IN TROUBLE.

  WHAT KIND OF TROUBLE?

  I DON’T KNOW YET.

  SO TELL ME.

  Sam hesitated but couldn’t keep her fingers from typing, CAN I TRUST YOU? She hated asking the question and immediately felt embarrassed. But that was one of the questions she’d always wanted to ask the different sets of foster parents she’d met over the years. And it was usually the one question she never asked but always got the answer to at some point.

  YOU ALREADY HAVE, Allison replied.

  After a brief hesitation, Sam typed, NOT TRUSTED COMPLETELY. I’VE MASKED THE ISP I’M USING. IF YOU TRY TO FIND OUT ANYTHING MORE ABOUT MY LOCATION, I’LL KNOW YOU’RE LOOKING AND I’LL BE GONE.

  DON’T BLAME YOU. SCARY OUT THERE.

  WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

  NOT MUCH.

  THE BRITISH SHADOWS ARE CHASING ME.

  I KNEW THAT.

  WHY?

  Allison’s answer came back at once. I HAVEN’T FOUND OUT YET. IT’S A SENSITIVE MATTER. NO ONE’S TALKING ABOUT IT. I DON’T WANT TO PUSH TOO HARD. THE SITUATION ISN’T IN ANY OF THE FIELDS I’M RESPONSIBLE FOR. I ONLY FOUND OUT A FEW MINUTES AGO.

  Sam thought about that. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT?

  CIA DIRECTOR MITCHELL CALLED ME. SAID YOU MIGHT BE IN CONTACT. THAT MADE ME CURIOUS.

  WHAT DID YOU TELL HIM?

  THAT I’D LET HIM KNOW IF YOU GOT IN TOUCH WITH ME.

  An iron fist wrapped around Sam’s stomach. For a moment she thought she was going to throw up. She glanced over her shoulder, half expecting MI-6 agents to come busting through the door. Instead, she caught the two young men gazing at her, then saw them quickly try to cover that fact up.

  The computer pinged, letting her know Allison had already sent another message.

  I LIED.

  The fist clenching Sam’s middle relaxed. But only a little. She hated trusting anyone outside her own skin. Nobody had ever looked out for her the way she’d looked out for herself.

  Well, almost nobody. The Cassandras had come close. Rainy had been like the big sister Sam had never had. And Darcy had become almost like a mother.

  WHY ARE THEY AFTER YOU? Allison asked.

  I HAVEN’T STOPPED LONG ENOUGH TO ASK.

  The cursor blinked for a moment, then Allison asked, HOW MUCH INVOLVEMENT HAVE YOU HAD WITH THEM?

  PRACTICALLY NONE. SPOT ASSIGNMENTS. NOTHING HANDS-ON WITHOUT OTHER AGENTS BEING PRESENT.

  WHAT DO YOU NEED FROM ME?

  Sam thought about that only for a moment. I NEED TO KNOW WHERE THE HEAT’S COMING FROM.

  WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

  STAY HUNKERED DOWN UNTIL I FIGURE OUT MY NEXT MOVE.

  THAT MEANS YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE HERE FOR THE FUNERAL. THAT’S GOING TO BE HARD ON THE OTHERS. THEY WERE HOPING YOU WOULD ALL BE TOGETHER TO SAY GOODBYE.

  A creeping chill filled Sam. She made herself read the words again. Nothing there made sense. Breaking the thrall that held her, she typed, WHAT FUNERAL?

  YOU DON’T KNOW?

  Sam waited. The list of people that Allison knew Sam would be upset over was short. And all of those people meant the world to her.

  RAINY.

  The single word froze Sam’s heart. Her hands turned numb. She couldn’t type. Images of Rainy—Lorraine Miller Carrington to anyone who didn’t know her—danced through Sam’s head.

&
nbsp; Rainy had thick chestnut-colored hair and bright blue eyes. She was quick out on the mats in a martial arts dojo, a whirlwind of determination. Rainy had served as an instructor at the Athena Academy. She’d thought she had taught Sam some new moves. Sam had just never let her friend see how good she really was.

  More than anything, the night when Rainy had “injured” her ankle while on a survival camping trip, Rainy had somehow managed to defeat Sam’s ingrained emotional defenses. Rainy had been the group leader of the Cassandras. They’d been an odd group, none of them getting along well with the others. They’d done poorly at every competition in their first trimester at Athena. None of them had worked well with the others at first, and it showed in their poor performance in group activities.

  Sam had been the youngest member. At that time, she’d carried a lot of anger inside her and unleashed it on anyone who tried to get close to her. Rainy had changed all that when she’d pretended to be injured out there in the mountains. During that night, while caring for Rainy, all of them—Tory, Josie, Darcy, Kayla, Alex and Sam—had somehow pulled together to take care of Rainy and each other. And the Cassandras had become the strongest of all the groups that year.

  No. Not Rainy. Rainy can’t be dead. Nothing can happen to Rainy.

  Sam felt the hot flash of tears burn at the backs of her eyes. She walled those feelings off, drawing on the skills she’d learned while getting bounced from foster home to foster home.

  Nothing could touch her. She wouldn’t let it.

  I’M SO SORRY, Allison typed. OH, GOD, I’M SO SORRY. YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TO FIND OUT LIKE THIS.

  Sam stared at the screen, then blocked out the hurtful words. She typed WHAT HAPPENED?

  “Miss, would you like a pillow?”

  Torn from her thoughts, Sam glanced up at the flight attendant. He was young and slim, elegant looking in his uniform.

  “No,” Sam replied. She heard the strain in her voice. Fatigue had settled in like a heavy quilt once the jet had taken off. She hadn’t spoken since the jet had lifted from Innsbruck, Austria.

  After finishing her conversation with Allison Gracelyn, Sam had abandoned Munich at once. She’d rented a car in one of her cover names and driven down to St. Anton, Austria. Once there, she’d spent the night in one of the ski resorts under yet another name. After she’d lost herself among the skiing crowd and made certain she hadn’t been followed, she’d rented a car and driven to Innsbruck to take the first plane headed west that offered jumps to Tucson, Arizona, where Rainy was going to be buried. She was going to have to say goodbye to her friend forever.

  Tomorrow. How am I going to do that, Rainy? How am I supposed to go on and never see you again?

  It wasn’t fair. This hurt too much. Sam had gotten really good at telling foster families goodbye. She’d made certain after the first few that she never got to know the families that followed.

  Sam glanced at her watch. Tomorrow was only hours away. She was somewhere over the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. With the layovers she had scheduled in Atlanta, Georgia, and St. Louis, Missouri, getting to the funeral on time was going to be close.

  “A magazine, then?” the flight attendant suggested, as if uncomfortable leaving her there staring into the darkness outside the window. “Or headphones for the television or radio?”

  From the corner of her eye, Sam noticed that the rest of the travelers on the late-night flight were asleep or reading or watching the recycled sit-com on the small television monitors that flipped down from the cabin roof.

  “Headphones, please.” Sam paid for the disposable headphones, plugged them into the appropriate slot on the seat, and didn’t switch the sound on. With the headphones in place, her inability to sleep and preoccupation with the painful memories and incessant questions that kept slamming around in her mind were effectively disguised.

  Satisfied, the attendant offered a beverage of her choice, accepted her polite refusal of the same and went away.

  Fatigue leeched at Sam’s reserves, but she couldn’t rest. Even if she hadn’t been running from the combined forces of the CIA and MI-6, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep.

  Rainy was dead.

  And with her friend gone, something of Sam St. John felt dead and MIA, as well.

  Sam still hadn’t cried. She refused to allow herself. Crying had never done her any good while she was shuttling from family to family, usually wearing out her welcome and sometimes alienating the families because she wouldn’t socialize with them.

  None of them had accepted her. They couldn’t. Sam had been too intelligent. Too independent. Too different.

  And she wasn’t vulnerable. She’d worked hard to keep herself from being vulnerable. No one was allowed to hurt her.

  Now, with the pain of Rainy’s death heavy on her heart, Sam felt angry with her friend, as well. Rainy had no right to die. Especially not by something as stupid as falling asleep behind the wheel of her car and crashing.

  Not after you made me love you, Sam thought. Her throat tightened painfully. It’s just not fair. Damn you, Rainy.

  That thought immediately felt selfish. Rainy was married. Her husband, Marshall, was a great guy and completely in love with Rainy. How must he be feeling?

  Barely able to hold back the tears, Sam stared at her reflection in the jet’s window. Backlit by a reading light behind her, Sam’s reflection looked gray and paper thin in the clean glass. Her image there was insubstantial; nothing could touch it; nothing could stick to it or hurt it.

  Sam wished she could be more like that reflection. There was a time in her life, she knew, that she was like that image. There had been three kids in her fourth foster family. All of those kids had been older than she was. None of them had liked her. Because of her white-blond hair, pale complexion and the quiet way she had when she was six years old, those kids had called her Ghost Girl. They had made fun of her.

  At that time, Sam had been too young to take any real command of her life. So she’d chosen to exist simply because she didn’t know how to stop existing. Then she’d discovered computers and had her first few lessons in martial arts. She’d found a way to connect to her own life. Computers offered a world of logic, of checks and balances. In a way, martial arts offered the same foundation. She had learned to be good at both those things.

  She studied her reflection in the window. She was pretty. She knew that. Made up properly, she might even own up to being beautiful. Boys who had gotten to know her while she was attending Athena Academy called her the Ice Princess. They’d thought she was egotistical, a snob. None of them had guessed that the demeanor she exhibited was purely there as a defense mechanism.

  But it had been so long since she had hurt like this that she was afraid she wouldn’t make it back from the loss to be whole again.

  No, she admonished herself, you’ve never hurt like this. Oh God, Rainy, what am I going to do now that you’re not there?

  Her reflection held no answers for her. Her pain didn’t even show in the image of her face. She breathed out, keeping herself centered. During the last day and a half, Allison hadn’t been able to penetrate the security regarding the search for CIA Special Agent Samantha St. John.

  Her government, at least in spy circles, had declared her a fugitive for reasons that she didn’t know.

  She pushed the confusion out of her mind. One problem at a time, she chided herself. She intended to go to the funeral first, then work out the details of finding out what had gone wrong in Munich.

  The funeral left her exposed, though. If anyone at the Agency managed to put Rainy’s death into the picture, they might know that she wouldn’t stay away. The way Sam had it figured she only had to worry about one agent.

  And Riley McLane had already betrayed her once.

  “Did you know St. John was taken into custody by the FBI?”

  Looking up from the personnel reports he was perusing, Riley looked at Howie Dunn sitting across the desk from him. They both worked out o
f the Agency bullpens in investigative services.

  “The Feebs?” Riley asked, his interest sparking at once. Samantha St. John was turning out to be an interesting study. Never mind that the slim-hipped build and get-back stare that she maintained had already whetted his interest.

  But an FBI arrest? Riley would never have guessed that. Sam was full of surprises. Especially the part about being a traitor.

  “What did the Feebs arrest her for?” he asked.

  Howie grinned and shook his head. “She hacked into a Web site filled with government secrets.” The other agent was a big, blocky guy in his mid-twenties who looked like he’d be more at home at a university frat house than working profiling and background checks for the CIA. He had his jacket hung on the back of his chair and his shirtsleeves rolled up to mid-forearm.

  “And she was cleared for service with the Agency in spite of that?” Riley couldn’t believe it.

  Howie grinned as mirthless as a shark. “St. John was eight at the time of the incident. Until she became listed as an international threat yesterday, her juvenile records were sealed.”

  “Eight?” Riley reached for the computer monitor Howie was looking at and spun it around. He scanned the court documents in quick succession, flipping through the pages with the mouse.

  “Just a kid. She borrowed the computer in her foster parents’ house and hacked into the system.”

  “Why?”

  “According to the child advocate representing her, St. John was just curious.”

  “Why did she have a child advocate?” Normally, an attorney specializing in child advocacy—protecting a minor’s rights when the interests diverged from the parents’—only showed up in civil matters.