businesses all over the world stalled, scores of governments deadlocked and the Vatican in the dark. For days. By the time it was finally contained, Avery’s virus had taken out big chunks of North, Central and South America, Greenland and a good part of Europe, including the Vatican. As for Asia…forget about it.
All told, Viral Avery had cost her fellow man roughly a gazillion dollars in lost revenues, and she’d had people standing in line all along the equator who wanted to string her up for global target practice. Preferably with atomic warheads.
But they’d had to settle for seeing her get slapped with a ten-year prison sentence instead, something that had offended most people because they’d thought it too light a punishment. They were offended even more when two years later she was released on shock probation. Many suspected it had been more her father’s dollars and influence that had won her the release than any remorse or trauma on her part. She’d been painted in the media as a spoiled, privileged, snotty little geek who always got her way, thanks to family connections. Before, during and after her release, she was gleefully and thoroughly reviled.
Still, according to her prison records, she had been an exemplary inmate, living quietly and following the rules. And during her trial, the highlights of which Dixon also had studied, there really hadn’t been much evidence to indicate she had acted in malice toward anyone other than the boyfriend.
But now she was building another virus, he reminded himself. Within weeks of making the acquaintance of Sorcerer. And wasn’t that just the most interesting coincidence in the world?
“She’s putting together another one,” he told his boss.
The other man’s eyebrows shot up at that. “She’s what?”
“She’s building another virus,” Dixon said. “I saw part of it myself when I made contact last night. And just that little glimpse told me that it’s ten times worse than the one she sent out ten years ago. With technology being what it is now and with a million times more people being connected to the Internet than there were ten years ago…”
He left the comment unfinished, knowing his boss would comprehend the massive repercussions.
“We’ve got to stop her,” the other man said. “We still get calls from the Vatican. Not to mention Greenland.”
“Then we better hurry,” Dixon said. “Because she could be finished with this thing anytime.”
“I’ll take care of the paperwork right now,” his boss told him. “Get your temporary partner…what’s his name?”
“Gillespie,” Dixon said. “Tanner Gillespie. Code name Cowboy.”
“When’s She-Wolf due back?” his boss asked.
“She’s had to take an indefinite leave of absence,” Dixon said. “Her mother passed away and she has some family matters to see to.”
“Right,” the other man said. “We’ll give her all the time she needs, of course.”
Dixon couldn’t imagine her needing much. One thing about She-Wolf—she never let life get in the way of her job, never let the personal overshadow the professional. She was a lot like him in that regard.
“Collect Cowboy,” his boss told him again, “and bring in Avery Nesbitt today.”
“You sure we have enough on her?”
“We don’t need much.”
Which was true. Even before 9/11, OPUS had operated outside the rules set up for other government agencies. Since then, they’d been moved under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security, their worth reevaluated, their mission refined, their rules of operation revised. Dixon’s boss, he knew, wouldn’t have any trouble getting papers signed that would bring Avery Nesbitt to heel.
“Bring her in,” the man told him. “Now. We’ll have a room waiting for her when you get back.”
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER deciding to send Andrew a farewell gift—not that she wanted him to fare well, of course, hence the farewell gift—things weren’t working out the way Avery had hoped. She’d been so sure she could create a virus that would turn his hard drive into tapioca—radioactive tapioca at that—but she’d hit a snag. And snags just didn’t happen to her. Well, not since the one that had sent her to prison ten years ago, which, granted, had been a pret-ty ma-jor snag. She’d been extremely careful since then not to set herself up for another one. Then again, being genuinely phobic about leaving one’s home did rather hinder one in getting oneself into trouble.
And that one major snag ten years ago had only come about because she’d been driven by her emotions instead of her intellect. She’d just been too ambitious with this particular project, that was all. Vengefulness did that to a person sometimes—made them too ambitious. Now she’d have to go back and start over with a virus that was less damaging.
Though this one was very intriguing….
Still, it wasn’t as if she could send this thing out anyway. Just building another virus would get her in big trouble. If she actually sent it to Andrew, they’d toss her keister back in the slammer and throw away the key for good. Which was why Avery was building it on this particular laptop—it had no communication function whatsoever. It was the laptop she used for off-line gaming. Which was what building this virus was to her—a game. It was physically impossible for her to send it anywhere beyond her hard drive. Unless, you know, she moved it to another computer. Which, of course, she would never do.
But she’d needed to do something to exorcise Andrew from her system—to serve him his just desserts, if only in her own mental bakery. And building him a virus, even one that would never go anywhere, made her feel vindicated. She was a woman scorned and all that, and you should never underestimate the power of one of those. Even the ones who had been effectively spayed in the ol’ revenge department.
She studied the lines of code again, backtracking to see where she might have gone wrong. She didn’t want to abandon the project completely, because it really was a brilliant bit of work, if she did say so herself. But it wasn’t going to function properly the way she had it set up, theoretically or realistically.
Let’s see…. If she dropped this command and added a different one instead…Or if she clarified that command a little better…Hmm…
What had she done wrong?
She squinted at the numbers and letters and symbols again, then removed her glasses to rub her eyes. She’d been up for thirty-six hours straight now, her mind completely engaged during the majority of them. She hadn’t even stopped working long enough to eat anything since that last bowl of Cajun popcorn. Maybe she needed to take a break for a little while. Clear her head with a nice Starbucks double shot.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
She tossed her glasses onto the table and stood, reaching as high as she could above her head, arching her back to relieve the kinks that had set in. Oh, man, that felt good. The sudden activity stirred her cat, Skittles, who had curled herself into a meatloaf shape on one of the other dining room chairs. After mimicking Avery’s stretch with one of her own, she leaped down, curling her lithe silver-and-black-striped body around and between Avery’s calves. Avery smiled and bent to pick up the cat, cuddling her under her chin and calming immediately at the soft hum of the animal’s
