Caitlin and I both lean forward, listening as Li continues:
“To get into a bank like that, we’re going to need you and Caitlin to work together. Those places use black-ops security because they cater to secretive corporations and corrupt governments. Also,” Li continues, “our journalist friend Jake Graham is still sniffing around. Amber hasn’t been able to get into his computer, so we need your undercover skills back here.”
On-screen, Amber shifts unhappily at the implied slur on her technical abilities. A sarcastic comment rises to my lips, but I button it. There’ll be plenty of time to tease Amber later. For now, Li has laid out a compelling set of tasks, and her autocratic style doesn’t always appreciate random humor. The call wraps up soon after and, with Caitlin, I get ready to fly back to London.
It’s still early—8 a.m.—when I arrive home in Notting Hill. It’s getting close to Christmastime and sparkling fairy lights are draped over the trees and along the tops of the still-closed market stalls on Portobello Road. After a quick shower and change, I stride out toward the tube station to make my way back into the heart of the city, where Athena is based. Our rogue agency is hidden in plain sight, occupying two floors of a soaring glass-and-steel building that overlooks the gleaming bends of the river Thames. The building belongs to Chen Technologies, Li’s legitimate company. It’s a conglomerate that she has built from nothing into an enterprise that turns over billions each year with cutting-edge software and hardware. It also allows her to divert interesting technology to us. Athena is such a lean operation that we can use all the help we can get.
The streets of London feel somber and gray-tinted compared to India. Even the rush hour traffic seems so much calmer and quieter. Before I run down the escalators into the underground train system, I duck into a small French bakery and ignore that morning’s diet recommendation in favor of a croissant that I pull apart into perfectly warm, crisp flakes, and a double espresso that helps dispel the jet lag that’s starting to fog up my brain.
When I reach the Chen Tech building, I enter through an alley that snakes around the back of the structure. Apart from the myriad of usual security features that prevent anyone outside Athena getting in, Amber has recently installed a hidden camera, a new layer of security that scans my face as I approach. Only when it recognizes me does the finger scanner pad open up, low down on a wall next to an innocuous-looking garage door. Getting through another interior door, I head to an unmarked elevator that opens with a hand scan. Finally, an iris reader gets me up to the floor where Amber is based. This is a huge area, protected with one-way mirrored glass across the wide windows, and dedicated to Athena’s technology research. It’s also where all our weapons, IDs, and communications technology are kept under lock and key by Amber, using her indecipherable inventory system.
The muscular tones of Nina Simone belting out “Feeling Good” fill the space, emanating from a vinyl record rotating sedately on a vintage turntable. In the center of the room, remote-controlled flames dance invitingly on a raised marble hearth. On the other side of this modern fireplace, Amber sits at her semicircular desk, surrounded by computer screens. To her left is a long counter, uncluttered by any ornamentation, and behind that counter are several locked safe boxes.
“Jessie!” she says. “Good to see you.” She throws me a smiling glance from beneath a carefully styled crop of hair that’s currently dyed an improbable shade of electric blue.
“Are those new highlights in your hair?” I ask.
“Your powers of observation seem to evolve to ever-new heights.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a highly trained special agent.”
“Apparently,” Amber observes.
I come close enough to perch on the edge of her desk, something that drives her insane at the best of times.
“I hear you’re having some trouble hacking into Jake Graham’s computer,” I say.
Amber looks daggers at me and I return the glare with the most charming smile I can conjure.
“Jake is the kind of meticulous journalist who is obsessed with protecting his sources,” she replies haughtily.
“Not surprising,” I say. “I mean, it’s not like he reports on the weather. He writes about corrupt regimes and the worst kinds of criminals.”
“Exactly the sorts of people we go after,” Amber agrees.
I look at her for a moment. Though Jake Graham’s social justice leanings are hardly news to me, it’s the first time I’ve really thought about him as having the same interests as us. Since his report on the shooting of Ahmed in Cameroon—the shooting that was my fault—not to mention his article about my mother singing for Gregory Pavlic, and his current stalking of Kit and Peggy, I’ve considered him to be an enemy. Someone to hide from and fight against. The irony is that Amber is right; Jake and Athena want mostly the same things. For the rights of women and girls, and all human beings, to be protected across the world.
Amber’s bracing tones interrupt my musing.
“Without an actual lock on the Wi-Fi he uses or, rather, a lock on the router he uses for his VPN, I don’t think even you’d have had more luck than me.”
“So, basically, if Jake has pieced together that there’s a rogue agency of women based in London bringing down traffickers and assorted scum—we won’t know until the police show up to arrest us?”
Amber stands up with an exasperated sigh. Her heels tap efficiently over to the turntable, where she switches off the music.
“I doubt he has any evidence of note,” she says.
“I hope you’re right. And if you’re not, I hope we get to share a jail cell,” I sigh. “It would be fun.”
“In the same way as having a root canal is fun, perhaps,” remarks Amber.
She sits down at her desk and motions me to take a chair beside her. The
