Extreme Measures (A Brady Hawk Novel Book 20)

my true identity except for my brother, God rest his soul.”
“If you can help us figure out what’s going on, I’d be most grateful,” Blunt said. “And I won’t even consider pressing charges for the twenty million dollars you stole last week from Senator Wellman.”
Mia scowled. “How did you—”
“We’ve got some great hackers ourselves, just none that are trusted within your world.”
She stood, resting her hands on her hips. “All right, let me ask around and see what I can find out.”
"Thank you," Blunt said. "There's even a check-in there for your time."
She opened the folder back up and searched for the payment. Her eyes widened as she mouthed the dollar amount.
“Think that’ll cover it?” he asked.
Mia held it up and shook her head. “I know what you’re trying to do here. You want me to deposit this so you can see how I move my money around.”
“Honestly, I don’t care,” Blunt said. “Open a new account and put it in a normal bank like ninety-nine percent of Americans. But I’m very serious about finding out what’s happening to those hackers. Understand?”
“Got it. I’ll send you a report on what I learn.”
Blunt spun to head for the door, but stopped and turned around. “Mia, I’m glad we’re working together again. You belong on the good side.”
“Good side, bad side—nobody gets to claim the moral high ground these days.”
“In that case, I’m glad you’re on my side.”
Blunt didn’t wait for her snappy comeback. He exited the room and ventured into the rolling waves of humanity moving to the beat thumping through the sound system. While everyone considered their frolicking as dancing, he wasn’t so sure it qualified as such.
But he didn’t care what they called it or what they were doing between songs in the smoke-filled parlor rooms encircling the main space.
All he knew was that Helenos-9 had agreed to help him investigate the rash of disappearances. And that was worth celebrating, which he did by busting out a few moves as he wriggled his way through the crowd.
* * *
MIA STARED slack-jawed at the list of names on the papers Blunt had given her. She didn’t expect to see so many that she recognized, nor did she expect to feel so much disappointment and sadness. Online friends weren’t the same as friends in real life, unless you were a hacker. While she didn’t fully comprehend why, Mia felt a deeper connection with people who were intent on siphoning money from millionaires and donating it to charity than she did with her neighbors across the hall. Joint projects in the virtual world seemed to create ties that bound workers together in a way that most people would never understand.
She picked up her cell and dialed a number. Before the call reached its destination, it would ping off so many places that even if someone was tracing it, they’d still be searching for the origination point fifteen minutes later.
The Abbot was her favorite cohort in online crime, a man of the cloth who made it his mission—in between wreaking havoc on select websites—to care for the mental and spiritual health of the hacker community. He was also the only person she knew in her personal life, a longtime friend from college. He went by Joe to those who knew him personally.
“To what do I owe this honor?” Joe asked after answering his phone.
“Joe, I wish I had time to make this more of a social call, but I don’t. We’re short on time.”
“Whoa, slow down, Mia. What’s happening?”
“The Event,” she said. “the one we’ve feared for so long.”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“It’s started,” she said.

CHAPTER 7
Washington, D.C.
PRESIDENT YOUNG SHOVED aside the latest intelligence report issuing a warning about a potential terrorist attack in the nation’s capital. If he had a dollar for every time someone from the Pentagon or the FBI called to tell him about a dangerous threat, he’d be able to pay off the country’s debt. At least, that’s what it felt like. Every single day, someone was in his ear talking about a rogue terrorist cell here or an organized outfit there. Wisdom—along with past history—told him it’d be foolish to ignore such warnings, but he’d grown tired of the conversations and preferred to let other people worry about it.
But this time, things had gotten so serious that the Department of Homeland Security wanted to know if he had considered canceling the Fourth of July event. He was adamant that if people did their job the right way, freedom-loving Americans would have nothing to worry about. Yet the question kept being asked.
Young collapsed onto his office couch and sat back, head resting against the stiff pillows clearly there for decoration only. A few seconds later, he tossed them aside and sat up. The box on the coffee table held the press clippings from the morning papers. If he ever wrote a how-to guide for future presidents, Young decided he’d include at least one chapter on successful habits called “How to be Happy for Four Years.” In it, he’d detail how to stay above the political fray, something he hadn’t succeeded at. And he found that reading articles of pundits saying nasty things about him every day wasn’t good for anyone’s mental health—or mind frame for setting policy.
His former wife turned out to be in the running for the world’s worst wife, but she insisted that he stay away from reading about what others thought of his decisions. The thought was a rare fond one, though fleeting. Resisting the urge to read the news, he dropped it back in the box and closed his eyes, freeing himself up to just ponder the moment.
Young’s cell phone jolted him out of his relaxed state, buzzing with the urgent demand to be answered. The number was blocked, but that was the norm among the bureaucrats who called him. Only a handful of select people even had his number, so he didn’t hesitate to pick up. He growled