The Spy and I - Softcover

Buch 1 von 2: My Spy

Smith, Tiana

 
9780593550304: The Spy and I
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593550307 ISBN 13: 9780593550304
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Right place. Wrong person. After a case of mistaken identity, one woman must work with her sister’s sexy spy partner to save the world in this heart-pounding romantic comedy.

The first thing to know about Dove Barkley is that, even though she works as a cyber security analyst, she is one hundred percent not an undercover CIA operative. But when a group of bad guys mistake her for her super-spy sister (news to her!), Dove gets roped into a dangerous government mission that she’d very much rather be left out of, thank you.

Too bad Mendez, the man who claims to be her sister’s partner, says she's in too deep to back out now. He’s smart, capable, and has a body almost distracting enough to make Dove forget about the team of trained assassins after her.

Dove has information that can help prevent a national tragedy, but there’s mounting evidence that Mendez might not be who he claims. More importantly, she's running out of time to save her sister. Because the last thing Dove wants is for either of them to go out with a bang.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tiana Smith is a graphic designer turned novelist who grew up in the Rocky Mountains. She graduated from Westminster College with double degrees in Honors and English with a focus in creative writing. She served for two years as the Communications Chair for the Storymakers Guild and was recently appointed as the Website Chair for the Storymakers Conference, a renowned writing conference in Utah where she currently resides. In her spare time she's learning sign language with her hard of hearing husband and she volunteers with special needs individuals attending the bi-weekly activities for Utah County's SNAP program.

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Chapter One

If you gave me four minutes, I could give you the world. Okay, so maybe it's more like I could hack into any secure network and give you all the private data stored there. But when that data included someone's credit cards, Social Security number, or complete medical history, it may as well be the world.

I have my limits. I've never hacked into the Pentagon or tried my hand at the FBI's firewalls. I'm good, but I'm not stupid. And yes, if I was being completely honest, some sites definitely took longer. A lot longer. But going off averages, four minutes was more than enough time to ruin someone's good day.

Earbuds in, "I Did Something Bad" by Taylor Swift began playing and the stopwatch in my head started ticking down.

I inserted the USB drive into the server, which uploaded the code embedded there and created a back door into the system. Ten seconds down.

To my right, my own laptop rested, its cursor blinking incessantly, the only real light in this dark room stacked full of computer towers and cords. I sat cross-legged on the cold linoleum floor of Enderlake Enterprises' mechanical room with my back to the wall and eyes on the door.

Thirty seconds. I pulled my laptop over. No time for games; I needed to steal the CEO's cookies. Not the edible kind-though I could really go for a snack right about now-no, what I needed were cookies of the digital variety. I needed to make a fake admin account.

That took almost a minute, the stopwatch in my head steadily ticking louder with each passing second. The perfectly timed song playing in my ears had passed the chorus, letting me know I was slightly behind.

I grabbed the session token by sniffing the traffic, then I brute-forced the password list. A bead of sweat wound down my neck as my fingers flew over the keyboard, inputting a string of code. Two scripts later, I was finally in. A minute and a half down.

Then the real work began. I booted up IceWeasel, generated a target list, and started a Metasploit listener, all with a few practiced keystrokes, the various screens barely having a chance to pop up before I'd moved on to the next task. Three minutes.

One by one I copied the vulnerabilities from the server to my own laptop, the red highlight from the screen reflecting onto my face. A strand of hair fell in front of my eyes, but I couldn't slow my typing to brush it out of the way. Moving on from the red vulnerabilities, I started on the orange.

My automated software covered everything from SSL/TLS layers to basic CGI vulnerabilities and more, so I let it do its thing while I stole a glance at the clock.

Four minutes. My time was up, the stopwatch now ringing in my mind, Taylor's song coming to a close. But I'd already succeeded.

The door to the mechanical room opened, the light spilling from the hallway to my hiding place. Standing in the doorway was the vice president of Enderlake Enterprises-who just so happened to be my old college roommate and a good friend.

"Do you always work in the dark like a criminal?" Nyah flipped on the overhead light, her textured curls silhouetted like a halo around her face. I squinted against the sudden glare and shaded my eyes with a hand. I removed my earbuds and shot her a grin.

"Working like a criminal helps me think like them." I turned my computer around so she could see everything I'd documented. "Bad news is, your network isn't as secure as you'd hoped. Good news is, I did everything on a modified admin account and recorded all my actions so you can easily see how to fix the flaws."

Though my job was honest, it didn't make me a lot of friends. No one liked knowing I could bring down their company with just my pinky finger. It paid well though, and besides some late nights, I couldn't really complain. Companies paid me to find their security flaws, and I obliged, like a modern-day Robin Hood but without the potential for jail time.

Nyah groaned. "When you said you could hack us in four minutes, I was really hoping you were bluffing." Despite her dress slacks, she settled beside me on the floor and took my laptop to scroll through my color-coded cheat sheet.

For the next half hour, I walked Nyah through the vulnerabilities of her network and the steps she'd need to take to fix them. When I could see her eyes glazing over, I started packing up my things.

"I'll do a more detailed analysis over the next couple of weeks, put everything in writing, and send you the documentation for your developers." I slid my laptop into my bag. "I want to make sure I don't miss anything, so that will take more time."

"Thanks, Dove." She stood up and brushed the dirt from her pants. "You're the best."

I shrugged. "Just doing my job."

"Your job of proving to the world that blond girls have brains?" Nyah smiled. "Or that a twenty-seven-year-old can take out one of the oldest tech firms in all of DC?"

I laughed. "Well, I'm only a blond because of a very talented hairdresser, so I'm not sure I can take credit for that one."

My phone buzzed, my sister's face lighting up my screen. My shoulders tensed.

Nyah waved her hand. "Go ahead and take that." She looked down at her watch before glancing back up at me. "I'm supposed to be in a meeting soon anyway. I'll catch up with you later when you send me all the data. You know the way out?"

I nodded, already bringing the phone up to my ear and accepting Madison's call. Nyah was out the door in a cloud of perfume.

In the two seconds it took my phone to connect, my stomach swooped at least three times. Working on this project for Nyah had allowed me to forget real life for a second. When I was coding, it was easy to feel confident. Powerful. But when I was back in reality? I was just me again. Still single. Still disturbingly average and second best to everyone. Including my sister, who had it all and succeeded in everything she tried.

She knew what she was doing in life. I didn't even know what I was doing for dinner.

"Hey, Mads, what's up?" I zipped my bag and slung it over my shoulder.

"You'd better have plans tonight." Her voice was playful-the fun ribbing of a sister who most likely knew my "plans" consisted of a bubble bath and maybe a scented scrub if I was feeling fancy.

"Sorry to disappoint." I exited the mechanical room and made my way toward the elevators.

"No, you're not."

She was right. A homebody by nature, I found most social outings either stressful, boring, or a brain-bleeding combination of the two. Especially lately, when all I really wanted to do was stay home and drown my sorrows in ice cream. My sister, on the other hand, was one of those pesky people-person types. The never-take-no-for-an-answer type. She could seamlessly fit into any group and make even the most reclusive person feel at ease in her presence. It was a gift.

One that I did not have.

"It's Friday," she continued when I stayed silent. "You promised you'd get a date for this weekend." My big sister. Always looking out for me. Or always judging-take your pick.

She was one to talk though. It wasn't like she was happily married or anything. But, to give her credit, she was a whole lot better than me at relationships. She'd once dated a guy long-distance for three years. I mean, who does that? Superheroes like Madison, that's who. I, on the other hand, rarely made it to the second date, whether they lived in the same city or not.

"I have an interview in an hour with a journalist," I replied. "He's doing a story on women in tech. Does that count as a date?"

"Not unless the journalist happens to be single and has the build of a Hemsworth brother."

I pushed the button outside the elevator and watched the light illuminate each floor number on its rise to where I was waiting.

"We've...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593550307
ISBN 13 
9780593550304
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
BERKLEY
https://www.penguin.com/?s=BERKLEY

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