Chapter One
ANGEL SINCLAIR
It’s not like I woke up on a Monday morning expecting to become a spy, but that’s exactly what happened.
It’s not the kind of thing a normal, almost sixteen-year-old girl expects to happen on a regular school day in early October. I guess that’s the problem. I’m not exactly normal. My name is Angel Sinclair, and I’m a senior at the Excalibur Academy for Technologically Gifted and Talented in Washington, DC. I’m younger than most seniors because I skipped a grade. I stand five feet three, have red hair, freckles, and blue eyes, and I’m definitely not the kind of person who leaps to mind when you think of the charm of James Bond, the physical prowess of Jason Bourne, or the wit of Mata Hari. I’m just an ordinary geek girl, hacker, and outsider. To put it bluntly, I like people about as much as I like Microsoft patches, which isn’t much.
However, my life as a loner drastically changed a few weeks ago when two of my friends—Frankie Chang and Wally Harris—helped me save our vice principal and bring down a hacker using technology and old-fashioned teamwork. I wasn’t sure what was more momentous—that I’d made friends or that I’d caught the eye of the NSA with my hacking prowess. I was still trying to decide if those were good things or bad things.
Regardless, Wally, Frankie, and I decided we were going to be kind of like a Scooby gang, solving mysteries and calling ourselves the White Knights. Frankie even made us a cool logo with a white chess piece. Unfortunately, no other mysteries had yet presented themselves, but we were hopeful.
After a week of random students stopping me in the hallway to ask me questions about how we’d saved the vice principal, things were slowly getting back to normal at Excalibur. Wally—one of the smartest guys I knew and an ace hacker—had basked in his fifteen minutes of fame at the school before most people went back to ignoring him. I returned to my usual invisible self almost immediately, which I should have expected, but it was depressing anyway. Frankie, on the other hand, continued to chat and make friends with everyone she met like they were her long-lost soul mates. I’ve never met anyone nicer, but sometimes her faith in people scares me.
Today, as the bell rang on a gloriously sunny afternoon, I streamed out of the school with the other students. Students bumped into me as I was carried along by the crowd to the bus. I saw Ms. Swanson, the headmistress, standing next to a man wearing jeans, a leather jacket, and dark sunglasses. He leaned casually against the bus, his arms crossed against his chest. I knew immediately who he was.
Slash.
That’s not his real name, obviously. He works for the NSA and is probably a real spy, thus the code name. I was so surprised to see him, I stopped in midstep and nearly got trampled by the other students. The headmistress spotted me and motioned for me to come over, so I gulped and tried to act cool as I detached myself from the herd and turned their way.
“There you are, Angel,” the headmistress greeted me. “There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.”
Slash’s mouth curved into a smile. “Hello, Angel.”
Slash was the most talented hacker I’d ever met, outside of my mentor and idol, Lexi Carmichael, a female tech head who was shattering ceilings left and right. She also happened to be Slash’s significant other.
“Hey, Slash,” I said. “What brings you to high school on a Monday afternoon? Is everything okay with Lexi?”
“Lexi’s fine. I’m here to speak with you.” He pushed off the bus. His eyes remained hidden behind the sunglasses, so I couldn’t gauge how serious, or not, this visit was supposed to be. “The headmistress cleared this, if you’re up to it. It’s official government business.”
“Oh.” I looked between Ms. Swanson and Slash, my breath hitching in my throat. “Sure, I’m fine with it, of course.”
Still, my heart beat a little faster. For a moment, I wondered if he had news about my father, who’d vanished when I was eighteen months old. I’d recently discovered Dad might have been a spy. Not at the CIA—where most spies are born—but at the NSA. I don’t know for certain if my father was a secret agent or not, but I’d recently confirmed there was a good chance he was still alive and somehow connected to the NSA. Since Slash worked at the NSA, he might know or, at the very least, could find out. But I’d learned the world of espionage was devious and dangerous while trying to find out what had happened to my father. I wasn’t ready to trust anyone, even Slash, until I had more information.
“So, what’s up?” I’d been going for a nonchalant tone, but my voice sounded apprehensive instead.
Slash slipped off his sunglasses and hooked them onto the front of his shirt. His eyes were serious. “You got a few minutes to chat privately?”