CHAPTER 15
Showered and dressed and fueled with coffee, Will had a meeting to get to and yet he still dragged his feet getting out the door. That wasn’t like him at all.
He was charged with the energy from being at Meade and privy to their discovery. In spite of that, he’d hovered.
Hovered over his coffee mug at the kitchen island. Hovered at the front door.
He tried not to read too much into it. He definitely didn’t want to think he couldn’t get his ass out of his apartment this morning because he didn’t want to leave Jessa. He’d placed a strict moratorium on heartbreak in his life. Once bitten, twice shy.
The memory of his last relationship hadn’t faded nearly enough for him to rush into a new one. He wasn’t even interested in having a fling. Not with anyone. Certainly not with Jessa.
Sara had done a hell of a number on him. Cured him of women and romance and love. Inoculated him against all of that shit that made a man all too susceptible.
Hell, he should really be grateful. Because of Sara he could focus completely on other parts of his life for a while. The app. The team. The hack.
He probably just didn’t want to get to work this morning because plans for Jessa’s security system were still so unsettled. He hated loose ends. He really did have to feel out Rudnick and see what the timeline was going to look like.
Happy with that excuse, he parked in the lot and strode into the building, nearly colliding with Brody in the hallway.
“Hey.” Brody frowned. “You’re back already?”
“Yeah.” Will nodded. “I cut my leave short.”
“I hope that means that your gramps is doing better.”
“He is, thanks.”
“Good to hear. See you inside.” Brody tipped his head toward the meeting room and was off.
Will had kept to himself that he was back to get to work on taking advantage of that Trojan Horse.
If not for that, he would have happily spent the remainder of his approved leave visiting with his family and finishing his app. But his life was an ever changing landscape and he’d long ago learned to live with that reality and adapt.
Right now, the priority was to figure out a way to best exploit this accidental conduit into the inner workings of Kim Jong Un’s North Korea. Now, more than ever, the US needed eyes on the nuclear-capable regime and thanks to the hack, they had exactly that.
Step one, hack into the hackers’ overseas servers, which would give the good guys access to their infrastructure and hopefully confirm exactly who was behind the attack.
Step two, see what was in there, try to determine what they were gathering and try to figure out why.
What they found would help direct what step three would be.
Will might be a member of SEAL Team 6, but because of his skills, he was loaned out by the Navy’s Special Warfare Development Group more times than he could count.
He didn’t mind one bit. He’d pledged his life to serve his country, and right now he could serve them best by striking back against the cyber attack by attacking them back.
All it really amounted to was hacking the hackers and Will was completely jazzed about the prospect. Challenges like this one got his adrenaline going as much, if not more, than a firefight.
Officially the hack back was called active defense, which was against the law unless, of course, you were working for the government at the highest levels in an effort to eliminate a foreign threat the way Will was.
That it was illegal didn’t mean it wasn’t done by civilian corporations and computer security specialists all the time. It was. Hell, if Will worked in the private sector, he’d be doing it and breaking the law too. Thank goodness he didn’t have to.
He’d have to brief command about what was going on at Fort Meade before he got to work. So he figured as long as he was back on base he’d sit in on the morning team briefing. See if there was any action on the horizon after what had been a long period stateside.
Will glanced at his watch. He had a few minutes to get to the meeting room and one more cup of coffee couldn’t hurt considering how early he’d been up that morning.
Inside the team room, he found Tompkins and Fitz already there doing the same thing he was intent on—grabbing some last minute caffeine before the meeting.
“Hey.” Will nodded to them.
“Hey. Look who’s back.” Tompkins lifted his brows. “It’s Mr. Elusive.”
“I’m not elusive.” Will frowned. “I was home on leave. My grandfather is in the hospital.”
Fitz bobbed his head. “I heard about your grandpa. Sorry, man. He doing okay?”
“Yeah. Better. Thanks.”
“I’m sorry too. I know you two are close. But that’s not what I meant.” Tompkins shook his head. “I meant we haven’t seen you outside of work in what feels like months. What’s up with that? What’s going on? Your girl got your balls locked up?”
The only team guy who knew anything about this was Brody and Will knew he would never tell anyone. So the rest of the guys were in the dark.
It had seemed easier to avoid the whole conversation until now. To just let them all keep thinking he was still with Sara. To not have to say it out loud and deal with them and their reactions. Questions. Sympathy. Suggestions for getting back on the horse . . . or the pussy.
He’d heard it all over the years every time a relationship imploded, which happened often. The only difference was this time it was him. His relationship. His friends who were going to want to get him back on the horse.
But they were already teasing him and making snarky remarks about his not going out. So what was the use of keeping the breakup secret? Teasing was teasing. And having them assume he was still with Sara and pussy-whipped seemed worse than letting them know he wasn’t and dealing with the consequences.
“We, uh, broke up.”
The eyes of both men widened.
“Wow.” Fitz’s one word reaction was easy enough to handle. Hopefully Tompkins would follow his teammate’s lead and be just as concise.
“Jesus Christ. I figured you were going to marry that one, you were together so long.”
Or, maybe not.
Will drew in a breath. “Yeah, well, you were wrong there.”
Fitz let out a snort. “Not the first time Tompkins has been wrong.”
After shooting Fitz a glare, Tompkins directed his focus back to Will. “So then why aren’t you out enjoying your newfound available status every damn night of the week?”
“I gotta agree with him, Wonks.” Fitz nodded. “After being with the same girl for so many years, I’d want to get back out there to the all you can eat lady buffet. If you know what I mean.”
It was impossible to not get the meaning of what Fitz meant, even without the man’s lewd hip thrusting as he mimed what he thought Will should be doing.
“We finally found the bright side for us having no action. We can all concentrate on getting Wonka back out there.”
Will couldn’t think of anything worse.
He had to get Tompkins off this plan and on to something else. Telling them about his app and getting them in on the ground floor as Beta users might distract the guys enough they’d leave him and his private life alone.
Besides, unlike Brody and most of the other guys in the unit who had steady girlfriends or were married, the two guys currently trying to drag him out were single. They could test the app on each other.
Yeah. That could work. And since it would be reciprocal, each choosing the dates for the other, it would act as kind of a system of checks and balances. No one could screw around because his own date was in the other guy’s hands.
It was kind of perfect.
Now to sell them on the idea.
“Actually, I’ve been working on a side project in my off time. An app.”
Tompkins leaned forward, looking more than interested. “The computer god is working on his own app? Do tell.”
“It’s still rough right now. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s about ready for beta testing. All I need to do is find a couple of guys to test it out for me.”
“What about us?” Tompkins spread his hands wide.
“Eh. I don’t know.” Will somehow managed to keep a straight face as Fitz’s eyes popped wide.
“Dude. We’re your bros. You have to let us test it.”
Reeled them right in. Hook. Line. And Sinker. And they’d forgotten all about taking Will out trolling for women.
He smiled.
Let the beta test commence.