Dark Secret (DARC Ops Book 1) by Jamie Garrett Read Free Book Online

pressed on. He looked about ready to crack. “Crosswords?”
    “I've got one cooking in my office right now,” Jackson finally said.
    “The Sunday crossword or New York Times ?”
    “Sunday.” He was referring to the Washington Post's weekly puzzle, which was also Mira's favorite.
    “Do you have thirty-six across?” she asked.
    Jackson suddenly had a sheepish grin on his face.“I don't know... What is it?” For a micro-second he almost looked... vulnerable?
    “I don't know it, either,” Mira said. “That's why I asked.”
    “I meant the clue. What's the clue?”
    “Enigma vanquisher. Six letters.”
    “Turing,” he said promptly.
    She'd been smiling since his first mention of their shared hobby. Maybe he was a nerd, after all. Mira delighted to imagine this sexy military bad-boy billionaire hunched over the same lame crossword that she brought into bed with her every night.
    “Alan Turing. World War Two cryptanalyst.” Jackson cleared his throat as if it would camouflage his lightning-quick glance to the shiny Rolex peaking out past his shirt-cuff. “Anyway, back to your document.”
    “Oh sorry. Yes, the document.”
    “Yes, you were just about to tell me your story,” said Jackson. “And could you tell it loud enough so our mics can pick it up?” He flashed her a quick grin. There was that urge to roll her eyes again.
    There wasn’t much of a story, really. She’d found a document. Live-decrypted it. And now she was in the statement room of a company with an ominous-sounding acronym, sitting with the owner, a covert crossworder , who was also a total hottie.
    She left out that last part, and the next part about her wanting to feel up his chest a little bit, her reaching behind his tie to undo a few buttons, her hand sliding through... It was superfluous information that would hinder the case.
    “It's what I'm best at,” Mira said, sensing that she'd somehow lost his confidence in her. “That's all I do, decrypting text, languages. I don't even have to think about it.”
    Jackson remained quiet, his eyes seemingly observing the tiniest micro-twitch and mannerism of Mira's face. After a while he looked down to his lap where he causally brushed away some stray lint or strand of hair. “But what did it say? I mean, specifically.”
    Mira drew a green leather notebook from her purse. “I wrote down a few fragments, whatever I could remember after I rushed out of there.” She flipped through a few pages before looking up at Jackson. “I was pretty nervous. I'm not, um... I've never really, uh...”
    “That's completely understandable, Mira. But you're handling it better than most people would. You're here aren’t you?”
    She nodded and looked down at her page of notes. The penmanship was scraggly, the work of a nervous hand. She remembered the exact feeling, the hollow shakiness. And she remembered sitting that day at her cubicle, waiting for someone to come by and finally let her in on the joke and it would all be a hilarious relief. Just a little office joke. No need to worry. No need to seek out someone like Jackson.
    “Can you read some of it?” he asked.
    “DGH, thank you for assurances... Mr. K. is very close to agreeing and moving into action regarding the new toys. Kilaguni airport is preferred.”
    Jackson took a deep breath before exhaling with an, “Okayyy... Well, it's interesting, certainly. I wouldn’t say it's a smoking gun just yet. But, there really is no good reason for a senator to have such material on his computer. And the way it was encrypted... That in itself is very suspicious. You don't think he's a cryptogram hobbyist or anything, right?”
    Mira thought of the stuffed big game animals that hung like garish war prizes in Langhorne's office, and the muscle car YouTube videos, and then she answered Jackson with an emphatic, “No.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “There was nothing hobbyist or amateur about the encryption.”
    “Then how could you crack