Chapter One
Kinsey Bennett
Everyone could feel the anxiety radiating in the conference room as we sat waiting. I toyed around with my pen twirling it around my fingers before nervously tapping it against my knee. This was the moment we had worked endless nights for, missed out of family events for, and the moment we waited 5 years for.
Finally, after a few minutes, our boss, Agent Susan Campbell, stepped into the room for our briefing. She wore a typical black suit with her dark hair tied back into a bun which showed off her strong jaw. My cheeks turned a light shade of pink as I thought of the little crush I had on her back at the academy.
"Well, today is the day," She started making sure she had the attention of the room, "SWAT and many of our fellow agents are currently waiting on orders outside of town hall where we believe Marcus Wright, otherwise known as Ace, the ring leader to the criminal organization The Rite, is meeting with the mayor to negotiate some sort of illegal arms deal."
The room started to fill with light whispers from our colleges. The Rite is a criminal organization that much like the mafia uses extortion and other criminal behaviors to gain power and money. They have left a bloody trail in their fight for dominance, but our most recent intel shows that the Rite has not only obtained large quantities of military-style weapons but has been selling them to multiple terrorist organizations across the world.
As Susan cleared her throat, the noise quickly died down, "I know that everyone here is nervous, you have all worked so hard to get to this moment. But," She pauses thinking about her next words, "It's not over yet. There is a lot of work left to be done and everyone must remain vigilant and stay in constant communication with their group and leads. So, let us use this time to take a deep breath and then get back to work."
Like bees, everyone quickly scattered and hurried back to their desk, awaiting the go-ahead. I sat down at my computer, quickly signing in to scan our feeds one last time. I put my headset on, "Anyone copy?"
"Roger, roger," the other voice on the com came through.
I smiled as I continued to bring up the different camera feeds, "Hey, Ollie. How's it going from the outside?"
Oliver has been my best friend since middle school. His crystal blue eyes and inviting smile were enough to make any girl swoon, although he always seems to be clueless.
"Fine," he hesitates, "Just waiting on my orders."
My heart immediately sank. "You hesitated," I reply removing my hands from my keyboard and mouse.
He sighed into his mic, "I don't know, something doesn't feel right."
I frown taking control back of the mouse searching through countless feeds, searching for anything out of the ordinary. "I'm not seeing anything."
He sighs, "Looks like they are about to give the orders. Wish me luck."
I smile continuing to check the feed, "You don't need luck...wait Ollie." I see something off to the right on the camera feed from behind the town hall building."
"SWAT is headed in..." the audio suddenly goes out.
"Ollie wait no! I think there's something..." I say trying to zoom in on the video feed, but it's too fuzzy.
No response. I change channels, "Does anyone copy?"
I change channels and try again. Suddenly, multiple analysts are jumping up around me yelling into their mics. A big explosion erupts and all the video feeds go dead. The office went quiet as everyone stared in disbelief. Fire rained down from town hall to ashes along with our hopes of catching the infamous Marcus Wright.
Hours later, we are still left waiting on official news from the town hall. A cold chill runs down my spine as the hairs on the back of my neck stand as the news replays the explosions at town hall over and over again. I slump further into my chair and sigh in frustration as I pull on my ID lanyard. We have been tracking Ace for five years and when we thought we were finally one step ahead...BOOM.
For a while after the explosion, we tried to keep busy by scouring the web for any trace as to where Wright and his accomplices were headed next. With no activity on their accounts or anywhere, the group seems to have vanished into thin air, at least for now. The Rite is ruthless and with their connections with organizations like the mafia and drug cartels, they will be back.
I spin around in my office chair a few times waiting for our next orders. I check my phone for any notifications about my colleges that were caught in the explosion zone, most importantly, from Ollie.
Suddenly, an alert shows up on the screen. Someone else is trying to track one of the old Rite accounts. I quickly work, taping away on my keyboard, to try to track their location.
"You're good," I think to myself, "But, naive." I quickly take a sip of my cold coffee as I continue to quickly type away trying to track the user. After a while of back and forth, I got them.
I quickly detach my tablet from the docking station and rush over to my boss's cubicle. "Special Agent Campbell, I think I may have found something, but I'm not sure." I say turning my computer around so she can see it."
She looks at the screen quickly sits up. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, someone was using a computer at Exersoft to try to access the accounts. They were good, they used a lot of precautions and almost had me, but they are young or inexperienced. I'm thinking maybe one of their interns. But, why would one of their interns be trying to access the Rites accounts? Much less an account we haven't seen any activity on since we discovered it 3 years ago."
She thought for a second, "Unless the Rite is testing to see which accounts we know about and have access to."
"Maybe, I'll keep an eye on the accounts and let know if I notice anything out of the ordinary."
She nods, "Good work Bennett."
"Thanks," I reply.
"And Bennett? I wanted to let you know that Oliver is okay. He is in the ICU, but it's not major and is expected to make a full recovery."
I smiled, "Thank you."
Then with that, I walked out of her office back to my desk to wait.
