Forever covert, p.1
Forever Covert, page 1
Forever Covert
Forever Bluegrass #21
Kathleen Brooks
Contents
Also by Kathleen Brooks
Family Trees for Keeneston
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Also by Kathleen Brooks
About the Author
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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An original work of Kathleen Brooks. Forever Covert copyright @ 2024 by Kathleen Brooks.
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Kathleen Brooks® and Forever Bluegrass Series® are registered Trademarks of Laurens Publishing, LLC.
Also by Kathleen Brooks
Bluegrass Series
Bluegrass State of Mind
Risky Shot
Dead Heat
* * *
Bluegrass Brothers
Bluegrass Undercover
Rising Storm
Secret Santa: A Bluegrass Series Novella
Acquiring Trouble
Relentless Pursuit
Secrets Collide
Final Vow
* * *
Bluegrass Singles
All Hung Up
Bluegrass Dawn
The Perfect Gift
The Keeneston Roses
* * *
Forever Bluegrass Series
Forever Entangled
Forever Hidden
Forever Betrayed
Forever Driven
Forever Secret
Forever Surprised
Forever Concealed
Forever Devoted
Forever Hunted
Forever Guarded
Forever Notorious
Forever Ventured
Forever Freed
Forever Saved
Forever Bold
Forever Thrown
Forever Lies
Forever Protected
Forever Paired
Forever Connected
Forever Covert
Forever Burning (coming August/September 2024)
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Shadows Landing Series
Saving Shadows
Sunken Shadows
Lasting Shadows
Fierce Shadows
Broken Shadows
Framed Shadows
Endless Shadows
Fading Shadows
Damaged Shadows
Escaping Shadows
* * *
Shadows Landing: The Townsends
Face-Off
Targeted (coming April/May 2024)
Rescued (coming October 2024)
* * *
Women of Power Series
Chosen for Power
Built for Power
Fashioned for Power
Destined for Power
* * *
Web of Lies Series
Whispered Lies
Rogue Lies
Shattered Lies
* * *
Moonshine Hollow Series
Moonshine & Murder
Moonshine & Malice
Moonshine & Mayhem
Moonshine & Mischief
Moonshine & Menace
Moonshine & Masquerades
Family Trees for Keeneston
Davies Family Tree
* * *
Keeneston Friends Family Trees
* * *
Extended Family Tree for Keeneston and Shadows Landing
1
Quantico, Virginia . . .
* * *
Kale Mueez hated being called to the White House. President Birch Stratton was a good guy and had a close connection to Kale’s family. Kale’s sister, Abby, and her husband, Dylan Davies, worked with President Stratton on a special off-the-books black ops team. Dylan’s cousin, Greer, ran the team. However, that didn’t mean President Stratton wouldn’t rip into Kale, which he tended to do when Kale got called to Washington. Any other time, they were on very good terms.
Kale had been focused on finding The Panther, a cybercriminal who set up online auctions on the dark web to sell anything and everything illegal. Instead, President Stratton, the CIA, and Congress thought Kale should have seen another threat. Namely one traitor, CIA officer Aaron Naylor. It didn’t matter that what Kale did for President Stratton could never be acknowledged because most of what he did was highly illegal. The software programs the government bought from Kale in his role of “cyber consultant” were legal and public, but the off-the-books stuff that accounted for 95% of the work he did was never put in writing. It was that part that warranted his extremely high compensation. However, he’d never be able to admit it to the CIA or to Congress. It made this particular situation very sticky and was just another thing to blame on The Panther.
The Panther could be a man, woman, or an entire team of people and it frustrated Kale to no end that he didn’t know which it was. The Panther used a complicated network of proxy servers to hide their location. In addition, The Panther used private networks so neither law enforcement nor other hackers could see what they were doing without some really ingenious and super illegal hacking. This online pirate/auctioneer would steal intellectual property, then turn and sell it to the highest bidder. The Panther would sell lists of spies to governments—either the country with said spies to keep them safe or to the country where the spies were working to have them killed. It seemed that nothing mattered to The Panther but profit and causing chaos. That’s why Kale was hunting them.
The Panther had gone after Willa Aldridge, who was now married to Porter Davies, and almost killed her. Then The Panther had tried to sell Sebastian Abel’s system encryption to the Chinese, a complex plot in which Sebastian was kidnapped, tortured, and held above the Arctic Circle. Sebastian just happened to be the president’s best friend and was now married to Greer, Kale’s friend from Keeneston, Kentucky, who’d been sent to save Sebastian after he was taken hostage. Lastly, The Panther raised their ugly head again by setting up a creative new way to bankroll criminals. If it were dirty, illegal, and dangerous, The Panther’s paws were all over it.
However, President Stratton, the CIA director, and several members of Congress had just yelled at Kale for the past two hours for being too focused on someone who had had all their assets taken by the government over a year ago. The Panther hadn’t been heard from since last year when Sebastian and Greer thwarted the sale of Sebastian’s technology to the Chinese government. Kale had wanted to argue that his contract job with the government, which was technically as a cyber consultant, was to provide secure software and only on a case-by-case basis. Kale had not been called in to find a traitor in the CIA, but they didn’t care. Stratton needed someone to blame and Kale was Target #1 since his software was used to run background checks on the agents. As a result, Kale’s contract with the U.S. government had been suspended pending a full investigation. He knew he’d be cleared eventually because the government needed him way more than Kale needed them.
Kale had been escorted out of the White House by the First Lady, Tate Stratton, who apologized repeatedly for her husband. President Stratton knew it wasn’t Kale’s fault but he had to play politics, especially when the director of the CIA brought up the contract and placed the blame on Kale. He’d dared Stratton to say it wasn’t Kale, but then he’d have to admit what Kale really did for the government.
Kale understood. He understood politics. His best friends were the royal family of a small country. He understood that Stratton was sorry and didn’t have any other choice but to hang him out to dry. If Stratton admitted what Kale did, Stratton would have to admit to the black ops team too. So, Kale shouldered the blame. It still pissed him off though.
Kale headed to nearby Quantico and the small bar owned by Elizabeth and Dalton Cage instead of going to his home in D.C. Elizabeth had started the president’s black ops team, but now mostly ran this bar in the small town of Quantico. She dabbled every now and then in missions, but was focused on being a parent most of all.
Kale was from th e small town of Keeneston, Kentucky. It was full of good food, gossip, military, CIA, law enforcement, and a PTA mom who had a knack for hitting terrorists with her car. Kale came to this bar when he was in D.C. and needed the comfort of home. Quantico was not only home to a Marine training base, but it was also the home of both the FBI academy and the DEA training academy. The talk around him at the bar made him feel at home.
“Hey, Lizzie. This young man looks like he needs a drink. Put it on my tab.” The elderly Black man with white hair and a mischievous smile slapped Kale on the back.
“Thanks, Buzz,” Kale said with a sigh as Buzz took his usual seat at the bar. Kale had been to the bar enough to know its regulars. Snip, Buzz’s best friend and sometime military hair-cutting rival, took the seat next to Buzz at the other end of the bar and sent him a sympathetic look as Elizabeth served Kale a bourbon.
“I heard Birch called you in and read you the riot act. It’s bullshit,” she told him.
“I know it is, but I also understand why he had to do it,” Kale said before tossing back the bourbon.
Elizabeth poured him another drink. “Doesn’t make it right. I already called and did my own yelling. We do hard work that no one can know about and we expect him to have our back.”
“Someone pointed the finger at me, Elizabeth,” Kale said on a whisper.
Elizabeth got serious quickly as she leaned across the bar. “Who?” she asked.
“I don’t know. The director of the CIA brought it to Stratton. Not only that, the chair of the congressional intelligence committee also pointed the finger at me and interrogated me on exactly what I did for such a price they paid me. That’s what forced Stratton to suspend my contract.”
“Well, crap.” Elizabeth poured herself a drink and tossed it back. “Someone wants you out. Who even knows what you do?”
“Just the President’s Guard,” he told her, naming their black ops team. “And Sebastian Abel,” he said of the tech billionaire.
Elizabeth shook her head. “Look, I know Sebastian can be cold. And I know he operates in the gray area, but he wouldn’t betray you. His wife heads up the President’s Guard, for Pete’s sake. He bought into one of your companies, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Kale admitted. “No one else has the ability to know what I—” Kale paused and sucked in a breath.
“What? Who?” Elizabeth asked, dropping her voice as a group of Marines walked by.
“The Panther.”
“Your nemesis?”
Kale nodded. “The Panther is the only one with the ability to search government files like that. Technically, it’s public record that the government pays me, but it’s under a company name and my name is very well hidden. Yet, two people show up with my name on their lips? Only The Panther could do that. They must be up to something and want me out. I have to warn Stratton.”
“No,” Elizabeth said. “If this person is that good, we can’t have you tied to Stratton. It could put the whole team at risk if they dig further. Let me call Tate. She can tell Birch.”
Kale frowned into his bourbon as Elizabeth headed into the “closet,” which was really a soundproof and bugproof room, to call Tate. Dammit. Yes, Kale found enough of The Panther’s network to shut them down and confiscate all their assets, including a very nice house in the Bahamas, but then they’d fallen quiet for almost a year. He had hoped to hunt The Panther down and arrest them before they caused any more trouble, but it appeared The Panther was making a comeback and had struck at Kale first.
Losing the contract didn’t bother Kale. He’d still help Greer and her team out. He wouldn’t leave his sister and brother-in-law hanging like that. It was never about the money. He had more money than he could spend in four lifetimes. He held so many copyrights and patents on everything from cyber security programs to computer software to computer hardware he could have retired in his twenties. That wasn’t counting the company he formed with Alex Santos, which they’d sold to Ryker Faulkner and Sebastian Abel, two of America’s wealthiest billionaires. Kale didn’t need to help the country track down dangerous people, but it was in his blood.
Kale’s father, Ahmed Mueez, was a super soldier. He was one of the most feared men in the world for the work he did on behalf of his country, Rahmi, the small island nation close to the Persian Gulf. Kale held dual citizenship with the U.S. and Rahmi and had just finished his own stint of military service with them. His father insisted he be as equally strong physically as he was intellectually. Kale’s mother had been a dog handler with the military and then moved to training police dogs. Her father, Kale’s grandfather, had been the chief of staff of the Army. Serving both of Kale’s countries was a duty he’d accepted his whole life. Money didn’t matter, only good people stopping evil mattered.
And now The Panther had scored a direct hit. The score was even. The question was: who was going to come out on top?
“Message has been received. Stratton said the team is at your disposal if you need it and he’ll play politics to try to find out where the director and the congressman got your name,” Elizabeth told him after talking to the First Lady.
“Thanks, Elizabeth.” Kale set money on the bar. He had a car waiting to take him to the airport where a Rahmi jet was waiting. “I’m off to Rahmi to give them some training on cyber security. I’ll let you know if I need anything.”
The drive to the airport was a blur. He didn’t even pay attention to the drive. His mind was on The Panther.
* * *
Kale was the only person on the private flight to Rahmi. He slept some, but the rest was spent trying to figure out a way to ferret out The Panther. Everyone had a weakness, even Kale. He just needed to find The Panther’s weakness.
Closing the laptop, he rubbed his eyes and eyed his cell phone. A week ago, at the wedding of his friends, he’d gotten a wrong number text. The woman had made him smile and while he was always the chill happy-go-lucky guy, lately he’d been feeling restless. This woman had been on a date when her date excused himself to go to the bathroom and left for a quick hookup. The woman, who went by the dating site handle of @PlatypusesAreCool, had accidentally transposed a number and sent Kale the chewing out her date deserved.
It was a quick text conversation, but Kale couldn’t stop thinking about it. She was funny. She didn’t know who he was, which was a bonus. Kale had always done a good job keeping his own net worth under wraps, but he had several high-profile friends that dates tended to use him to get close to. Then, when Kale finally met a woman who didn’t care or know his connection to the Rahmi royal family, he ended up not being able to carry on more than a ten-minute conversation with her. He would start talking computers and her eyes would glaze over and she’d interrupt, asking to hook up since he was “hot.”
After thirty years of being a big ol’ nerd, being thought of as a hottie was taking some getting used to. His mother called him a late bloomer which didn’t exactly help his self-confidence. He didn’t need to be strong to hack the NSA or MI-6. However, his father wouldn’t stand for any child of his not being able to defend themselves. His dad could make grown men piss themselves with just a look and had said it was time for Kale to serve in the Rahmi military. Yes, Kale could have refused, but he was tired of his sister beating the crap out of him when they fought. It didn’t matter that Abby was a mom now. They inevitably ended up play fighting and Kale always lost.
