One-Knight Stand (White Knights #3) - Julie Moffett Page 0,2

forgot,” she said. “Today we were presented with the dizzying array of tools and graphic programs the US government has at its fingertips to create the most amazing fake IDs. I was like a kid in a candy store. I’ve never been so excited about anything in my life. It’s like a dream come true. I can play with graphics all I want without worrying about being arrested.”

I guess I’d always thought the spy stuff involved car chases, shooting the bad guys, and, weirdly, playing poker in a tuxedo. But the truth is that the life of an operative is not all glamour and thrills. In fact, most of it is tedious work such as research, information collection, and data analysis. Or in my case, computers.

Still, I felt exactly the same way about hacking as she did creating fake IDs. Here at UTOP, we could excel at our talents without fear of retribution. In fact, we were encouraged to do it, all while under proper adult supervision, which meant one thing:

Spy school rocked.

Chapter Three

ANGEL SINCLAIR

I hadn’t mentioned it earlier to Frankie, but I was both excited and completely terrified for my next class, Driver’s Education: Escape and Evasion.

The night before, several of us had been up late playing the defensive driving simulator our professors had provided for us on our laptops. With a little creative coding, Wally and I had been able to modify the multiplayer version of the simulator. Now, instead of just being able to practice the various maneuvers they wanted us to demonstrate proficiency at performing, we could play tag inside both the urban and rural environments of the simulation.

While Wally and I took modifying the simulation code as a professional challenge, we justified it to ourselves by arguing it was helping to improve our situational awareness as we chased each other around the virtual course. It was also good practice for me because I was the only one of my team that didn’t have a driver’s license yet, just a learner’s permit.

I was the king of the virtual track.

Frankie, on the other hand, was in a league of her own in the hacked simulator. Not because she was good, but because she wrecked her car the most often. She had one speed…fast. Plus, she was unpredictable. It made her almost impossible to catch, unless you tailed her at a reasonable speed and waited for the inevitable accident in order to tag her.

Today, however, was a big day for us. We were moving from the classroom, and the simulators, to an actual car for the first time. My heart beat faster as I headed for the parking lot behind one of the administrative buildings, where we’d been told to report for class. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to drive, because I wasn’t emotionally or intellectually prepared for that. Plus, the whole learner’s permit thing…I’d never driven by myself. The classroom instructor had assured me it wouldn’t be an issue, since the permit was good enough to get me behind the wheel, but that didn’t calm my nerves. Luckily, all training for the course occurred on a private track run by contractors not far from UTOP.

There was already a gaggle of students in the parking lot when I spotted Jax Drummond’s dark head towering over several of the students. Jax had been one of the eight kids on my team during the UTOP trials. I made a beeline for him. When I got closer, I saw he was chatting with Frankie and Wally.

“Hey, Red,” Jax said, smiling and giving me a nod.

Jax always called me Red because of my red hair. He was tall, cute, and had green eyes and a killer smile. Tough exterior, but soft on the inside. He’d had a horrible childhood that had landed him in foster homes for much of his teen years, but by seventeen he’d emancipated himself and was working and going to school until he’d been tapped to try out for UTOP. He’d excelled in all the physical challenges during our trials and was a whiz at engineering, math, and mechanics.

Sometimes he had a bit of a problem with authority, and personal honor was a murky topic for him, which I figured could either work for or against him in terms of being a spy. But he’d proven himself to be a good team member and friend to me. He’d also kissed me on my sixteenth birthday a few weeks ago, after I said it was okay, but I still wasn’t