Page 3 (1/2)

Frankly, Heckman Flax nauseated Aidan Talk about a sharp contrast to his days as a Marine on active duty In the oal of annihilating the ene a brotherhood And Wall Street? It was the worst of the worst There was nothing decent or patriotic about individuals attacking their own teahty dollar It was screw or be screwed Friendship was for losers

Working in this jungle , and a hell of a lot

But he had personal responsibilities that he couldn’t—and wouldn’t—walk away from He needed this job for the obscene amount of money Heckman Flax paid hies his position gave him to pursue his ideals

Thinking of his primary responsibility, he picked up and studied the only personal item in his entire office It was a photo of a four-and-a-half-year-old hellion She was the one who had transformed all facets of his life and turned it totally upside down

Abby His little girl His daughter

He hadn’t known of her existence until social services showed up at his door, with the necessary proof and documentation, and placed her in Aidan’s arms He’d been shocked to the core But none of that mattered now Abby’s mother, Valèrie, was dead, and Aidan was all Abby had

Nothing in his life had prepared hile dad There was no fieldJust his instincts, wits, and anything he could read fro a battle—he was losing this one each and every day in every possible way as little Abby wrapped hier

It appeared that forh anyhter was concerned

A smile curved his lips Abby could wreak hters or a conference room packed with corporate lawyers

His tenderof his secure cell phone

His smiled vanished “What’s up?” he answered

“I need to see you” Terri Underwood had an unmistakably authoritative tone to her voice A forency and now a freelance security consultant, she had no tiovern efforts—than the people running it She knew every nuance of thebehemoth, and even where a trap door existed so she could sneak into its vast repository of infor detected

Aidan relied heavily on Terri’s clandestine genius to use PRISM for a secret purpose—ferreting out variations in human communication patterns, variations that were the precursors to tragic or even catastrophic events

“We’ve got a high-risk situation,” she told him now

Aidan glanced at his watch “Give s up Then I’m on my way”