Espionage Thriller
Category
Dangerous High ~ Excerpt from 'Mission: Impossible to Protect'
Hugging the backstage wall, Danni Knorr crept in the shadows, her SIG tucked into her skirt and her flashlight in her hand. The only light in the wings came from the red exit sign. The band’s frenetic sound matched her heartbeat as it raced to its own crazy-ass rhythm. Espionage beat the hell of spending the day in a biochemistry/physics lab. Undercover as rock star Alex Hardy’s bodyguard, she had discovered a new high. Like drinking expensive French champagne, she got off on danger.
This was a new thing. Before she’d been kidnapped, Danni had never thought about her body more than keeping in shape and healthy. Had never thought of holding a gun, let alone buying one and practicing with targets weekly. Had never realized just how many threats were out there and how little she’d been able to do to save herself.
Honing her body into a fighting machine with Krav Maga had been the first step of taking charge after she had been kidnapped. Then she’d taken classes on tactical awareness. She’d read up on the FBI and various police trainings. She’d even thought about joining the Jenkins Security agency, but Nick Jenkins had turned her down because of her lack of experience. At least he’d been honest with her.
The final step in her “recovery” was ownership of her pleasure. Sex with the famous super stud Alex Hardy was to be the ultimate statement of her proclaimed freedom. She hadn’t yet made up her mind whether to seduce him.
Right now, acting only as his bodyguard suited her perfectly. Guarding the musician after discovering that he was being stalked had been serendipitous. Ever since Jax—the Jerk—her fiancé had left her at the altar for a young woman with more sexual enthusiasm and experience than she had—or so he’d been happy to tell her—Danni had been unable to bite the bullet. There was only one man who’d tempted her to open up and be vulnerable as well as passionate, and sadly, it wasn’t Alex, no matter how much she tried to persuade herself to give him a chance.
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One Woman ~ Excerpt from 'Mission: Impossible to Love'
Sten’s day had gone from one clusterfuck to the next. And it all centered around one woman. He stepped into the conference room to interrogate his newest team member, one he didn’t trust or want.
A team member he was responsible for. He had a lot of questions for the child prodigy, starting with her violent boyfriend and why she got antsy when speaking about her hacking.
He was trained in asking unpleasant questions, and he planned to ask her every single one.
Maybe it was time to rethink his transfer to CC since dealing with soldiers trained in warfare was a lot easier than dealing with a woman genius with enough secrets to keep the CIA busy for weeks.
The slender woman stood gazing out at the gray, misty skies. Something stirred in him as he saw the dejected set of her shoulders and the way her oversized coat hung on her like she was a waif out of a Dickens novel.
“Hey, are you hungry?” What happened to interrogating subjects when they were vulnerable?
Click here to keep reading Mission: Impossible to Love, the Impossible Mission series Book 3,
Too Hot to be a Hacker ~ Excerpt from 'Mission: Impossible to Love'
“You? A cracker?” Izzy covered her mouth. Did she just say that aloud? Okay, she was having a bit of trouble adjusting to the idea that Charles’s cousin or whatever wanted her for a government job—not for a prison sentence. Or maybe this was a trap to convict her?
Sten’s eyes and voice turned icy. “Why couldn’t I be a hacker?”
She shrugged her shoulders since it was too hard to raise her eyebrows. “You’re going to try to convince the seller that you hacked into a classified military program for a criminal organization or one of our country’s enemies? No one would believe it.”
The tense silence in the room reverberated against the glass walls. If that was physically possible.
PO’d alpha Man shifted his weight, leaning forward, closing the distance between them at the table. “And why is that?”
“Really, you need to ask?”
Reeves kicked her under the table. For some reason she couldn’t explain, she liked irritating Sten Jenkins with his dismissive attitude and cool control when she had none. “Because you’re not a chill stoner type. Nor do you have the angry edge of a rebel.” Izzy chose not to mention that his cover model face, his intense virile confidence, and his erect military posture shouted narc, not criminal.
“And you are?” His voice, laced with amusement, had Izzy edging closer to her adversary. Always underestimated by males because of her size and her age, Sten Jenkins had just thrown down the gauntlet.
“Let’s just say in the world of hackers, as a woman, I’m still unique.” She didn’t mention that gender disparity in pay and job advancement made her ripe for defying mainstream. “You’re not. And geeks who spend their entire lives in front of computers don’t have bodies that look like yours.” Izzy now wished she didn’t have the pale skin and freckles that went with her red hair. Because her skin was burning hot—like the color of a stop sign. OMG! Why was she commenting on Sten Jenkins’s body, and in front of Richard Dean?
Reeves was nodding in agreement. “It’s true, Sten. You have the whole military mojo going.”
Mr. Dean cleared his throat. “Well, I’m glad we have that clarified. Sten is going undercover as your bodyguard, Izzy, It will be the perfect cover. Sten will be running the mission but will also act as your bodyguard and accompany you when you hopefully do the buy. You might not know it, but Sten has skills in international cybercrime besides his military skills.”
Izzy didn’t like the way Sten’s full lips lifted into a smirk.
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I Want More ~ Excerpt from 'Mission: Impossible to Surrender'
“Don’t change the subject, Finn Jenkins.” Sophie moved against him, losing that last inch, taking him to boiling point with his erection swelling to no return.
“It’s complicated.” His breath came in harsh bursts with Sophie’s curves pressed to him. “Us—we’re complicated.”
Sophie rubbed those outstanding breasts against him, and there was no way Finn could hide his raging hard-on pressing against her stomach, or the way his body was clenched and ready.
“Doesn’t feel complicated. Feels straightforward to me.”
And there was the sexy teasing, making him want to drag her to the floor and show her how straightforward he could be. His self-control was evaporating.
He stepped back and ran his hand through his hair. “Sophie, this isn’t the time. You got shot at today and need comfort.” Like after Hong Kong, he wanted to be the man who comforted and protected her, not the one who took advantage like all the assholes before him. “But hell, it never feels like it’s been the right time for us.”
Sophie stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m not going to pretend that today wasn’t difficult, but I realized in the moment of danger that I wasn’t afraid. And I don’t mean because you can shoot and outrun and all the bad-ass stuff you do but because I trust you. I’ll always trust you. As long as you’re near, my world is safe and complete.”
“Just trust, Sophie?” He dragged his thumb along her pale neck before he tucked a curl behind her ear. “Because I want more than trust.”
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What I learned about military drones researching 'Mission: Impossible to Love'
In my new release, Mission: Impossible to Love, coming July 25, Elizabeth “Izzy” Benson is a tech genius whose Artificial Intelligence drone technology has been stolen and is being sold on the dark web. When I was writing the book,I spent a lot of time researching technology, including drones, AI, the dark web and hackers.
There is so much interesting research, and obviously not all of it can be included in a book. Here are a few facts I learned about drones that didn’t make it into Mission: Impossible to Love...but are still fascinating.
- Drone technology is also called “unmanned aerial vehicle” (UAV) technology.
- Drones (unmanned crafts) are built of lightweight composite materials, which enables military drones to fly at high altitudes, and are controlled from a ground-based system. Many drones are equipped with state of the art technology such as GPS, infrared cameras, and lasers.
- Applications for drones are becoming widespread in both the public and military sector. They come in a variety of sizes. The largest military UAV is the Predator drone. Click here to watch a video of a Predator drone taking off.
- Use of drones in the public sector is expanding. While you can’t yet have a pizza delivered by drone, this technology is widely used by companies for film, photo and video, as well as surveying and mapping land areas and inspecting and monitoring physical structures.
Here’s an excerpt from Mission: Impossible to Love. Enjoy this scene with Sten and Izzy and then preorder your copy to keep reading on release day!
Sten never stopped staring at her. “Avantus is using machine-learning algorithms to interpret drone-surveillance imagery. The company has managed to stay out of the controversy of using Artificial Intelligence in military operations. You have DOD security clearance, Ms. Benson?”
Why was he asking about her security clearance? What had he discovered about her? Paranoid fantasies of being dragged out of Dean’s office in handcuffs flashed before her. Now she could never ask Reeves for help in clearing her name. She had only planned to share her algorithm with him if she couldn’t stop Charles from selling it to North Korea or Russia.
“I have top secret level security clearance from my work at both Google and Avantus.” She didn’t add, “which you are totally aware of,” since she had been vetted before joining Dean’s software company.
All male eyes were now on her, and she felt the heat moving up her neck and across her chest. Darn her pale skin—it acted like a lie detector, preventing her from any subterfuge.
“But why leave Avantus?” Dean persisted. No wonder the man was a success. He was as tenacious as a colony of busy ants.
She gulped down the burning acid from her stomach moving upward. The noose was tightening around her neck. They didn’t still hang traitors, did they?
“I discovered that my work interests lie elsewhere.” Away from her cheating, conniving, criminal boyfriend.
“But I thought your second Ph.D. thesis was on machine learning?” Dean asked.
Izzy could feel the scorch of Sten’s intense focus zeroing in on her. It was as if he were slowly undressing her, leaving her sitting naked with every secret exposed. She could feel herself unraveling, wanting to believe that she’d soon wake up and be relieved that this was a bad dream.
“I never finished that Ph.D.”
Dean laughed. “At twenty-five, you still have plenty of time to finish it. Now, my daughter Sophie would say your arrival in Seattle was serendipitous. And I must agree. We need your help.”
“My help?” Izzy’s voice quivered. “How could I possibly help you?”
Mission: Impossible to Love ~ Releasing 7.25.19
Sources:
How Do Drones Work And What Is Drone Technology
Drones Are Doing More In U.S. Than You May Know, As These 3 Companies Show
