Killer Spirit (The Squad Series)

Chapter 1 Code Word: Body Glitter Once upon a time, I thought that the cheerleaders at my high school were no more capable of intelligent thought or true athleticism than the average dachshund. Suffice to say that unless the wiener dogs of the world have been holding out on mebig-timeI was very, very wrong. "Amelia Juarez. Jacob Kann. Anthony Connors-Wright. Hector Hassan." Brooke set the files down one by one, careful to avoid any undue wear and tear on her French manicure. "That's four TCIs arriving in Bayport in the past two days. The question is why." Personally, I could think of a few other questions, starting with "what's a TCI and why are cheerleading spies so fond of acronyms?" and running straight through to "do you have any idea how incredibly uncomfortable this godforsaken polyester uniform is?" To my credit, though, I somehow managed to remain remarkably quiet. Experience had taught me that if I waited long enough, someone would answer at least one of my unasked questions. Experience had also taught me that the fashionistas among us got, for lack of a better word, cranky when you criticized their fabric choices. "What level threat are we talking about here?" Tara asked from my right. It wasn't exactly one of my questions, but close enough. "Nothing higher than third or fourth tier," Brooke said. She arched an eyebrow at Zee in silent command, and our resident profiler obligingly picked up where Brooke had left off. "According to our data, their connections to known terrorists and/or terrorist organizations are weak, but the links are there, and in each case, there have been enough person-to-person interactions with suspected terrorists to warrant full profiling and a place on the watch list." Zee tucked a strand of jet-black hair behind her ear, a gesture I associated more with her ability to dispense gossip than her skills as a profiler. "All four are ambitious, and they all feel that they have something to prove. Amelia Juarez and Jacob Kann are terrorist-connected through their parentslots of money, lots of power, long, drawn-out history of high-level crimes in both families. Hector Hassan is a businessmanagain, young, smooth, very ambitious. And Anthony's father is an independent operative working primarily for the U.S. and U.K. governments." Tara rolled her eyes. "Teenage rebellion?" she inferred, as if the children of operatives often rebelled by going over to the dark side and becoming wannabe evil masterminds. "Try midtwenties rebellion," Zee said, "but, yeah, more or less. Anthony's driven by his father's career choices as much as Amelia and Jacob are by theirs, but in a different direction." So far, we had a crime prince, a crime princess, an intelligence brat, and a young businessman, all with some kind of vague-ish connections to terrorist groups. The part of my brain that's tuned in to patterns and codes played back everything that had been said in the debriefing so far, and zeroed in on the combination of words most likely to fit the acronym. "Terrorist-Connected Individuals," I guessed out loud. "TCIs." At the head of the table, Brooke rolled her eyes. "Very good, Toby," she said, her voice syrupy sweet. "Do you want a cookie?" As a matter of fact, I would have loved one, but somehow, I didn't think Brooke's offer was anywhere near the ballpark of sincere. She was our Squad captain. In operative terms, that meant she was technically my commanding officer. In cheerleading terms,Barnes, Jennifer Lynn is the author of 'Killer Spirit (The Squad Series)', published 2008 under ISBN 9780385734554 and ISBN 0385734557.