Ice Cold Read Online Free PDF Page B

not several days. Enough time to disrupt business, cause panic and loss of funds. The point of a this puzzle was to find out who stood to benefit most from the disruption.
    “Blowing up a building would be the extreme end of a cyber attack, but criminals have been known to kill a fly with TNT,” she observed, wishing she’d thought to bring a thick scarf. Not that she’d had time to do anything more than follow him when he snapped his fingers. “We’ll see. If nothing else, I’ll cross it off the list and work my way down.” Honey curled her fingers inside her pockets for warmth. She jerked her chin to indicate the smoldering hole.
    “Could be the work of a disgruntled employee,” she added, desperate to keep her teeth from chattering. “Not difficult to follow the trail of breadcrumbs since we have all the bank’s access codes. If a pissed-off employee is the perp, I’ll have this tied up by dinner.”
    “ We . I enjoy your confidence, Winston, but things are rarely that simple.” Navarro rubbed grit from his fingers. “The bank wasn’t taken down by a stick of dynamite. Your disgruntled employee had to have contacts and a great deal of money and resources to pull this off.”
    Taken aback, Honey tilted her head. His was a valid view, but she had to find out either way. With a quick mental health check, she realized her ire was up because he’d questioned her. She was as good at her thing as he was at his.
    “I’ll know more once I get online,” Honey informed him crisply. “Are you good with divide and conquer?” Counterproductive to have them doing the same thing when there was no need. He was officially lead on the op. She’d play by his rules until he gave her reason not to.
    “Sure. Save us some time.”
    She liked rules, abided by rules, lived by the rules, but for some reason, having Navarro as her boss chafed her.
    She had a mantra, which worked well. Focus. Breathe. Do your job.
    She. Would. Not. Let. Him. Get. Under. Her. Skin.
    Part of her irritation was that she was unprepared for her role here. She’d been briefed, but briefing was rarely enough. She liked to have all her resources lined up before she went on an op. As a Digital Forensic Examiner, specializing in cyber terrorism, she was rarely required to fly off at the drop of a hat. She usually worked from her lab at T-FLAC HQ in Montana, or, preferably, from home where she had as many, if not more, tech toys. But she’d had to hit the ground running this time.
    She walked away without bothering to wait for a “Go ahead” or a “Goodbye.” It was obvious she was leaving. As she picked her way through chunks of building and shards of glass, Honey tried to figure out what it was about Navarro that made her back teeth hurt.

FOUR
     W  ithout further comment, Winston turned and navigated through the rubble, headed to the street. Her blond hair whipped around the shoulders of her down coat. The woman was unreal.
    “Dismissed,” Rafael murmured to the space she’d occupied moments before. Who was in charge here? He watched her hail a cab, which miraculously appeared amidst the chaos and confusion of emergency vehicles, rescue teams, and police cars. The Ice Princess hadn’t made a single complaint about the cold or commented on the mass destruction. All she wanted was her precious computer.
    Slavin, also watching, turned back. “Winston gives the impression she knows what she’s doing.”
    “Yeah, she does,” Rafael acknowledged. “This is my first time working with her.” She wasn’t exactly a team player. Still, if she did her job and wasn’t too distracting, they’d get on well enough. “Let’s go through the sequence of events again.”
    They went through the events again as they walked to the trailer set up nearby. He met with the rest of Slavin’s team and walked through the entire site, carrying steaming cups of coffee. After two hours, he had a firm picture of where the bomb had detonated. Adding that