November the alpha elite.., p.1
November: the Alpha Elite Series, #5, page 1
Copyright © 2022 by Sybil Bartel
Cover art by: CT Cover Creations
Cover Photo by: Wander Aguiar
Cover Model: Zakk Davis
Edited by: Hot Tree Editing
The Ryter’s Proof
Formatting by: Champagne Book Design
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
Warning: This book contains offensive language, alpha males and sexual situations. Mature audiences only. 18+
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Books by Sybil Bartel
NOVEMBER
Dedication
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Part Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Epilogue
ECHO
WHISKEY
DELTA
Acknowledgments
About the Author
BOOKS BY SYBIL BARTEL
The Alpha Elite Series
SEAL
ALPHA
VICTOR
ROMEO
ZULU
NOVEMBER
ECHO
WHISKEY
DELTA
KILO
The Alpha Bodyguard Series
SCANDALOUS
MERCILESS
RECKLESS
RUTHLESS
FEARLESS
CALLOUS
RELENTLESS
SHAMELESS
HEARTLESS
The Uncompromising Alphas Series
TALON
NEIL
ANDRÉ
BENNETT
CALLAN
The Alpha Antihero Series
HARD LIMIT
HARD JUSTICE
HARD SIN
HARD TRUTH
THE ALPHA ANTIHERO SERIES: BOOKS 1-2
The Alpha Escort Series
THRUST
ROUGH
GRIND
The Unchecked Series
IMPOSSIBLE PROMISE
IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE
IMPOSSIBLE END
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NOVEMBER
Airman.
Hacker.
Mercenary.
Hacking one of the government’s top agencies was my first mistake. My second was thinking they wouldn’t find me. Nineteen hours later, five armed men kicked down my door.
They gave me a choice—prison or recruitment.
The Air Force took me in and trained me to be the best Cyberspace Operations Officer they’d ever had. Being the gatekeeper for the military’s strategic operations was an honor, but it put a target on my back. I never traveled without security—until I made my third mistake.
Twenty-two hours later, covered in blood and barely able to stand after events I wasn’t at liberty to discuss, I erased my past, changed my identity, and went off the grid. Then I joined Alpha Elite Security. I was invisible…until she saw me.
Code name: November.
Mission: Disengage.
NOVEMBER is a standalone book in the exciting Alpha Elite Series by USA Today Bestselling author, Sybil Bartel. Come meet Nathan “November” Rhys and the dominant, alpha heroes who work for AES!
For my only child, my beloved son, Oliver.
You were my greatest gift. The world was a better place with you in it.
Everything in my life was better because of you.
Thank you for teaching me unconditional love, perseverance, and compassion.
You are and will always be my entire world.
I love you, Sweet Boy, and I miss you beyond measure.
Oliver Shane Bartel 2004-2020
For my readers, thank you for all of your love and support.
Gratefully yours, XOXO
Four Years Ago
The Hunter
Headquarters Air Force, the Pentagon.
Arlington, VA
Deputy Commander Bradley looked over my shoulder at my monitors. “You find them yet?”
Switching screens, I lied. “No, sir.”
“Keep looking. They were heading somewhere when they left Havana Bay on that boat three months ago. At this point, get the Coast Guard involved if you have to. They’ve been off our radar too damn long, and Cuba is the closest they’ve come to U.S. soil. I don’t like the optics on this one, and I sure as hell don’t want it coming to a head under my command. The sooner we zero in on them, the better.”
“Yes, sir.”
He glanced at his watch. “I’m stepping out. Unless they land on our banks or the situation escalates, debrief tomorrow at oh seven hundred. When Perkins comes in, download everything you chased today and let him know we’ve got a change in mission status that came down at sixteen hundred hours.”
“Copy, sir.”
The Deputy Commander lowered his voice. “We’ve got a lot of brainpower in this room, but you’re the best I’ve got. Find those Russian cyber terrorists. They need to be eliminated.”
“And the female, sir?”
“I don’t care if she’s the brainchild of their operation or collateral damage. Once we get a lock on their location, we have our orders.”
My jaw ticked. “With all due respect, sir, she could be a source of intel.”
“If POTUS wanted profilers, he would’ve called the FBI. This is U.S. Cyber Command. We’re not fucking babysitters.”
“Sir—”
“Mission stands. Lock-in and eliminate. We’ve already traced all known associates, and these four men are the nucleus of their cell. Our job isn’t to detain. Once we find them, we send in a drone. If we can’t narrow the field, or there’s risk of U.S. civilian collateral, then we know who to call.”
“Understood, sir.”
“You better. We’re disabling this threat. You have your orders.” The Deputy Commander leveled me with a warning look. Then he strode out of the command center.
Toggling back to the screen I was on when the Deputy Commander had walked up, I stared at the lines of code I’d found with two hidden words embedded in them. Two words I hadn’t seen together since I was eighteen years old, but ones that had come up three months ago. I read them again.
Check mate.
Thirteen years ago, those same two words, embedded deep within code, had spurred me to hit the final keystroke and breach the NSA’s firewall. Nineteen hours later, five armed men kicked down my door and I was given a choice. Jail or the Air Force. I chose the latter, and the hacker with the two-word signature had dropped off the radar.
Until three months ago.
I’d discovered the signature the day I found the terrorist cell in Cuba. The same day the four armed terrorists boarded a forty-six-foot, 1975 Bertram sport fishing boat named the Nalleli Rose in Cuba.
The day I first saw her.
Pulling up her image, I stared.
Black hair, teal-blue eyes, she was beautiful.
She was also young.
Too young.
Thirteen years ago, she couldn’t have been the hacker leaving me a two-word taunt. She wouldn’t have been much older than a child, and the profile didn’t fit. Same as the profiles of the four men who were the tip of the terrorist cell didn’t fit. They wouldn’t leave a signature flagging their location.
But Check Mate would.
It was the same MO as thirteen years ago.
Staring at the young woman, I allowed myself two more seconds to take in every inch of her. I knew she wasn’t anything more than a pawn in this terrorist cell’s operations. I knew it when I watched the four men board her boat, but I couldn’t put together what the connection to Check Mate was. As of sixteen hundred hours today, it no longer mattered. She was caught up in the storm, and her situation had just become critical.
Taking in her unusual eyes one more time, I deleted her image and wiped all trace of my digital footprint today as well as the code with Check Mate’s signature. Then I hacked the security cams for a private airfield I’d gotten a hit on earlier and double-checked the footage before rerunning the parameters through traffic cams one more time.
I found the same thing I’d found an hour ago.
The four known terrorists and one unidentified female with unusual eyes landed on U.S. soil fourteen hours ago when they moored the Nalleli Rose at a residential dock in Key Largo, Florida. Then an SUV left that same residence in Key Largo and drove to a private airstrip in Cedar Key, Florida. A Cessna took off from that airstrip and flew to a small airport outside Louisville, Kentucky. Ten minutes after the Cessna landed, a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop charter left the Kentucky airport. Seventy-two minutes ago, that same turboprop charter landed afterhours at Tipton Airport in Fort Meade, Maryland, where the pilot signed the registration log without adding passengers, refueled, and took off again.
But a prearranged rental vehicle was waiting at Tipton.
Hacking the rental company’s servers, I tracked the vehicle’s GPS, then double-checked the intel against traffic cams.
The rented SUV came here.
Washington, D.C.
Driving straight to a dive bar in Dupont Circle.
Staring at my screen, I watched the four terrorists, then her, get out of the SUV. Capturing her image as the men surrounded her, running it through the facial recognition program I’d designed, I already knew what I’d find.
No hits.
The woman didn’t have an official ID, driver’s license, passport, or arrest record, and she hadn’t traveled through any commercial airports in the past five years. She was a ghost.
Wiping my keystrokes from the system, I was replacing them with ones I’d done yesterday when Perkins strode into the command center.
“What’s up, hacker genius?” He pulled out his chair in the setup next to mine. “You find our hottie and the four horsemen yet?”
Ignoring his nicknames and attempt at camaraderie, I said what I needed to not make him suspicious, but I left out the crucial detail of our new orders. “Day’s activities are all recorded and downloaded. You can follow the trail.” One I’d purposely thrown a detour in to.
“Copy that.” He grinned as he sat. “Any more pics of our sexy femme fatale? I need something to distract me from the fact that I’m working tonight instead of getting laid at twenty-four hundred.”
I fucking hated him. “Everything’s in the log.” I stood. “I’m signing out.”
He chuckled. “Enjoy your workout, loner,” he baited. “But fair warning, one of these nights, I’ll break you like I do these codes, and you’ll agree to a beer with us after work instead of your insane workouts.”
I didn’t drink or socialize. Ever. “Good night.”
Bypassing everyone else in the command center, I scanned my access badge to exit, and two paces down the long corridor, the security detail fell in on my six. No other officers in Cyber Command had a security detail, not even the Deputy Commander. But I did. The cover story was my rank, security clearance, and the classified intel I was privy to necessitated it. The real reason was the Deputy Commander. He knew I was a flight risk. I had been since he’d brought me in the day after I hacked the NSA.
“Mathers,” I stated, acknowledging his presence and following protocol.
“Evening, sir. The gym?”
“No, strained muscle,” I lied for the second time tonight. “I won’t need you until oh six hundred tomorrow.”
“Understood, sir, but I have my orders. I’ll escort you to your residence.”
Then he’d sit outside in his unmarked vehicle all night.
I didn’t comment.
Mathers drove me home.
Then he swept the perimeter of my converted warehouse space and did a cursory glance inside after I opened the front door for him. “Clear.”
My entire place was wired. I had eyes on every corner, inside and out. With one look at my cell, I could’ve told him the entire block was clear, but I didn’t. “Thank you. Good night, Mathers.”
“Night, sir. You know how to reach me if you need me.”
“Understood.” I closed the door and slammed the bolt home for effect.
Opening the app on my cell, I watched him get back in his car. Using another app, I set the lights to go on and off at timed intervals in the kitchen, living area, bathroom and bedroom.
Then I got to work.
Changing out of my uniform and into civvies, I grabbed my leather jacket, keys, another jacket and two helmets. Shoving aside a bookcase in my living area, I unlocked the hidden door to the warehouse next to mine that I owned through a shell corporation buried so deep it’d take years for someone to find it if they went looking.
Crossing the expanse of the twenty thousand square feet that was filled with the remnants of a defunct packaging plant, I headed to the loading dock. Checking my app, I pulled up the security feeds for the cameras outside the small bay door and scanned the side alley.
Empty.
Switching feeds, I checked the front of my unit.
Mathers was in his car.
I opened the bay door.
The Hunter
Standing in the dark hallway, I scanned the bar.
Thirty-seven minutes ago, from my desk at the Pentagon, I was staring at her from my screen.
Eight minutes ago, I’d walked into this bar through the back exit.
Now I was watching.
Waiting.
With one downcast, furtive glance around the room, she stood to excuse herself from the four men at her table. Before she could escape, one grabbed her by the upper arm. She winced, he handed her a cell, and she slid it into her pocket with a shaking hand. Then he released her, and she moved through the crowd in a flitting, haphazard pattern. No eye contact, not touching anyone, she took the last seat at the bar.
The one closest to me.
With a slide of a twenty-dollar bill across the wood, she caught the attention of the bartender before she discreetly grabbed and pocketed one of the matchbooks bearing the name of the place.
The bartender smiled, she spoke without looking at him, then she turned her back on me and the security camera covering her position.
Pulling out my cell, I hacked the bar’s security feeds and recorded for forty-five seconds. Feeding it back into the system, I gave it a single loop, buying myself less than a minute.
As the bartender delivered her drink, I glanced one more time toward the table she’d come from. Then I stepped out of the hall and fell in on her six.
“Name,” I demanded, low enough for only her to hear.
Startled, she flinched, almost spilling the drink.
Reaching around her, taking the glass by the rim, I set the vodka neat on the bar.
Tracking my movements, staring at my hand a beat, her gaze traveled up my arm. Then she turned her head and looked over her shoulder.
Unusual blue eyes, dark hair, fine features—I knew every inch of her face and body. But until tonight, I’d never seen her in person.
“Your name,” I repeated.
Quickly averting her gaze, indecision crossed her face.
“I’m not going to ask again,” I warned.
“Sub,” she barely whispered.
For a split second, I fucking stilled. Then I put the pieces together. “Permission to speak freely, sub. Give me your real name.”
Soft, submissive, mesmerizing, she spoke. “Atala.”
