The room was a cavern of glowing digital maps, encrypted data streams, and massive tactical monitors tracking global communications.
Dozens of analysts in crisp uniforms worked at their stations in perfect, disciplined silence.
I wore my combat uniform, my Colonel insignia gleaming under the tactical lighting.
I was no longer the quiet wife in Manhattan.
I was the apex predator of the Eastern Seaboard’s cyber-defense network.
Captain Miller walked up to my command console, holding a classified digital tablet.
"Colonel Vance," Miller said, snapping a crisp salute.
"Report, Captain," I replied, returning the salute without taking my eyes off the main monitor.
"We have a flagged anomaly in the federal penitentiary communication grid, ma'am."
Miller handed me the tablet.
"Routine surveillance protocols on Allenwood Correctional have picked up unusual proximity interactions."
"Inmate Victor Aris has initiated contact with Inmate Anthony Vance."
I took the tablet, my eyes scanning the data logs.
Victor Aris.
A known broker for foreign intelligence syndicates.
And he was talking to my ex-husband.
A slow, dangerous smile curved across my lips.
Anthony believed he was finally getting a chance to strike back at me.
He believed he had found a way to become wealthy again.
He didn't realize that in the world of military intelligence, there are no secrets.
There are only traps waiting to be sprung.
"Keep a continuous audio and visual lock on their cell block, Captain," I ordered.
"Do we intercede, Colonel?" Miller asked.
"Negative," I said, handing the tablet back.
"Let them talk."
"Let Anthony Vance commit treason."
CHAPTER 2 — The Danbury Delusion
Danbury Federal Correctional Institution was technically a minimum-security camp for female offenders.
But to Eleanor Vance, it was a medieval dungeon.
She despised the scratchy khaki uniform that clung uncomfortably to her aging frame.
She despised the steel toilets, the communal showers, and the sheer, unadulterated indignity of being told when to wake, when to eat, and when to sleep.
Most of all, she despised the food.
She sat at a metal cafeteria table, pushing a scoop of gray, watery oatmeal around her plastic tray with a plastic spoon.
For a woman who had spent forty years lunching on caviar and champagne at the Colony Club, this was a daily, torturous humiliation.
"You're not going to eat that?"
The woman sitting across from Eleanor was named Brenda.
Brenda was serving three years for embezzlement and had a crude tattoo of a butterfly on her neck.
Eleanor looked at her with pure, unfiltered disgust.
"I am not hungry," Eleanor said, her voice dripping with condescension.
"Suit yourself, Princess," Brenda laughed, reaching across the table and taking Eleanor's tray.
Eleanor gripped the edge of the metal table, her knuckles white.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to transport herself back to her Fifth Avenue life.
She tried to remember the smell of fresh lilies in her foyer.
She tried to remember the feeling of Italian silk against her skin.
But all she could smell was floor wax and boiled cabbage.
"Vance," a corrections officer barked from the cafeteria doorway.
"You have a visitor."
Eleanor’s eyes snapped open.
A visitor?
Her friends had abandoned her. Her son was in Allenwood.
She hadn't had a single visitor in the six months she had been incarcerated.
She stood up, smoothing her wrinkled khaki uniform in a desperate attempt to maintain some semblance of dignity.
She followed the guard down the long, linoleum-tiled hallway to the visitor center.
She was seated in a hard plastic chair behind a thick pane of reinforced glass.
A moment later, a woman walked into the booth on the other side.
She was striking. Tall, blonde, dressed in an immaculate, tailored charcoal suit that screamed old money.
She carried a sleek leather briefcase and wore a pair of designer glasses.
Eleanor immediately recognized the aura of wealth.
She leaned forward eagerly, picking up the heavy black telephone receiver attached to the wall.
"Who are you?" Eleanor asked, her voice trembling with sudden hope.
The woman on the other side smiled, picking up her receiver.
"My name is Elena," she said, her voice smooth, carrying the faintest trace of an Eastern European accent.