One-Knight Stand (White Knights #3) - Julie Moffett Page 0,12

equipment and techniques. The gate at the entrance to the campus has an arched sign that reads, Si vis pacem, para bellum. Translated from the Latin, it means, if you wish for peace, you must prepare for war.

I’m beginning to understand how that works.

There’s also a white cement building that’s set away from the rest of the campus, called the Kids-In-Training, or KITs, compound. That’s where I lived for a month while undergoing the trials to see if I qualified for UTOP. At the end of those trials, candidates either make it through to UTOP or wash out. For the first time in UTOP history, my entire class made it through—all eight of us.

Since I’ve been at UTOP, I’ve had three students ask me if Angel is my real name. Although I’m in training to become a secret agent, my real name is Angel. According to family legend, my dad took one look at my face after I was born and declared I was to be named Angel instead of Ginny, which is what my mom said they’d previously decided.

My dad has been a big unknown in my life until recently. Until just a few weeks ago, I’d been pretty sure he was dead. He vanished when I was eighteen months old. He’d driven to work, left his wallet in the passenger seat, tucked his car key under the front left wheel, and disappeared.

There were no signs of foul play, no known trouble at home or in his marriage, and no debt or financial problems. Ethan Sinclair was just a regular guy—a security engineer and geek—who was well-liked among family and friends until, poof, he was gone.

The police investigated for some time, but they had no leads, no body, no evidence of foul play, no trail, and no plausible reason for his disappearance. The case went cold, and life went on. My mom and older sister, Gwen, who was eight at the time, were heartbroken. I didn’t remember him, but that didn’t change the heartache of growing up without a father, especially when family and friends constantly told me I had his talent with numbers, math, and computers.

As I got older, I decided to find out for myself what had happened to him. I didn’t tell anyone, especially my mom or Gwen, because I didn’t want to upset them. It became my personal mission. I spent most of my preteen and teen years hacking database after database to see if I could find a trail. My secret obsession honed my hacking skills to a razor-sharp edge. I got better at hacking faster than I would have ever imagined, so in some way, I owe him for that.

I searched for him for years and had no luck. I’d been poking into his work as a security engineer when I got tapped to try out for UTOP. While undergoing the trials, I uncovered a big secret—my dad hadn’t been working for an engineering company. He’d been working for the NSA when he disappeared. His job at King’s Security was just to hide his involvement in a top-secret government project. Shortly after I discovered this—just a few weeks ago—I was nearly kidnapped, for reasons unknown, but I was saved by my friends and a man I’d thought was just a regular customer in the café UTOP students frequented during our Saturdays off from the trials.

That man turned out to be my father.

The problem was that I didn’t know he was my father at the time. But I do now, and at least I know he’s alive.

I also know he’s in some kind of trouble. Big trouble. At this point, I’ve kept his reappearance secret from my mom and Gwen, because I don’t have enough details, and it’s a wickedly painful subject for them. Besides, I don’t want to endanger him or them until I know what’s going on.

Had my search for the truth about my father unearthed something dangerous? Something that even the government might not want me to know?

I wasn’t sure. But one thing was certain—I was going to find and help my dad. Then, I’d bring him home to Mom, Gwen, and me, so after fourteen years, our family could get the answers we deserved.

It’s unquestionably the most important mission I’ll ever have—spy or not.

I headed back to my dorm in an excellent mood after acing a pop quiz in Psychological Analysis of Adversary Motivations and Vulnerabilities. The weather was cool and the sky a stormy gray, but none of that