The Hannah Chronicles: The Adventures of Hannah Hadley, Girl Spy

By Steve Hoover

The small town of Sweetwater, Mississippi,has a prep school with six hundred students. One of them, thirteen-year-old Hannah Hadley, is also a top field agent for the Central Intelligence Agency. Hannah finds her services as a clandestine counter-terrorist agent are needed when the White House gets a call from rogue terrorists who are arming a small but powerful nuclear missile just across the Canadian border. The chips are down. The stakes are high. And the odds are against her. But Hannah won’t stop until peace prevails. Chock full of excitement and intrigue, THE HANNAH CHRONICLES establishes Steve Hoover as one of the undisputed masters of the young adult fantasy thriller. Girl spy Hannah Hadley will capture your imagination on the very first page and never let go.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hoover
• Release date: Jan 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452454047

Steve Hoover

THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR is the first in the series THE HANNAH CHRONICLES: The Adventures of Hannah Hadley, Girl Spy. This is Steve Hoover's debut novel for young adults. He divides his time between Mississippi, Florida, and New England.

Book preview

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

LATE MONDAY NIGHT

When the Blackbird SR-71 high-speed reconnaissance jet got within three hundred miles of the Canadian border, the pilot pressed his intercom button.

Approaching your drop location, Hannah, said Jack.

Thanks, said the young female seated in the cockpit behind him.

Hannah Hadley was the Central Intelligence Agency’s Go-To when the chips were down.

And tonight the chips were down.

Her CIA name was Special Agent Foxtrot Oscar Ten Dash One, but everyone in Div Y called her Hannah. Just Hannah.

All parties synch your clocks in Zulu time, she said into her throat mike.

Roger that, said a voice from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Zulu time is highly precise. It synchronizes computer clocks, air traffic control towers, electronic devices—and clandestine government agents with their back-up teams thousands of miles away. Zulu even has leap seconds added at irregular intervals to make up for the Earth’s slowing rotation.

Hannah moved her eyes diagonally to the upper left, then the lower right, causing a hologram clock to pop up twelve inches in front of her eyes. The transparent wave of light said 05:45 Zulu.

Synching . . . now, Hannah said.

A voice at Langley said, We are synched at Zero-Five-Forty-Five Zulu.

Hannah blinked twice and the hologram disappeared.

This Blackbird sure makes good time, she told the pilot.

Left Mississippi just an hour ago, the pilot replied. Been flying at three times the speed of sound.

"Who can possibly fly commercial after this?" Hannah joked.

A dial on the pilot’s control board lit up. He flipped a switch.

Beginning descent toward your drop. Hold tight, Hannah. It’ll be steep and could get rough. Our Bird’s nose’ll get hot even though the heat cloak’s on.

Anti-radar cloak on, too?

It’s automatic. Built into the design. SR-71s have no radar signature. Your drop target’s a cow pasture on a farm 6.2 miles northwest of Toronto.

Jack began his descent and went from 70,000 feet—thirteen miles above sea level—to 5,000 feet—one mile above sea level—in less than five minutes.

In the meantime, Hannah opened her electronic briefcase. It was full of holograms: the suspects, the nuclear warhead she had to neutralize, and the grounds around the farmhouse.

Since leaving the staging area in Mississippi, she had studied one and two, the suspects and the nuke’s diagrams. Now she took a quick look at the holographic map of the grounds. She’d have to parachute onto the northeast corner of the cow pasture to avoid detection, then come around the back side of the barn and hang a left. When satisfied her plan was sound, she swiped the image away and closed up shop.

She pinged her Mississippi cave.

Tommie Claire? she said.

Here, replied Tommie Claire.

Run a final sound check on my ear buds and throat mike. Langley, listen in and cross-check.

Okay, said Tommie Claire. Testing: one baddie . . . two baddies . . . .

Hannah smiled. Tommie Claire’s humor helped relieve the tension that had been building up since noon.

Hear you loud and clear, said Hannah. You hear me?

Loud and clear, replied Tommie Claire.

Ditto, said Langley.

Tommie Claire said, Jack is looped into audio as well. Plus, I have you on super sound enhancement.

What’ll that do?

You whisper, we’ll hear you. You breathe, we’ll hear you. You drop a pin, we’ll hear it. Also lets us pick up ambient noise. If one of those baddies releases the safety on his automatic weapon, we’ll hear it before he does.

The voice from Langley spoke. "We’ve repositioned three orbiting satellites for real-time visual surveillance from high in the sky. Three different angles and altitudes.

Jack broke in. It’s time.

Hannah looked at the ten-pound, four-legged companion sitting on her lap.

Ready, Kiwi?

How ‘bout some Bitty Bites first?

Aren’t you amusing.

Hannah unzipped her tummy pouch, patted it, and said, Jump in and don’t get too comfy. We’ve got work to do.

Div Y had custom-designed Hannah’s one-piece breathable nano-fiber night suit to include an insulated tummy pouch for Kiwi, her six-year-old female Shih Tzu. Kiwi went on every mission Hannah did and was essential to Hannah’s success.

Hannah opened the floor hatch under the cockpit seat and eased down into the Blackbird’s fuselage, then placed her right palm on the Blackbird’s in-floor palm-authentication screen. Her authentication was immediate: a door leading to the jet’s lower rear compartment whizzed open. She crawled in, pressed a button, and the door whizzed shut. She had entered the pressurized pre-chamber.

Secured in pre-chamber, she said into her throat mike.

Roger that, replied Jack. He leveled the whispering Blackbird off at five thousand feet.

What’s your lunar-illumination read-out? she said.

Thirty percent.

Hmm. I’ll have to wear my infrared night goggles, she said.

She quickly donned the goggles, bunched her hair—beautiful shoulder-length light brown hair with blonde highlights from the hot Mississippi sun—into a ponytail, then pulled her custom-fitted camouflaged hood on. This concealed her hair, held her ear buds in place, and covered everything but her eyes, nose, and cheeks. Earlier, back at the staging area, she had smeared charcoal-colored face paint over her brown-freckled nose and cheeks before climbing into the go-fast jet.

Feet-first, she lowered herself into the release hatch, located just beneath the compression chamber. She was now in the rear tail underbelly of the Blackbird, and the only thing separating her from outside conditions was a layer of hot titanium one- tenth of an inch thick.

She heard the muffled sound of the powerful jet engines on either side of her.

In position, she said confidently.

Langley went silent.

Tommie Claire went silent.

Five seconds, said Jack.

We’re ready, Hannah said as she folded one arm under, the other over, her four-legged tummy package.

Ejecting you in . . . three . . . two. . . .

Hannah braced for impact with the night air.

. . . one, Jack said in a calm, professional voice as he pressed the release button of his control stick.

Hannah Hadley, age thirteen, shot out of the Blackbird like a cannonball.

Hurtling down through the dark Canadian sky, she yelled at the top of her lungs, BRING IT ON!!!

CHAPTER 2

EARLIER THAT MONTH

It was July, and the Deep South was like a steaming cauldron. In the small town of Sweetwater,