Rogue Justice

The second installment in the Avery Keene series, following While Justice Sleeps, picks up four months after law clerk Avery Keene exposed President Brandon Stokes's involvement in genocide, treason, and murder through an investigation begun by her boss, Supreme Court Associate Justice Howard Wynn, who remains in a coma.

In Johannesburg, South Africa, Hayden Burgess, a former U.S. Navy lieutenant and one of the first women commissioned for submarine service, learns that the Supreme Court has denied her petition to sue the Navy in civilian court over a sexual assault she endured aboard a submarine. Burgess runs Mamiwata Incorporated, a secretive cyberwarfare firm. Having exhausted every legal avenue, she transmits encrypted orders to her operatives, initiating a long-planned, multifaceted assault on the United States.

In Washington, D.C., Avery testifies before the House intelligence committee as part of the impeachment inquiry against Stokes. A Republican congressman accuses her of fabricating the evidence used to impeach the president, alleging she conspired with a man named Karriem Shabazz to produce fake videos. Avery denies the allegations. That evening, Major William Vance, Stokes's former right-hand man and now a fugitive, contacts Avery to warn her of chatter about an imminent cyberattack targeting the courts.

Burgess's plan is already in motion. In Idaho, federal district court Judge Francesca Whitner, who also serves on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a secretive judicial body that authorizes surveillance warrants for national security purposes, is blackmailed using a sophisticated deepfake video. Her career clerk, Preston Davies, knows the video is fabricated because on the date it supposedly depicts, Whitner was actually crashing her car while intoxicated in Nevada. The blackmailers force Whitner to acquit a defendant named Thad Colgate, who works at an Idaho power plant. Days later, Colgate returns to the plant and massacres 21 people, including 7 children. Devastated, Whitner dies by suicide.

At a judicial conference, Davies approaches Avery with the deepfake video, Whitner's suicide note, a burner phone, and a list of all 11 FISC judges. He reveals Whitner's FISC role, then flees. Outside the hotel, Avery watches as an assassin executes both Davies and his cabdriver. Avery retreats with the materials.

She brings everything to her boyfriend, Jared Wynn, a former Navy cybersecurity analyst. Jared discovers dangerously sophisticated malware embedded in the burner phone's encryption software. Alarmed by signs she is being followed, Avery contacts FBI Special Agent Robert Lee, whom she trusts from previous dealings.

Agent Lee connects Avery with Special Agent in Charge Sarah Beth Gehl at the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF), a multiagency body responsible for defending American cybersecurity. Gehl reveals that the breach extends beyond Whitner: An assistant U.S. attorney named Jason Johnson had fabricated FISA warrant requests, securing 48 warrants over 16 months, all signed by Whitner, to surveil dozens of companies. After the briefing, a Secret Service agent detains Avery and drives her to Stokes's Virginia estate, where the president has been reinstated after a cabinet member rescinded the 25th Amendment letter that removed him from power. Stokes attempts to intimidate Avery into recanting her testimony. She refuses.

Congressman Luke Boylen of Indiana, a rising Republican whom Stokes has installed as White House chief of staff, escalates the war against Avery. On national television and the website VerityVictory.org, he names her friends, including her roommate Ling Yin, Jared, and attorney Noah Fox, as co-conspirators, uploading recordings from her confidential depositions. Bomb threats target Ling's hospital, and the FBI relocates Avery's inner circle to Jared's fortified townhouse, placing her mother, Rita, under protection at her rehab facility, the Haven Recovery and Restoration Center.

From Jared's basement, Avery reconstructs from memory the list of companies Johnson targeted and combs through three years of federal court records for all 11 FISC judges. A pattern emerges connecting four judges to energy companies across the three major sections of the U.S. power grid. Avery consults Baz Okune, a law school friend and staff attorney at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), who confirms that a coordinated cyberattack on the modernized "smart grid," which uses interconnected digital systems that increase efficiency but also exposure to hackers, is plausible.

Avery convinces Agent Lee to drive her to West Virginia to investigate a property linked to one of the suspicious rulings. Behind the barbed-wire fence of what was supposed to be an electrical substation, she discovers a building packed with computer servers. Overnight, the facility is dismantled and torched with thermite, confirming she is being watched.

Johnson is found dead in his federal cell from an apparent heart attack just before he was to cooperate with authorities. Avery presents her power grid theory to the full task force, but the investigation takes a critical turn when Jared traces the sophisticated spyware to Mamiwata in Johannesburg. Avery recognizes the CEO's name from a Supreme Court petition she reviewed months earlier. The team theorizes the attack has multiple objectives: collapsing the grid, stealing billions in cryptocurrency through server farms, and exacting personal revenge.

Burgess's backstory comes into focus. While serving on a submarine, she was drugged and raped by Captain Donovan Casey. Two crewmates, Petty Officer Carolyn Hugley and Crewman Tyler Boozer, testified against Casey but were court-martialed on fabricated drug charges. Casey was acquitted and eventually became secretary of the Navy under Stokes. Burgess had a miscarriage from the assault and was rendered unable to bear children. She was medically discharged and denied justice through every institution, including the Supreme Court.

The assassin Nyx, who killed Davies, infiltrates the Supreme Court disguised as a custodial worker and ambushes Avery in her office. Avery fights back, stabbing Nyx with her late father's engraved knife, but Nyx escapes with Avery's satchel containing her research and the memo identifying Burgess, meaning Burgess now knows exactly what Avery has uncovered.

FBI Director LaTiesa Alford authorizes a full emergency response. President Stokes issues an executive order mandating rolling blackouts under the cover story of a "virus in the power grid." Many companies resist, skeptical of the warnings.

The Myrina Assault launches at 2:29 a.m. PST. Power outages strike across more than 40 states as malware rewrites code to transmit false data and seize control of circuit breakers. The rolling blackouts prevent a full continental collapse, though states whose governors ignored warnings face severe damage. Simultaneously, Burgess's operation completes a cryptocurrency heist totaling more than four billion dollars.

Avery realizes the grid attack is camouflage for Burgess's personal mission. Targeted blackouts at naval facilities in Virginia and California allow Hugley and Boozer to escape their prisons. Nyx eliminates the FBI detail protecting Admiral Casey at his Charlottesville home and records his partial confession under duress before shooting him repeatedly, leaving him permanently maimed. Agent Lee arrives and arrests Nyx.

Stokes addresses the nation, claiming credit for containing the crisis. But a recording secretly captured by Burgess's technology from a device in the Oval Office reaches congressional leaders. The video shows Stokes telling Casey, "You raped that sailor because you couldn't keep it in your pants" (344), and admitting he covered it up and promoted Casey. A second clip shows Stokes and Boylen discussing how to suppress the attack and the theft of classified military technology. The recording is authenticated and broadcast during the impeachment trial's closing arguments.

Burgess retreats to a private island in the Seychelles, where she reunites Hugley and Boozer with their families. She distributes roughly one billion dollars to nearly 100 organizations, including rape crisis centers, domestic abuse shelters, and military sexual assault advocacy groups. Among the recipients, Haven Recovery and Restoration Center, where Avery's mother Rita is in treatment, receives $75 million. Though the grid attack was blunted, Burgess retains vast surveillance data, stolen military technology, and malware embedded throughout U.S. infrastructure. As Jared cautions that Burgess is not finished, Avery shrugs: "She'll have to get in line" (348).