Just in case had become Chris’s unintentional mantra. She lived a life of overpreparation, but, as she often reminded herself, without that preparation she wouldn’t be living a life at all.
It would be nice not to have to take these risks, but the money wasn’t going to last forever. Usually she would find a menial job at some mom-and-pop place, preferably one with handwritten records, but that kind of job generated only enough money for the basics—food and rent. Never the more expensive things in her life, like fake IDs, laboratory apparatus, and the various chemical components she hoarded. So she maintained a light presence on the Internet, found her rare paying client here and there, and did everything she could to keep this work from bringing her to the attention of those who wanted her to stop existing.
The last two e-mail days had been fruitless, so she was pleased to see a message waiting for her—pleased for the approximately two-tenths of a second it took her to process the return address.
[email protected]
Just out there—his real e-mail address, easily traceable directly to her former employers. As the hair rose on the back of her neck and the adrenaline surged through her body—Run, run, run it seemed to be shouting inside her veins—part of her was still able to gape in disbelief at the arrogance. She always underestimated how astonishingly careless they could be.
They can’t be here yet, she reasoned with herself through the panic, her eyes already sweeping the library for men with shoulders too broad for their dark suits, for military haircuts, for anyone moving toward her position. She could see her car through the plate-glass window, and it looked like no one had tampered with it, but she hadn’t exactly been keeping watch, had she?
So they’d found her again. But they had no way of knowing where she would decide to check her mail. She was religiously random about that choice.
Just now, an alarm had gone off in a tidy gray office, or maybe several offices, maybe even with flashing red lights. Of course there would be a priority command set up to trace this IP address. Bodies were about to be mobilized. But even if they used helicopters—and they had that capability—she had a few minutes. Enough to see what Carston wanted.
The subject line was Tired of running?
Bastard.
She clicked it open. The message wasn’t long.
Policy has changed. We need you. Would an unofficial apology help? Can we meet? I wouldn’t ask, but lives are on the line. Many, many lives.
She’d always liked Carston. He seemed more human than a lot of the other dark suits the department employed. Some of them—especially the ones in uniform—were downright scary. Which was probably a hypocritical thought, considering the line of work she used to be in.
So of course it was Carston they’d had make contact. They knew she was lonely and frightened, and they’d sent an old friend to make her feel all warm and fuzzy. Common sense, and she probably would have seen through the ploy without help, but it didn’t hurt that the same ploy had been used once in a novel she’d stolen.
She allowed herself one deep breath and thirty seconds of concentrated thought. The focus was supposed to be her next move—getting out of this library, this town, this state, as soon as possible—and whether that was enough. Was her current identity still safe, or was it time to relocate again?
However, that focus was derailed by the insidious idea of Carston’s offer.
What if?.?.?.
What if this really was a way to get them to leave her alone? What if her certainty that this was a trap was born from paranoia and reading too much spy fiction?
If the job was important enough, maybe they would give her back her life in exchange.
Unlikely.
Still, there was no point in pretending that Carston’s e-mail had gone astray.
She replied the way she figured they were hoping she would, though she’d formed only the barest outline of a plan.
Tired of a lot of things, Carston. Where we first met, one week from today, noon. If I see anyone with you, I’m gone, yada yada yada, I’m sure you know the drill. Don’t be stupid.
She was on her feet and walking in the same moment, a rolling lope she’d perfected, despite her short legs, that looked a lot more casual than it was. She was counting off the seconds in her head, estimating how long it would take a helicopter to cover the distance between DC and this location. Of course, they could alert locals, but that wasn’t usually their style.
Not their usual style at all, and yet… she had an unfounded but still pressingly uncomfortable feeling that they might be getting tired of their usual style. It hadn’t yielded the results they were looking for, and these were not patient people. They were used to getting what they wanted exactly when they wanted it. And they’d been wanting her dead for three years.
This e-mail was certainly a policy change. If it was a trap.