an army guy stands there with a big rifle pointed her way.
“Help me. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“There’s been an attack,” he says. His eyes quickly scan her, stopping on her hand. “You’re bleeding.”
She glances down at her hand, where the IV needle had been. A slow trickle of blood snakes down her index finger.
“It’s just—”
“Hold still,” he orders. Then he pulls something off of his belt, and before she can react he’s spraying her hand with some sort of foam. It dries almost instantly, forming a hard crust.
“What is—”
“A liquid bandage. Quickly, come with me.”
He has an accent she can’t place, but she doesn’t care where he’s from. He’s there for her, there to help her. She takes his gloved hand, and he leads her outside, into the blinding sunlight.
Water laps a shoreline to the left and to the right.
An island?
She smells salt riding the air, the scent familiar. The Atlantic Ocean.
There’s a sound, too, beating in her ears, a helicopter on a landing pad, its blades whirling. The soldier nods at the two army guys standing guard and then takes her to it.
She’s scared, confused. But she wants to get out of here, to get away from all the dead people. As they buckle their seatbelts, she’s very close to crying. Then the soldier smiles at her.
“You’re very beautiful,” he says.
His words surprise her. She thinks she must look terrible. That tacky gown. No make-up. Her hair all messed to hell. But she knows she’s pretty. She’s been getting by on her looks since she was twelve.
“I want to be a model,” she says. It’s a weird thing to say, but she doesn’t want to talk about the dead people.
He nods, appears to think it over. Then he says, “You know, I have a friend, works for a modeling agency. I bet he could help you.”
“Really?” This has to be the most surreal moment in her entire life, and she almost wonders if it’s all a dream.
“Do you have family? Someone who would be worried about you?”
She hesitates, then shakes her head.
“I’ll call my friend. You can stay with him. He’s very famous. Did covers for
The chopper lifts off and zooms over water. A larger island unfolds beneath them, Long Island, the vague haze of New York City barely visible in the distance.
Despite not wanting to think, she wonders what’s going on. Why she’s here. Why all those people are dead.
She wonders if they cured her STD.
But all of that pales in comparison to what the army guy said.
She came to New York to get discovered.
Now, maybe, she finally would be.
Several years ago … before I had to FLEE …
“
I have always preferred formulating my own explosive with household chemicals to creating a smoky eye in the makeup mirror. So when I pulled the barely-there dress and four-inch Jimmy Choos out of the FedEx package the bellman had brought up to my hotel room, my stomach gave a nervous flutter.
Not a good sign in a spy who had been trained to control her emotions.
I returned the cell phone to my ear and frowned, hoping my new handler could sense my attitude as it bounced off New York City’s cell towers.
“So where does this op take place, Jacob? A strip club?”
He laughed, the sound a slightly robotic, electronically disguised version of his real voice.
Not that I’d ever heard his real voice.
“If you want, I can call around, see if any of the area clubs have an amateur night.”
I couldn’t help but smile, at least a little. Jacob and I hadn’t worked together long—this was only our third operation together—and I was still trying to figure out if I trusted him. On the positive side, I was a sucker for humor.
But that didn’t mean I appreciated his fashion sense.
“I can’t conceal a weapon in this outfit. You realize that, right?”
Pushing my dark hair over one shoulder, I held the dress against my body with my free hand and peered into the Manhattan hotel room’s mirrored closet door.
Okay, so it was hot. Damn hot.
Maybe I could make due with a knife strapped to the inside of my thigh.
It would have to be a very short knife.
“You can’t be carrying. They’ll search you before they let you inside.”
“And my cell phone? Where am I supposed to stash that?” Jacob had just sent me a new encrypted cell, and I was under strict orders to keep it with me at all times, no exceptions. It was even waterproof, so I could take it into the shower.
“Did you notice the bag? Check the lining. Like the dress, it’s been prepared for you.”
I took another look in the box. A small, cross-body purse lay at the bottom, black sequins and tassels. I opened it, running my fingertips over the interior and feeling the familiar shapes of two rolled bills and two small wires. I had emergency cash and lock picks sewn into the hems of all my clothing. Being prepared wasn’t only for Boy Scouts.
“The strap has a steel wire in it,” Jacob continued. “It can be used as a garrote.”
I tugged on the strap, feeling the bite of the wire inside the leather. “Talk about a killer handbag.”
“So now that we have your wardrobe covered, care to hear what you’ll be doing?”
“Shoot.”
“That’s it, actually. You’ll be going to a photo shoot.”
“As in a modeling photo shoot?” Not a typical day in my line of work. “Explain.”
“The Bradford and Sims Modeling Agency is a front for—”
“Let me guess. Porn.”
“Too easy, but yes. And human trafficking. They promise stardom to young girls, then ship them overseas and sell them.”
“Sexual slavery. Nice.”
“We’re still gathering information on the group.”
Gathering information? In our first two ops, Jacob had been all about preparation. He’d known everything about everything. That he was sending me in before he really knew what I was facing made me uneasy.
“Is this a rush job?” I asked.
“Marked urgent, and we only have a small time window, so we’ll need to keep in close contact in case the situation changes.”
“These traffickers, you want me to read them bedtime stories?” Before I put them to sleep.
