Assassin Games

by Sidney Bristol

  Carol pushed to her feet and paced into the kitchen.

  The clock felt as though it were glaring at her.

  Mark hadn’t yet responded to her two texts. One unreturned message didn’t bother her, but she’d sent two. Was that desperate? It felt needy. Carol didn’t like feeling tethered to her phone or beholden to a person who wasn’t mutually dependent on her.

  A relationship wasn’t a wise choice, but she needed something to take her mind off work. Maybe a hobby would be the better option. People were too unpredictable. Look at what was happening at work. She couldn’t trust the people she needed to. Uncertainty outside of work would complicate the issue. Make things worse rather than better.

  Mark made her look forward to coming home, though. They’d finally figured out a time for their first actual date.

  Carol glanced at the drooping tulip in the vase on the kitchen counter.

  It’d finally bloomed. Soon enough, it would wither, but every time she looked at it she smiled.

  Her mother had noticed the difference, which was why Carol was currently avoiding her. Her mother missed nothing. Which was another complicated problem to deal with. Half the time Carol was certain that if she didn’t make regular reminders to reach out to her mother, they might never speak. She was so unlike Dad. He’d been warm, funny, loud. Mom was cool, orderly, and sometimes detached.

  Family was such an odd thing.

  The Peterson files. Irene had passed them on to her days ago.

  Carol groaned.

  One more thing on her plate, evaluating family connections to in-the-field employees.

  There was too much to do at work, and now she had two after-hours projects.

  The algorithm, and looking into the non-company-related actions of Charlie Peterson, the former agent over Asia, defector and deceased spy. He’d faked his death, but made the mistake of coming back to try to put their people off the scent. Now he really was dead.

  Irene had wanted Carol’s eyes on the family files. They had a new theory that since Charlie had used his estranged brother to fake his death, there might be other connections they hadn’t seen.

  Just what Carol wanted to do on her Saturday night.

  Other people in their late twenties were partying. Spending time with friends.

  Carol?

  She was flipping through files with nothing but a flower to keep her company.

  This was sad.

  Where had she put the files? In the safe.

  She strode from the kitchen back to the living room.

  A blinking light caught her attention from the corner of her eye. She stopped, took a step backward into the entry and peered at the security panel.

  The red light was flashing. The security system had been triggered.

  She froze, her throat tightening up.

  If that was going off, she should have heard an alarm, her phone should be ringing. What was going on?

  The mole. Their people…

  The house seemed to shrink, closing in on her.

  What if they knew what Carol was working on? The algorithm?

  She had to get out of the house, but what about the files in the living room? That was confidential information.

  Think…

  She had on pajama pants, fuzzy socks, and a thermal top. Not exactly the kind of clothes to run out into the middle of the night wearing.

  Carol tilted her head to the side.

  Could she hear anything?

  What if someone was watching her now?

  If she disarmed the system or called for help, a true asset could kill her before assistance arrived.

  She took a deep breath and made herself turn back toward the kitchen.

  “I’m losing my mind, I swear,” she said softly.

  There were shoes next to the island. She’d put those on, go to the living room for her phone, grab a throw, scoop up the files, and run.

  Maybe she was just paranoid, but she’d rather not risk her life. Not when she wasn’t done living it.

  Carol wiggled her feet into the shoes.

  The floor in the hall creaked. There was a loose board. The people who’d installed it hadn’t measured right and that one spot squeaked.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Carol’s hands went cold.

  She swallowed.

  Screw the throw and the files. She had shoes. She could run.

  She turned, putting her back toward the hall, and focused on the door.

  Five strides. Twist the lock. And she was out. Anyone following her into the street would risk witnesses, and her neighbors had security cameras.

  One step.

  The board squeaked again.

  Carol sucked in a deep breath and took a step forward, straining to hear the pad of feet.

  An arm wrapped around her waist. Someone bigger and stronger than her turned, slinging her against the kitchen counter. She screamed, scrambling for anything to grab on to. The person pushed her upper body forward, onto the marble. She grabbed the vase and slung it over her shoulder, cracking it on something. Glass shattered, bits cutting her.

  She screamed again.

  The sensation of time slowing hit her.

  Drugs.

  Whoever it was had drugged her.

  …

  Andy set Carol’s limp body into the crate. He checked her pulse for the third time. She was out cold, but alive. There was nothing peaceful about the way her too-pink cheeks looked against the pillow. He’d used bedding from her room in an effort to make it more familiar to her, even comatose as she was.

  He sat back on his heels and stared at her once more.

  The next time she opened her eyes, she’d know him for what he really was. They were on the same side in this, but a normal person would still see the deception.

  Andy placed the oxygen mask on her face, then twisted the knob on the tube. There was enough in the tank for forty-eight hours, if need be. Their trip would take twelve, then another eight in a van. If all went well, she’d wake up in the cabin without any idea how she’d gotten there.

  He closed the case, locking her in.

  Fragile was painted on the sides in bright-yellow paint.

  Now for the rest of her things.

  One benefit of watching her for days was that he knew what she liked. Which things she used. Like her favorite housecoat and the face cream she preferred. He went from top to bottom, packing her suitcase with enough to hold them over for a week. Warm clothes. They’d be getting a blizzard around the time they arrived.

  Andy cleaned the house of all surveillance equipment, took every laptop, phone, and tablet, including her personal cloud drive that was the size of a watermelon. He made sure to gather the files in the living room, every notebook, planner, and scrap of paper, the documents in her safe, and even the ones she’d hidden at the top of her closet. If there was anything left, he didn’t have time to locate it. Removing classified documents was a risk, but they needed whatever information she had with them.

  He checked the time.

  The neighbors would be back from their respective evening activities soon.

  He loaded the rest of Carol’s things into the second container, stacked it on top of the first, and rolled them out to the back patio.

  In order for this to all go off without a hitch, he could leave no trace of his presence.

  Andy returned to the kitchen and stared at the crumpled tulip. It must have gotten trampled. The petals were everywhere, the stem a bent mess of leaves.

  She might hate him, but he was going to save her life.

  Chapter Three

  Tuesday, remote mountains

  Carol’s whole body tingled so hard it hurt.

  What the hell happened last night?

  Had she opened that bottle of wine?

  She hadn’t felt like this since…the free weekend during the academy when her roommate and best friend, Lillian, convinced Carol they needed to go to a bar and play themselves off as… What had they been
? It was a game the field operatives went through, and they’d wanted to try.

  Carol rolled to her side. Even that made her ache.

  What was that sound?

  She pried one eye open.

  Was that…snow?

  Gray, dreary light shone through two large windows framed by deep-blue curtains.

  Blue?

  Two windows?

  She picked her head up off the pillow.

  Pain stabbed her in the temple.

  She squinted and grit her teeth.

  This wasn’t right.

  She’d spent ages finding the champagne-colored drapes in her room. Her mother’s guest room was done in peach. There was no way this could be Lillian’s house. She’d never have done blue.

  Carol pushed herself up. Her tongue stuck to the top of her mouth, and her limbs had that wooden feeling, as though she hadn’t moved in a while.

  The last thing she remembered was… Saturday night. At home. After that…

  What?

  She’d been home.

  Then what?

  There was a hole between home and whenever it was now. Something had happened. What?

  Carol slid out of the bed, wiggling her toes in the fuzzy socks. She hobbled toward the window.

  First, she needed to figure out where she was. After that she could look for her cell phone, call a cab, get home. This was where feeling lonely and self-pitying got her, waking up in a strange room during a sudden freak storm.

  She made it to the closest window.

  Man, it was coming down hard out there.

  She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered out, searching for a street sign.

  Except, there wasn’t a street.

  Snow drifts rolled away from the house like sand hills at the beach. Twenty, thirty yards away trees sprung up, blocking out the rest of the world.

  “Where am I?” she whispered.

  This wasn’t DC.

  She didn’t know where she was, but this wasn’t anywhere she was familiar with. She’d have remembered a trip out this far.

  This was wrong. She shouldn’t be here. Wherever here was.

  Carol backed up. She needed to get out of here, but not in her pajamas.

  That thought…it seemed familiar. Like she’d had it before.

  She’d figure it out later.

  First, she needed clothes. Warm ones.

  Carol turned, looking around her. A long, low dresser took up most of the wall adjacent to the door. She crossed to it and pulled the top drawer open.

  She froze.

  What in the…?

  She opened the second, then third drawer.

  Her clothes.

  These were all her things.

  She flipped a tag out of her T-shirt with the word Academy across it.

  The initials were there.

  Holy shit, they were there.

  The shirt was standard issue for the CIA training courses. Duplicates were a popular novelty shirt. They could be purchased at any number of online shops. But not this one. It was her father’s. Carol had stolen it out of her mother’s closet when she was little, before Dad’s things were purged from their lives. She wore it sometimes, especially when things were tough. She bent, inhaling the smell that couldn’t be washed or worn out of the fibers. It smelled like Dad.

  What were her clothes doing in a dresser, in a house she didn’t know?

  She grabbed knit yoga pants, jeans, and three shirts. The storm outside would slice through her clothes no matter how many layers she put on. She had to wear as much as she could.

  Carol dug around in the bottom drawers. Her snow boots and a pair of sneakers were there, too. Even her purse.

  She’d been kidnapped. Or something. This was planned. Thought out. Someone knew what her favorite clothes were, which meant she was right. Someone had been watching her all along. She wasn’t simply paranoid.

  The bedroom door creaked open.

  She whirled to face it, a boot in hand.

  That face…

  It was wrong. It shouldn’t… Oh no…

  “Mark?” Carol took a step back. The man she’d met at the flower shop, the one she’d told herself was nice and normal… He wasn’t. Not really. She’d been duped. Played. Because this wasn’t the game she was trained for.

  “If you’d like a shower, I’ll need about fifteen minutes to heat up the water.” He set a tray on the dresser.

  Carol took another step back.

  “Your name isn’t Mark, is it?” She clutched the boot to her chest.

  He looked…different.

  Mark—the man she’d met in the park—had smiled. His eyes had light behind them. This man? There was nothing, no warmth, no spark, none of what she’d been drawn to in those first few moments. It was unnerving.

  “No. My name is Andy.”

  Carol dropped the boot, her mouth falling open.

  Anderson—Andy?

  “Yes, though only one person has ever called me Anderson.” The corners of his mouth lifted for about half a second, if that. “I wasn’t aware you knew my name.”

  “I asked that out loud?” Carol cringed.

  “You did.” Andy’s fingers twitched at his sides.

  Because he wanted to strangle her? Kill her?

  “What did you do? What’s going on here?” Carol glanced around the room. Everything she knew about Andy could fit on a sticky note.

  He was a field asset. He’d helped Rand and Sarah. He was scary. There were people who didn’t like working with him because he was…strange. But he got the job done with an efficiency that made him highly rated. Where he came from, how he’d become this ghost of a person, that was the real mystery. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t have a high enough security clearance to even know about him, and wouldn’t if it hadn’t been for the botched North Korea gig.

  “That’s…a long answer. Would you like to shower first? Or eat?”

  “No. Where are we?” She backed up a step and peered out the window.

  Had they driven north? Upstate New York, maybe? She didn’t recognize anything, but she’d never been a big outdoors person, even when her dad was alive.

  “Switzerland.”

  “What?” She jerked her head around, staring at Andy in slack-jawed shock.

  “While they have an extradition treaty with the US, you have to be guilty of the same crime here. If things go sideways I thought it was best if you were already somewhere…safe. Somewhere we could lose ourselves in. From Switzerland we have access to four major countries and several avenues of escape.”

  “Sideways? What the hell is going on? What has Irene gotten me into?”

  “It’s not Irene. It’s you. You asked the wrong questions.”

  “So—what? You’re going to kill me?”

  “No.”

  “Give me a goddamn answer.”

  “You asked if I was going to—”

  “I know what I asked. What I want to know is, why? What’s going to happen to…me? To… Monday is Mom’s birthday.” Carol covered her mouth.

  “Yesterday was Monday in America.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Tuesday morning here. Monday was yesterday for us. Someone wants to make it look as though Irene put out a cleaning house call. For you. My goal is to keep you safe, so nothing should happen to you.”

  Carol leaned against the dresser and stared at the carpet. Andy didn’t stop talking now that he’d begun.

  “We have a counterplan. Irene and Mitch intend to find the identity of the person behind the hit. Meanwhile, you and I will finish the algorithm.”

  “I can’t do that here. I don’t have anything.” She needed files, database access, real-time reporting, not to mention the ability of testing her parameters.

  “I have a plan for that.”

  “What are you going to do about my mom? She’s going to know something is up.”

  “I sent her flowers and a card, from you, with a note that you’re worki
ng and will have to get together later. Same flowers you’ve sent her the last six years.”

  “How…do you know that?” How much of her life had been laid bare to a stranger? A psychopath?

  “I’m very thorough.”

  Carol crossed her arms over her chest to keep her hands from visibly trembling. With her father’s notoriety, there were parts of Carol’s life that would always be more spectacle than real. It was why a desk job, something behind the scenes, had suited her better than field work. Less danger. Less risk. Longer life. The chance at normalcy she’d never had before.

  She had to box up the betrayal and focus. Someone wanted her dead. Why? How could she make the most of this time? What did she have to gain?

  “How can we have CIA access here?” she asked.

  “We don’t.” Andy’s voice was flat, his body still. He might as well be a goddamn robot.

  “Then how are we supposed to run the algorithm?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? If you aren’t going to kill me, aren’t we on the same side?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “So, why not?”

  “Your posture is defensive, your tone is hostile. Whatever I say, you aren’t going to accept or like.”

  “And that’s my fault?”

  “No. Until I know you intend to be a team player, it’s best if I don’t tell you everything.” He gestured at the tray. “Eat. I’ll warm up the water so you can shower, then we can get to work.”

  “How?”

  “I brought your laptops and files with us, plus additional information Irene thought would be beneficial.”

  “You brought CIA classified files with us?” Carol’s body went cold. She wasn’t supposed to have taken those home, but Irene had insisted. Carol carted them back and forth every time. She kept them locked up when they weren’t in her hands.

  “Yes.” Andy said it as though there was nothing wrong.

  “Go away. Just…leave me alone.” She buried her face in her hands.

  Andy stood there a moment longer. He didn’t make any noise leaving. The room seemed to breathe when he left, as though his presence made even inanimate objects uneasy out of fear he’d erase them from being