meant anything to her. It had been a place to sleep and shower. She always carried everything she needed in the satchel she’d slung over her shoulder. A laptop, a couple changes of clothes, three wigs in varying colors, makeup and her Glock 9mm pistol. She’d also had a burner phone in her pocket, along with a wad of cash and a couple of credit cards that would have to be shredded since she’d become a target for the same organization she’d worked for.
For the past year, she’d been on the run, dodging shadows and living from day to day looking over her shoulder.
Are you in trouble? Cole’s second message brought CJ back from her memories to the task at hand.
Are you still digging into Trinity conspirators? she texted.
CJ didn’t want help, but she had to find the leader of Trinity before he found her. Two or three people searching the internet was better than one person using borrowed internet from public libraries.
Yes.
Look into Chris Carpenter, the Homeland Security Advisor for the National Security Council.
Cole’s response was quick.
Got anything to go on? Any clues?
CJ hated to say she had a gut feeling about the man. A trained assassin relied on cold, hard facts, disregarding emotion and luck.
Prior to the attack in the NSC, the conference room coordinator received a text from Carpenter.
The guy who helped kidnap Anne Bellamy and the vice president?
Yes.
His assistant, Dr. Saunders, was the woman who was almost killed in a hit-and-run accident, wasn’t she?
That’s the one.
On it.
CJ had been doing her own digging on the dark web via the Arlington Public Library. She’d hacked in, making it past the firewall of the phone system used by Chris Carpenter to his billing information. She’d narrowed her search of his calls to the day of the attack. She’d gone through his phone records, searching for a connection to Terrence Tully, the conference room coordinator for the NSC meeting, and found one.
Terrence Tully had been one of Trinity’s sleeper agents, embedded in the White House, waiting for his call to serve.
That day, he’d helped orchestrate the kidnapping of the VP and Anne Bellamy, the woman CJ had contacted to warn about the attack.
Can we meet? Cole asked.
CJ frowned. Any contact she had with others put them at risk. She’d already broken the first rule she’d made for herself upon her defection from Trinity: stay away from anyone or anything to do with the organization. Including people who were actively searching to destroy it.
She’d broken that rule by contacting Anne to warn her of the attack.
Then she’d involved herself in Declan’s Defenders’ rescue effort. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’d gone to their base location at Charlotte Halverson’s estate. The Defenders knew more about her than she’d wanted to divulge, including what she looked like. And they’d assigned one of Declan’s men to be her protector and backup.
CJ snorted. Like she’d let that happen. If she allowed anyone to get that close to her, it would be one more way for Trinity to find her and the agent would be collateral damage when Trinity came to kill her.
Being a loner was better for all involved.
She typed, If I need you, I’ll find you.
CJ backed out of Carpenter’s phone records she’d been perusing and went back on the dark web, digging into anything she could find that might lead her to Trinity’s leader, the best kept secret in the entire organization.
When she’d first left Trinity, her main focus had been on staying alive and out of their way. It didn’t take her long to realize, however, that she’d never be truly safe until the organization was destroyed. And the best way to do that was to find its leader and destroy him. Because of the recent Trinity activity in the DC area and the fact that it was a world capital, she felt confident that Trinity’s head was somewhere in the vicinity.
A little more than a week ago, she’d found a particular website with a forum where anyone could anonymously arrange to hire a hit man. It seemed assassins for hire didn’t like that Trinity was an exclusive organization they couldn’t crack. Some of the people on the site had it out for Trinity and had made it a personal challenge to identify its leadership and/or to sabotage the organization’s hits. It was on that site through online chats and more that CJ had learned about the potential attack on the White House during the NSC meeting.
Going to the site, CJ went directly to the message board.
Still looking for the Director, she typed.
A few seconds later she received this response: They’re still looking for you.
Weary of the chase, the worry and living below the radar, she wrote, Time to stop T.
The time will come. We will find the Director.
Today?
Probably not.
The next message made her pulse pound.
Someone knows where you are.
CJ frowned.
How do you know?
Message traffic on another site, listing IP address of Arlington library.
She glanced out the glass window of the computer room to the library beyond. Moms were helping their children carry stacks of books to the counter, and a college student with a backpack leaned over the desk to ask the librarian a question. No one looked like a Trinity assassin. But then, she had been one and had been trained to blend in.
Where are you seeing this? she typed.
No time.
He’s here now?
Now. Run. Don’t go home. Compromised.
CJ cleared the browser, cleared the screen and logged off the computer. She ducked low, pretending to get something from her backpack. Instead of putting something in, she took out the blond wig cut in a short bob, pulled it on and quickly stuffed her own auburn hair beneath it. Then she took off her black leather jacket and crammed it into the backpack, straightening her pale pink T-shirt with the cartoon kitty on the front. Setting a pair of round sunglasses on her nose to hide her green eyes and popping a piece of bubble gum into her mouth, she stood.
Disguise in place, CJ exited the room through the opposite door from where she’d entered and slipped through the stacks, weaving her way along the travel section into the how-to books.
A gray-haired man peered at a gardening book for beginners. A young woman perused a book on designing websites.
CJ moved past them. She’d have to go through the front entrance to get out without setting off any emergency exit alarms.
