“I’m sorry, I’ve got to go into the office, baby. Stay right here and get some rest. I’ll be back to wear you out again in a couple of hours.” I winked at her, and she smiled sleepily. She looked so fuckable right at that moment. I started to back away, having a firm talk with myself about letting her sleep and getting my ass to work.
It was hard (pun definitely intended), but I managed to tear myself away and go take a shower before putting on a suit and heading to my home office. I realized my briefcase was still in the kitchen so I quickly went to retrieve it.
With my cover job as a contracts attorney, a big portion of my paperwork was extremely confidential and lucky for me, my wife understood the sensitive nature of what was in my briefcase and didn’t ever attempt to see inside. Of course, she had no idea how truly sensitive the contents were.
Evie and I each had our own home office, designed by us personally. When we were building our house, I worked with an architect on The Company payroll to have a walk-in safe covertly installed. In the back of my closet, there appeared to be a small wall safe. However, when unlocked, the entire wall slid into a pocket, opening up into a combination of a SCIF room and vault for my personal arsenal.
Shutting my office door, I hit a button to turn on a low murmur, so from the hall, it sounded as though I was on a call. Then, I headed to the safe and punched in the code, entering and setting my briefcase on a table in the center of the room. I hit the combination to release the catch and it sprang open. The case held my Beretta 9mm and my Sig P226, as well as an extra clip for each magazine. It also had some other small gadget weapons and a compartment for my identity papers and cash.
The identity papers inside were still good, so I stowed them away and grabbed a new passport, driver’s license, and a variety of banknotes for several countries, not knowing where my next assignment would be. I refilled both magazines and clips, grabbed a boot knife, and a few other ‘toys,’ before locking up and heading to my car.
I slipped inside my Aston Martin and chuckled, shaking my head like I did every time I got into my car. I wasn’t happy with Evie’s choice of vehicle, it worried me over her safety. But, what I’d never admit to her, is seeing her in it was an incredible turn on. She had a wild side most people didn’t get to see and it was sexy as fuck.
I begrudgingly accepted her choice and the matter was settled. Then, on our first anniversary, I found James Bond’s car sitting in my driveway. It was equal parts joke and a thank you for backing down over the car issue. Though the real joke was lost on her, giving her spy husband the same car driven by the ultimate covert agent.
I left the house and drove to an office building downtown, parking in the garage underneath. The structure housed several law offices, some legit, and others a front for offices of clandestine operations.
On the first floor, I flashed a badge for Webster, Shaw & Associates before entering the elevator behind the reception desk. It only took a minute after hitting the down button for the car to stop and the doors slid silently open to reveal a large room full of desks and computers. As usual, there was a low buzz of noise from my co-workers chatting, strategizing, and computers humming.
“Justice.”
I turned and saw Colin walking up to me, his hand outstretched. I grasped it and returned the greeting with his code name. “Outrigger. What are you doing here? I thought you were on a long-term, covert assignment in India.”
Colin was an American citizen, but he’d been raised in England and was permanently stationed there a few years before. I’d still worked with him on several missions until he went dark. All I knew was the assignment was in India, but the details were kept classified.
He let go of my hand and grimaced. “My cover was blown and I lost the target. They brought me back to brief you on the situation before they send you on a retrieval.”
Retrieval missions were pretty straight forward—capture, interrogate, and pass the prisoner off to another agent. Sometimes, it was easy, taking only a day or two. Other times, it could take weeks to track down the target. If this guy was aware he was being pursued and had gone on the run, it meant I was looking down the barrel of the latter. Fuck. I’d been home for less than twenty-four hours and I was being sent back into the field. How was I going to explain this to Evie?
Colin started to relay information about the op as we made our way to a conference room across the way. When we passed by the office of our chief analyst and resident tech genius, Martin, I popped my head in to say hello. As a senior field officer, I often ran a team for ops, and Martin and I worked closely together. However, on solo ops, such as the one I was about to embark on, Martin was often my life-line. The difference between ending up back in bed with my wife or in a box, six feet under.
He mumbled something resembling a greeting, without looking up from whatever he was working on. I laughed and continued on to my meeting. I followed Colin to the room and we both took a seat at the large, oval table. Our superior, Howard Donovan, was already seated, looking through a file, and his head lifted when he heard us enter.
“It’s about damn time, Justice.”
I held tight to my patience and swallowed a sharp retort. “I’ve only been home for a few hours, Donovan. Barely enough time to greet my wife properly”—my eyes narrowed in irritation—“and leaving her in bed this morning was not on my to-do list. The list was one fucking word long, Genevieve.”
Colin snorted, trying to contain his laughter and Donovan rolled his eyes. “Let’s get on with this, the sooner we finish briefing you, the sooner you can complete the mission and get back to practicing your talents as a Raven.”
It was my turn to scoff. “My seduction skills don’t need any fine tuning, just ask my wife. She’s the only one who will ever be the recipient anyway. But that’s beside the point. Just so you know, when this mission is over, I’m taking a month off.”
“Done.” Donovan nodded then slid a file my way. The manila folder was stamped with CODE-WORD CLASSIFIED, which explained why it was only the three of us in the room. Only a handful of agents in my office had a code-word clearance. Inside was a dossier on the target, Mark Sai, code name: Heron, with a picture and as much information as we could gather on the man.
“You think he’s hiding out in Rome?” I shot an irritated glance at my boss. Evie and I vacationed there frequently, which means I spend a great deal of time there as myself, as the real me, Alex Shaw, contract attorney and devoted husband.
Donovan sighed. “The higher-ups are putting their foot down. They want you for this assignment and they don’t care about anything else.”
“I’m going to have to be twice as vigilant, and it’s going to slow me down.”
Donovan shrugged, and I knew it was the most I was going to get out of him on the subject. At least Evie wasn’t going to be there with me. Every once in a while, the jackasses I answered to would send me on a mission while I was in the middle of traveling with my wife. Never in Rome, though.
There wasn’t anything I could do about it, so I went back to skimming the file. One line in particular stood out, “What the fuck?” I growled. “He was an agent-in-place?” The background stated he had tried to defect half a decade before but had been convinced to continue working for the foreign government, similar to being a double agent, but he was a civilian. Losing an asset like him meant we were running blind, not knowing who he was informing on or what they were being told.
“I was his case agent,” Colin informed me. “I don’t know if he exposed me or someone in his chain of command got enough information to piece together the clues and blew my cover. Either way, Mark got spooked and took off.”
“We need to know what he’s shared and how much of it is fact versus fiction,” Donovan added.
A mess of this caliber wouldn’t be contained to our department, and I needed to know what else I was up against. “Is there a kill order?”