Exposed - A Thriller Novella (Chandler Series) by J.A. Konrath & Ann Voss Peterson

by JA Konrath

  J.A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson

  She’s an elite spy, working for an agency so secret only three people know it exists. Trained by the best of the best, she has honed her body, her instincts, and her intellect to become the perfect weapon.

  CODENAME: CHANDLER

  Before special operative Chandler was forced to FLEE, she executd the most difficult missions—and most dangerous people—for the government. So when she’s tasked with saving a VIP’s daughter from human traffickers, Chandler expects the operation to be by the numbers…until she uncovers a secret that will endanger the entire population of New York City, and possibly the world.

  EXPOSED

  JA Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson

  About EXPOSED and CODENAME: CHANDLER

  Epigraph

  EXPOSED

  Excerpt: SPREE, the next CODENAME: CHANDLER thriller by J.A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson

  Also by the Authors

  FLEE, by J.A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson

  WILD NIGHT IS CALLING, by J.A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson

  RUN, by Blake Crouch

  PARIS IS A BITCH, by Barry Eisler

  Copyright

  Don’t blame her. It’s in her blood.

  Prologue

  Her eyes open to the steady beep … beep … beep of a heart monitor machine.

  She’s in a hospital bed. Alone. Wearing one of those flimsy gowns.

  She has no idea how she got here.

  An overdose? Did she take too many downs?

  She concentrates, tries to remember.

  Her last memory is of …

  Of what?

  Walking somewhere. To the dealer?

  No. To the free clinic. Ashamed, hoping her STD was something that could be treated with a pill.

  She talked to three different doctors. They took her blood. Made her wait a long time.

  And then …

  A shot. They gave her a shot. She touches the spot on her arm, then notices the IV tube snaking from the back of her hand, the sensor pads stuck to her chest.

  They gave her a shot, and now she’s in the hospital?

  She glances around the room. White walls, no window, not even a television. This place doesn’t smell like a hospital. It smells like a garage.

  Where is she?

  She looks for a call button, can’t find one, and then begins to yell for the nurse.

  She yells several times.

  No one comes.

  Was anyone there at all?

  Beep … beep … beep …

  She sits up, feeling absolutely normal. No pain beyond the tug of the needle in her hand. No dizziness. So why is she here?

  “Someone answer me!”

  No answer.

  She’s thirsty. She has to pee. She needs to know what’s going on.

  Using her fingernails, she picks the edge of the tape on her hand, then peels it back and tugs out the IV, wincing as the blood beads up. Then she reaches under her gown and tears the sticky pads from her skin.

  The machine by her bed stops beeping, giving way to a sustained tone. Like someone just died.

  Still no one comes.

  There’s a drawer next to the bed, but her clothes aren’t in it.

  She stands, the white tile cold under her bare feet, and pads over to the door.

  Opens it.

  This isn’t a hospital.

  It’s a warehouse. A big warehouse, with concrete floors, steel walls, forty-foot ceilings. There are pieces of medical equipment on carts, several tables and chairs, some cages along the far wall, and …

  Oh, sweet Lord.

  Dead people.

  Lots and lots of dead people.

  Many are in white lab coats, stained with blood. Others are in what look like military fatigues, equally soaked in red.

  A dozen. Maybe more. Lying on the ground. Propped against a chair. Sprawled out on a table. Two crimson figures, arms around one another, bruised faces forever frozen in agony.

  Then the smell hits her.

  She chokes back a sob and begins to run, past the cages, which are filled with—dead monkeys?—heading for a door at the other side of the building, praying it isn’t locked, skidding to a stop when it suddenly opens wide and 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 Vogue and Elle. He rescues models all the time.”

  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.

  Chandler

  Several years ago … before I had to FLEE …

  “To a special operative like yourself,” The Instructor said, “it can be tempting to rely on your physical training and strength. But some missions will call for more than that. Many times, knowing how to fit into your surroundings, understanding human behavior, and plain old acting skills will be more effective than brute force. Learn to be a chameleon, and you have a better chance of being successful.”

  I hav
e 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.

  “They aren’t the important thing here. They’ve recruited the eighteen-year-old daughter of a VIP. You are to return her to her father unharmed. Not a scratch. The orders are specific about that. She cannot be harmed in any way, not even slightly. I’m sending her photo. She’s using the name Julianne James.”

  A babysitting job. A first for me. I glanced at the phone, and a picture of a pretty blonde came up on the screen.

  “Who’s her daddy?”

  “I don’t have that information.”

  It had to be someone important if they were sending me in. There weren’t very many agents in the world with my kind of training.

  “Where is the shoot?”

  “North of the Hamptons. Your contact is working as a driver for the modeling agency. Your exchange is E-B-P-D.”

  “Got it.”

  “He’ll introduce you as new recruit Claire Thomas.”

  “Claire Thomas,” I repeated, trying on my new name. I used and discarded identities like Kleenex. The only constant was my codename: Chandler. My real name was nobody’s business.

  “You’re twenty-five years old, an aspiring model from Brooklyn. Your contact will get you in. After you get the girl, text your location to this number, and he’ll pick you up.”

  A number appeared on the screen.

  “He’ll be at the curb in twenty minutes. And Chandler?”

  “Yes.”

  “The girl thinks she’s getting her big break. She might need some convincing before she’ll be willing to leave.”

  “And if I can’t convince her?”

  “Just get her out of there in one piece. Unharmed.” Jacob signed off.

  I got dressed and did my best to channel my inner Max Factor while I sank into the role. I was a wannabe model. Several years younger than my actual age. Pretty. Spoiled. Used to getting my way, but still naive about men. I was looking for my big break. I would do whatever I could to get it.

  I went heavy on the make-up, dark eyes and too much pink lip gloss. The dress fit as if it was designed for me, and the shoes made me feel like sex on a stick.

  “I’m Claire Thomas,” I said into the mirror. And I believed it.

  I slipped my phone into the purse, then headed down to meet my contact.

  Human voices, background music, and the clack of heels on marble floors all rose to greet me before I reached the ground floor. The scent of coffee drifted from the resident Starbucks, and a woman passed me wearing enough perfume to enchant half of Times Square.

  I personally disliked big anonymous hotels. But due to my frequent need to be anonymous, I stayed in them often. Sometimes the best place to hide was in a crowd. Even so, negotiating the revolving door and stepping out into summer’s hot chaos on the flashing neon streets of New York overloaded my senses. The smell of hot dogs on the street corner and falafel down the block warred with exhaust and teeming humanity. The jangle of car horns and voices and the thump of a bass guitar assaulted me from various angles. The late morning was warmer, stickier, than the hotel lobby, a bit of autumn cool threatening to make an appearance but chickening out.

  I paused and forced myself to focus, cataloging each noise and smell and sight, becoming grounded in the now. At the same time, I shut off part of myself—the part that worried about applying makeup and got an ego boost from a good dress and sexy shoes—and I let the other part take over.

  The part that had been trained to kill people for the government.

  Dismissing the white noise and glitz and big city smells, I ignored what belonged there and singled out what didn’t.

  Someone was watching me.

  I glanced north to 46th Street.

  A man stared at me, standing with his hands at his sides, on the curb next to a black Lincoln Town Car. He was in his mid-thirties, handsome in that GQ kind of way, dressed in a dark suit and sunglasses. It wasn’t his appearance or the car that raised my notice—in midtown Manhattan, the only type of vehicle more common than a black Town Car was a yellow taxi cab, and many of the chauffeurs dressed as if they were auditioning for a role in the Men In Black sequel. No, it was his air of calmness, of stillness, of total focus, that was strong enough to raise the hair on my arms.

  And in that split-second assessment, I judged him to be a dangerous man.

  My contact, no doubt.

  I made a quick visual sweep of the street to be certain
he was alone, and then I walked to the car. As I approached, he climbed out, circled to the curb, and reached for the back door handle with his left hand.

  “Miss Thomas?”

  I nodded. “Hello, Eddie.”

  “Going to the ballet?”

  “How about the park?”

  “Yes. They have ducks.”

  I suppressed a smile, amused that the only noun beginning with the letter D he could manage on the fly was ducks. His danger vibe went down a notch.

  He opened the door and I settled into the leather seat, then he circled back to his spot behind the wheel, and soon we joined the flow of cabs, limos, and delivery trucks.

  Traffic moved well, and it took less time than I’d estimated for us to get through midtown, take the Queens Midtown Tunnel under the East River, and hit the Long Island Expressway. Industrial landscapes gave way to shopping malls and carefully managed green space, then on to nature preserves, beaches, and country clubs. I inched the window open. The scents of salt water and fresh cut grass tinged the air and the screech of gulls rose over the whistling wind. The expressway dwindled to winding roads and the housing seemed to range from vacation mansions to vacation palaces.

  “These aren’t nice men, you know.” The first words he’d said since I’d climbed in the car.

  His face tilted up to the rearview mirror, and I met his stare.

  “I’m not nice, either.”

  I watched his lips turn up in the barest hint of a smile. “I know we’re strangers, but can we get on a code-name basis?”

  “Call me Chandler.”

  “Call me Morrissey.”

  I wished I could see his eyes, but they were hidden by his sunglasses. “Thanks for the tip, Morrissey.”

  He swung the car into a long drive that wound through a copse of salt-stunted trees.

  “They aren’t going to let you take her. Not without a fight. And they’re armed. You’re not.”

  “How do you know I’m not?”