“You can’t mean that.” I shook my head. This couldn’t be happening. It had always been so easy to communicate with Lund, effortless as breathing. So how had that suddenly fallen apart?
“I can’t be with you, Chandler. Not anymore.”
“It’s the thing with the president, isn’t it?”
“The fact that you assassinated him?” He drew in a shuddering breath. “I have to admit, that is hard to take.”
“I did it to save you.”
His eyebrows dipped low. “It doesn’t matter, Chandler. It wasn’t the president’s death. It should be, and I don’t know what this says about me, but it wasn’t.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask, but I did anyway. “Then why can’t you be with me?”
“The man guarding the truck. I watched you slit his throat. I saw…”
“If he saw us, he would have shot us.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what is it? I don’t understand.”
“I saw your face when you killed him.” Lund narrowed his eyes on me, as if peering into my mind, my heart; and at that moment I felt more naked than Hammett lying in that closet. “There was…nothing there. Your eyes, they were flat, dead, as if killing him was nothing more to you than swatting a mosquito. You ended a man’s life, and you felt nothing at all.”
I opened my mouth to explain, but no words came to my tongue. No sound crossed my lips.
“Last night I thought I was falling in love with you. I thought we had something together. But…”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Then what is? Name it. I’ll say it. I’ll do it.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand being able to kill like that, Chandler. I don’t want to understand it…and I don’t want to forgive it.”
I closed my eyes. Of all my fears about Lund, this was it. The reason I’d pushed him away this morning. The thing I’d sensed all along but hadn’t wanted to face.
He was a far better person than I was. And now he’d finally recognized it, too.
I didn’t walk Lund to his truck, nor did I pine at the window waiting for the chance to watch him drive away. While I was upstairs, Tequila had carried Fleming into the house; and I could hear her rummaging around in the kitchen, packing up pieces for her chair and other supplies we could use while Lund asked if Tequila would like a ride to fetch his truck.
I wondered if Lund would tell Tequila what had gone down between us, or if he’d wait for the gymnast to ask, which would never happen. Either way, Tequila wouldn’t be surprised by what Lund told me. He’d chalk up Lund’s rejection as a by-product of that pesky old morality, and I suppose he had a point.
The only problem was that I knew Lund was right.
For a second, I thought about going down to the kitchen and helping Fleming pack once the men left. But I knew that was only one of the jobs that had to be done before we could disappear.
There was another.
I’d lost my Berretta to the Instructor in the cemetery, but the Skorpion would do fine. I checked the magazine and slipped it into my waistband. Then I unlocked the door to the bedroom.
Hammett was awake when I opened the closet, and peered up at me, blinking in the sudden light. “About time.”
“Get up,” I said.
She struggled to her feet. “Something to wear?”
“Shut up.” I motioned her out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door, avoiding the kitchen. A thick forest loomed beyond the cattle pens and a barren field. I marched Hammett straight back, barefoot and naked and wearing those ridiculous fur-lined handcuffs. And every time she stepped on a thistle or slipped past a clump of blackberry thorns, I felt a certain satisfaction.
Rain threatened. Finally we entered the woods, a mix of fresh-smelling pine and a few deciduous trees like locust and birch. Once we were deep enough to be hidden by the thick shadows, I stopped.
“Should I kneel?” Hammett said. “Make it easier for you to put one in the back of my head?”
I didn’t say anything, just stared at the dark blood in her hair from the blow Lund had dealt her and listened to a bird. A cardinal, judging from the call.
“Come on, Chandler, we both know why I’m here. You’re going to kill me. But are you sure that’s your best move? Am I such a threat to you that you need to neutralize me immediately, or could I possibly be an asset?”
“An asset? You’re the most dangerous person I’ve ever met.”
“Thanks.”
I pulled back the bolt on the machine gun.
“I know more about the Instructor than anyone,” Hammett said, talking fast. “I have an idea of where he’s going. I know what his plans are. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“First off, he’s not the only enemy right now. He’s not even the most dangerous one.”
“Who else is there?”
“I tell you, you kill me. Why would I do that?”
“Maybe I’ll put a few rounds through your knees first, and you’ll be more forthcoming.”
“Listen, Chandler, this is a lot bigger than you know. Like worldwide bigger. You don’t know what killing the president has set into motion.”
“I don’t hear you explaining it to me, either.” I was starting to lose patience. Hammett was trying to play me, that was clear, but I wasn’t in a mood to be played. “You have thirty seconds.”
“Like I said, this thing is big. And complicated. And I don’t know all the pieces yet. But together, we can put them together. Between what you know, what I know, and what we can find out, we can take the whole thing down. And we can save our own identical little hides in the process. You can trust me.”
“Bullshit.”
“We have the same goal. Getting the tape and clearing our names. We’re on the same side. The enemy of my enemy, and all that.”
“You’re wasting my time.” I kicked the back of her right leg and pushed her to her knees.
“Think what you like,” she said. “I should have known you wouldn’t care who the Instructor’s plan hurts. You don’t have much feeling for anyone, do you? At least, that’s the gist I picked up from your conversation with your boyfriend. Whoops, my bad—ex-boyfriend.”
I placed the barrel against Hammett’s temple.
She had the nerve to laugh. “I knew it. You’re just like me, Chandler. You don’t have any humanity. Not anymore. The Instructor has finally wrung it out of you.”
I felt sick. I didn’t want her to be right. I didn’t want Lund to be right, either. But how could I argue? How could I refute the facts?
“Why are you hesitating, Chandler? Do it already.”
Taking a deep breath, I did what I needed to.
Fleming
“There’s a thin line between love and hate,” said the Instructor. “And there are times you’ll have to straddle it.”
Fleming and Tequila didn’t talk. There wasn’t much to say.
Tequila and Lund hadn’t had any trouble recovering the white SUV, a fact that made Fleming suspect the Instructor had called off his troops with some sort of plan in mind. Once Tequila had returned to the farm, it hadn’t taken more than a few minutes to load their few supplies and Fleming’s chair. Now all they could do was wait.
Outside it had started to rain, drops pattering against the kitchen window, and the smell of precipitation hitting sun-heated gravel filled the house. The news droned from a transistor radio they’d found in one of the rooms upstairs, an endless prattle about the presidential assassination and the resultant manhunt for those responsible. Apparently the Instructor hadn’t turned over the evidence. Fleming wondered if he would, or if he’d take another shot at forcing them into his service. She suspected the latter.
She needed to figure out what action she would take when that time came.
Footsteps sounded on the front porch, the door creaked open, and Chandler walked down the hal
l to the kitchen.
Fleming wanted to ask her sister what had happened, but decided it best to let Chandler take the lead. However, when close to a minute had ticked by with none of them saying a word, Fleming couldn’t stand it any longer and finally decided to break the silence. “Tequila said he’d help find us a car.”
Chandler swung her eyes to Tequila. “Thanks.”
He gave a nod.
Chandler glanced around the kitchen. “Everything packed?”
“It’s all in the truck, except for the trash here.” Fleming gestured to the garbage bag waiting in the center of the linoleum floor, the last signs they’d ever visited this farmhouse. “We wiped the place down. We can leave whenever you’re ready.”
Chandler focused on the black plastic bag. “My old clothes from yesterday, they in the trash?”
“Yup.” They were dirty and torn beyond repair. Chandler had tossed them this morning, a move Fleming didn’t see reason to change.
Now Chandler felt differently. She opened the bag and pulled out the black sweater and torn jeans. A wave of algae and sweat odor wafted from the clothing.
“Lund is gone,” Fleming said, unwilling to steer clear of the subject any longer.
“I know.”
Fleming couldn’t guess exactly what had happened between her sister and the firefighter, but it was clear things hadn’t gone well. “He said you went somewhere with Hammett.”
“To the forest.”
Fleming nodded. As soon as Lund had mentioned it, she’d figured out what Chandler had set out to do. And Fleming had to admit, she didn’t feel bad about it. Not even a bit. In fact, she wanted to hear Chandler say the words. “Did you…do it?”
Chandler paused for a moment, then she gestured to the door with the wad of dirty clothes. “You need to see something.”
Fleming wheeled her way to the front entrance, Tequila following behind. Chandler opened the door and stepped to the side.
Hammett stood at the bottom of the porch, completely nude and drenched from the rain, her arms handcuffed around a railing. “Hi, Crippled Sis,” she said. “Looks like we’re going to be working together.”
Tequila looked at each of the sisters, his gaze settling on Chandler. “And now there are three.”
The White House
“I, James Phillip Ratzenberger, do solemnly swear.”
“I, James Phillip Ratzenberger, do solemnly swear.”
“That I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States.”
“That I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States.”
“And will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
“And will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
“So help you, God.”
“So help me, God.”
The former vice president, now president, put down his right hand and nodded solemnly for the cameras, the crowd, fighting not to smile. He’d waited his whole life for this moment, and though it came because of the death of his predecessor, he still felt like he’d earned it.
The UK missile incident and the recent assassination had plunged this country into chaos and fear. It needed a strong leader to banish the fear, and to restore this nation to its former glory. Ratzenberger knew he was that leader. And he had a plan. A colossal plan, to solidify the US’s dominance as the world’s only superpower, and to ensure it remained so for the next millennium.
The history of America, and the world, was about to change, and no one would be able to stop it.
The new president closed his eyes and said a solemn prayer, asking God to forgive him for the tens of millions of people who were about to die.
THE END
Chandler, Fleming, and Hammett will return in Three.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
CHANDLER is 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. Return to character’s first appearance.
FLEMING used to be a field operative like Chandler, until she was paralyzed on a mission. A genius, Fleming turned her attention to miraculous inventions and being Chandler’s handler, but she’s always longed to return to the field. Return to character’s first appearance.
HAMMETT is a dangerous psychopath with all the training of Chandler and none of the moral fabric. She’s a superassassin, and she loves it. Unsympathetic to her fellow human beings, she has a soft spot only for animals. Return to character’s first appearance.
JACQUELINE “JACK” DANIELS is a Chicago cop who appears in Shot of Tequila, Whiskey Sour, Bloody Mary, Rusty Nail, Dirty Martini, Fuzzy Navel, Cherry Bomb, Shaken, and Stirred. Flee, Spree, and Three take place in the time span between Dirty Martini and Fuzzy Navel. Return to character’s first appearance.
HARRY McGLADE runs a private investigating firm with Jack Daniels. McGlade is possibly the most offensive human being of all time. Return to character’s first appearance.
TEQUILA ABERNATHY was an Olympic gymnast before he became an enforcer for the Chicago mob. Now semiretired, he only does favors for friends and those who can pay his rates. He is featured in the thriller Shot of Tequila. Return to character’s first appearance.
DAVID LUND works as a firefighter in central Wisconsin. The picture of an everyday hero, he is incapable of turning down a person in need of help. He is featured in the thriller Pushed Too Far, by Ann Voss Peterson. Return to character’s first appearance.
VAL RYKER is the police chief of the small Wisconsin town of Lake Loyal. She is featured in the thriller Pushed Too Far, by Ann Voss Peterson. Return to character’s first appearance.
JAVIER ESTRADA worked with the Alphas, a badass paramilitary team who protected major drug cartels. He is featured in Snowbound, by Blake Crouch. Return to character’s first appearance.
ISAIAH BROWN is a former Force Recon Marine featured in Abandon, by Blake Crouch. Return to character’s first appearance.
SANTIAGO, a psychopathic sadist whose specialty is interrogation, is featured in Jack Kilborn’s Afraid. Return to character’s first appearance.
THE INSTRUCTOR is the man behind the top-secret Hydra superassassin program. He trained superspies Chandler, Fleming, and Hammett, as well as their now deceased sisters Ludlum, Clancy, LeCarre, and Follett. Return to character’s first appearance.
AFTERWORD…
…in which Ann and Joe interview each other about the experience of writing Spree…
Joe: Wow, this was a long book. But the only way to shorten it would be to cut action, and I love the action. I think the Chandler series is loads of fun because it is so over the top. We wanted to do a contemporary female James Bond, and that meant sex, gadgets, and above all, big action scenes. But this one just kept going and going. Did we plan on Spree being over 100,000 words?
Ann: I think we originally planned it to be about 60,000, although once we got writing, I knew it would be 80,000. Wrong on both counts.
Joe: Hopefully it still qualifies as a quick read. And a seamless one. We both worked hard to make sure the writing was consistent, so readers couldn’t tell which scenes you wrote and which scenes I wrote. What was your favorite scene to write?
Ann: Tequila riding the horse. It was fun to take a guy who is so athletic and throw him into a situation where he’s over his head, at least at first.
Joe: I know you read my novel Shot of Tequila, which introduced him, but was it weird to write for a character you didn’t create? I did a Lund section or two (one of your heroes from Pushed Too Far), but not to the degree you did Tequila. And you did a perfect job with him. One I never could have done, because I’ve never been on a horse. But you did all that professional riding…
Ann: I loved Tequila when I read him, but I was a little nervous about writing from his point of view. As it turned
out, it was a lot of fun. I started riding when I was eleven years old, showed my own horse, and worked for a quarter-horse trainer in my early twenties. I had a lot to learn about men’s gymnastics, though. What was your favorite scene to write, Joe?
Joe: The whole idea behind Flee was to have a female operative in way over her head. One of the set pieces I was excited about was blowing her out of the ninety-fifth floor of the Hancock Building in Chicago, and having her cling to the side of the building. In Spree, I wanted to have a big scene like that, which became the hot-air balloons and the high-tension wire.
That scene was challenging to write. I did hours and hours of research about electricity, and I’m sure I still got stuff wrong. But I like how it turned out, and really dig the idea of two women walking a high-tension tightrope, trying to kill each other.
Ann: Our setting also gave us a lot of ideas.
Joe: Right. We visited the Badger Ammo plant in Baraboo, and a cool guy named Verlyn Mueller gave us a tour. We saw the reservoir Chandler got stuck in (which is filled with a rare species of salamander) and the cannon area and the graveyard. We were so captivated by all of it, half of Spree’s action happens at Badger.
Ann: Oh, and the industrial grinder!
Joe: How could we not use that? It’s huge and grinds up cement and metal. That was just begging to have characters fight on it.
Ann: A lot of it also takes place in the neighboring Devil’s Lake State Park, a place I’ve visited since I was a kid.
Joe: You’re from Wisconsin. I go there every year on vacation, and have been since 1973. It was nice to set a novel there. People don’t normally use “Wisconsin” and “thriller” in the same sentence.
Ann: Although you set Afraid in Wisconsin.
Joe: I did. But that was a horror novel. That’s one of the reasons I included Santiago as a bad guy—he’s one of the villains in Afraid.
Ann: I set Pushed Too Far there, too. And a lot of my romantic suspense novels take place in Wisconsin.
Joe: So I guess we’ve overused America’s Dairyland.
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