Chapter One
Act innocent.
Moscow Rules
Friday
Raine pressed the bell long enough to hear it ringing somewhere in the back of the house.
By force of habit, she shifted to knife her silhouette next to the doorframe.
Raine never knew what would come blowing through a door, a terrorist or a spray of bullets.
That wasn’t on her list of possibilities today, she reminded herself as the cold cement from the front porch radiated through the soles of her tennis shoes and up into her calves.
The sudden plunge in today’s temperature wasn’t given priority when Raine was picking out her yoga pants and ski jacket. The purpose of her clothing was to give her ample maneuvering flexibility while letting her develop her cover as an urban millennial who woke up this morning to a breakfast of avocado toast and a six-step coffee order.
Raine had, in fact, eaten avocado toast this morning with an egg and some salsa, but her coffee had been home-brewed—black and industrial strength.
Looking over her shoulder, Raine’s eyes searched past the minivan she’d borrowed from the pool for this assignment. She’d parked it one door down and across the street in the quiet Northern Virginia neighborhood. Mid-century architecture. Conscientiously manicured lawns. No movement. Empty driveways. Not even a dog loping through his early evening circuit.
Spinning back to the door, Raine focused through the side window to the darkened interior where Lucy McDonald was housesitting for a friend. The window panes reflected Raine’s image back to her.
Raine looked properly incognito. Her facial features were hidden in the shadow beneath the visor of her ballcap. She’d tucked her ponytail through the back opening, doubling it into the elastic to make a messy bun. The blonde ends flicked against her perspiration dampened neck.
Her body—lit up with the anticipation of possible violence on the other side of this door—was revving Raine’s survival motors.
She wasn’t quite to the point where she’d pull her gun from her ankle holster. But the house exhaled anxiety.
Why wasn’t Lucy coming to the door?
Raine pressed the bell again, extending her index finger for a longer, more imperative buzz. Starbucks venti cups filled each hand, keeping her fingers warm. She’d grabbed the cups from the kitchen shelf back at her office, leftovers from some meeting. She’d used a Sharpie to add “Paisley,” her undercover name, to one and “Lucy” to the other.
This kind of detail was part of the pocket litter that she developed, props that defined her under cover role for the observant. If she was playing a mom, she might crumble gold fish crackers to powder the bottom of her purse, along with random broken crayons, maybe a plastic car, and a child’s action figure.
When playing a role, it was all in.
Everything had to fit the puzzle.
Mistakes couldn’t be tolerated when lives were on the line.
Still no Lucy.
Raine edged over to the little wrought iron table, where she set the coffee cups down and pulled her phone from the flex pocket on her thigh, double checking. This was the address Lucy had texted. And this was the right spot according to her GPS…
Lucy had called Raine’s “Paisley Moorhead” phone number and followed up the conversation with the text that included this address.
For some reason, Lucy had decided to leave the relative safety of Fort Bragg to come hide at a friend’s house here in D.C.
When Lucy called Raine’s Paisley Morehead cell phone number to let them know she was running for her life, she was frantic.
Raine had staged her cover and gotten here as fast as physics would allow. She hoped she wasn’t too late.
It occurred to Raine that, never having met the woman, Lucy might not feel safe opening the door.
She sent a quick text to Lucy. I’m here. Can you let me in?
Raine didn’t wait for an answer. She sniffed a deep breath then skipped down the brick steps.
On the way to the carport, Raine lifted her chin, arching back so she could cast a quick glance at the second-floor windows.
No lights on a gray dreary day.
Maybe Lucy had decided to lie down. Pregnancy could be exhausting.
So could unremitting anxiety.
Still, no sign of interior lights was concerning.
Raine edged past where the blue Santa Fe was parked, scanning toward the backyard. She considered looking through the windows, but if there was anyone surveilling the house, that would give her away.
It could also let the bad guys know Lucy had broken their rules and reached out for help.
Partially hidden by Lucy’s car, Raine tried the kitchen door.
Locked.
Another sweep of the area. Office workers would start trickling back to their homes soon. Mid-January and the sun was setting. The first of the street lamps were blinking awake.
Raine reached under her ponytail where she had clipped her ubiquitous specialized barrettes with their integrated lockpicking tools.
The knob lock on the door handle was quick work. Tumbling the deadbolt was much more finicky. Raine had to spend more time and use more focus than she would have liked.
Before she pushed the door wide, Raine crouched to pull her gun.
She paused outside. Centering herself, she sucked in a lungful of air then popped the door open, swinging her XDS around the room in a two-fisted grip.
Her heart beat in her ears. Her senses expanded like tentacles feeling around the space, searching for anything that posed a threat.
Everything was still.
It looked like dinner prep had been interrupted. There was a cutting board with diced onions. A bowl of already chopped red pepper and mushrooms. A pile of scraps. An open box of eggs.
Raine slid into the room and touched the stove. Cold.
“Lucy?” Raine called. “It’s Paisley. I brought you a decaf with all the bells and whistles.” Raine shut and locked the kitchen door before moving around the bottom floor, checking the hall closet and a tiny guest bathroom.
Pausing with her back to the wall, Raine could keep an eye on the front and back doors as she tugged her phone out again. She quick dialed Lucy’s cell and tipped her ear toward the stairs, trying to acoustically locate Lucy.
It went right to voice mail.
While the house gripped its silence, Raine felt someone’s attention prickling her awareness. It was a ghostly whisper in the still air.
She stepped cautiously to the front door, opened it, leaned back into the shadows, and scanned. Placing her gun on the entry table ready for a quick grab, Raine tossed a laugh over her shoulder as if she was mid-conversation while she pushed the screen wide to retrieve the coffee cups. It wouldn’t do to leave them out front where a set of inquisitive eyes could be keeping track.
The neighbors didn’t need a heads up that something odd was happening here.
This close to D.C. there would be government worker bees who lived within sight. Raine made a mental note to run down the names of the neighborhood home owners and their occupations when she got back to the office. She didn’t need chatter at the company coffee stations to put a bug in someone’s ear. The wrong ear.
Raine set down the coffee cups, then turned to shut the door and throw the dead bolt.
She retrieved her gun from the table, pressing the grip between her palms, finger riding the trigger guard as she moved down into the basement where laundry had been sorted into two piles of dirty clothes—toddler shorts and men’s boxer briefs. They must be from the family letting Lucy housesit while they were down in Florida.
No Lucy crouching in a corner or behind the hot water heater.
Raine stopped to compose a second message on her phone then tapped send: Lucy, should I finish chopping the onions for dinner? That should tell Lucy that “Paisley” was in the house.
Even using a dedicated cover phone, Raine didn’t want to break character, lest the bad guys were sniffing the air for communications.
Lucy’s phone wasn’t secure.
Raine’s next text went to Iniquus’s Strike Force: I stopped at my friend’s house on the way to yoga class. You two might hit it off. She’s new to town. Raine needed to give her back-up team a heads-up that something was off; they had already been apprised that she was heading over here.
This wasn’t the first time Raine had partnered with an outside security group. But it was rare.
Her agency tended to hold their cards tight to the vest.
The DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency—like the CIA, Central Intelligence Agency—didn’t do law enforcement.
Much of the way the DIA and CIA operated was the same. She was, for example, employing “Moscow Rules,” rules developed by the CIA during the cold war so operators could function in the non-permissive atmosphere of the USSR capital. Even though she was here in Washington D.C., her adversaries came from the KGB tradition.
Also like the CIA, the DIA’s job—under the umbrella of the Department of Defense—was to gather intel and pass it on to those who could slap cuffs on wrists, as well as those who shaped necessary policies, and those who developed military actions.
Boy, did the military need to take action.
Someone was targeting the wives of Delta Force Operators with threats of violence and death.
Very specific Deltas.
The targeted wives, like Lucy McDonald, had two things in common. First, their husband’s contracts all needed a re-up signature in the next three months—which meant they would be extending their special forces contracts with Uncle Sam. Second, the husbands were downrange on missions, leaving their wives home, alone and vulnerable.
What the DIA had gleaned so far: The goal of the threats was to stop the Delta Force operators from signing on the dotted line, discontinuing their work in the military. The terrorists wanted the wives to pressure their husbands, by any means necessary, into a civilian life.
The situation had come to the DIA’s attention when two of the wives had broken the rules set out by the terrorists and confided in each other. They decided they needed help.
One of the women had a familial connection to General Elliot, an owner of the highly lauded Iniquus Security Group here in Washington.
Iniquus brought the issue to the DIA, which was the right thing to do.
Quietly, the DIA visited each Delta wife who met these two criteria.
Silently, each woman had nodded her head. They were all being threatened. They would suffer dire consequences if their husbands re-upped. The consequences would be equally tragic but torturously slow, instead of quick and humane, if the women reached out for help.
To anyone.
Even their husbands.
Especially, their husbands.
Military wives knew that presenting home front problems to their husbands risked distracting them from their missions, putting their husbands and their units in danger. These wives would never tell their spouses that they’d been threatened even if the communications hadn’t specifically warned them against such action.
The DIA started their investigation. They thought this might well be tied into other instances of cyber threats to military wives, which were being investigated by DIA Officer Raine Meyers.
As this new case unfolded, Raine had made sure each threatened Delta Force wife had her contact number, as Paisley Moorhead, so they could apprise her of any new threats. Raine didn’t want the details to be lost in some game of agency phone tree.
I can come over now and bring pizza. Is this a good time? Though it felt like ages ago Raine had texted Iniquus about her “friend in town,” the reality was that Strike Force responded almost immediately.
Raine noted the elasticity in her perceptions, recognizing that her limbic survival system was playing with time in her brain. Though it seemed like she’d been here all day, the fact was, only a few minutes had passed since she’d broken into the house.
Raine looked down at the text. Did she need them? Could be the house was empty… though where Lucy could have gone—eight months pregnant and without her car—was a mystery.
So far, it didn’t look like there had been a struggle.
Yeah, this whole scene… Raine felt eyes on the back of her neck. Someone was watching. Backup might be helpful.
But if Raine sent a Yes, thanks! Pepperoni and extra cheese to Strike Force to get them en route, she wasn’t sure who would show. If it was the woman on their team, Lynx, that would be fine. But the men were all six feet plus. They all had the bearing of warriors who had seen action and survived. Right now, the priority was on keeping things normal looking to Lucy’s neighbors.
No curiosity.
No hard questions.
No. This wasn’t the time for Iniquus to show up. Too many people were coming home from work, too many eyes would be scanning up and down the street.
Raine decided not to answer their text.
The Strike Force team would be monitoring from their war room at Iniquus Headquarters, possibly even staging someone at the strip mall around the corner and down the way.
Yeah, that was enough for now.
Raine raised her gun to a low ready position and started up the stairs.
If things went down, she only had her XDS, with nine rounds, eight in her magazine and one in the chamber.
Raine just didn’t understand what she’d stumbled upon. She’d come here for a calm chat, having gotten a call that Lucy had changed locations. This was supposed to be a status conversation not an exfiltration event.
The stair creaked under the weight of her foot.
Suddenly, at the end of the hall, a stifled sob skated out from under the door.
Chapter Two
Keep them relaxed.
~ Moscow Rules
Friday
Raine’s heart pumping, her t-shirt dampened with sweat under her armpits. She filled her lungs in a well-practiced rhythm of combat breathing, patterned to keep her nervous system from overriding her training.
Brains could screw you up if you let them, Raine knew this from hard won experience.
Her gun pressed between her palms, her finger riding along the trigger guard, Raine proceeded systematically down the hall, taking each door one at a time, popping it open, doing a sweep, moving to the next. What looked like a guest bedroom and then a full bathroom next door.
Now, a gasp.
It seemed to have come from behind the last door on the left, sporting a wooden toy train, hanging from a hook. It was brightly painted with the name Pete billowing up from its smoke stack.
With her back to the wall, Raine tried the knob. This was the only door in the hallway that was locked. It was a cheap hardware store system meant to warn others that privacy was desired, and not meant to stop someone if they wanted in.
She decided not to kick the door open. One-handedly, Raine tugged the lock pick barrette from the back of her hair.
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