Secrets, Lies, and Sneaky Spies

by Rayna Flye

Genres: Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

“And should you die, take pride that you were fortunate enough to die for the Division.”

With that cheery bit of encouragement, newly promoted Agent Katrina Foster is tossed onto a plane and sent halfway around the world on her first assignment. Her directive: uncover who killed the country’s top agent. When Katrina links the murder to a decade-old political assassination, a murderous mastermind, and a shadowy organization set on global disruption, she becomes a target.

In a career based on deception, she finds it difficult to know who to trust. Everyone around her seems to have suspicious motives. As the mission heats up, so does her attraction to a certain handsome Swedish agent. Then, he reveals a connection to her past that might end up jeopardizing her future.

No one doubts that Katrina is talented, but she soon suspects she was chosen to go to Sweden for reasons beyond her particular skill set. Katrina will have to rely on her wits, her training, and an array of fantastic disguises if she wants to live to spy another day.

 

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Release date: October 31, 2023

Publisher: Red Adept Publishing LLC

Print pages: 347

Sample

 

CHAPTER 1

 

Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest

 

WORST CASE OF THE MONDAYS ever.

At barely nine in the morning, Katrina Foster had already found herself stalked.

Hooded.

And in her current position, dumped unceremoniously into the back of a vehicle.

Her situation was made all the worse by the fact that her day had started out so well. The early summer morning was beautiful. She snagged the last seat on the light rail, the line at her favorite café for her daily vanilla rooibos was short, and she later managed to avoid spilling said drink while weaving her way past her fellow distracted pedestrians on the sidewalk. All in all, she’d been having a win of a Monday.

But then she sensed something. It began with a prickly sensation on the back of her neck. Katrina had learned long before not to avoid that feeling. She paused to sip her tea and take a surreptitious glance around. She couldn’t explain why, but a tall, slender man in a navy Savile Row-looking suit caught her attention—and not because he was attractive. On the contrary, the man had a disturbingly large mole on the right side of his forehead and suede lug-soled shoes.

Not your everyday look for someone in such an expensive suit, she thought in reference to the shoes, not the mole, although the observation might have applied to both. Although...

She went another block before crossing the street and turning the corner, only to notice he mirrored her pattern. She walked another two blocks before making a left. Mole Man did the same. She briefly ducked behind a courthouse statue.

Clearly, none of it was a coincidence, and Mole Man’s intentions were obviously not good. If they were, he would call out and try to catch her attention. What Katrina really wanted to know was whether the chase was about her—or her employer. She kept moving.

Like most wage earners on a Monday morning, Katrina did need to be at work, and she found the little game was getting tedious. Moreover, her employer would be significantly displeased if the man successfully followed her to her workplace. Time to end this nonsense. So she paused at the nearest window, pretending to fix her hair. As she did a few quick finger curls with her dark-brown hair and checked to make sure her makeup was perfect on her golden-brown skin, making it a dual-purpose stop—Katrina did value efficiency—her eyes locked with her pursuer’s in the reflection. There. At least the games would end, seeing as the cat knew the mouse knew about the cat. Or something like that.

His eyes narrowed, and he abruptly turned and stalked off in the opposite direction. Katrina

congratulated herself.

“Much easier than I expected. You’ve just got to stand up to creeps and scare ’em off. Wait till I tell Izzie. She’s gonna love this.” She took a long swig of tea. It, too, tasted of victory. Her fabulous Monday was back.

She was just a few more blocks away from her job at Safety’s Sake Insurance Corporation. With a renewed bounce in her step and distracted by self-congratulatory thoughts, Katrina didn’t see the beefy arm that shot out and yanked her into an alley.

IT’S A RARE SORT OF person that views abduction as an opportunity for adventure. Given the adrenaline flooding her nervous system, Katrina supposed she qualified as a member of that class.

She didn’t hyperventilate when her assailant stuffed a greasy rag in her mouth and yanked her arms back in order to better bind them with zip ties. Nor did she freak out when she felt her legs being treated similarly. Indeed, as a hood was roughly pulled over her head, her first thought was Oh, that’s gonna make me frizz something terrible...

So while most would’ve crumbled, Katrina Foster lived for those moments. And she probably wouldn’t die for it either. Because really, who dies zip-tied on a Monday? In a circumstance such as the one she was in, Katrina was fairly certain the fates would more likely reserve such a ridiculous way to perish for a weekend—insult to injury, and all that.

Fates’ whims aside, she also lived for that sort of moment because her livelihood, via her cover as a Safety’s Sake Insurance employee, was as an agent for the Division. A sort of covert Interpol, the Division was a multinational, multibranch agency that collected and trained the world’s top agents from select countries around the world. And from that training, Katrina knew how to fight back and how to get out of nearly impossible situations. Well, she understood the theory, anyway. She’d trained but had never actually been face-to-face with a real assailant. That was generally left to the Level Fours.

Katrina felt herself being hoisted over the man’s shoulder. Seconds later, she was face down on a surface. It was cool and hard against her stomach, leading her to conclude she was on metal. She heard doors shut and sensed her kidnapper sit next to her.

“She’s in. Yeah, I got her hooded and trussed up like a turkey. Let’s go.”

What sort of goon uses words like “trussed”? Katrina wondered. That should’ve been her first clue that she was in the midst of an atypical abduction. She gave a tentative wiggle to see how tightly her ties were on. She felt no slack. Unless she was willing to leave a hand behind, Katrina wasn’t going to be escaping her bindings anytime soon.

“Don’t bother. I know who you are and who you work for, so I made ’em extra tight. And, cute as it is to see, there’s no point to wiggling that around to tempt me, either.”

Katrina had the distinct displeasure of getting her bum pinched. The thug laughed.

She gasped at the indignity of it all. That was a bad choice, since it allowed the pure unadulterated funk of her kidnapper to finally assault her nostrils. Although she couldn’t see her kidnapper, she could certainly smell him, a wretched sensory compensation.

Good lord. Exactly how hard is it to use deodorant and bathe? Is there some Villains 101 manual that determined the best way to knock out an opponent is through overpowering their olfactory senses? If so, Katrina figured her attacker was well on his way to a TKO.

Concentrating on her other senses, Katrina determined she was in a van. A series of bumps jostled her around, briefly knocking the breath out of her. The van desperately needed its shocks replaced.

The engine revved hard. Either the streets had miraculously all cleared of morning traffic, or they were entering the on-ramp of a freeway. Katrina noticed her kidnapper move away from her and toward the front of the van. He whispered to the driver, but she couldn't

make out anything he said.

As she bounced along, Katrina wondered who would be the first to notice her absence and what, if anything, they might do about it. She was certain someone would notice. Katrina was always on time.

Will anyone come for me? Or will I just be written off as disposable?

From her previous observations, only high-value agents tended to warrant immediate action, and as a Level Three, she didn’t think anyone would authorize a search party for her, based on what she guessed was a forty-five-minute absence.

Katrina felt the van slowing down and taking a curve. Her kidnapper and the driver were arguing over directions.

“I’m tellin’ ya. Take the side streets! I know it’s only twenty-five miles per hour, but there’re fewer cops around.”

“Yeah, but no one pays attention to who’s driving what on the main roads. Last thing we need is some snoopy old biddy calling the police to report a suspicious-looking man in a windowless van.”

Katrina could use that information to try to determine where they were taking her. She would find out soon enough—the van came to a stop.

That revolting and all-too-familiar smell returned as her kidnapper clipped the ties around her wrists and ankles. “Don’t get excited. You’re going to walk on your own volition, but know that I’ll be gripping you the whole time, and there’ll be armed men the entire way, ready to shoot if you try to run for it.”

The doors opened, and Katrina was pushed out of the van. The air smelled of a paper-pulp mill: chemicals and warmed-over dog food. It was somewhat better than the eau de stink coming off of Mold Spice, but not by much. She would take it, though. At least it told her she was in the industrial district, about twenty miles south of Division headquarters.

Katrina counted the paces as she walked. Someone whistled and said, “Dead chick walking.” Several other men laughed.

After one hundred twenty-five paces, Katrina and her smelly escort stopped. She heard a door slide open, and Mold Spice yanked her inside. She was pushed down into a chair, and her arms and legs were bound to the back of

the chair with a nylon rope. Obviously, she couldn’t expect that her comfort would be taken into consideration in a situation like hers, but Katrina would’ve preferred a softer cotton option.

He yanked the hood off her head, knocking her curls forward over her face. She flipped her head back and saw the room was dark and empty, save for swirling blue and red lights. He pulled the rag out of her mouth and pocketed it.

“Nice knowin’ ya.” He chuckled before walking away.

She heard the door slide open and slam shut, then she exhaled. At least the smell was gone.

The swirling red and blue strobes were starting to nauseate her. Katrina pushed aside the sensation and took stock of her situation. Even with the rag gone, she saw no point in screaming for help. Anyone who was near enough to hear definitely would not be running to her rescue. She’d long since been divested of anything and everything that could be of use. All she had in her possession were her wits and instincts, and every instinct told her something about the entire scenario wasn’t right. Or at least, it was more unright than she would expect after being abducted, chucked into a van, and dropped off in a seemingly abandoned warehouse with disco lights.

Katrina didn’t have long to contemplate this, however, because at that moment, the figure of a tall man entered the room. As the lights swirled over him, she could make out his face. She heaved a sigh. It was Mole Man again, but he wore a black Nehru jacket and pants, looking for all the world like he’d grabbed the last-chance items at a supervillain’s yard sale. His hair was slicked back and greasy.

Really, now. This is a bit much. All he needed to complete the look was a monocle and a hard-to-place European accent.

“Vell, vell, vell, Agent Foster.”

She rolled her eyes in disgust. Will there be no originality at all in this abduction? She almost took pity on him—almost.

“Vut are ve going to do vit you?”

She shrugged as much as her ropes would allow. “You’re the criminal mastermind. I figured

you’d have a plan.”

“It vuz a figure of speech!” His mole pulsated in commiseration with its owner’s irritation. He snapped his fingers, and a bright light shone in her face.

Ah, the old spotlight trick. She’d been trained to experience the intense lighting during her Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone: Interrogation Tips and Techniques of the Division training. She closed her eyes and gave a tentative tug on her ropes. The abrasive nylon meant she wasn’t going to be able to rub and wriggle her way out.

Despite her current circumstance, Katrina couldn’t deny that being abducted was somewhat flattering. They must have thought she knew something valuable.

She couldn’t help but wonder why they chose her. What sort of information do they think I have?

“Katrina Foster, who are you vehrking for?”

“If you know my name, then you know the answer: Safety’s Sake Insurance Corporation.” Feeling defiant and more than a little indignant at her treatment, she asked Mole Man, “Who are you working for?”

He made an irritated face. “Clever,” he said sarcastically. “But to answer your question—see how easy it is to do—I’m a bit of a freelancer, hired for occasions such as this.” He leaned over her. “Let me remind you that I vill be asking the questions, thank you. Now again, I vill ask, who are you really verhking for?”

Katrina continued to parry verbally and avoided answering her interrogator’s questions. The spotlight still glared down on her, and Katrina periodically closed her eyes against it in an attempt to fight the effect it was having on her. While Mole Man grew increasingly angry, she flexed her fingers and reached up to feel the knot. Her eyes sprang open in surprise. A square knot?

“Ah! I see I have finally hit your veak spot!”

If Katrina could just stretch her fingers a little higher up, she was going to show him what it meant to get hit in a weak spot. She pulled at the loops to loosen the knot while trying to squeeze some feeling into her hands.

Well, that was easy. Maybe too easy. Tying the ropes into a square knot? Amateur hour. Any thug who expected to get hired for another job would never be so sloppy.

Then again, Katrina considered, she was quite clever. Maybe the assailant had underestimated her, which wouldn’t have been the first time. She smiled and shimmied her shoulders to escape the ropes around her. Mole Man’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

“That rope tying would’ve embarrassed a Cub Scout,” she said. “You really need to hire a better quality of henchmen.”

He shrugged. “Vell, you know, it’s hard to get good help these days. The best ones alvays vant the benefit packages, dental...” He whipped out a jagged-edged knife. “I vouldn’t bother to make any sudden moves.” He stroked the tip of the knife lovingly. “Vehr the hired help failed, I vill not!”

Her legs were still bound, and Katrina wasn’t foolish enough to think she could bend over and untie her bindings, not without getting a knife in the back. She figured she had only one option, which was probably going to hurt her as much as him.

As Mole Man lunged, Katrina hurled her body to the side with as much force as she could. The chair cracked as she fell to the floor, and Katrina grunted in pain. She flung her legs against the floor again to break the legs of the chair, ignoring a sharp stab as a chunk of wood was embedded in her hip. The chair fell apart. She grabbed the seat and knocked the knife out of his hands, making it skitter across the floor. Swinging the other way, she cracked the seat across the man’s head. With a rewarding smacking sound, Mole Man fell to the ground.

At that moment, all of the lights in the room suddenly turned on.

“Congratulations, Agent Foster,” a tinny, familiar-sounding voice came through a ceiling speaker. “You have now achieved Level Four status.”

 

CHAPTER 2

There’s nothing quite like reaching Level Four status to get a girl out of bed in the morning.

Her whole body was stiff, but Katrina wasn’t going to let a few aches and pains keep her from her first official day as an advanced agent. The pain was good. It reminded her that the events of the day before weren’t a dream. Having been stuck at Level Three for three years and fifty-seven whole days, she’d often worried she would languish there forever. Forever, of course, being a relative concept.

After a gratifyingly hot shower, Katrina set about assessing the damage. Everything looked worse the next day. Bluish-black bands crisscrossed her chest and stomach where she’d bounced against the hard metal floor of the van. Red welts were still visible against her light-brown skin. She daubed some antibiotic cream on the abrasions left by the zip ties and rope then gently wrapped her wrists and ankles with soft bandages.

As Katrina methodically tended her various injuries, she thought back to the day before. Everything had happened so quickly. One minute, Mole Man—who turned out to be a delightful actor whose real accent was pure New Jersey—was congratulating her, and the next, she found herself being whisked away in an ambulance for a medical assessment. Then came the lawyers who had, indeed, lived up to their reputation by being right behind the ambulance, confidentiality agreements in hand. Before she could be released from the doctor’s exam table, she signed documents swearing she would never reveal her experience to any Division employee lower than a Level Four, which made sense. Otherwise, all the Level Threes would be alert at all times for their big chance to reach Level Four status, and the whole point was to catch them off guard.

The ink was barely dry when she was smuggled back into Division headquarters for a meeting with someone in human resources. The man droned on and on in a seemingly never-ending recitation of the rights and responsibilities of a Level Four agent. The main message Katrina took home was “Succeed in your mission, and get rewarded with another. Fail, and well, don’t expect anyone to write you a letter of reference.” One hastily taken identification-card picture later, she was free to go. The driver of the same windowless white van that had started Katrina on her day’s adventure dropped her off a block from her apartment, and she’d limped inside before passing out gratefully in bed.

Bringing her musings to the present, she smiled as she carefully slipped into her clothes. Level Four. Incredible what can happen in twenty-four hours. She’d gone from being a mere spy lackey, stuck doing case maintenance and cleanup, to a real spy—with a real mission. Feeling sentimental, she put on the gold necklace her mother had given her as a child. With a series of swirls on top of a forty-five-degree angle, the pendant resembled an ice cream cone. Maybe it looked juvenile, but she still liked to wear it on occasion, and that day was a big occasion. It slid down to her cleavage and hid out of sight.

As she hurried to finish, Katrina brushed a final light layer of powder over her skin and checked the status of her hair. Her curls were perfectly glossy without the slightest hint of frizz. There. That proves it—a sign. Even her hair recognized the momentous occasion by calling a truce. She fixed her starched collar and checked one last time in the mirror. Crisp. Professional. Orderly. She glanced down at her velvet-embossed heels. And with just a little bit of flair. In short, she wore the uniform of the perfect secret agent.

Before heading out the door, Katrina pressed her fingers to her matte-finished lips and touched a photo of her parents. They’d worked for the Division as well, and she liked to think they would’ve been excited for her too. Then she grimaced. Perhaps, given what had happened to them, maybe not. She set the alarm, turned both locks, and prepared for the morning’s commute.

Looking around with greater vigilance, Katrina approached the tall glass doors of her official workplace, Safety’s Sake Insurance Corporation. An entirely nondescript building, it served as the perfect location to house an ultra-top-secret spy organization, its innocuous exterior cleverly masking the bustling agency within. The Division might have been small by bureaucratic standards, but it delivered outsized results.

Katrina sailed through the first set of doors, past the Level Ones busy developing their deception skills while selling insurance policies, and right toward the second entryway.

“Hey, Katrina, have you heard about the new Level Fours? Boy, the Division is really dropping their standards. Nowadays, they promote just about anybody who can solve a sudoku puzzle and keep a secret.” James Brickman, the secure-entry technician—also known as the doorman—grinned as he gave Katrina her updated identification badge.

Katrina returned his smile and followed it by sticking out her tongue for good measure. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, James.” She sneaked a glance at her badge before clipping it on. Judging by her half-closed eyes and a mouth opened as though to object to the impending indignity,

the agency’s photographer—if she could be so generous—had clearly gone through the same photography program as the Department of Motor Vehicles.

“Eh, you know I’m just joshin’ you. You’ll be great. You can’t help it. It’s in your genes.”

“In your genes.” With that statement, Katrina’s already ramped-up emotions went into overdrive. Her parents had also held Level Four status and had a well-deserved reputation for getting results no one else could.

Can I match their accomplishments? Should I even try?

Gripping a steel railing as she ascended gleaming marble steps, Katrina told herself that, no, she would just be the best agent she could be. Naturally, that was a lie. She’d never been the type to be content with “just good enough,” and she certainly wasn’t going to start. She’d been at the top of her class, and confidence, along with maybe a little arrogance, came naturally to her.

But this is something else.

Even with her frustration at staying a Level Three for so long, she’d felt some comfort in knowing she was the best at her level. As a Level Four, though, she wouldn’t be an expert anymore. With her advancement, she became a veritable little fish in a big spy pond. She wasn’t entirely certain what that would mean for her, but she knew she would give it her all. She took a deep breath and opened the conference room door.

Inside was one other newly upgraded agent, appearing both nervous and excited. Katrina joined her at the table with a quick smile. She’d known Isobel Figueroa since her first day with the Division. She was as goofy as Katrina was serious. Surprisingly, the contrast worked well. Together, they rose through the ranks and had been through much, from the Filing Cabinet Caper of 2008 to learning how to induce projectile vomit on command in their Bodies as Diversions course. That was not Katrina’s finest moment. If she was going to be on her first assignment with anyone, she was glad it was with Izzie.

Director Samantha Jones entered, stalking around the room at a brisk pace. She had frosted blond hair that seemed to match the iciness of her personality. Outside of seeing her “inspirational” closing messages in training

videos—“And should you die, take pride that you were fortunate enough to die for the Division”—they’d never interacted with the director in person while in the lower levels. But they had indeed heard rumors. Most definitely. One glance said Director Jones had earned every bit of her fearsome reputation. Katrina had the clear impression that she never trifled or suffered trifling. The director did not formally introduce herself as it was a given that everyone knew of her. She didn’t ask their names and did not need to. They would never have advanced if she were not fully apprised of their backgrounds.

A nameless assistant gave them tablets while Director Jones began speaking. “Congratulations on the end of your Level Three tenure and your subsequent promotion. To celebrate, I got you a present: your first Level Four case.”

Her assistant began projecting information on a large screen.

“Get your Division passports ready, ladies. Your first mission—which I will oversee—is taking you to Sweden.”

Oooh, travel. This sounds intriguing...

“One of Sweden’s top agents, Oskar Reinfeldt Blomqvist, code name Noll-Noll-Sju, has gone missing.”

Katrina spoke first. “And by ‘missing’...”

“I mean dead, Agent Foster,” Director Jones said.

Katrina’s eyes met Izzie’s. Figures. The Division loved to employ euphemisms—like how rogue agent Sparrow didn’t get electrocuted, she was just simply found to be a rather excellent conductor of electricity.

“Alright,” Katrina said, feeling cowed but not willing to show it. “So the ‘missing’ agent—what’s the story?”  

“Two days ago, we were informed that Blomqvist was killed. As you well know, that’s not exactly a newsworthy occurrence in our line of work. However, that the death of a high-profile agent was under mysterious circumstances did capture Division attention. His body was found on the twenty-eighth floor of Kaknäs Tower, but preliminary evidence indicates that he was transported there postmortem. Given the high

visibility of the site and the fact no one should have been allowed access, the Swedes believe his death was intended to send a message.”

“What was he working on at the time? ...