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  Carbon distracted Cash from his thinking, standing from his desk chair and proclaiming to the room, “I got intel!” Agent Ali, Abbi, DJ, and Cash all converged on the man, demanding to know more. Carbon pointed to his computer screen. “That Deputy Director chick came through. The person you see on the screen is our bomber from Walter Reed. Facial recognition picked her up on a camera at a gas station three blocks away, thirty-eight minutes after the explosion. According to the CIA, none of the cameras at the hospital picked her up, but they did spot an unidentified female entering Argo’s room a few minutes before it went off.”

  DJ responded first, switching Cassie to the opposite hip. “But how do we know it’s her?”

  Carbon nodded, seeming to anticipate the question. “The girl on the screen is Sara Anderson. She worked for the CIA for a while before going independent. Her specialty was explosives. The CIA allowed her to hire out her skills, choosing to use her as an asset from time to time.”

  It was Cash’s turn. “Wait, you mean the CIA knew she was out there blowing people up and didn’t do anything about it?”

  Agent Ali answered. “We do this all the time. If we think we can use the person for our own purposes at some point, either for intel, or using them to get close to a target, then we’ll just keep tabs on them. The only time we’ll step in is if they use their criminal ways against us. From what I am reading, most of her targets were all overseas bad guys. One guy hiring her to kill another bad guy. We wouldn’t have cared about that at all.”

  Cash didn’t like the answer, focusing on Agent Ali. “So, we wait until she kills one of our own before we decide to do anything? She had to get away with murdering one of us before you step in? That sounds like a perfectly ethical way to handle things.”

  Agent Ali shrugged. “I’m not endorsing it. I’m just telling you how it’s done.”

  Carbon interrupted. “Guys, you’re missing the point. The CIA hired her from time to time. Guess who her contact was.”

  DJ’s voice sounded like sandpaper on steel. “Let me guess, Agent Seymour.”

  Carbon nodded. “You got it. And even while we don’t have her on camera at the hospital, we do know a woman went into that room, probably wearing a disguise. Since Sara, the mad bomber, was only three blocks away just minutes afterward, we can assume she had something to do with it. And here’s the thing: according to this report, the CIA has been reaching out to her through her standard channels, but she isn’t responding.”

  Ali nodded. “So, she gets contacted by Seymour for a hit. She thinks it’s a CIA-sanctioned job. Afterward, she learns she’s been set up just like you guys were and goes into hiding.”

  Abbi offered up her own question, taking the baby from DJ. “Great. We’re sure she did it, but she’s in hiding now. How does that help us?”

  Carbon smiled. “Because, since the CIA always keeps a close watch on these types of people, we have a list of places she likes to use as safe houses. I did some snooping online, and there’s one in Alabama that just saw an increase in electricity consumption. Deputy Director what’s-her-face just passed over the list, and I figured it out from there.”

  DJ shook his head, still confused. “So what? That doesn’t really help us. Sure, we can go take her out, maybe get some payback for killing Coonie, but that doesn’t get us any closer to Seymour.”

  Carbon crossed his arms, obviously pleased with himself. “Sure, it does. We know she has a way to contact Seymour. We know she failed at killing both Argo and Coonie. She only got one of them. Stands to reason he’s mad about her failure. He would probably want her to finish the job. All we have to do is persuade her to make contact with him and agree to give it another shot. When she does, we’ll know right where Seymour is, and you can go pick him up.”

  Agent Ali slapped Carbon on the back, causing the hacker to wince. “I like this one, DJ. You said he was only good at pushing buttons. Turns out he’s smart in other ways too.” The agent smiled at the room. “Let’s go pay Sara Anderson a visit, shall we?”

  Cash looked at DJ. He could see his friend was already concentrating on his next mission, his eyes focused and his face hard. A glance down showed DJ was clenching his fists. The tiger just got let out of his cage, Cash thought.

  Chapter 12: Volcanus Eruptus

  Sara Anderson looked at her computer screens, scrolling through personnel records, reading highlights of individuals she should have become more acquainted with before blindly accepting Agent Seymour’s contract. She should probably stop calling the man an agent. He was a traitor. He had been blacklisted from the CIA with a standing kill order in place if found. She wasn’t sure what transgressions the former agent had done to be placed on a blacklist. Sara was only sure of what he had done to her.

  The people on her screens were patriots to America. They had files that were extensive in accomplishments, and diverse on their background. Some were former military. A few served as combat veterans, one as a Navy corpsman. Some had even spent time in the FBI, working on a project that involved the Pentagon. During that stint, they had even saved New York City from a terrorist plot involving a nuclear weapon. John Argo, the man she had been contracted to kill in Bethesda, Maryland, had a complete career as a Sheriff’s Deputy before joining the FBI for a short run. All of them eventually found themselves as a part of a private combat unit with exclusive contracts with the government, primarily the CIA. They were heroes, every single one.

  She wished she had used her connections to access Argo’s files and learned who the man was before attempting to kill him. At the time of the offer by Seymour, she simply didn’t care. She only assumed he had done something egregious enough for the CIA to want him gone. She had been set up, used by someone she thought she could trust. Because she had failed to do a thorough background check on her target, Sara Anderson now had a standing kill order on her as well. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get out of this one.

  The CIA wasn’t infallible, incapable of making mistakes, but they did have long arms, and more importantly, lots of money to use in acquiring intelligence. Sooner or later they would find her. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t realize they had zeroed in on her location until they were shooting at her.

  This was bad. This was very bad. As far as she could tell, there was only one way that might, emphasis on might, get her back into the good graces of the CIA. She needed to serve former Agent Seymour’s head up on a platter and beg forgiveness.

  This presented a new problem: where, in the ever-lovin' world, had the slimy snake slithered off to?

  While she still had backdoor access to some of the CIA computers, she was confident any contacts she once had with the agency were burned. If she reached out for assistance, she was sure she would end up dead.

  Any other person in her position might consider going into hiding and never working in the occupation of contract killing again. Drop off the radar, get some plastic surgery done, retire somewhere nice. Those people didn’t have the mental condition Sara Anderson had. While she was reasonably sure she could stop doing what she loved for a while, she knew that nagging need to blow the crap out of something would eventually press her into service again. A vacation, she could manage. Retirement, she couldn’t. Sara needed to light a fuse to something or she would die from boredom. So, catching Seymour was the only thing left for her to try.

  Maybe she could dig through the man’s contacts to see if she could find a clue on where he had vanished. Even though Sara had no idea what line the man had crossed with the agency, she was certain it had to be big enough to involve accomplices. She should broaden her search to look for one of them. Maybe, just maybe, they would lead her to the prize. She had to be quick about it too. The CIA would likely be following the same line of thought and she needed to get to him before they did. She minimized the service records into the background and keyed up a new search.

  She had not been at it long before an incursion alarm flashed onto her screens. Someone had entered the grounds to h
er safehouse. She quickly pulled up her camera feeds. Crouching by the southern wall of her make-shift compound, a single individual, dressed all in black, was looking over the area, trying to decide if they were truly alone. She shouldn’t panic just yet, she thought. There was only one of them. The person might be just a common burglar looking for something to steal and sell at a pawnshop.

  She quickly changed her mind. Whoever it was, draped in shadows under the concealment of night, was attaching a suppressor to a pistol. Burglars didn’t usually have suppressed weapons. Was it possible Seymour had made the decision to come for her? She couldn’t identify who it was due to the grainy video, but Sara was hopeful. If the idiot came to take her out, it would make her task so much easier. Whoever it was, she had a few surprises for them. She couldn’t help but giggle out loud. Time to have some fun. God, how she loved this stuff!

  Before she could move from her makeshift desk of planks on milk crates, she saw one more figure drop over the wall. Would you looky there, she mused. Seymour chose to bring backup. Without warning, the lights went off, plunging her hideaway into darkness. The extra screens shut off. Even the laptop shut down. Which was odd because it had a battery. Things just got more exciting. Seymour must think he had the advantage. What an idiot, she thought. What had they done to kill even the laptop battery? A localized EMP of some kind? Of course. It’s what she would do if she was going to sneak into a place that might be wired with explosives using lasers and motion detectors for triggering. Things just got more interesting. Still, there was plenty in this building that didn’t require electricity to be deadly.

  Sara fumbled around in the dark until she found a cigarette lighter. Sparking it to life, she found her next goal. She tucked the nearby Glock G17 into her belt and grabbed the silenced Scorpion Evo submachine gun. It only had the one mag, but that was in the form of a fifty-round drum. If called on to fire it, she would have to use short bursts and carefully choose when to shoot. She tucked two more mags for the G17 into her back pocket and eased to the center of the room. She would have liked to use her night-vision goggles, but an EMP would have rendered them useless. Still, below her feet, past the steel hatchway, there was a flashlight in the steam tunnels waiting for her. She had left one hanging on a lanyard wrapped around a ladder rung in case she had to try and escape. Escape was not her plan. She had no need to run. She just needed to get into the tunnels of the old building for safety. Things were going to start exploding any minute. One of the idiots would hit a tripwire, a claymore antipersonnel mine would go off, and hundreds of ball bearings would begin punching through walls. She preferred to be below all the action when that happened.

  She fixed her eyes on the latch, let the lighter go out, and dropped it into her pocket. Crouching, completely blind now and functioning off feel alone, she pulled on the hatch, carefully making her way down and closing the steel door behind her. At the bottom of the ladder, she felt around, looking for the flashlight.

  Her hand closed around it at nearly the same time as a gun barrel was placed against her head. She froze, suddenly terrified. She had been outsmarted. The invasion from above had all been a ruse. Seymour would have known the place was wired. He would have figured out where the escape path would have been, and then tricked her into entering the tunnels. He had been patiently waiting for her to retreat. Surprisingly, it was not the blacklisted agent who spoke. It was someone else. The voice was male, with controlled anger barely detectable in his voice. “I would like to shoot you right now, but I have a few questions first.”

  Sara blinked in the darkness, wishing she could see something. With a hesitant voice, she asked, “Who are you?”

  The man didn’t answer. Something struck her with tremendous force at the base of her skull, a bit harder than required to knock her out. Stars shot across her vision: tiny, dancing blue fireflies twisting in an imaginary wind. Then she was gone.

  __________

  DJ, Cash, Ali, and Carbon stood inside a room of what used to be a recycling depot for the county. Before that, according to the paperwork, it was some sort of small manufacturing facility. Sara Anderson had acquired the run-down place under an alias and used it for one of her safe houses. Currently, she sat slumped against a wall in what appeared to be the headquarters of the place. A lifeless laptop sat on top of a desk that had been created from laying old boards across stacked up plastic milk crates. There was a bed against one wall, a few wall lockers, and shelves with all kinds of small circuitry and wiring used for building her weapons of destruction. There was even a couple of free-standing in-room air conditioners to cool the large room. It was dusty, rusty, and grim living conditions for a woman to live in. DJ supposed it wasn’t meant for long-term occupation. Sara merely used it from time to time when she was hiding. According to the list acquired from Deputy Director Hartley, most of the other safe houses were small homes or apartments. Some of them quite nice.

  The space was lit by a trio of flashlights pointed at the ceiling, the light spilling into the room and allowing all parts to be seen, albeit dimly. Carbon was sitting at the desk studying his coveted tablet computer, watching live footage from the surveillance drone he had circling overhead while disassembling Sara’s laptop. His goal was to connect her hard drive to his computer and see what he could learn. DJ and the others were lined up, prepared for the unconscious bomber to wake. At DJ’s nod, Ali tossed a bucket of cold water on the murderer against the wall.

  Sara awoke with a start, jerking and sputtering, eyes suddenly wide and blinking around at the flashlight-lit room. She zeroed in on DJ quickly, shoving herself up against the wall and sitting straighter. With one hand, she rubbed the back of her head, with the other, she held up a finger. “Wait just one minute,” she pleaded. “This was not my fault. I was set up. I was tricked into killing your friend. Please, just let me explain.”

  DJ took a step forward, drawing his pistol from his low-slung holster and crouching down. “You know who I am?”

  Sara nodded. “I know who all of you are. I do now, at least. The one breaking into my computer is the hacker known as Carbon. The man to your right is Bradford Cashin. You served in the FBI with him for a while. The one on your left is your CIA Handler, Agent Alimayu Salana. Once I figured out Agent Seymour had set me up to kill someone for his own personal gain, I started doing research on all of you.”

  Agent Ali tossed the bucket aside and stepped quickly forward. “Why didn’t you do that before taking the job?”

  Sara’s face was desperate. She knew an unbearable amount of torture and questioning, followed by a quick death, was headed her way at break-neck speed. “I should have. I really should have. I made the mistake of trusting a person paid to lie. I had no reason to doubt his sincerity. He used me. He double-crossed me. Trust me, I want him just as bad as you do.”

  DJ stood. “If your bomb would have gone off as planned, you would have killed a lot of innocent bystanders. What about them?”

  Sara blinked, honestly confused. “But that’s what we do. You should know that better than anyone. Surely innocent people have had to pay the price when you went to war with the enemy. Collateral damage is always a possibility in our line of work. You know this. You can’t possibly not know this.”

  DJ shot her. It was a carefully placed round through the outside of her calf, but he shot her all the same. She screamed a string of profanity and clutched the wound in both hands, rolling to her side in pain. “Sorry about that,” DJ deadpanned. “Just write it off to collateral damage.”

  He wanted to do more; was compelled to do more. She deserved far more than a flesh wound. She deserved death. Even though she may have focused her destructive, psychopathic tendencies on those who largely deserved it, she was reckless, careless, with no regard for any human life other than her own. She got off on killing, on blowing people into little pieces. It brought joy to her. There was no making amends for her past or her very nature. She would never be rehabilitated for her condition. She needed to be extermin
ated by the most expedient means possible. Still, it was Carbon’s idea to see if she could contact Seymour and lead them to the traitor. DJ would see it through until he was certain she had outlived her usefulness. Then, he would shoot her one more time.

  Agent Ali spoke next, taking over. “The only way you walk out of this is to help us catch Seymour. We know you have a back channel to him. So, you’re going to reach out, make him think you want to finish the job you started. You’re going to lure him in for us.”

  Gritting her teeth through her pain, Sara nodded. “Absolutely, of course, I will. There’s… there’s just one problem. He’s gone dark since the news broke the story of the bombing. To be honest, I’m not sure he’ll ever reply now. Isn’t he wanted by the CIA? Still, I know some people he routinely does business with. I’m sure we can figure out a way to get to him through one of those. I’ll help in any way I can. Like I said, I want him just as bad as you.”

  Cash had remained silent up until now, stoic as always. But on hearing this claim, he corrected her. “I assure you; you don’t want him as bad as we do.”

  Before any other questioning could take place, Carbon called out from the other side of the room, his voice filled with dread. “Um, guys? We’ve got a problem.”

  Ali stepped over and looked over Carbon’s shoulder. “That’s a lot of bad guys. We’ve got fifty or so closing in on the compound from all directions.”

  DJ stepped over to look. Sure enough, the drone feed had several thermal signatures: all of them little, white cartoon-looking figures advancing in teams of four from different angles. He glanced at Ali. “Any chance those are friendlies?”