Exposed - A Thriller Novella (Chandler Series) by J.A. Konrath & Ann Voss Peterson (16 page)

According to Jack, my sister was being held
on the sixth floor.

No doubt, they were interrogating her.

No doubt, they weren’t being nice.

I felt a flare of rage, then forced it down.
My sister, whom I knew by her codename, Fleming, didn’t have the
use of her legs. I’d known her voice for years but only met her
face-to-face recently, not only surprised to have a sister, but
surprised she was my twin.

I was also surprised to discover the depth of
feelings I had for her.

The thought of them hurting her…

The rage kicked in again, and I made a fist
so hard, I could feel my nails cut into my palm.

Despite my strong feelings, I had to be
realistic. Attempting to rescue Fleming was a fool’s game. I’d be
killed, or captured. No two ways about it.

My primary objective was to get out of there,
find safe ground. The odds were against me even being able to do
that much. No doubt the exits were being watched, and the only
weapon I had was a vase of posies.

The elevator doors opened. I stepped into the
empty lift, then eyed the buttons.

First floor.

Sixth floor.

1 or 6.

My finger hovered over the 1.

I hit 6.

Fleming was in a wheelchair, a generic,
hospital model. There were thick Velcro straps around the waist,
legs, and arms. The straps hardly seemed necessary. She couldn’t
run away. She couldn’t even stand. Fleming had crippled her legs
years ago, while in service to her country.

Now agents from that same country were
holding her prisoner, trying to get her to talk.

Talk? About what? Chandler and I just saved
millions of lives. They should be giving me a medal.

“Who do you work for?” the agent asked,
staring down at her. He had a long, pale face, a pointy nose,
pointy widow’s peak. Fleming smelled aftershave on him. Old Spice.
He wore the typical black suit of a spook, and judging by the way
the other three in the room regarded him, he was obviously top man
on the scene.

“We’re on the same side,” Fleming answered.
“But that question is on a need to know basis.”

The agent rested his hand on Fleming’s
bandaged one—earlier they’d allowed a doctor in to splint her
broken fingers.

They still hurt like hell.

“I need to know,” he said.

“I take orders from two people. One is the
President.”

“And the other?”

“The other one is not you.” Fleming flashed a
bright smile.

The man squeezed her hand. Even though the
lidocaine hadn’t fully worn off, the pain was instant and
overpowering. Fleming gasped.

“You have no identification,” the man said,
maintaining his grip. “No fingerprints on file. No hits on our
facial recognition software. As far as our government knows, you
don’t exist.” He squeezed harder. “Since you don’t exist, I can do
anything I want.”

“Anything?” she grunted.

“Anything.”

“Then you might want to brush your teeth.
Smells like you were licking Uncle Sam’s ass.”

The agent released Fleming.

For a few seconds, it took everything she had
to control her breathing and separate herself from the pain. Since
her accident, she’d been behind a desk, working operations from the
intel side. But she’d secretly longed to be a field agent again. To
be out in the world, where the action was.

Be careful what you wish for…

“The other woman. She’s your sister,
yes?”

Fleming forced cool. “Where is she?”

“She’s talking to one of my colleagues. He
plays a bit rougher than I do. Your sister is telling him
everything.”

Fleming didn’t have to force the laughter. It
came naturally. While everyone had a breaking point, they hadn’t
had Chandler nearly long enough to reach hers.

The agent frowned. “You think I’m being
funny? We’re going to take you, and your sister, someplace where
you’ll never see daylight again.”

“Where no one will ever look?” Fleming
asked.

“Exactly.”

“Like in your underwear?”

His frown deepened. “Prepare her for
transport,” he told his men.

The other agents moved forward.

“Hold on,” Fleming said. “What’s your
name?”

The agent hesitated, then answered,
“Malcolm.”

Fleming looked beyond him, to the other men
in the room. “Does anyone here have a mint for Malcolm? Or some
gum?”

No one chuckled. Tough crowd.

Then one of them produced a syringe.

This was bad.

Very bad.

Fleming understood Malcolm’s threat all too
well. The United States had dozens of secret prisons throughout the
world. Being the last super power standing, those in charge had
decided to wipe their asses with the Constitution. No more due
process. No more trials by peers. No trials at all, in fact. US
citizens could be kidnapped, tortured, and executed by their own
government, all on the hush-hush.

Fleming knew what went on at these black
sites. She knew that no one made it out of them alive.

“The President will have your head if you
take me anywhere,” Fleming said.

“Right now the President is in the middle of
a worldwide scandal. It’s a PR nightmare. I really doubt he cares
what happens to you.”

Especially since he’ll probably blame me
for his recent problems,
Fleming thought.

She and Chandler had saved millions. But that
didn’t mean much for the Commander-in-Chief’s upcoming reelection
campaign.

“You’re worried,” Malcolm said. “I can tell.
You have good reason to be. Are you sure you have nothing to
say?”

Fleming stayed quiet.

“Who do you work for?”

“Okay, I’ll tell you. I work for M.”

“M?”

“On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I’m Agent
007. My name is Bond.” Fleming forced herself to smile. “James
Bond.”

“Sedate her,” Malcolm ordered.

The needle went in hard and the drug worked
quickly.

Fleming knew this would likely be the last
moment of peace she would ever have.

She was tough. But everybody breaks.

And now, Fleming realized with terrifying
certainty, she was about to find out what her breaking point
was.

FLEE: A
Thriller

Babe On
Board

Wild Night is
Calling

Origin

The
List

Disturb

Shot
of Tequila

Jack
Daniels Stories
(Collected
Stories)

Crime Stories
(Collected
Stories)

Horror Stories
(Collected
Stories)

65
Proof
(Collected Stories)

Truck
Stop

Suckers
by JA Konrath and Jeff
Strand

SERIAL
by Blake Crouch and Jack
Kilborn

SERIAL UNCUT
by Blake Crouch and
Jack Kilborn

KILLERS
by Blake Crouch and Jack
Kilborn

Floaters
by JA Konrath and Henry
Perez

Planter’s Punch
by J.A. Konrath
and Tom Schreck

Draculas
by Blake Crouch, Jack
Kilborn, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson

Endurance

Trapped

The
Screaming

Symbios

Shapeshifters Anonymous

Banana Hammock

Visit the author at
www.jakonrath.com

Wyoming Manhunt

Christmas Awakening

Priceless Newborn Prince

Rocky Mountain Fugitive

Covert Cootchie-Cootchie-Coo

A Rancher’s Brand of Justice

A Cop in Her Stocking

Seized by the Sheik

Visit the author at
http://www.annvosspeterson.com

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.

Then her cover is explosively blown, and she
becomes a walking bulls-eye, stalked by assassins who want the
secrets she holds, and those who’d prefer she die before
talking.

Chandler now has twenty-four hours to thwart
a kidnapping, stop a murderous psychopath, uncover the mystery of
her past, retire five highly-trained contract killers, and save the
world from nuclear annihilation, all while dodging 10,000 bullets
and a tenacious cop named Jack Daniels.

Buckle up. It’s going to be one helluva
ride.

To purchase FLEE by J.A. Konrath and Ann Voss
Peterson, visit
Smashwords
and purchase a copy today.

Wisconsin. Summer. Late at night.

Two teenage girls are picked up by two boys,
who invite them back to their place to party.

But an innocent mistake turns the party into
a nightmare, where nothing is what it seems...

Wild Night Is Calling is a 6000 word short
story by thriller writer J.A. Konrath (Shaken, Trapped) and
romantic suspense writer Ann Voss Peterson (A Cop in Her Stocking,
Seized By The Sheik).

Peterson wrote the first half. Konrath wrote
the second half.

This ebook, specially formatted for
Smashwords with an active table of contents, also contains an
excerpt from Konrath and Peterson’s collaborative spy thriller,
FLEE.

Together they also wrote EXPOSED, BABE ON
BOARD, and SPREE.

To purchase WILD NIGHT IS CALLING by J.A.
Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson, visit
Smashwords
and purchase a copy today.