Flee (16 page)

I
watched the street, the cars, the doorways, the rhythm of pedestrian traffic. Nothing
seemed out of the ordinary. I did a quick circle around the block, looking for
the back-up unit, the second team, or anything else that indicated The
Instructor wasn't acting alone. Everything appeared to be clear.

I
was about to take a chance with a direct approach when the sound of a truck
downshifting caught my attention. A semi hauling produce slowed and sidled up
to the curb a couple of car lengths behind The Instructor's.

The
opportunity I was waiting for.

I
darted across the sidewalk and stepped into the truck's shadow. Circling the
vehicle, I walked between the parking lane and traffic. I pulled my gun as I
reached the sedan.

I
stopped behind the driver's door, and slipped into the back seat. The
Instructor leveled his eyes at me in the rear view mirror, as if he wasn't
surprised. "Hello, Chandler."

I
held my gun to the back of his neck, alongside the headrest. "Slowly take
the key out of the ignition, and drop it at your feet."

He
followed orders.

"Keep
both hands on the wheel. If you take them off for any reason, I shoot."

Again,
The Instructor complied. His face had grown harder, the wrinkles deeper. But
his expression, or rather his non-expression, was exactly as I'd remembered. I
wondered, fleetingly, how many more he'd trained since me. Also, shameful as it
was, I wondered if he'd slept with any of them.

I
pushed the unbidden memories back, then gave him a little prod with the barrel
of my gun. Afternoon sun slanted through the back window. He squinted into the
glare.

"Project
Hydra," he said, "began in 1982. An unusual group of septuplets were
born, to a mother who died during childbirth. These sisters were truly unique,
because they shared a trait that had never been seen before. They all shared
the same fingerprints."

Sisters.

My
gun hand twitched, and my stomach lurched.

Oh, Jesus... those women I killed...

"The
Cold War was at its height," he went on. "Espionage was essential to
our nation's security, and the advantage of seven identical covert operatives
in infiltration, undercover, intelligence gathering, and assassination scenarios
was obvious. These sisters, if properly trained, could be used against foreign
powers in a myriad of ways, causing massive confusion and loss of morale in our
enemies. So, naturally, the government stepped in."

I
knew The Instructor was talking about me. But I couldn't let this be about me.
I had to treat this like any other op and keep my emotions at bay. Because if I
let myself dwell, even for a second, on the fact that I'd killed three of my—

I
jerked my thoughts away and focused on his words.

"A
special branch of the National Security Agency was created, expressly to
oversee the upbringing of the sisters. They were put into separate, specially
chosen homes with military families who knew the importance of the children
they were raising."

I
was grateful for the dry, almost textbook nature of his narrative. Listening to
his recitation, I could almost pretend it was one of those boring history
lessons I ignored in school.

I
could almost pretend that it had nothing to do with me.

But
it was impossible to distance myself from this. My parents? The couple who
raised me, the loving mother and father who died in a car crash shortly before
my tenth birthday, they weren't my real parents? They were chosen for me by the
government?

"And
were my foster families chosen, too?" I said, my hand tightening on my
weapon. After my parents died, I was bounced around from one uncaring home to
another, and wound up the sole child of a sixty-five year old retired
businessman who confused love with discipline. I could count the number of hugs
he'd given me on one hand. The number of beatings—too many to remember. "And
the bastard who adopted me? Was his abuse part of my training?"

"Of
course we regret the abuse, Chandler. When the Cold War ended and Clinton took
office, many of those in charge of Project Hydra were re-purposed. You, and
your sisters, were no longer considered a priority, funding was cut, mistakes
were made. William Rector, the man who cared for you—"

"
Cared
isn't the term I'd use."

"—was
former NSA. We only found out about his treatment of you after your arrest."

I
thought back to Cory. How sexy and dangerous and exciting he was. But the
biggest attraction for me might have been that deep down, I knew Cory was a psycho.
Which was the best way to strike back at my straight-laced, unloving, surrogate
father. The best way to say
fuck you
to a bad parent is to sleep with a
criminal.

"If
it matters at all," The Instructor said, "some of the others had a
worse time than you did. Rector wasn't the best choice. But in his own way, he
set you on the path to what you have become."

"A
killer," I stated flatly.

"One
of the best in the world. It wasn't accidental all seven of you wound up
working for your country. As all of you grew, you were groomed by your families,
teachers, and college recruiters, for military service. That's how you came to
me."

"Tell
me about my..." I felt the word stick in my throat. "
Sisters.
"

The
Instructor had no way of knowing what my life had been like, after my parents
died, going to live with Rector. I wasn't allowed to ever have friends over, in
the chance they might mess up his precious house. And I wasn't allowed to visit
anyone, because he kept me a virtual prisoner, doing chores, studying constantly,
making me take extra classes on top of regular schoolwork.

My
one dream, my only wish, was to have a sister, to be able to share some of
those lonely, miserable times with someone else, someone like me.

To
find out now that I had six of them, and three were already dead by my hand...

"You
were all given code names," The Instructor said. "Chandler, Hammett,
Fleming, Ludlam, Follett, Clancy, Forsyth."

"Those
are all writers."

"Spy
novelists. Reagan was a fan. Of these, you dispatched Follett in your elevator,
Ludlam at the health club, and Forsyth on the street not far from here."

He
didn't have to remind me. I could still feel Ludlam go limp after I rammed her
head into the sink, still hear the pop as I snapped Forsyth's spine. I pushed
thoughts of my three dead sisters away and focused on the rest. "So
besides me, there are three still alive?"

"Two.
Fleming died during a mission overseas several years ago. The remaining Hydra
members are Clancy and Hammett. Hammett is the reason your cover was blown. She's
the one who orchestrated this effort to eliminate you."

My
throat grew tight, my skin hot. When I'd learned the hitwomen were my sisters,
I'd assumed they were following orders. I understood that. I could rationalize
that. But to discover the orders were given by one of them? That I had no idea
how to process. "Why?" I whispered.

"Because
your sister is a psychopath, and the most dangerous person I've met in
thirty-eight years with the military."

"Your ability to survive is based on how well you react,"
The Instructor said. "But your ability to thrive is based on how well you
can act first. You cannot fully trust anyone, ever. So what road shall you
walk? The one paved for you? OR the one you pave yourself?"

Hammett
stares at the blips on the screen, then presses the button to make her computer
tablet sleep. She's tired, but at the same time, exhilarated.

It
has taken almost a year of planning to get to this point. And though she's
taken every variable and contingency into account, the death toll has been
higher than expected.

Three
of the Hydra sisters, dead.

That
was an incalculable loss. The time, the money, it took to train them. The
personal investment Hammett had made to recruit them. All for nothing.

Chandler is good. Very good.

But not as good as I am.

Hammett
tucks the computer away and stretches, arching her back like a cat. Soon
Chandler will be under her control, at her mercy.

Hammett
smiles at the thought.

And I have no mercy.

She
starts up the stairs, remembering an op from two years ago. A French diplomat,
some low-level power broker in the confusing, interconnected spider web of
international espionage. By all accounts, he was one of the good guys who just
happened to have an agenda at cross-purposes with those who gave Hammett
orders.

Hammett
snuck into his suite, to his bed, and did what she'd grown accustomed to doing.
She woke him up before she killed him.

This
began as a game for Hammett. She enjoyed watching them squirm. Watching them
beg. Sometimes they offered her things. Sometimes they offered her everything.
Once she fucked a particularly handsome Arabian prince, riding him even as he
trembled with fear, shooting him at the peak of her orgasm.

Though
sadism was one of the baser emotions, that didn't make it any less of a rush.

But
with the last few jobs, right before she went rogue, Hammett had begun asking
her marks questions. Questions about life, and what they thought the purpose
was.

Profound
shit. Especially for those who were about to die. And it interested Hammett,
because at that time, she had yet to figure out her ultimate purpose.

The
Frenchman babbled on about love, being a good son to his parents, a good
husband to his wife, a good father to his children—Hammett even allowed the
poor sap to show her pictures of the little brats while he cried all over them.
But she pressed him, pushing further, asking him why, if his precious family
was so important, he'd taken a job where he was away from them two hundred days
out of each year.

And
that's when he'd given her the real reason for his existence. The real reason
for
everyone's
existence.

He'd
said, with elegant simplicity, "I'm trying to get to the top of the food
chain."

That
resonated with Hammett, long after she put the bullet through his eye.

She
smiles with the memory of this epiphany. Human beings are creatures forged by
evolution. We exist because natural selection deemed us the strongest. So it
makes perfect sense for each of us to attain as much power as we can, to be the
strongest of all.

Hammett
has almost everything she wants. A job that pays well and lets her indulge her
sadistic streak, nice clothing to wear, expensive toys to play with, and any
man she desires, whether he is willing or not.

But
she doesn't have true power. The power only felt by the heads of state. The
power over entire countries, deciding who lives and who dies.

That
is the pinnacle of Darwinian evolution. That's what drives kings and dictators
and presidents. That's what forges nations and shapes history.

That's
what Hammett wants.

And
very soon, she'll have it. The transceiver is the key to ultimate power. All
that stands in her way is her sister. A sister who is weaker than Hammett in
every possible way.

Hammett
climbs the last few stairs and reaches the door to the apartment. She slips
inside, silent as death. Almost immediately, she sees the man on the sofa, his
pants undone, his arm handcuffed to the radiator.

The
sight makes her laugh out loud.

"Well...
what do we have here?"

"At some time, you may encounter intel that is so big, so
important, it will be difficult to act," The Instructor said. "You
need to file that away, process it later. Don't let anything impede your
ability to function. If you do, you're dead."

The
Instructor studied my reflection in the rear view mirror. "Remember when I
said you were my second best student? Hammett was number one."

I
shifted in my seat. His voice held a note of awe, something I found almost more
disturbing than his words.

"She's
the perfect operative, the perfect assassin, because she lacks something that
you have." He paused, as if allowing me to soak in what he was saying, or
to ask him to continue.

I
didn't bite. Instead I focused on the whoosh of passing cars, the odor of the
sedan's worn leather seats, a woman strolling by talking on her cell phone.

"Do
you remember the cows?" he eventually asked.

I
offered a slight nod. A day didn't go by where I didn't remember those poor
cows.

"The
first time I ordered Hammett to kill one, she didn't shoot it in the head. She
shot its legs out, then used my knife to slit its throat."

I
filed those images away, not letting myself absorb them, not allowing my
emotions to react.