LITMIR.BIZ

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completely dressed in dark clothing from head to toe, fully hooded, trying to pry open the back door of the building with some kind of instrument. In broad daylight. Well, if not complete daylight, dawn, as the sun was climbing over the Appalachian Mountains.

      Portia shot out of her chair and made for the back. “Do me a favor and keep an eye on the back exit’s security screen, Brindle. If it looks like anything serious, call 9-1-1 for me.”

      Brindle’s eyes widened and she got up from the worktable and walked over to the monitor. “Will do.” Portia would have laughed at her obvious trepidation but she had to get to the back door and tell the person to knock it off. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to chase interlopers away from the back door. It was an easy place for teens to hang out, next to the 24/7 diner and two buildings down from the pharmacy.

      Even so, she couldn’t remember ever having to stop someone from trying to pry the door open before. The images of the headlines about ROC flashed through her mind and she forced herself to take a deep breath. Yes, Silver Valley was under fire from an established crime ring, but what were the odds that ROC had any interest in the town library?

      Ludmila Markova couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, but it was nothing she wasn’t used to. Whether the police or FBI or one of her superiors, someone was always keeping tabs on her.

      So be it. Right now she had to make sure she delivered the goods to the library so that the other worker would know where to find their delivery.

      She’d gained many points with Ivanov, ROC’s local leader, when she’d come up with the communications plan. Because their cellular phone calls were always in threat of being monitored, and the same with email or SMS, they’d needed a way to pass information back and forth. The transportation manifests were complicated, especially the ones involving shipping heroin. Exact instructions were needed for each delivery; each pickup and every gram of product had to be accounted for.

      Let the American law enforcement groups search her group’s technological devices. They’d never find what they were looking for. She was the best, trained by the Federal Security Service, or FSB, in Russia. It had earned her a visa to the US under an assumed identity.

      She hoisted her backpack up higher, walking quickly to the library’s back entrance. At this hour, with the building still closed for another twenty minutes, she’d get in and out with no fanfare. The only problem was the security camera, which she couldn’t risk disabling because she wasn’t certain if it was tied to the local police or not.

      No matter, this was why she wore a ski mask. The camera would never capture her face, not with enough detail for identification. Someone would have to be in her personal space to see her eyes and her mouth, and even that wasn’t always enough. Besides, if anyone got that close, she’d eliminate them. She never left a witness alive. It could spell too much trouble down the road.

      She had to keep this job with Ivanov, her current boss. For just one more operation. Anything was better than going back to Russia and having to be at her government’s bidding again. A one-nighter with an oligarch led to the slick deal that got her here.

      She planned to keep herself out of Russia for the rest of her days. Whether she found a quiet life under an assumed identity in the US or Canada didn’t matter to her. She wanted freedom from the constant killing, always having to take orders from above without question. Whether she’d be able to give up the life that she was the best at in the world was a valid question she needed to address, but not now. For now, she had to remain the trained assassin that she was, the best that ROC could ever hope to have on its side.

      Only one more mission and she’d disappear, go somewhere where no one would find her. Start the free life she’d always dreamed of. Before her own government had killed her family.

      The lock on the door would be an easy pick, but she preferred the much quicker muscle method. She pulled a long knife from her backpack and wedged the thin end into the line that separated the steel door from its frame. Using her body weight as leverage, she began to break into the Silver Valley Public Library. In three more minutes, she’d deposit the laptop where the next operative would find it, where she’d told them to look. It would take them all of thirty seconds to download the information onto a USB stick. If library personnel caught them, they could play dumb and claim they’d forgotten to sign the computer out at the front desk.

      Her plan was foolproof, as was everything she did. Two more shoves and the door would open. She was three minutes from completing this part of her mission.

      Portia’s breathing ramped up as she passed row upon row of books, DVDs and then periodicals, making her way to the stairs, where she sped down to the children’s level. The exit door was at the base of the stairs and the stairwell reverberated with the sound of metal on metal. The unknown person was still at it, working on the door.

      What the hell?

      Portia pushed the long bar handle in, shoved the door open and squinted against the bright motion detector light. The sun had begun its rise behind the building, as well; it was a sharp contrast to the stairwell’s dim interior.

      “Excuse me, can I help you?”

      The person straightened, and the first thing Portia noticed was the cold emotion in the glacial blue eyes under the winter facemask. The second thing was that the person—a woman, judging from the figure under her jacket, the makeup on her eyes and lipstick on her very red mouth—was holding one of the library’s dozen laptops. Portia knew it was a Silver Valley Library computer from the identification stickers on its cover.

      “Hey, our laptops are for in-house use only. Why are you—”

      Before she finished, the woman shoved Portia in the chest, knocking her backward. The assaulter whirled around and ran toward the railroad tracks that divided the library property from the rest of downtown Silver Valley.

      Portia scrambled to her feet, and against the voice in her brain that screamed for her to wait for the police, she took off after the laptop thief. Silver Valley Library had mysteriously lost ten laptops in the past six months. It ended with her, today. Now. Without hesitating, she took off after the assailant. She hadn’t lettered in track and field at Silver Valley High for nothing.

      Kyle King swore under his breath, the interior of the beat-up truck he was hunkered down in filling with the crystallized vapor. He couldn’t run the engine and heater while he was trying to blend in. He had to make it look like the truck was empty, parked behind the Silver Valley Diner. Right next to the town library, where he’d patiently waited for ROC’s thug to show up. He hoped to figure out how the hell they were passing information on illegal drug shipments.

      As an undercover agent for the Trail Hikers, a secret government shadow agency, second to none and headquartered in Silver Valley, he knew how critical it was to stop ROC’s trafficking of illegal cargo, especially heroin and other drugs, into Pennsylvania. Silver Valley was a short fifteen-minute drive from the state capitol, Harrisburg, and the epicenter of transportation logistics for the entire US Eastern Seaboard.

      Typical of ROC’s blatant disregard for law enforcement, they’d set up their distribution headquarters in the shadow of a nondescript, medium-sized, everyday American town. Of course ROC had no clue about Trail Hikers, but it was public knowledge that Silver Valley and the surrounding county had succeeded in defeating the most heinous criminals over the last few years. Including an ROC human trafficking ring. Which made the fact that ROC still wanted to stake a claim here stick more deeply in his craw. The latest intel from Trail Hikers and FBI indicated that the criminals were somehow using the local library as a way to pass critical information about their local ops.

      Kyle had operated on countless global missions for Trail Hikers over the last several years, after a short stint in the Marine Corps. After two tours to Afghanistan, he knew he wanted to continue serving, but in a different capacity. The offer to become a Trail Hiker agent had been too good to pass up.

      That was seven years ago. The ROC op had brought him to Silver Valley three months ago to provide much needed support. He’d welcomed the switch and enjoyed being in an American

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