The Target: The Rogue Agent Series, #1

​The Rogue Agent Series

The Target

The Hijack

The Ghost

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The Target Blurb

WHEN YOU SEEK REVENGE be sure to dig two graves...

Revenge was the only thing I had going for me. It kept me awake at night and drove me into desperate situations in dive bars across the world.

I was looking for someone, for the enemy who was responsible for killing my fiancé. He was a covert operative who worked for the British government, someone hiding behind the trappings of respectability. Or so I thought...

I dropped a hint where he could find me, going through channels I knew he would be monitoring. And when he walked into the bar, he stuck out like a sore thumb. Tall and well-built, he could barely hide his magnificent physique beneath the stuffy three-piece suit. I had him pegged as MI6 from the moment he sat down.

But when he zeroed in on me and the time came to strike, something stopped me. Maybe it was the way his body felt so close to mine. Maybe it was the kindness in his eyes that stirred doubt about his guilt. All I know is that I couldn’t kill him, and that might just have been the biggest mistake of my life.

Contents

The Rogue Agent Series

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The Target Blurb

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

The Rogue Agent Series

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Chapter 1

Theo

THE BAR WAS LIKE EVERY other bar, dark and meant to hide secrets. It could have been anywhere in the world, but it happened to be in Casablanca. The people who hunched in the shadows were men and women, each caught up in their own personal drama. They came to drown their sorrows in a pint of beer or maybe even something stronger if the situation allowed.

I pushed my way in, having received a tip that The Sleeper, a deadly assassin I was determined to kill, was in that very building. The intel came from channels I didn’t trust, but it was the best lead I’d had in three months.

I’d chased The Sleeper all across the world, from the remote foothills of the Himalayas to the bright lights of Japan. Casablanca was one of those cities where people came to forget themselves. Full of tourists and cartels, it had all the glamor and none of the regulation of the European ports. That made it a perfect place for underground activities.

My mission was to get in, identify the assassin, and take them out. Quick and cold without alerting the authorities. If I could toss them in a dumpster and wipe my hands of the whole affair, I could get back to London by the weekend. No one would be any the wiser, except my handler.

I was well versed in covert affairs and had enough secrets rattling around in my brain to worry the people in charge. Though I prided myself on my loyalty to MI6, you could never be too careful. In my line of work, people got hung out to dry on any given Tuesday, and the world marched on, unaware.

Entering the bar, I checked the exits first. There was one for the staff and one that led to the bathrooms. A stairway in one corner went up, possibly to tenant apartments. And there was the door behind me, to my back, allowing no one to escape my notice.

In a bar that could have held at least fifty people on a good night, there might have been fifteen. A couple in the corner was arguing over something. She looked too young for him, and he was probably throwing money at her to keep her around. Two single guys at the bar looked like foreign businessmen, come to lose themselves in the exotic lowlife. A group of men sat around a table, playing drinking games and enjoying life. And a lone female hiker was reading Catcher in the Rye in a booth, sipping a cheap American beer.

None of them stood out as being potential assassins, so I moved on, carefully documenting everything I saw. In my line of work, you never knew when the smallest detail would become a matter of life or death. The way the ceiling fan rotated, the number of empty shot glasses on the bar—any of it could hold importance.

That’s when I saw a redheaded bombshell sipping whiskey out of a crystal glass, staring at her phone. She wore a skintight dress that stopped just below her rear end, classic femme fatal gear if I ever saw it. And it was the way that she was playing with her device, giving it half of her attention while the other half cased the joint that clued me into her identity.

I had almost no actionable intel on The Sleeper. I didn’t know if it was a man or a woman, young or old. The only thing I knew was that they were killing agents and that it was up to me to stop them.

Victims of The Sleeper appeared to die by natural causes. But I knew well enough to suspect a half dozen healthy spies didn’t keel over from heart attacks by accident. Autopsies revealed needle marks and a hefty dose of lethal tranquilizers had been used to render the agents deceased. What better disguise than that of a beautiful woman? She probably lured men to their death like a spider with flies, charming them into a secluded room before stabbing them with her poisonous compound.

They probably thought they were getting lucky. Too many good men had a blind spot when it came to the gentler sex. But I knew that it didn’t pay to underestimate anyone. If I had to bet on any one of the clientele in that dive bar, the smart money was on her.

I made my approach, straightening the lapels of my charcoal gray suit. What are you drinking? I asked.

She looked me up and down, giving the impression that she was seeing me for the first time. I knew for a fact that she’d made me the moment I walked in, and the entire introduction was all a show.

Whiskey sour, she said, laying it on thick.

American? I asked, judging from the accent.

Limey? she countered, tossing out the derogatory word for British citizens.

As accused, I parlayed. May I buy you another one?

She leaned back, sliding her phone into a little clutch purse. I almost missed the flick of her wrist and the glint of lamplight off a metal object in her hand. She knew I was there to kill her.

We’re done with the pleasantries, I see, I said dryly, pointing at her manicured fingernails as they clutched the unknown weapon.

You’re MI6, she accused.

And you’re The Sleeper, I replied, reaching for a bar stool at the same moment that she lunged.

I was surprised by the ferocity of her attack. Ordinarily, I assumed she used guile and wit to disarm her opponents. Her choice of attire and makeup spoke of careful preparation, and her sultry form promised hours of pleasure instead of pain. But in that moment, she leaned on neither of those assets. Instead, she ripped the stool away from me and tossed it across the room, startling the gentlemen at the opposite table.

I backed away, instinctively going into defensive mode. I knew she had something in her hand, and judging from her previous kills, I suspected it was a syringe. One wrong move on my part would send me straight to the morgue.

My training allowed me to get past the old adage Never hit a woman. That type of advice didn’t hold weight when she was trying to kill me. I didn’t care if she was a man, woman, or feral dog; my job was to take her down and do it as quickly as possible.

I reached for an empty shot glass, upturned it, and used it as a tiny shield against her needle. She swiped, and I blocked. I pinned her wrist to the bar and used my elbow to knock her in the face.

She exhaled in surprise, clearly having thought that her sex would numb my response. But she was mistaken. I knew how deadly she could be, and I didn’t intend to wind up as her next victim no matter how gorgeous she was.

She kicked me hard in the knee, bending my frame and forcing me to release my hold on her wrist. Without sparing a second, she lashed out again, barreling down on me with murderous intent. I recovered as fast as I could, spinning away from her and reaching for another bar stool.

Behind the bar, the man serving drinks stood dumb. The customers in the seats beside us scattered, nobody wanting to get involved. Yet everyone looked on in quiet fascination, having never seen such a sight before.

There she was, dressed in knockout heels and a tiny party dress, savagely hacking away at a stranger in a three-piece suit. I swung the stool at her to keep her at a distance. She jumped back to avoid getting hit again, then reached for her half-finished whiskey glass.

Knocking back whatever liquid was left, she launched the cup at me, catching me on the jaw with remarkable aim. I stumbled backward, dropping the stool and reaching for my chin. That was one mistake I would regret for a long time because it gave her the opening she was looking for.

Before I could catch my breath, she bowled me over, knocking my body to the floor. I saw stars, the wind knocked out of me with brutal force. My lungs heaved, my vision swirling with colored lights.

I brought my hand up to touch her waist where she straddled me, not knowing if I was in lust or in peril. Never before had such an intimate contact been anything more than pleasurable, although I was dimly aware that it might be the last sensation I ever had.

Her hair swung down, masking her face, brushing my nose with her floral scent. My life flashed before my eyes. I saw all the good I had done in the world, all the atrocities I had prevented just by doing my job. I saw the dozens of people I had successfully killed and knew that they were all laughing at me. That such a tenured MI6 agent would find his end at the bottom of a bar beneath a woman’s skirt was too ironic to admit.

I felt a scrape as she pressed the needle to my neck and braced myself for the injection. Holding my breath to focus on the more immediate danger, I raised a weak hand to try to swat her off.

But I wasn’t expecting pity on her part. She was every bit the trained assassin I was, maybe even more so. She sent good men to their deaths without thinking twice. Yet something about me must have sparked her curiosity because instead of sealing the deal, she relaxed.

The needle moved away from my skin, giving me room to hope. I pawed at my neck, sure that she had stabbed me unaware. The poison would be coursing through my veins and the lights would go dim at any moment. But that didn’t happen. I grew stronger as my body adapted to the concussion, and I rose up to begin the fight again.

Merde, she cursed in French, climbing to her feet. Before I could stop her, she grabbed her clutch purse from the bar, stuck the needle back inside, and fled the scene.

Finally, the air returned to my lungs in a great, fiery rush. It was too little, too late. Not only had she avoided capture, but she made a fool of me. The customers stood in shock for a moment before everyone in the room began to laugh. Even the girl in the hiking boots stifled a grin; even the couple who had been consumed with their own argument found it funny.

I rose to my feet, stretching out my sore limbs. What a shock to the system that was. My shoulders were sore, and I could still see bright lights dancing behind my eyes. I hurried to the door to chase after her, but I found the road outside so congested there was no way I could spot her. She was gone, and what was worse, she knew who I was and that I was following her. The next time we met, she would be prepared, and that meant stopping her would be more difficult than ever.

Knowing it was useless to try to pick up the trail again, I went back to my hotel room to phone my handler. Reg was going to be livid. He wouldn’t care that the woman had nearly killed me, or that I managed to identify her. What counted was that I had lost and that The Sleeper had escaped justice. There was no one to speak for the people she’d killed; I was the only hope they had for revenge. Now countless others would die, all because I let her get the better of me. It was a bitter pill to swallow, and unfortunately, not my last.

Chapter 2

Theo

Two years later.

THE CRYSTAL BLUE WATERS of the Mediterranean bobbed beneath my yacht, stretched out for miles on either side of me. I was spending a relaxing day between missions enjoying the fruits of my labors. While my work took me to hell and back some days, others I appreciated the luxuries it afforded me.

I bought the yacht a year ago to celebrate the end of a particularly trying mission. But while I had been afforded some success, I still couldn’t forget the one great failure of my lifetime. The Sleeper was still out there, able to attack foreign agents at will. I kept my ear to the ground to pick up any chatter, but so far, there was nothing actionable.

Late nights I caught myself remembering her with a mixture of anger and regret. Anger because she’d nearly killed me and regret because I hadn’t gotten to know her better. Whatever her story was, I was sure it was riveting. For someone so beautiful and mysterious to turn to intelligence work spoke of heartache. Spies never had comfortable home lives.

I wondered what set of circumstances had led her to be in the murder business. Was she abandoned as a child? Forced to grow up in the foster system? Was she groomed for a life of crime from an early age only to find a way to sell her services to the government? All options were on the table, and nothing seemed too outlandish to be real. It bothered me that I couldn’t get her out of my head, but I was doing my best.

Sunshine helped. I set up a fishing pole against the railing to look like I was doing something, but the truth was, it was an excuse to sit out in the sun. I pulled a wide-brimmed hat down over my eyes and let my mind drift. In a couple years at this rate, I would be able to retire. Not many spies ever made it that far.

I was determined to be one of the lucky few who made it back to civilian life. Maybe I would buy myself a villa in Greece or set out on a cross country tour of Europe, without all the international intrigue of course.

I was deep into my private fantasy when the phone rang. Glancing up, I wished I could turn it off altogether. MI6 should know enough not to call me when I was on vacation, but of course, that wasn’t the case. Crises didn’t wait for an opportune time, they just