Closer by P J Adams

Author:P J Adams [Adams, P J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: James Grieve Press
Published: 2019-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

9. Cassie

She should never have sent the message.

She knew it was wrong. Even if it was not, explicitly, contravening orders, it was against all protocols.

It most certainly had not been what Connor had meant by tidying up all loose ends.

A breach of security, potentially endangering the operation. Potentially endangering Cassie and any other agents in the field.

Another mistake.

How did she know Matthew wouldn’t go straight to Napier to warn him?

She’d ensured the message was sent anonymously, but even so, he must at least suspect it was from her. He’d be angry with her. Resentful. He had no reason to simply do as she said and depart the scene. And Napier was his oldest, closest friend.

She’d been stupid.

Sloppy and unprofessional.

So out of character.

She would go to Auldbrigg Haw first thing and scout the place out from a distance. See if she could determine whether Matthew was still there, and whether security had been tightened even further.

Stupid.

After this job was over – which would be soon, she was sure – she would ask Doug Connor for a break. Time to recharge, and find her focus again. Time to reassess why she was doing this.

She was a good field agent, but burn-out was not so much an occupational hazard as an inevitability. Perhaps that was what had happened. Matthew hadn’t been her weakness, but more a symptom of a more general malaise.

A glitch.

Sending that message had been stupid.

She’d smashed the cellphone already. Taken the SIM card out and hammered it repeatedly between two rocks, until it fragmented, and then done the same to the phone itself, before gathering the debris and casting it all as far as she could into the water.

She had to find focus.

Because tomorrow she was going to kill Stewart Napier, and anyone else who got in her way.

§

She slept out on the flat rocks again.

The nights were cold now, but she liked being under the stars. Liked getting out of the confines of the old buildings – the musty smells of decay and abandonment, the sense of being closed in, the lurking knowledge that if she slept indoors she would be sharing the building with a corpse.

Her sleeping bag was military-grade – lightweight and well-insulated – which made sleeping in the open more manageable. It didn’t make the rock any softer, but she’d slept in far worse conditions.

She forced herself to sleep, using all the tricks she knew. Relaxation techniques; meditation to still the rush of thoughts going round and round her head; breath control to slow her heart.

She woke several times, and on each occasion forced herself back into sleep.

The final time she woke, the sky was lightening with dawn. She heard birds crying somewhere out over the water. She squinted, and saw the white scimitar shapes of gulls following a small fishing boat back in from the sea.

She stretched. Turned onto her side and looked back up toward the cluster of old Navy buildings, and then she saw him.

Matthew.

He stood only a short distance away, arms slightly splayed as if frozen in mid-turn.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.