Disruptive Force. Elle James

       Chapter One

      Are you still assigned to help me? CJ Grainger hesitated before she sent the text to Cole McCastlain. The former member of Marine Force Reconnaissance now worked for Declan’s Defenders, the small but dedicated agency created to help fight for justice when the police, FBI and CIA couldn’t get the job done.

      A week ago, CJ had helped Declan’s Defenders by providing them information she’d found on the dark web about a potential assault on the National Security Council meeting.

      That attack had gone down as predicted. The VP and Anne Bellamy, a mid-level staffer for the National Security Advisor, had been taken hostage, amid another plot involving a deadly serum. Fortunately, Declan’s team had been ready. They’d rescued the vice president and the staffer, killed two Trinity sleeper agents embedded within the White House staff as well as two other agents who’d worked with them to abduct the hostages.

       Trinity.

      Even the thought of the name and organization made CJ break out in a sweat. She’d spent the past year hiding in plain sight. One of very few who’d escaped Trinity and lived.

      I’m here, Cole texted.

      Again, CJ hesitated. On her own for so long, she’d survived because of her independence and ability to disguise herself. She’d been very careful not to leave a trail a trained hacker, private investigator or Trinity-trained assassin could follow. And she didn’t have anyone to be used as leverage. No Achilles’ heel, no loved one Trinity could hold hostage to get her to come out into the open.

      The part about no loved ones had been one of the reasons she’d been recruited into the Trinity training program in the first place. And by “recruited,” she meant stolen out of a foster care home she’d been placed in by Virginia State Social Services.

      The state of Virginia hadn’t spent a lot of time and resources looking for a child nobody wanted.

      Years ago, as a young adolescent, she’d been assimilated, brainwashed and forced to learn how to fight, how to defend herself and how to kill people Trinity ordered her to eliminate.

      Until one year ago.

      They’d ordered her to kill a pregnant woman. The wife of a senator. When CJ had sighted her rifle on the woman, who’d been probably eight and a half months along in her pregnancy, she hadn’t been able to pull the trigger. She’d hesitated, wondering if the baby was a boy or girl and thinking that if she killed the child’s mother, she’d be without a parent. And knowing that if Trinity decided the father was of no further use to them or was a risk who could expose someone within the organization, the father would be eliminated, as well. That would leave the child parentless.

      Having been parentless, CJ had refused to let that happen to the unborn child.

      Her hesitation hadn’t helped the woman. Trinity had a second assassin waiting on a rooftop to do the job if CJ wouldn’t.

      The shot was fired, the bullet piercing the woman’s belly, killing the baby instantly. It wasn’t until much later that CJ learned the mother had died in transit to the hospital.

      After she’d failed to take the kill shot, CJ had known what would happen next. Since most Trinity agents didn’t get second chances if they failed an assignment, she knew the man who’d assassinated the pregnant woman and her baby would be turning his rifle on her.

      CJ, anticipating the inevitable, had ducked low, out of the sight line of the rooftop from where the gunman leveled his sniper rifle and pulled the trigger.

      The bullets flew well over her head. She’d tucked her rifle into the golf bag she’d carried up to the rooftop and then crawled to the door and descended to the first floor. There, she hid her golf bag under the last step of the staircase, planning to retrieve it after the furor died down.

      In the meantime, she’d pulled a hooded jacket out of her satchel and slipped it on over her sweater. The added bulk made her appear heavier. She slipped on a pair of black-rimmed plastic glasses and tucked her hair under the hood of the jacket. Then she jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and hunched her shoulders like a teen trying to be invisible. Slipping out of the apartment building, she’d blended into the rush of people heading home from work.

      Instead of going to her apartment, she’d kept walking. Nothing in that apartment meant anything to her. It had been a place to sleep and shower. She always carried everything she needed in the satchel she’d slung over her shoulder. A laptop, a couple changes of clothes, three wigs in varying colors, makeup and her Glock 9mm pistol. She’d also had a burner phone in her pocket, along with a wad of cash and a couple of credit cards that would have to be shredded since she’d become a target for the same organization she’d worked for.

      For the past year, she’d been on the run, dodging shadows and living from day to day looking over her shoulder.

      Are you in trouble? Cole’s second message brought CJ back from her memories to the task at hand.

      Are you still digging into Trinity conspirators? she texted.

      CJ didn’t want help, but she had to find the leader of Trinity before he found her. Two or three people searching the internet was better than one person using borrowed internet from public libraries.

      Yes.

      Look into Chris Carpenter, the Homeland Security Advisor for the National Security Council.

      Cole’s response was quick.

      Got anything to go on? Any clues?

      CJ hated to say she had a gut feeling about the man. A trained assassin relied on cold, hard facts, disregarding emotion and luck.

      Prior to the attack in the NSC, the conference room coordinator received a text from Carpenter.

      The guy who helped kidnap Anne Bellamy and the vice president?

      Yes.

      His assistant, Dr. Saunders, was the woman who was almost killed in a hit-and-run accident, wasn’t she?

      That’s the one.

      On it.

      CJ