Stephanie Doyle - Calculated Risk

Even if she missed, his natural instinct would be to duck. Giving her more than enough time to close the trunk or get off a second shot. The latter wouldn’t be likely, but she didn’t rule it out as an option.

“I mean it, Sabrina. Don’t get cute.”

She didn’t bother to answer. Strange, she thought. It wasn’t like him to say anything at this point when it would serve as nothing more than a distraction. It signaled to her just how worried he was. She wondered at the cause of it. Did he fear for her life, or was he more worried that with her death Arnold’s precious data would be lost forever?

She didn’t think she really wanted to know the answer to that question and decided it didn’t matter. Her job was to stay focused on the task. The shot was there. She’d done it a hundred times in the woods out in the back of her house. All she needed to do was let it happen.

After a calming breath, she sprang into action. Sabrina gently pushed on the trunk top, moving her gun hand out over the edge of the car’s frame as it lifted ever so slightly. She knew where the gun needed to be pointed, knew how high the shot needed to be. In anticipation of the kickback, she lifted the sight of the Defender three-quarters of an inch and squeezed the trigger.

Because the position of the gun was close to her ear, the sound of the shot practically exploded inside her head. The resonating buzz echoed so loudly she almost missed it. But not quite.

It was the brief high-pitched sound of her target howling in pain.

Then there was only silence.

Twelve years ago

Aloud knock on her door broke the silence and startled her.

Sabrina didn’t get many visitors at the convent. Converted convent, she corrected herself, enjoying the irony of that phrase. The CIA had bought the building just outside of Langley near McLean, Virginia, from a group of Carmelite nuns who had seen their numbers dwindle to two. She’d been assured from several sources that the CIA had no part in their demise in an attempt to scoop up the property, but she wasn’t all that sure she believed it.

The fourteen-room building consisted of a kitchen that Sabrina made little use of, preferring to order in; a common living area that had no TV so basically was always empty; a library; a chapel; several spartan dorm rooms; and an attic that had been converted into an apartment for visiting agents who didn’t have a permanent residence in the D.C. area.

When Sabrina first arrived there had been only one other member of the Youth Adoption Program, a language whiz named Chet, in residence. Chet had left a few weeks after her arrival to begin his career. Since then she’d been the sole student. Apparently super genius teenagers weren’t that easy to come by.

And there was Quinlan. He always claimed the attic apartment whenever he was back in the country from assignment. She liked to imagine it was so he could check up on her and, of course, fuss about the volume of her stereo. But the reality was, it was probably just convenient for him, rather than maintaining a separate residence when he was so often gone for long stretches at a time.

This time he’d been gone for over six months.

Actually, it was six months, one week, three days and well, she wasn’t going to count the hours even though she could. After he’d successfully, as he put it, settled her in and had healed completely from his earlier injuries, there had been no point in sticking around. His real skill was recruiting and cultivating assets in the field. It’s what he’d been trained to do.

After almost a year of working with him day in and day out, he’d left her without so much as a goodbye.

Not that she expected any different. Quinlan, she had ascertained during their association, wasn’t a man who formed connections. After all that time baiting him, teasing him, fighting with him, she still didn’t know his story. Because that was the way he wanted it.

Jumping up from her short couch she made her way to the door. She didn’t think to ask who it was, or worry about an intruder. The CIA provided the security that surrounded the building. Granted, the guards who watched the place-most of them on this assignment as a form of punishment-liked to call themselves baby-sitters. Sabrina didn’t mind. They were good at keeping people out.

Including her father the one time he bothered to check up on her. She had refused his visit, and the baby-sitters had done their job.

She opened the door quickly and sucked in her breath just as quickly. “Q.”

“Bri,” he returned.

“Come in.”

Quinlan walked into her room as he did any other room he ever entered: cautiously. He surveyed the small space then turned back to her. “You haven’t done much with it since I left.”

Sabrina considered the bare white walls. There was a single bed, covered with a tan comforter and two pillows. She had a weathered oak desk, a pretty comfortable office chair and a state-of-the-art laptop with wireless Internet access. She had a TV, a lumpy green two-seater couch and a minifridge. It was basically the exact same room she’d walked into two years ago. Except for the minifridge. That had been her only addition.

She supposed other teenage girls might have posters up or shoes and clothes pouring out of closets. Maybe there should be makeup scattered over her desk, and silly pictures of her and friends taken in one of those booths at the fair. But she didn’t have friends. She didn’t go to fairs. She didn’t have money, except for a small monthly stipend that covered the cost of things like shampoo, toothpaste, tampons and the most basic of clothing necessities.

No, the room wasn’t cluttered. Then again, neither was her life. Still, feeling as if she’d failed some kind of test, she asked, “Was I supposed to?”

“No.”

“Have a seat.” She felt like a grown-up for having said it. So much so, she added, “Can I get you something to drink?”

His eyebrow arched in a way she recalled that meant he was assessing whether or not she was teasing. In this case she wasn’t. She opened the minifridge and pulled out two bottles of Coors Light. When he scowled, she merely shrugged. “Arnold smuggled them in for me on his last visit. He says alcohol helps relax the brain. Gives a genius a break and all that,” she defended and handed him one. “It’s no big deal.”

“You’re underage.”

“I can fire a grenade launcher, although they still won’t teach me how to shoot a gun. Which, by the way, I’m pretty sure I could kick some butt doing. I’m a master of several forms of hand-to-hand combat. I can fluently read four languages. I think I can handle a beer. A light one at that.”

Seemingly resigned to that fact, Quinlan took the offered beverage and twisted off the top and tossed it across the room directly into the open trash can next to her desk. Then he moved to the couch and sat. Heavily, she thought. Almost wearily.

On the cushion next to him was a game of solitaire in progress. She gathered up the cards, not before remembering exactly how they had been positioned, and sat next to him.

“Why not just play on the computer?”

“I like the feel of the cards in my hand,” she offered.

He took a healthy sip of his beer and for a few seconds said nothing. She wanted to pounce with questions about where he’d been, what he’d been doing for the past six months and, more importantly, why he looked so tired, but she figured she’d give him a little breathing room. Not a lot. Just a little.

“Your language teachers are concerned,” he said finally.

“You spoke to them?” she asked, surprised he would even know what was going on with her day-to-day class load.