Rogue Commander, Leo Maloney [classic books for 11 year olds TXT] 📗

was still pounding. Jenny looked around and opened the trunk of the Camry. She stuffed the shotgun and the shells deep into the small shelf at the back and then pushed some of her canvas shopping bags in front to conceal it. Then she closed the trunk quietly, got in the car, pushed the starter button, belted in, and took off—heading back down that long, slick road toward town.

She was smiling like a schoolgirl who’d just been asked out by her dreamy crush. For once in her life, she felt what it was like to be a spy.

She didn’t even notice the black Audi with its headlights off that pulled out from a grove of trees and followed her.

Chapter Seventeen

Lily was no stranger to the club scene in Seoul.

She’d been to the city before, once as a student, and twice on jobs. The first time, as a freshly liberated university grad, she’d explored the exotic foods throughout the Itaewon district, a place designed mostly to separate spoiled foreigners from their cash, and she’d wound up thrashing the night away at a wild disco called Octagon.

The second two times had been quick in-and-outs, albeit not the sexy kind. The first was a simple package recovery—spotting a chalk mark on a lamppost and finding a dead drop, the old-fashioned way. The third time was supporting a hit on, ironically, a hit man, and it had nearly cost her life.

She had a crawling feeling in her stomach that tracking down Lukacs was going to wind up more like the third type.

“What’s your twenty, Lily?” Shepard’s tinny voice crackled in her ear piece.

“Just got out of the cab.”

“Okay, walk north along Quan Jo.”

“Is that the opposite of south?”

“That’s a little snarky,” he complained. “Even for you.”

“Sorry, mate. I’m a bit cranky. Karen booked me on a whirlwind tour.”

“Well, airline seats are tough to get on short notice, you know.”

“I know, but Ho Chi Minh City, really? And then she put me on Aeroflot. I thought the bloody rivets were going to pop out.”

Shepard laughed. “Well, you made it.”

“Barely. The room at the Hilton’s all right, but I hardly had time to bathe, pretty up, and put on the black wig. It’s almost midnight.”

“From what I’ve heard, that’s when things just get going in Seoul. How do you look?”

“Smashing,” she said. “Absolutely smashing.”

Shepard almost giggled. “I’m sure.”

Her black stiletto heels clicked on the sidewalk, which was gleaming and slick from an earlier drizzle. The city was chilly, but she’d forgone her wrap because the flights were exhausting and the cold would kick-start her bloodstream. A snug black sequined dress, very short and with a plunging neckline, squeezed her shapely form.

An emerald choker girded her throat, and, during the Aeroflot flight, she’d had plenty of time to apply and paint a set of cinnamon nails. Her long red hair was pinned up under the wig, which was now cascading onto her shoulders, and a pair of Versace shades hid her eyes, which she’d painted up into a Eurasian slant.

The pissy thing about operative travel was that you could never just bang around with a carry-on and jump from flight to flight. There were “things” to be carried that had to be stowed underneath to avoid the scans, so she’d suffered lots of foot-tapping and waiting at baggage claims. But now she was all kitted up.

High up inside her right thigh was a slim Fairbairn–Sykes blade scabbarded to a snap garter, and she was wearing one of those newly fashionable, small leather backpacks which subbed for a purse. Nothing could be found in there but her iPhone, makeup clutch, cash, the gold access card to the club, and a silk bag of female “unmentionables.”

However, all those items rested on a false bottom, below which nestled her Walther P22 and spare magazine. The underside of the pack had a Velcro tear-away cover, so with a simple finger snatch, she’d be well armed.

Shepard’s voice popped in her ear again. “You should be nearing a subway stop.”

“I see one, coming up.”

“What does it say?”

Lily laughed. “I don’t believe it, Linc. It says Hak-Dong. A bit of castration, shall we?”

Shepard grinned through the comm. “I thought that might cheer you up. I routed you past it on purpose. Take a right.”

“You’re a card.”

She waded through a trio of obviously American troops on leave, whose eyes scanned her lustfully, and then she heard them whistle from behind.

“Think you picked up any tails?” Shepard asked.

“No, only the random piglet. They’ve only got eyes for my legs, and no one seems to mind that I’m talking to myself.”

“It’s the norm now.”

“Indeed.”

Lily smiled, remembering the stories Dan Morgan had told her about the advent of cell phones and the very first Bluetooth devices. All of a sudden, in Boston, he’d said, everyone seemed to be having neurotic conversations with themselves. But she and her peers had grown up with that, and the habit was a boon for spies.

“You should be seeing it by now,” Shepard said. “It’s three stories, flat granite entrance with big black doors and probably some heavies out front.”

“Got it, fifty meters. But there’s no lettering anywhere that says the Pentagon.”

“Above the doors, just an engraved pentagon.”

“Yes, I see it. Strange name for a club.”

“They don’t think so in Arlington.”

Lily snickered. “All right, mute your end for a bit. I’m going in.”

“Good luck.”

She took a breath, emphasizing the jut of her breasts, and she added a bit more sway to her hips as she strode up to the entrance. There were no velvet ropes because no one waited in line for access at the Pentagon; you were either invited or not.

Two large men in black suits who looked like San-Do practitioners glared down at her without a hint of interest in her body. She wondered if they were eunuchs. One of them stuck out a ham-sized hand.

“No pubbrick,” he growled in a heavy accent. She assumed he meant “public.”

She smiled, unslung her backpack, reached inside, and showed him her