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Back The Neighborhood Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. Part I Reconnaissance
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Part II Incursion
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Part III Under Siege
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Part IV Course Correction
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Part V Balance of Power
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-One
  27. Chapter Twenty-Two
  28. Chapter Twenty-Three
  29. Chapter Twenty-Four
  30. Chapter Twenty-Five
  31. Chapter Twenty-Six
  32. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  33. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  34. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  35. Part VI Spy versus Spy
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-One
  38. Chapter Thirty-Two
  39. Chapter Thirty-Three
  40. Part VII Winds of War and Flame
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  47. Chapter Forty
  48. Chapter Forty-One
  49. Part VIII Strong to the Finish
  50. Chapter Forty-Two
  51. Chapter Forty-Three
  52. Part IX Spy Games
  53. Chapter Forty-Four
  54. Chapter Forty-Five
  55. Chapter Forty-Six
  56. Part X What Goes Around
  57. Chapter Forty-Seven
  58. Chapter Forty-Eight
  59. About the Author

The fact that the agency was now on the chessboard would make his success that much sweeter. He’d made his decision to resign when he’d seen the writing on the proverbial wall—not even he could fight CIA city hall. But tonight, he could at least exact a little personal revenge, even if most of the agency’s personnel would never find out about it.

Small victories are better than no victories, he thought as he closed the distance to Hidden Refuge.

His past had caught up to him on the night of his most ambitious operation. And if he could acquire the laptop and cross that name off his list, well, that was equivalent to winning the Super Bowl of mercenary clandestine operations.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter
TWENTY-THREE

Sam ran along the paved path, her Brooks running shoes softly landing with each stride, striking the ground with a barely audible thwup. She was a sub-five-minute miler on the track team, which made her the fastest girl in her high school and one of the fastest in the region. Her best time was 4:51, which placed her in the top 1 percent of girl high school runners in the country. Even the world high school record was only 4:33.27, which made Sam fast—very fast.

But the conditions weren’t exactly track-meet ideal, and there was the small matter of her carrying a loaded handgun. If Ben could see me now, she thought, and then she prayed that no one could see her.

She was still processing the fact that her attractive, suburban, all-around-good-guy neighbor was something much, much different than he projected to the world. What that was, she planned to uncover, but first she had to make it out of the neighborhood, and the only way was the path that ran through the woods and encircled the entire subdivision.

There were three ways to access the running trail from the outside world, and two were off the main road that Hidden Refuge Drive intersected. The third was from a large pond about a mile south of the community. She and Ben had taken leisurely strolls along it nearly every day, coveted private time for the two of them as they grew closer. While it was a literal memory lane, it wasn’t the one she needed.

Her target was the entrance approximately a half mile north of Hidden Refuge Drive, where the path emptied onto the shoulder of the main road, generically named Bypass One because it circumvented the not-so-bustling mecca of Falling Rock several miles to the west. There were no homes near the entrance and no reason for anyone to be near it at this time of night. It was just a dark opening in the woods, beckoning runners to enter like the mouth of a modern fairy tale—or horror story, depending on the inclination of one’s imagination.