Part 1 (1/2)

The Chemist.

Meyer, Stephenie.

This book is dedicated to Jason Bourne and Aaron Cross.

(and also to Asya Muchnick and Meghan Hibbett, who gleefully aid and abet my obsession).

CHAPTER 1.

Today's errand had become routine for the woman who was currently calling herself Chris Taylor. She'd gotten up much earlier than she liked, then dismantled and stowed her usual nighttime precautions. It was a real pain to set everything up in the evening only to take it down first thing in the morning, but it wasn't worth her life to indulge in a moment of laziness.

After this daily ch.o.r.e, Chris had gotten into her unremarkable sedan-more than a few years old, but lacking any large-scale damage to make it memorable-and driven for hours and hours. She'd crossed three major borders and countless minor map lines and even after reaching approximately the right distance rejected several towns as she pa.s.sed. That one was too small, that one had only two roads in and out, that one looked as though it saw so few visitors that there would be no way for her not to stand out, despite all of the ordinariness she worked to camouflage herself with. She took note of a few places she might want to return to another day-a welding-supply shop, an army surplus store, and a farmers' market. Peaches were coming back in season; she should stock up.

Finally, late in the afternoon, she arrived in a bustling place she'd never been before. Even the public library was doing a fairly brisk business.

She liked to use a library when it was possible. Free was harder to trace.

She parked on the west side of the building, out of sight of the one camera located over the entrance. Inside, the computers were all taken and several interested parties were hanging around waiting for a station, so she did some browsing, looking through the biography section for anything pertinent. She found that she'd already read everything that might be of use. Next, she hunted up the latest from her favorite espionage writer, a former Navy SEAL, and then grabbed a few of the adjacent t.i.tles. As she went to find a good seat to wait in, she felt a twinge of guilt; it was just so tawdry, somehow, stealing from a library. But getting a library card here was out of the question for a number of reasons, and there was the off chance that something she read in these books would make her safer. Safety always trumped guilt.

It wasn't that she was unaware that this was 99 percent pointless-it was extremely unlikely that anything fictional would be of real, concrete use to her-but she'd long ago worked her way through the more fact-based kind of research available. In the absence of A-list sources to mine, she'd settled for the Z-list. It made her more panicky than usual when she didn't have something to study. And she'd actually found a tip that seemed practical in her last haul. She'd already begun incorporating it into her routine.

She settled into a faded armchair in an out-of-the-way corner that had a decent view of the computer cubicles and pretended to read the top book in her pile. She could tell from the way several of the computer users had their belongings sprawled across the desk-one had even removed his shoes-that they would be in place for a long while. The most promising station was being used by a teenage girl with a stack of reference books and a harried expression. The girl didn't seem to be checking social media-she was actually writing down t.i.tles and authors generated by the search engine. While she waited, Chris kept her head bent over her book, which she had nestled in the crook of her left arm. With the razor blade hidden in her right hand, she neatly sliced off the magnetic sensor taped to the spine and stuffed it into the crevice between the cus.h.i.+on and the arm of the chair. Feigning a lack of interest, she moved on to the next book in the pile.

Chris was ready, her denuded novels already stowed away in her backpack, when the teenage girl left to go find another source. Without jumping up or looking like she'd rushed, Chris was in the chair before any of the other lingering hopefuls even realized their chance had pa.s.sed.

Actually checking her e-mail usually took about three minutes.

After that, she would have another four hours-if she wasn't driving evasively-to get back to her temporary home. Then of course the rea.s.sembly of her safeguards before she could finally sleep. E-mail day was always a long one.

Though there was no connection between her present life and this e-mail account-no repeat IP address, no discussion of places or names-as soon as she was done reading and, if the occasion called for it, answering her mail, she would be out the door and speeding out of town, putting as many miles between herself and this location as possible. Just in case.

Just in case had become Chris's unintentional mantra. She lived a life of overpreparation, but, as she often reminded herself, without that preparation she wouldn't be living a life at all.

It would be nice not to have to take these risks, but the money wasn't going to last forever. Usually she would find a menial job at some mom-and-pop place, preferably one with handwritten records, but that kind of job generated only enough money for the basics-food and rent. Never the more expensive things in her life, like fake IDs, laboratory apparatus, and the various chemical components she h.o.a.rded. So she maintained a light presence on the Internet, found her rare paying client here and there, and did everything she could to keep this work from bringing her to the attention of those who wanted her to stop existing.

The last two e-mail days had been fruitless, so she was pleased to see a message waiting for her-pleased for the approximately two-tenths of a second it took her to process the return address.

Just out there-his real e-mail address, easily traceable directly to her former employers. As the hair rose on the back of her neck and the adrenaline surged through her body-Run, run, run it seemed to be shouting inside her veins-part of her was still able to gape in disbelief at the arrogance. She always underestimated how astonis.h.i.+ngly careless they could be.

They can't be here yet, she reasoned with herself through the panic, her eyes already sweeping the library for men with shoulders too broad for their dark suits, for military haircuts, for anyone moving toward her position. She could see her car through the plate-gla.s.s window, and it looked like no one had tampered with it, but she hadn't exactly been keeping watch, had she?

So they'd found her again. But they had no way of knowing where she would decide to check her mail. She was religiously random about that choice.

Just now, an alarm had gone off in a tidy gray office, or maybe several offices, maybe even with flas.h.i.+ng red lights. Of course there would be a priority command set up to trace this IP address. Bodies were about to be mobilized. But even if they used helicopters-and they had that capability-she had a few minutes. Enough to see what Carston wanted.

The subject line was Tired of running?

b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

She clicked it open. The message wasn't long.

Policy has changed. We need you. Would an unofficial apology help? Can we meet? I wouldn't ask, but lives are on the line. Many, many lives.

She'd always liked Carston. He seemed more human than a lot of the other dark suits the department employed. Some of them-especially the ones in uniform-were downright scary. Which was probably a hypocritical thought, considering the line of work she used to be in.

So of course it was Carston they'd had make contact. They knew she was lonely and frightened, and they'd sent an old friend to make her feel all warm and fuzzy. Common sense, and she probably would have seen through the ploy without help, but it didn't hurt that the same ploy had been used once in a novel she'd stolen.

She allowed herself one deep breath and thirty seconds of concentrated thought. The focus was supposed to be her next move-getting out of this library, this town, this state, as soon as possible-and whether that was enough. Was her current ident.i.ty still safe, or was it time to relocate again?

However, that focus was derailed by the insidious idea of Carston's offer.

What if...

What if this really was a way to get them to leave her alone? What if her certainty that this was a trap was born from paranoia and reading too much spy fiction?

If the job was important enough, maybe they would give her back her life in exchange.

Unlikely.

Still, there was no point in pretending that Carston's e-mail had gone astray.

She replied the way she figured they were hoping she would, though she'd formed only the barest outline of a plan.

Tired of a lot of things, Carston. Where we first met, one week from today, noon. If I see anyone with you, I'm gone, yada yada yada, I'm sure you know the drill. Don't be stupid.

She was on her feet and walking in the same moment, a rolling lope she'd perfected, despite her short legs, that looked a lot more casual than it was. She was counting off the seconds in her head, estimating how long it would take a helicopter to cover the distance between DC and this location. Of course, they could alert locals, but that wasn't usually their style.

Not their usual style at all, and yet... she had an unfounded but still pressingly uncomfortable feeling that they might be getting tired of their usual style. It hadn't yielded the results they were looking for, and these were not patient people. They were used to getting what they wanted exactly when they wanted it. And they'd been wanting her dead for three years.

This e-mail was certainly a policy change. If it was a trap.

She had to a.s.sume it was. That viewpoint, that way of framing her world, was the reason she was still breathing in and out. But there was a small part of her brain that had already begun to foolishly hope.

It was a small-stakes game she was playing, she knew that. Just one life. Just her life.

And this life she'd preserved against such overpowering odds was only that and nothing more: life. The very barest of the basics. One heart beating, one set of lungs expanding and contracting.

She was alive, yes, and she had fought hard to stay that way, but during her darker nights she'd sometimes wondered what exactly she was fighting for. Was the quality of life she maintained worth all this effort? Wouldn't it be relaxing to close her eyes and not have to open them again? Wasn't an empty black nothing slightly more palatable than the relentless terror and constant effort?

Only one thing had kept her from answering Yes and taking one of the peaceful and painless exits readily available to her, and that was an overdeveloped compet.i.tive drive. It had served her well in medical school, and now it kept her breathing. She wasn't going to let them win. There was no way she would give them such an easy resolution to their problem. They would probably get her in the end, but they were going to have to work for it, d.a.m.n them, and they would bleed for it, too.

She was in the car now and six blocks from the closest freeway entrance. There was a dark ball cap over her short hair, wide-framed men's sungla.s.ses covering most of her face, and a bulky sweats.h.i.+rt disguising her slender figure. To a casual observer, she would look a lot like a teenage boy.