What did you get yourself into, little sister?

The dog next door was silent. Someone should ask the neighbor what time the dog had started barking yesterday. She hoped the police would be smart enough to think of it.

Back in her car, even more vigilant now. Down to Constitution, then up Indiana. Weaving around through the streets of the city, thinking furiously.

She called Lola, set her onto the email trail. If anyone could re-create a server bounce, it was her. The moment she hung up, the phone rang again. There was no caller ID. She had a special phone with its own operating system developed specifically for her team of miscreants, so they could operate in the shadows, unseen, unheard, untraceable.

When she hit Talk, there was a low tone. A signal.

She waited patiently, and a moment later, Atlantic came on the line.

“What’s the matter?” he asked without preamble. Atlantic was a very busy man, the head of a number of secret task forces across all the agencies. Robin only knew the names and auspices of two—her own group, and Operation Angelmaker, Atlantic’s attempt to keep a tight rein and eye on the world’s government assassins. When one stepped out of line, he—or she—was brought back in or eliminated.

Robin had always been Atlantic’s go-to girl in times of need.

“My sister was murdered last night.”

She heard the soft intake of breath, was surprised. She’d only met him once in person, six years ago, when he recruited her. The rest of their communications had been by phone. But Atlantic was hard as nails, shrewd and unflappable. He was descended from the Ainu, the indigenous Japanese, and possessed one striking feature from this heritage—eyes that were an unholy, unnatural shade of pale ice blue, so light as to be nearly transparent.

“You’ll never forget him if you meet him. He has a gaze colder than the depths of the Atlantic,” she’d once been told by a colleague. It was true. Atlantic was an unnaturally gifted man, able to create great loyalty among his people, great respect among his peers and engender great fear among his enemies.

Compassion wasn’t part of his lexicon.

“I heard,” he said. “I am very sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes. Amanda got into something. I need to find out what. Since I can’t exactly ask her employers...”

“You’d like me to do it in your stead. Fine.”

And he was gone. Atlantic was never one to waste time.

She tapped her finger on the steering wheel. Wondered if she should make a call, ask for a welfare check on the men who rented her sister’s house. No. If the D.C. cops were worth their salt, they’d eventually find the town house in Amanda’s records and make their own gruesome discovery.

She wound down to Lafayette Square, found a spot on the street, paralleled expertly and walked into the park, staring across the way at the White House. She could never see the white marble without thinking of her swearing in, standing in the quiet Indian Treaty room, the flags whispering over the air-conditioning vents, the roughness of the pebbled leather of the Bible’s cover beneath her palm.

I, Robin Souleyret, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

She had spoken the words of the oath with a deep sense of satisfaction, then took it to its most extreme meaning. She’d defended, all right. Fought and killed to protect the ideals and freedoms of her government. She’d done things no one should have to do, and had done them willingly, knowing she was serving the greater good. The sight of the building made her swell with pride. Regardless of occupant, regardless of political winds, she had played her role, and played it well.

Amanda had taken the same oath. She did her job well, too.

Amanda didn’t know exactly what her older sister did, and Robin tried to keep it that way. The isolation from her only family was hard, but she wasn’t sure Mandy would understand her vocation. Killing people under orders wasn’t exactly meant for dinner conversation. As far as Amanda knew, Robin was a CIA field agent who went to multiple postings around the world. Her background was in physics, so it stood to reason she’d be keeping an eye out on the nation states with nuclear capabilities.

When, in actuality, Robin was a gun. That was all. A conscienceless gun. And Robin went to great lengths to make sure her little sister didn’t know that.

Walking along the promenade in front of the White House, she took in the wandering black-clad spec ops detail on top of the building, the surface-to-air missile batteries, the cameras every few feet and other covert security measures. Had a moment of smugness—little did they know their greatest weapon was walking by at this very moment.

If they had known, if they had looked down and seen death walking past, they might not go so blithely about their day. Robin had a bit of a reputation in certain circles.

The smugness fled. Now Mandy would never know. Robin had fulfilled her greatest duty, to keep her sister ignorant of her sins.

Mandy had a law-and-order streak in her. Recruited into the FBI out of college, she wanted all the glamour and excitement that came with being a cop. She went through the academy, took all the tests, shot all the guns. And when her superiors started to see she had a knack for undercover work and was conversant in three languages, they’d seized the opportunity and started her onto a different tract.

Robin knew Mandy specialized in corporate espionage. Her normal MO was to falsify a résumé, get hired on by a company, find their weak spots, steal their secrets and get them back to whomever was paying. Or she was brought in to do the exact opposite—figure out who was stealing secrets, and where they were being sold. It all depended on where the company stood in line with the best interests of the US government.

Amanda answered to several different masters—whoever was directly affected, whoever had hired her, and her handlers, plus her FBI hierarchy. Robin had always admired her little sister’s ability to juggle the sometimes vehemently opposing orders from several quarters. But like Robin, once on a case, she operated with autonomy, only reaching out when absolutely necessary.

A tidal wave of aquamarine the exact color of her sister’s eyes clouded her vision, and Robin stifled a sob. Amanda had reached out. And Robin had been too busy to help.

She batted the cloud away. Stop that. You’re no use to her like this.

Her phone rang, and she took a seat on an empty park bench and answered it.

Lola Jergens was on the line. “We have a trace. The email came from inside the State Department.”

“Do we have a specific area, or a name?”

“The external address was fake, the whole thing was scrambled. No name, only the server section. It came from the Africa desk.”

“Africa? She was supposed to be working out of France, or had been a month ago.”

“There’s no mistake.”

Robin stood, started back toward her car. “Lola, I want you to pull every name in the section, figure out who would have been working with Amanda. I’m mobile. Call me when you have a target.”

“What are you going to do?” Lola asked, wary. “You can’t exactly walk in there. You’re still persona non grata.”

Robin smiled, and a homeless man on the edge of the park who was about to ask for money started and turned away, pretending he hadn’t seen her.

“I just want to have a chat with whoever asked my sister to bring something into the country. Because whoever it is probably got her killed. Find out who it was, Lola, and let me know right away.”