Suicide Mission (Guarded Secrets #1)

Prelude

The two agents walked into the director's office with knots in their stomachs. They knew this meeting would bring the end of their friend's life, no matter what they had to say on the matter. The lighting in the room was dim as they entered. There was a familiar excitement coursing through their veins, but it was overwhelmed by the dread of what would become of her. Even as they stepped up to the desk, past the long tables where agents would meet for mission briefings and the awards on the walls, there was a sinking feeling in their stomachs.

He sat with his back to them, but spoke when he heard them stop in front of the desk. "It's time."

There was a long pause as each of them waited for him to say something else, but as the silence crept in they realized he had made his choice.

"Do we have to bring her in? I don't think she's ready, sir," one of the agents said, whether it was the truth, or he was just worried about her dying on this mission, he wasn't sure. It was probably both. He had spent his life looking after her, he didn't want to see her die on her first mission.

"Demon," the Director said, using the codename that had become the agent's identity over the years. There wasn't room for actual names in this business. It lead to those they cared about dying. "I know you and Whiplash are against her joining at all costs, but we need a thief. Every one of our other choices have dropped out and rejected the offer, she is our last chance. We need someone to do this mission; we need this"

"But, sir," Whiplash spoke up, coming to the director's desk to talk to him face to face. "That's less than a week to train her. She won't be ready in time."

"You and Demon have been preparing her for the last five years because we had an interest in her," he said. "And you're telling me that she isn't the slightest bit prepared to hit the ground running?"

"She is," Whiplash said. They both knew they had prepared her to join, just not well enough for this mission. "But, sir, she has no idea that we've even been training her. The news of the mission will scare her away, because she will feel untrained. We just need more time."

"We don't have that kind of time, Whiplash. You two barely escaped with your lives, and we lost five agents, including the only thief we had. You were supposed to recruit her after this mission so Hess could train her, now that's not an option. We need a thief; the others have either quit or died, so she is it. This is our last chance or we lose them forever."

There was a moment of silence between them for their fallen friends. They had died trying to save and protect the lives of innocent people from the drug cartel that was taking over the small city. The cartel was expanding from the West Coast to the East Coast, and in their wake was death and destruction. It was their job as agents of the Combat Intelligence and Reconnaissance Agency to pick up where the law left off. The cartel was established to look like a legitimate business, everything was in order, and because of that no one could touch them and they knew it. They had to be stopped before more lives were taken, and CIRA had the right people to stop them.

"What do you want us to do, Director?" Demon asked, accepting the fact that his friend was going to be recruited with or without his cooperation.

"Bring her to me," he replied. "I don't want any problems with it. We will have a lot of explaining to do, and I don't want her freaking out or it will be harder for her to understand."

"Can do, Director," they responded in unison.

Without another word, they left the office with a new mission. To pull a girl out of her typical teenage life and bring her into the agency, where she would become a trained killer, and the best thief the agency would ever have. If she could make it through a fight with the cartel, and make it through a month of training in three days that is. If not the East Coast was going to become a battleground and innocent people would die.