Under Age and Undercover: A Hannah Clark Novel (under edit)

Balboa

I left my meeting feeling very accomplished- the representatives took the information I fed them calmly and mildly. Not having received a single missed call from Monique I took my time driving over to pick her up but arrived only 57 seconds later than scheduled.

As I was waiting for her to come out of the museum, I noticed a familiar black motorcycle pulling out of the lot, following a massive silver SUV with illegally tinted windows; suspicious for any normal day in Balboa. I was hit quite suddenly with a gut-wrenching feeling that my current situation was a lot more complicated than I had thought. I called Monique’s cell phone to confirm what I already knew: that she was no longer at the meeting and was being transported to an unknown location by an unidentified enemy.  She didn’t answer.  Remaining as calm as I could while my best friend was in potentially life-threatening danger, I called Shane to let him know I was on my way back to the hotel alone.

If it were safe for me to tell him anything over the phone I would have explained why, but at that point there was no room for taking chances; I needed to talk to him in person. So I sped through the intersections and highway crossings far over the legal speed limit and parked my car in a disabled space; quickly running up to our room and deliberately ignoring the weird looks I got from all of the people at the front desk.  Out of breath, I knocked on the door and Shane opened it instantaneously looking just as concerned as I was.

“Monique’s been taken.” I said bluntly, once we were a safe distance away from the door.

Shane’s eyes widened minimally, but other than that his face showed no surprise whatsoever.

“I dropped her off at the museum and when I came to pick her up she was gone.” I explained as I hurriedly collected the gear I would need to track her down and take whoever had her into FSS custody.

“A black Harley with license plate XXXXX was tailing me on the way to Balboa, but I didn’t really notice how closely until I saw it leave the parking lot when I came to pick up Monique. I would’ve just followed them from the museum,” I continued, loading a semi-automatic and strapping it around my waist, “but I didn’t have the material I would need to break in, and I figured I needed to talk to you before I went off on my own.” I finished putting my military boots on as fast as I could and handed a piece of paper to Shane.

“This,” I said, “has all the information you need. Call operations,” I proceeded to instruct him while double checking all of my equipment, “and ask for Jen. Tell her that Agent Clark has initiated code blue and give her my license plate number. If I need backup I’ll call and ask you to clean the dishes, in which case you call Ops immediately and tell Jen I ordered four armed men. Exactly four; I don’t work well with odd numbers. If I don’t call within sixty minutes I want you to contact Michael, inform him of the general situation and only tell Jen that I need backup. Be as vague as you can be while on an open phone line. If worst comes to worse, Michael will know what to do. Think you can handle that?”

Shane simply nodded his head. “Be careful, alright?” he cautioned as I moved toward the door. “Even the invincible Hannah Clark can be killed by a gunshot.” I rolled my eyes, appreciative of his concern despite his jibe.  With a quick promise that I wouldn’t be stupid I rushed out of the door to find and follow the bike.

These two chapters are super short I know, which is why I uploaded two!  I'll have another one or two up tomorrow methinks; I have a long weekend and nothing better to do so luck you :)

Happy new semester!

xoxo,

Heather