Page 2 of Undercover Shadow
I hesitated, thumb hovering over the send button, hating what I’d sacrificed to infiltrate what remained of the Labyrinth network. Even the simplest of warnings were cloak and dagger.
I sent the message, then disassembled the device, scattering its components in different locations around the room—the heating vent, the toilet tank, the hollow curtain rod. Nothing recognizable would remain when they searched the place after my departure.
Outside, a car engine turned over. Across the road, a figure stepped from the shadows, eyes tilted upward toward my window.
I recognized the silhouette, and my heart froze.
Tag.
He’d found me, despite Viper’s breadcrumbs intended to lead him astray.
But he couldn’t approach now—not with them watching. Not with what I had to accomplish.
I stepped back from the window, out of sight, my decision made before I fully processed my options. Retrieving the burner phone, I typed the message to be relayed to the teams sent to extract me.
ABORT. COMPROMISED. MOVING EAST.
I destroyed the mobile, scattered the pieces in various places like I had the other, then gathered my backpack, checked my weapon, and slipped into the hallway.
By the time Tag breached the flat, I would be gone.
Again.
2
TAG
My weapon was already drawn when I kicked in the safe-house door, splintering it with my boot before sweeping inside. Weeks of tracking, of following ghosts through London’s shadows, and I’d finally found her. Or thought I had. I cleared the rooms one by one, finding each empty. The bed didn’t appear slept in, but an indent on the sofa suggested she’d been waiting. For her handler? For extraction? For me?
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. How in the hell had she gotten out of here without my spotting her?
Frustration burned in my chest as I lowered my gun, picked up a teacup that sat on the kitchen counter, and held its warmth against my palm. Even her scent—musk, spice, wood, and oud—lingered in the air.
I glanced at an open window, where the February wind shifted the curtains. It was big enough for her to crawl out of. Was it a clue like the burner phone that lay crushed in the sink beneath it, SIM card gone?
It had been three weeks since Nightingale went underground after discovering evidence that Project Labyrinth was stilloperational. Days of her in danger while I tore London apart, searching.
And she’d slipped through my fingers again.
“Damn it, Leila,” I muttered as I exited the way I assumed she had. The window was almost too small for me to fit through, but I’d managed tougher escape routes.
I pulled out my phone, already moving down the stairs, headed out to resume my search.
The Unit 23 surveillance network gave me access to every CCTV camera in central London, so I worked from my vehicle, laptop balanced on the seat beside me as I followed her digital footprints through the city.
I knew her patterns because I’d been the one to train her. When cornered, Leila would head to the closest transportation hub. King’s Cross would give her rail connections north; Eurostar if she needed to leave the country entirely.
Sure enough, an Oyster card registered to one of the aliases she’d given me what felt like an eternity ago pinged at zero two hundred, so I knew she’d taken the Tube’s Northern Line toward King’s Cross from Notting Hill.
As I navigated through empty streets, following her digital trail through the surveillance feeds, memories of the first time I met Leila replayed in my mind.
Rain drummedagainst the black umbrellas held by those of us present to witness Idris Nassar’s burial. The gathering was small—intelligence operatives didn’t get military honors or public ceremonies. There were only a handful of us who actually knew what he did for a living.
Con stood beside me, rain running off his umbrella in steady streams. We’d both worked dozens of operations with Idris over the past two years, mainly joint missions between Syrian and British intelligence. He’d become more than a liaison between agencies. He was our friend.
The young woman standing at the graveside had his hazel eyes that sometimes turned dark as night, like now, giving nothing away even in grief. Leila Nassar wore her brother’s loss like armor. Her spine remained straight despite the weight crushing down on her. Her hair was plastered to her cheeks from the downpour, but she didn’t move to push it away. Nineteen years old, and she’d already lost everyone. Her father and mother—a Syrian intelligence officer and a British MI6 analyst—had died in a Damascus terrorist bombing a year ago. They’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, she’d lost Idris too.
The last time I’d spoken to him, three weeks before he died in the same city, he’d seemed distracted. He asked questions about weapons technology and neural interfaces, both things outside his usual scope. When I pressed, he deflected, saying he was following a lead, but had nothing concrete yet.
