Free No Law (Law #3) by Camille Taylor Page A

Moscow, Elena had listened patiently when no one else had, and even then she knew her story was outrageous. Just like now. She seemed to be a magnet for all things out of the norm.
    Weaving precariously through the throng of motorists on Nebraska Avenue, she narrowly avoided cutting off a station wagon. Using her rearview mirror, she scanned for anyone who might be following her. Luck appeared on her side, the coast clear—at least to her untrained eyes. No one sped up without a valid reason for doing so. No one followed her erratic path and pulled in behind her. Her heart pounded in her throat. She’d probably just lost ten years of her life. She gripped her steering wheel hard, as if the very thing was her life force.
    I’m safe. For now.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 11
     
     
    Ten minutes later Carey was pulling onto Dolley Madison Boulevard, headed for the nondescript grey building housing the CIA Virginia Headquarters.
    After explaining it was personal business twice, first with the receptionist then with her supervisor, and after having her identity verified, she found herself in Elena’s office. She examined the room. The desk was neat and tidy and situated in front of the large window overlooking the lush green lawn. On top of the dark wood desk was a photo of a man with blond hair. Two plants stood behind the desk beside the filing cabinets adding life to the somewhat drab government office.
    Elena had done well for herself. Carey shifted on her feet, feeling a blister developing and longed to remove the ballet flat. Her fingers picked at the hem of her shirt where a thread had come undone. She nervously tucked her hair behind her ears and two seconds later repeated the action, never once seeing the futility of the exercise since her hair was already pulled back behind her ear and secured.
    Her stomach growled, reminding her it had been some time since she had last eaten. As she stood there, she thought of Moscow. The office had been the same, but a different photo sat on the desk, the temperature low and chilly. She’d been a wreck then, just as she was now. Innocent, determined to do the right thing, a young woman of twenty-four, alone in a foreign country. Her husband had been unreachable in another part of Russia at the time she’d made the discovery.
    The artifacts inside the Kremlin Armory had been forgeries. She had never been surer of anything in her entire life. She may have only been fresh out of college but she’d always had a good eye. At the time, she hadn’t understood the implications of what she doing when she walked out of the Yasenevo office of SVR. She had never realized how it would affect her life and the lives of those around her. But it had and she had learned a life lesson the hard way and at a great cost.
    Being American hadn’t helped, because no one wanted to listen to her. She had mentioned such to a confidant at the Kremlin and he had pointed her to Elena, whose last name had been Nagregor at the time. The door to Elena’s office had opened and a woman with light brown hair and grey eyes had introduced herself. She had been genuinely interested in what she’d had to say and Carey had left feeling better about the whole thing. Until a week later when she assumed a leak within SVR had informed the Russian Mafiya of her report.
    She’d had no idea that Alan had been threatened into passing off the forgeries as real and he had been tortured and murdered before her eyes. The two goons sent by Iosif Simonov—Moscow’s Solntsevskaya neighborhood Bratva’s highest mob leader—had never known she was there. The Bratva—the brotherhood—had a notorious reputation, dabbling in almost every illegal act from arms trafficking and child pornography to larceny, murder, prostitution, and everything in between.
    Alan had been mad at her when she’d told him she’d met with Elena. He had explained briefly that his and her lives had been threatened if he didn’t comply. She