Free Dirty Deals: Olesia Anderson Thriller #1 Free Epub Edition by D. D. Marks

over his shoulder, if the light outside was enough to blind him...
    The car began to move, and she made a decision. As the front wheels passed her by, she began to roll right, towards the Ford. At the moment that the Z-28 passed over her entirely she was moving fast, only exposed for a second on the cold garage floor, and she caught a glimpse of Jean in the driver's seat, looking behind him as he reversed out into the street. Then she was under the Ford, and Jean vanished from view.
    She lay flat on her stomach, panting into her cupped hands as the garage door came down. Only once she was alone in the garage did she dare crawl out and brush herself off.
    The alarm light was beeping in the corner, and she quickly crossed to the keypad and punched in the code Jean had taught her. The light blinked off.
    She checked her watch. Five minutes. Any more than that, and Jean would have an impossible lead.
    She went through the garage door into the kitchen, where she yanked open every cupboard, peering behind the flour and the biscuit tin. Nothing. Then to the bedrooms, where she bashed open the locks on three different suitcases. They were empty except for black linen, neatly folded. She wondered how often Jean needed to leave town in a hurry that he would need so many cases already packed. If he were still working as a Blackrock agent, sure, but a local liaison?
    She dug deeper, and touched paper.
    Bank notes, worn and faded. Greenbacks, Mexican pesos in red and blue and battered purple, the bright gold of Canadian one hundred dollar bills, and more she didn't recognise.
    It didn't mean anything, she assured herself. As a liaison, he had to be ready to outfit agents heading across the borders. It didn't mean...
    She crossed to the walk-in cupboard where Jean kept his suits. At the back, beneath a pile of shoes, was a gunmetal-grey safe, reinforced and locked not just with a combination but also a thumbprint scanner and a keypad.
    She ignored it. There was one just like it in her own New York apartment, with nothing inside but second-hand passports and misleading birth certificates. The real prize, she knew, was underneath.
    It took precious minutes to shift the safe aside, and as she glanced at her watch she realised she was already over budget, but it was worth the effort. Hidden by the grain of the floorboards was a thin dark line, and when she ran her fingers along the gap there was a section of board that pressed down a little too easily.
    The floorboards slid away with a click, exposing the steel sheet beneath. Another safe, but the only lock was a simple yale tumbler, and she had it drilled within moments.
    She lifted the steel safe door and shone her flashlight into the darkness.
    The light played over black steel. Snub barrels, receivers open and oiled. Magazines in neat stacks.
    Uzis. Israeli sub-machine guns.
    She snapped three quick photos with her phone before taking one of the guns, along with two full magazines. She retreated to the garage and out the window. Once in the garden she retrieved her iPad and followed the path Jean had taken, west and out of town. He was, as far as she could tell, stopped about five kilometres past the Lockheed headquarters.
    She tossed the Uzi on the passenger seat of the Prius and jammed the car into gear. Only once she was on the main street and topping 100 did she realise she was snarling, lips drawn back over her teeth. Her jaw ached. There was sweat in her eyes.
    "Fucker," she said. "Fucker, fucker, fucker."
    The SP-01 was loaded. She had work to do.

    * * *

    She followed the tracker dot until she saw the Camaro parked beneath a dying oak tree, almost hidden by the scrub. This far out of town, the lights of Bethesda were just a slick orange glow above the horizon, and the night sky was a huge sweep of black that made Olesia feel very small. Crickets sounded somewhere in the darkness. Her boots crunched on gravel.
    She slung the Uzi over one shoulder and advanced into the night with the