Free Girl Undercover 8 & 9: Traitor & The Smiley Killer by Julia Derek

stumbling upon strange labs and people in Switzerland.”
    “Then what happened?” Nadja looked part horrified, part spellbound by what Ian was telling her.
    Ian smiled sadly. “It’s a long, long story. Suffice to say that I’m no longer a special agent, and I’ve also been blacklisted by the very government I used to work for. No one in the U.S.—or anywhere else in the world for that matter—will take anything I have to say seriously because I’m believed to be an ex-con with severe drug problems.”
    “How can they get away with saying that about you if it’s not true?” Nadja asked, not looking convinced. I knew just how she must be feeling, having been in her shoes only months ago.
    I patted her hand. “It’s not as difficult as it seems to discredit someone to the world.” I wasn’t about to launch into the planted fake articles and corrupt prison officials, however; there was no time for that. Instead I just added, “I, too, thought Ian was full of it when he first told me about what Adler was up to. But the more I learned about what was going on, the more I realized he’d been telling me the truth all along. Emma, the trainer who committed suicide recently, remember her?”
    Nadja nodded mutely.
    “She confirmed all that Ian had been trying to tell me for months in a letter that she mailed me. And I heard with my own ears the senator and the governor discuss with a bunch of other politicians over dinner how they’re planning to overthrow the governments in several countries this coming New Year’s Eve. It’s bad. Really bad.”
    Stiffening in her seat, Nadja blinked a couple of times as she appeared to digest my words. “So what are you going to do about it?” she asked finally.
    Not wanting to upset her unnecessarily, I patted her hand again. “We have a plan that’s foolproof. Besides, we have six months till New Year’s Eve. Don’t worry about the conspiracy. For now, all we need to worry about is your safety.”
    Nadja put her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands for a moment, then lowered them to her chin. She gave an embarrassed smile. “Sorry… This is all just so overwhelming. If I’m not going into a Witness Protection Program, then what am I going to do? I can’t go on living my life as usual, can I?”
    “No, you cannot,” Ian said. “But you can still go into a Witness Protection Program.”
    Nadja looked at him, confused. “I can?”
    A mischievous glint appeared in Ian’s eyes then, one that I had become very familiar with. “Yes,” he confirmed. “The Ian Armory Witness Protection Program. I can assure you that it’ll be a lot safer than the one the FBI would provide you with were you to go there.”
    “Okay,” Nadja said. “And what exactly does it mean to be in your protection program?”
    I glanced at Ian, eager to find out what he’d meant, too, and how he could sound so confident about its success. Because I didn’t think keeping Nadja safe from these maniacs would be an easy task. We already had our hands full with trying to stop them from putting their masterplan into play.
    “I have a house in the outskirts of Philly where you can stay,” Ian explained. “No one knows it belongs to me. Well, it doesn’t really belong to me. It belongs to the son of a friend of my dead father. The son happens to be on tour in the Middle East most of them time, so before my father’s friend passed, he gave me the keys to the house and told me I was welcome to use it whenever I wanted to. His son wouldn’t ever go there. We should go there tonight. You’ll have everything you need there. No one will find you there.”
    “Okay,” Nadja said. “What about work? Am I not supposed to go back there ever?”
    “No, you cannot go back to work or anywhere else where people know you until we’ve straightened this out,” Ian said. “Not unless you want to die, which I assume you don’t. These people may not be aware of all that you know, but I can