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to start a family. And I’ll be free to live the kind of life I want. But why does it have to be this way?

Chapter 6
    Thirty-six hours later, Anika strode past the final sensor checkpoint of sub-level 2. The corridor opened and spread out in multiple directions. A male operative she had run a mission with several months ago hurried by with a brief nod. She tried to recall his name. Green … something. Greenburg? No. That wasn’t right. Greenburg had been killed in Barcelona.
    Would someone think that about her in a few days? That she had died in a solo in … wherever it was set to take place. Gianni had called her in ahead of the official briefing to lay out a scenario for helping her survive it.
    She turned left, then right through another long passageway. Like the rest of the complex, the sub-level was designed for utility rather than luxury. It had been built when the western world established a supranational black ops agency in response to the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. World Trade Center and the Pentagon. United Nations Intelligence Trust, or U.N.I.T., was funded by member nations to counter terrorist activities around the world. The agency’s loosely affiliated individual units bid on missions too geographically widespread or too politically sensitive to be handled by a single country. U.N.I.T. 605, based in New Angeles, took special pride in wrangling the toughest assignments.
    Her pulse quickened as she rapped on the door of Gianni’s office and heard his command to enter.
    He sat at his desk, eyes skimming the screen of his handheld. An oversized rosary, its brown beads the size of a child’s fist, splayed across a large section of wall behind him. Anika had always admired his bold display of an object from his life before U.N.I.T. As much as it tried to crush individuality, the agency hadn’t managed to sever every connection to his past.
    “Begin recording,” Gianni said, a warning to her that private conversation was out. All business, he didn’t even glance at her before activating the wall monitor.
    Though his aloofness stung, Anika took it without reacting. She closed off her feelings and sat down.
    Image followed image while Gianni explained her assignment. She would pose as the representative of a Brazilian arms trading network in a secret meeting to finalize a partnership with a neighboring Argentinean group. The meeting would take place in neutral territory at a deserted warehouse near the city of Lyon.
    Anika had always wanted to visit France. But any excitement she might have felt about the trip was extinguished by the knowledge of what it signified.
    The warehouse was the site of her solo. Where she would “die” in order to begin a life on the outside. A life without Gianni. She shoved the thought deep inside her. No time for that now.
    “Get the intel from the Argentinean representative and transmit it back to us.” Gianni’s voice was flat, neutered of any emotion. “Remember,” he added, “you’re to wait for our confirmation of transmission before exiting the warehouse.”
    He pressed some keys on his computer and activated the privacy function.
    Now she understood why they were meeting in here rather than in one of the mission briefing rooms.
    At last, he looked at her. Fatigue etched grooves around his mouth and shadowed his eyes.
    Her chest constricted. Those lines and shadows were because of her. She hadn’t slept much either since their last meeting.
    “There will be a delay in the confirmation,” he said. “We’ll tell you to stand by and to stay in the warehouse. Allow the Argentinean representative to leave. Once he’s clear, U.N.I.T. will bomb the building.”
    “With me still inside?” A chill sliced through her.
    “That’s the ‘solo’ part of the mission,” Gianni confirmed. “When their representative fails to return to Sao Paolo, the Brazilians will blame the Argentineans. Especially when the two index fingers of the Brazilian representative arrive in a