LADY JUSTICE AND THE SPY

CHAPTER 1

    Sarah Savage, code name, Nightshade, peered through the peephole in the hotel room door.

    She had heard footsteps in the hall and as she expected, two men were approaching the door of room 211.

    The men were not of Russian, Middle Eastern or Oriental origin. They were Americans. Sarah recognized both men. Like her, they were part of Consular Operations, a clandestine intelligence agency run by the CIA, whose task was to eliminate threats to the United States, both foreign and domestic.

    During her forty years of service, her assignments had taken her throughout the world to track down and destroy men and women seen as dangerous to U.S. interests.

    She knew the two men in the hall were on just such a mission, only this time, she was the quarry being sought. She was the one who was to suddenly and mysteriously disappear.

    Sarah suspected someone would be coming for her and had taken precautions. She had rented room 211 in her own name and the adjoining room, 213, using an alias. Hearing the cautious footsteps in the hall, she had quietly slipped through the doors separating the two rooms, locking both securely. It was through the peephole in 213 that she watched her stalkers.

    Anticipating their arrival, she dressed in jeans, a loose sweatshirt and an old letterman’s jacket she had found in a thrift store.

    She watched as one of the men produced a key card, probably lifted from a maid busy cleaning rooms, and slipped it in the door lock.

    As soon as she heard the ‘click’, she tucked her short cropped hair under a baseball cap and donned a pair of sun glasses. As soon as the men disappeared inside 211, she grabbed a ball bag into which she had packed her worldly possessions, a change of clothes, cash, her collection of passports, each with a different name, and her 9mm Beretta.

    She stepped into the hall, and as she suspected, there were agents stationed at both the elevator and stairwell. She took a deep breath and started toward the elevator, wondering if her disguise would fool the experienced operative.

    As luck would have it, halfway down the hall another door opened. Two young men in baseball gear stepped out. The city was hosting a baseball tournament and Sarah had selected this hotel because it was housing several out of town teams.

    She fell in behind the boys, past the agent, and into the elevator. As the door closed, she breathed a sigh of relief.

    Soon she was on the street. She had escaped this time, but she knew her luck would one day run out. The men pursuing her were relentless as she had been when given an assignment. There were just too many of them and with their sophisticated equipment, they would eventually find her. But before they did, she had one last goal in life --- to find the daughter she had given up at birth and meet her for the first and last time.