specific spot in Constitution Gardens tonight and record what she saw. There would be a clandestine meeting. If she performed well, Smith had texted her, maybe she’d even be rewarded for it. Michelle scoffed at that. What kind of reward was Smith thinking of? To kill her quickly should the people who were meeting clandestinely in some deserted corner of Washington discover her and try to torture her to tell them what she knew—which was nothing—so she wouldn’t have to suffer?
Great. It was bad enough that she had to spy on some hacker online, now Smith actively put her in harm’s way by sending her out on a nightly mission. Hell, she wasn’t trained for this. Why didn’t he use one of his covert agents—which he surely had, Nick being one of them!—or do the dirty job himself? No, he had to use a weak woman for that, one who didn’t even know karate or any other form of self-defense. A fat chance in hell—that’s all she’d have when it came to survival.
Damn it.
In her hiding place, behind a bush, she kept quiet though she wanted to scream at the injustice of it all. Wasn’t it enough that Smith had assigned her a watcher?
Michelle had arrived under cover of darkness only moments after the sun had gone down and it was dark enough so nobody would notice her creeping around and get suspicious. Hours before the presumed meeting was to take place, she was already waiting, poised to record whatever she saw.
Meanwhile, the mosquitoes swirled around her, eating her alive. It hadn’t cooled down despite the thunderstorm the night before. In her black, long-sleeved T-shirt and her dark pants, she felt too hot and woefully overdressed, though it meant that the mosquitoes only caught her hands, neck, and face, although she could swear that some were trying to work their way up her pant leg. She slapped at her lower leg, where she felt the sting, and cursed under her breath.
Bloodsuckers!
There were still tourists around, taking pictures of the various monuments in the park, which were lit up by strong spotlights. Lincoln Memorial, of which she had a good view across the Reflecting Pool, was one of them. People were taking pictures on the stairs, selfies with the sitting statue of President Lincoln behind them, or group photos, asking other tourists for help. But the longer she waited, the less people she saw. The tourists finally withdrew, returning to their hotels or other, more interesting sights by night.
Michelle crouched between the bushes, looking around herself. She didn’t want to miss the arrival of the mysterious strangers or be spotted by them.
The silence in the large park was eerie. There was the sound of birds fluttering in the dark, and the annoying buzzing of some overeager flies and mosquitoes, but all human-made sounds were in the distance. Cars driving on Constitution and Independence Avenues, others crossing Arlington Memorial Bridge. In the dark, the sounds carried far. But they were also soothing, almost comforting, because they confirmed that normal life continued—while her life was taking a turn for the worse. She knew it. She could sense it in her bones, feel it by the way the hairs at her nape stood up as if to protest.
She shouldn’t be here. She should be on a plane to South America, fake passport in hand. But she was still waiting for that fake passport. Her contact—recommended by an old friend from Anonymous—had urged her to be patient. If the passport needed to pass federal inspection at a US airport, it needed to be perfect. He couldn’t rush it, but he’d promised to deliver it in two days, just before her ultimatum with the mysterious Mr. Smith ran out. She would be out of here before he could throw her into prison. And he would, given half a chance, because the hacker she’d been so close to nailing, had gone dark. The entire week, she’d not seen his digital signature anywhere. As if he knew she was onto him.
The sound of a twig breaking shattered the silence and made her snap her head in the other direction. She tried to adjust her eyes, searching in the dark for the person who’d created that sound, but saw nothing. The area it had come from was too dark—not lit up like the monuments around her. She would need night-vision goggles. Smith should have thought of that. Clearly, her blackmailer wasn’t quite as smart as he pretended to be.