glass down with a heavy hand. “The wheels of justice turn slowly. You put this Claire girl up or Sasha, and targets follow them. Dead within six hours. Guaranteed.”
An itch started in the back of Sasha’s brain. “Legitimate agencies recruit from Richter.”
“It’s not the legitimate ones we’re concerned with,” Olivia stated.
“No. But legitimate agencies will want to keep places like Richter going. Look at Claire,” Sasha said to AJ. “Look how quickly she found a place on the team. She’d put any high school graduate in the States to shame. I didn’t like the rules and restrictions, but I’m smarter for them.”
“What are you suggesting?” he asked.
“If you bring the militaristic training aboveground, then what do you have?”
“A military boarding school.”
“Right. You remove the secrets put in place after the Cold War and you have nothing more than a strict military school you can find all over the world.”
AJ was staring at her. “I’m following you, Sasha, but I don’t know where you’re going.”
“The school is on lockdown. Classrooms are boarded up, students are being diverted to PE and self-defense classes. Lodovica knows something is coming. If I were running Richter and thought an investigation was in the pipeline, I’d be building brick walls and calling them abandoned fallout shelters. I’d be preparing the students for changes and maybe even reassigning some students to other schools.”
“Sounds like the headmistress is more aware of what’s going on than a single AWOL student,” AJ suggested.
“Lodovica knows me. She knows I was unhappy with Pohl’s offer and thought less of her for it.”
Olivia walked to the window, looked out the curtain. “Lodovica could care less. She allows Pohl to access anything he needs on his recruits to assure they work for him. I guarantee the man has your prints on a weapon that has already been used.”
A memory sparked of Brigitte’s anger that Pohl was following after her during her range time. “I’m sure that’s true.”
“The headmistress is nobody’s friend,” Olivia stated. “God, I could use a cigarette.”
That itch in her head started to feel like nails on a chalkboard. “Pohl won’t blackmail me now. He’ll just try and kill me.”
“Easy guess since there were bullets flying through Amelia’s apartment a few hours ago.” Olivia started to pace.
“He assumes I’ll be dead. No longer a threat to him or the school.” She scratched her head. “But the headmistress doesn’t.” She leaned her head back as that thought took root.
“Maybe she has more faith in your ability to outsmart Pohl,” AJ said.
“Or maybe she stacked the deck.”
Chapter Thirty
“Claire, your game is pinging.” Isaac waved toward her computer.
She jumped up from her cross-legged position on the floor, shook out her right foot to stop the tingling, and limped to her desk. Cooper followed her and grabbed a rolling stool to sit by and watch.
Claire deciphered the first sentence, the cloaked code that told her Jax wasn’t writing under duress. What do Han and Denenberg have in common?
Claire giggled as she responded. They both wanna do Leia.
“What is it?” Cooper asked.
“An inside joke. You’d have to know the staff to understand.”
Claire waited for Jax to respond. She had to write a few words out and then put it together. “Wow.”
“What is it?”
“She said that sometime last night over fifteen upperclassmen were removed from campus.”
“Removed?”
Another message followed before Claire could respond. “The roommates said they were woken up after lights out, asked to move to another room, and when they returned, they were gone.”
“Should we be worried?”
Claire typed in a reply asking if anyone had managed contact through the senior computers.
Her message popped up. “There are two that have made contact. Said their parents pulled them out.”
“That’s it? No more explanation than that?”
Claire shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell ya, Coop. I never had parents. But I have heard that they say ‘Cuz I said so’ when they don’t want an argument.”
Jax kept typing.
“Looks like the martial arts studio has moved to a section of the primary school gym.”
“Why would they do that?”
“No idea.” Claire asked the question to Jax.
It’s lame, Loki. Princess D is going over stuff we already know.
Claire looked up at Cooper. “Should I ask her anything else?”
“Not now. Just tell her to keep her conversations with you private. Don’t tell any of your friends.”
Claire started typing. “I already told her that, but I’ll tell her again.”
“I’m starting to notice a theme in our relationship,” AJ leaned over in his seat and whispered in Sasha’s ear.
“We don’t have a relationship,” she said through stiff