CHAPTER1
KAT
As an undercover asset for the spy agency HEAT, I’d taken down several bad guys in my day, but none who’d been as angry as Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants. To be fair, though, I’d never stuffed an enemy of the United States into a backpack cat carrier.
I turned onto my tree-lined, quiet-for-New-York-City, residential street. Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants emitted a low growl. Apparently, he did not approve of the location of his temporary foster home.
“Sorry, buddy. You’re not what I expected, either.”
When I’d signed up to provide a holiday foster home for a long-term shelter animal, I’d expected a small dog. Or a pup. I’d grown up with dogs. I understood them. And a dog would provide the perfect cover.
My boss, Ms. X, was the director of the Headquarters for the Elimination of Advanced Threats agency, known as HEAT to the few who knew about it. X had been very specific when she’d told me I was on a three-week holiday vacation. I was to keep my head down, blend in, and not draw attention to myself. That was the exact opposite of who I’d been for the last six years of my career. I’d been jet-setting around Europe, playing the part of a high-level State Department analyst. Flash and flamboyance were part of the job, especially when the marks were men. And the vast majority of the time, the worst of the criminal element men.
As I’d built the persona of Kat Hartmann, a quiet analyst at the State Department—the name true, the occupation a bald-faced lie—I’d pictured her with a dog. The dog would provide a different kind of distraction. Who remembers a dog owner’s face when they’re focused on an adorable mutt?
But now I was a cat foster mom, and the three-year-old, twenty-pound gray fluff ball of a cat on my back was a great big question mark. Nothing in my life of careful planning, knowing every angle, and always having an exit plan—essential to staying alive in the spy game—had prepared me for being so utterly unprepared.
“I’m going to take great care of you,” I whispered to the confused animal who was now relying on me. “And when the holidays are over and the full staff returns, I’ll take you back to the shelter, safe and sound. I promise.”
I had never broken a promise in my life and I wasn’t about to start now.
I stepped into the small, bright lobby of my new home. My home. I still couldn’t get over actually owning my own New York City apartment, my own piece of the world. And now I was going to share space with a cat for the first time in my life. Who says you can’t teach old spies new tricks? And at thirty, given the age of most of my coworkers, I definitely qualified as an old spy.
I waved to John behind the desk on one side of the lobby. John Stern, fifty-six years old. Married, no kids, season tickets to the Yankees. The source of my information was public websites. Unlike some of my fellow agents, I did not use company resources to check out people in my personal life. But I do know my way around the world’s best investigative websites.
John looked up from his computer screen and then did a double-take. “Whatcha got there, Ms. Hartmann?”
I grinned. “Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants. He’s my houseguest for the holidays.”
“Big name for a little guy. Although little is subjective, I guess.”
Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants gave a growl-purr.
“Not the friendliest little fella, is he?”
Imagining this big world and strange building—not to mention his underqualified new caretaker—through my small charge’s eyes, I felt defensive of him. “He’s doing the best he can.”
John smiled. “I imagine he is. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you and Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants.”
From the backpack, the fluff ball made a small noise that might have been a meow. Better than growl-purring, so we were making progress, I hoped.
“Mail came early today,” John called as I walked toward the elevators.
“Thanks.” I turned and headed for the mail room off to my left, then stopped in the doorway.
Mrs. Welby stood in the center of the small room with her mailbox door propped open. She was seventy-two, widowed twenty years, the president of the co-op board, and the lead dissenter on the vote to allow me to buy my apartment. She’d lost, and she didn’t take kindly to it. My source for that information was Mrs. Welby herself.
She glanced at me. “6B.”
That was her approximation of a hello. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Welby.”
She narrowed her eyes, immediately honing in on my backpack and its passenger. “What is that thing?”
“Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants is a cat.”
“He’s enormous! House cat or bobcat?”
If I’d been defensive a minute ago, now I was ready to throw down over my new companion. “He’s only twenty pounds, which is well within the building covenant’s forty-pound pet weight limit.” Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants growled, not even pretending to purr a little. “And he’s doing the best he can.”
