Mrs. Undercover -

The nine-iron swung in a perfect arc. He crumpled like a laundry pile.

That was the problem. After ten years of marriage, three of them deep undercover as a wife , Ellie had become her disguise. The Agency had stopped calling. Her handler, a chain-smoking cynic named Harris, had retired to a shrimp boat in the Gulf. She was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost.

“It’s not a punishment,” Ellie said, circling him. “It’s a choice.” Mrs. Undercover

She didn’t disarm the bomb. She reprogrammed it. The detonator was wired to a GPS signal—the Serpent’s failsafe. She reversed the polarity, swapped two chips with her tweezers, and set the target to the Serpent’s own safe house, coordinates she’d memorized from his file.

“Not anymore.” Brenda pulled a sleek phone from her bra. “The Serpent is back. He’s built a new network, and he’s targeting the suburb of Oak Grove for a test run—a dirty bomb hidden in the elementary school. Detonation: 3:00 PM. That’s four hours.” The nine-iron swung in a perfect arc

“Welcome to the neighborhood!” the woman chirped. “I’m Brenda. I live three doors down. Just brought you my famous tuna surprise.”

“Rough day?” he asked.

She smiled. And for the first time in a decade, she didn’t feel like a ghost. She felt like a woman who had saved the world between soccer practice and bedtime.