Life With Lola—Chapter One: The Last Order He Followed

June 28, 2026

Life With Lola • A RAYNMEN Universe Prequel • Written by Joseph J Washington

Chapter One: The Last Order He Followed

Lucas Montgomery lay above the ceiling line of the fourth-floor study and listened to the man below him breathe.

The residence belonged to a deputy trade minister with diplomatic immunity and a habit of reviewing encrypted traffic after midnight. Lucas had entered from the roof and lowered himself into the maintenance void above the study without disturbing the plaster.

Below him, Minister Rurik Orlov ended a phone call in Russian, poured a drink, and sat behind a walnut desk facing the dark windows.

The exits were unchanged. Main hall to the left. Private corridor behind the paneling. Balcony doors locked and alarmed. Security posted one floor down.

Authorized outcome: death.

That was enough.

Lucas slid the vent cover aside and lowered himself soundlessly until his boots found the crown molding above the bookcase. Orlov turned a page. Ice shifted in the glass. Lucas dropped behind him and closed one hand over the minister’s mouth before the chair finished turning.

His other forearm pinned Orlov’s head back. The man’s hands hit the desk once, hard enough to rattle the crystal, then weakened.

Seconds later, Orlov’s body slackened.

Lucas eased him out of the chair and drew a slim ceramic instrument from his jacket. A quick insertion behind the ear left almost no visible trace.

Orlov was dead before the glass on the desk stopped vibrating.

Lucas arranged the body to suggest a private collapse at his desk, then adjusted the lamp.

That was when he heard the change outside the door.

Not footsteps. Less than that.

A pause in the air under the threshold.

Lucas stepped behind the curtains with one hand already inside his jacket.

The door opened three inches.

A girl of about eight looked in, hair loose from sleep, a stuffed rabbit hanging by one leg from her hand. She saw her father at the desk and pushed the door farther.

“Papa?”

Orlov did not answer.

Lucas remained still, ready to move if she entered or screamed.

She took two steps inside.

Then a woman’s voice called from the hall in Czech, sharper now. The child looked back, hesitated, and turned toward the door.

“Papa fell asleep,” she said to no one.

The woman answered again, closer. The girl shut the door with the soft care children use in houses where adults matter more than noise.

Lucas waited until the hallway silence settled. He checked the corridor and left.

The upper hall was empty. A guard was moving nearby ahead of schedule.

Lucas crossed into a service corridor and pulled the maintenance panel closed behind him.

Halfway down the access shaft, a flashlight beam cut across the narrow space.

“Who’s there?”

The guard had not yet raised the light high enough to see him. Lucas dropped.

He hit the guard hard, redirected the weapon as it discharged into the wall, and knocked the man unconscious before the muzzle flash faded. Catching the rifle before it struck the floor, he laid it aside and continued.

By the time the first shout came from the fourth floor, he was on the roof.

A minute later he stepped into the back of a florist’s delivery van parked beneath a dead camera.

The door closed. No one congratulated him.

Handler Ward sat opposite, expression unchanged. She collected his equipment, scanned his wrist, and began the standard debrief.

“Confirm asset designation.”

“Montgomery, Lucas. Alpha-seven-four.”

“Mission status?”

“Completed.”

She watched him for a moment. “Did anything occur outside mission parameters?”

“No.”

The answer was logged without comment.

When the process was finished, Ward nodded. “Report for recovery interval. Remain available.”

Lucas stepped out. The van left before he reached the elevator.

The apartment assigned to him contained exactly what a body needed to continue functioning.

Bed. Shower. Clean clothes. Food. Tools.

Nothing personal.

Lucas showered, taped a scrape on his forearm, and sat at the table with his pistol. He cleaned and reassembled it by habit.

The Teams had taught him repetition first. The program had removed everything left over.

When he finished, he clipped a monitor lead to his finger and watched his pulse settle into the range they preferred.

Then he waited.

The summons arrived ninety-two minutes into the prescribed stand-down.

REPORT IMMEDIATELY.

No recovery window. No sleep cycle. No justification.

Lucas changed his shirt and left.

The briefing site was three floors below street level beneath a building that operated publicly as a private security consultancy.

Ward stood near the wall. Beside her was a silver-haired man Lucas had never seen, dressed in an expensive civilian suit.

“Asset Montgomery,” Ward said. “Sit.”

Lucas sat.

The man placed a thin black file on the table.

“This assignment carries elevated compartmentalization,” he said. “You will not discuss it outside approved channels. You will not record independently. You will not retain material after review.”

Lucas said nothing.

The man slid the file toward him.

On the tab, in block letters, was a single operational name.

LOLA

Lucas looked up. “Legal identity.”

“Unknown,” the man said.

“Unconfirmed,” Ward corrected.

“Operationally irrelevant,” the man added.

Lucas opened the file.

The contents were a maze of contradictions: multiple birth records, multiple identities, confirmed appearances after reported deaths, and evidence of access to intelligence systems across several governments.

Every page reduced to the same conclusion: female operative, highly skilled, unknown origin.

He turned the page.

There were compromised networks, burned safe houses, missing archives, and a trail of dead people connected to her by circumstance if not proof.

The classified annex was thin. That drew more attention than a thick one would have.

She was suspected of possessing information tied to a restricted federal program. Most of the details were buried beneath black bars and compartment codes, but one thing remained clear.

The priority was not retrieval.

It was erasure.

Lucas lifted his eyes. “Capture is not authorized?”

“No,” Ward said.

“No interrogation,” said the silver-haired man. “No negotiation. Verify identity and terminate.”

“If she has the information,” Lucas said, “retrieval is the logical priority.”

The man’s face did not change. “Your task is not to evaluate policy.”

Lucas looked back down.

That answer told him more than the document did.

He turned to the photographs.

Most were distant surveillance shots.

Then he reached the first clear image.

She stood beneath station lights, one hand on a leather bag, looking directly into the camera.

Not caught.

Looking back.

Her expression neither invited nor threatened. It recognized.

Lucas held the page longer than required.

Ward noticed.

The silver-haired man said, “Can you complete the assignment?”

Lucas closed the file. “Yes.”

Istanbul gave him mobility and concealment in equal measure.

Lucas arrived under a commercial passport and spent two days studying Lola’s last verified movements.

She had no pattern worth the word.

Safe houses changed constantly. Devices changed daily. Meetings only appeared routine when examined backward.

So Lucas stopped looking for habits and started looking for reactions.

On the third night he found the shape of her operation before he found her.

A municipal records annex near Karaköy showed signs of a carefully staged intrusion. The building offered multiple escape routes and excellent overwatch positions.

Lucas took the better one an hour before midnight.

From a rooftop across the street, he settled behind a broken parapet and watched.

At 00:17, a maintenance worker entered through a service door.

At 00:29, the same worker emerged onto the roof carrying a slim black case.

Not male.

The disguise was good, but not good enough.

Lucas watched her cross the roof and become real.

The surveillance photographs had not captured her presence. In motion, she looked less like a spy than someone who had survived long enough to stop wasting energy on fear.

She moved toward the western ledge.

Identity confirmed.

Lucas settled the rifle into his shoulder.

The reticle found her chest.

Clean shot. Clear line. Order valid.

She stopped.

Then she turned and looked directly toward his position.

Their eyes met through glass and darkness.

Something in Lucas’s body misfired.

Not pain. Not fear. Not hesitation in any form he had been trained to name.

Recognition without memory.

His finger tightened on the trigger and stopped.