"Why would I do that?"

Amateurs , she thought.

Izzy stepped from the shadows. "Loud gets you killed. Quiet gets you the chip."

She bit into the chocolate. Another mission over. But somewhere in Vienna, a locked briefcase awaited. And Tajni agent Izzy was already planning her next disappearing act.

"Where's the rook?" she whispered. Not the chess piece—the meeting point.

"And what do you actually know?"

"Thank you." She vanished into the downpour, leaving the two men clutching at rain.

Her mission, should she choose to accept it (she already had), was to retrieve a stolen memory chip hidden inside a cursed, antique chess piece. The piece was about to change hands between a corrupt Interpol liaison and a Balkan arms dealer known as "The Collector."

"I prefer 'strategic listener,'" Izzy said, cuffing him with a polymer zip-tie. "Now, about that pawn…"

"You're giving it to me," she said. It wasn't a question.

Here’s a short story featuring the character Tajni agent Izzy (Secret Agent Izzy). An Izzy Undercover Story

At the National Library, a gutted shell of a building scarred by war, The Collector waited. He held the ivory rook, its base hollowed out for the chip. "Agent Izzy," he said, not turning around. "I expected someone… louder."

Izzy adjusted her scarf. In this light, she looked like a weary journalist. A flicker of movement reflected in her spoon. Two men, eastern European build, ill-fitting suits. They’d been following her for three blocks.