Darren started up the engine again and kept his opinions to himself.
It was best to, especially given the circumstances. It was why I was keeping my silence too. Our last mission was a bust.
We were supposed to be escorting Vlad Hanflick, a Russian scientist, to the U.S. We were supposed to provide safe transit for him and his research. His highly desired and coveted research on cold fusion.
The mission went to hell when his assistant was murdered. There was a raid on our facility by Balthazar and his spades.
That was two weeks ago and the result was a split. Vlad ended up fleeing the facility with one of our teams, and we didn’t know where they went. Days ago the team he’d supposedly fled the premises with had been found dead by the river.
No sign of him.
Not a damn thing to go on to find him, until last night when there was reported sighting of him and Balthazar in this area.
Vlad was hiding out here somewhere and the fact that Balthazar had stepped in meant the big players were out for blood, ready to do what needed to be done themselves.
So, things were basically next level bad.
We couldn’t allow that research to get in Balthazar’s hands. Couldn’t allow it for the obvious fact that it would be bad on all levels. Cold fusion was a hot topic as it was. The fact that the Ra wanted the groundbreaking research was cause for concern.
We got closer to the village and Darren parked at the start of the thicket of trees this time.
“That’s better,” Claire told him.
He cut her a sharp glance and didn’t answer.
She didn’t care. The woman had never cared who she pissed off. Her concern was her mission and I knew more than most that she was hellbent on finding Vlad and Balthazar.
If we got Vlad back in our care then that would be great.
I could at least calm the fuck down.
It was a hard thing though for a man to watch the woman he loved go into potential danger. Harder when the man was me, a guy who had no patience.
She got out of the truck first. The rest of us followed. She took the lead and motioned for us to go to the left, in the direction of the back alley streets.
While the guys moved forward I caught her arm and tugged her towards me, pulling her to a stop so I could say a thing or two to her in private.
This was me acting out as her boyfriend. Not her second in command. Second in command was a term that was used loosely because of the way she always took charge. It wasn’t that I was weak. It was just that you couldn’t get much more daring than her. And my abilities didn’t lie in leadership. I was the guy who did my own thing.
“What?” she huffed, gritting her teeth. In the oncoming moonlight her hazel eyes looked brighter, almost glasslike. Against her velvet brown hair her whole look was striking. “What now agent? I know you don’t agree with me, a little support back there would have been good.”
“You need support? Since when?” I was only half joking.
“Now’s not the time for games Xander.”
She was right and we didn’t have time to stop and have a heart to heart. I just
needed her to understand she had to be careful.
“Claire, I have a bad feeling about all of this. Please calm down. Please.”
Her eyes widened.
I never usually said shit like that so she knew I was being serious.
I didn’t wait for her answer. I started walking again and she followed suit as we joined the others.
It was difficult to work with her and difficult to have any kind of relationship with her.
Harder in times like these. I wasn’t the flowers and chocolate kind of guy, not one bit. It could have been due to my upbringing. Living life on the streets as a thief could do that to a person. It was times like these however that I wished for something more. Something different. For her.
She deserved it.
I saw the way she looked when I took her on that surprise trip to Paris for Valentine’s day. That was only a few months ago.
I knew then what I wanted to do.
One more year in the field. We’d get this bastard, Balthazar, and push this crazy assed pursuit under the rug.
One more year and I’d be ready to ask her to marry me. One year and I’d take her back to Paris, she’d think I was trying to recreate our last time there but really I’d be prepping for our future. One that I couldn’t say was going to be in the unit.
I wanted more too. Prior to joining up I was working hard to be captain in the marines. I wouldn’t lie and say that I joined the SMF for myself. I joined when I was invited to because I knew I could protect her. Maybe it was foolish, but it was what felt like the right thing to me. It felt true to me. Like I was being true to myself by protecting the woman I loved because our little unit had been formed to hunt The Ra.
I might have found myself while being part of the agency and the unit as a whole, but it couldn’t be my forever. It was the same thing as the Marines. There came a time when it was time to change.
Honestly my view on that was my time came around last year. Nothing in particular happened to make me decide it, it was just a feeling. Something that came to me when I realized how much I loved Claire.
As we neared the end of the alley way a strange feeling came over me, it was the place, it was too quiet.
Strangely too quiet.
It was a little village that should have been bustling with more life than this at this hour. Intel showed there was a tavern and a few shops that would have been closing for business for the day. The place was small and one of those cozy villages where everyone seemed to know each other.
It wouldn’t have been this quiet.
It was almost easier to get around when it was busy, but that wasn’t why we chose this time to come. We chose the time because we needed to move fast. Like Claire had said, we did need to kind of grab and go.
It was just… too quiet.
“Guys.” I hissed and they stopped.
Claire looked to me. “What is it Xander?”
“Something’s wrong.” I pointed ahead. “Where is everyone?”
We’d stopped a little way from the end of the alley and I could see I was right, there wasn’t anyone around.
I stepped forward and readied my gun.
Continuing ahead of the crew, I went right up to the wall at the end of the alley and gazed on ahead.
I really wished I hadn’t done that because I wasn’t prepared for the sight before me.
There was a water fountain in the center of the village. It would have been beautiful except that it was covered in dead bodies. Bodies of people who looked like they’d been skinned alive.
The sight…
The horrendous sight made bile rise in my stomach and my soul shriek away.
What was worse was they were all arranged in some sort of display, like a nightmare.
This was the work of Balthazar and his spades.
A tease of spades showing the darker elements of their powers. Teasing us like a calling card left by a professional criminal who couldn’t be caught. Showing they were sick mother fuckers who didn’t care for humanity.
All these people here…
What did they do to deserve this?
It was shit like this I couldn’t deal with. No matter how badass a guy was, this… was fucked up shit you couldn’t prep for.
Fucking hell.
Claire and the others joined me, dashing up to where I stood when they saw my reaction. Paul threw up instantly and John heaved.
A tear ran down Claire’s cheek.
I was about to say something when I spotted someone else.
There was one person who hadn’t been skinned. He was at the entrance to a little boutique sitting up by the lamp post.
Vlad. Our scientist.
That was him. I was sure of it.
I moved to him. It was a foolish move because I didn’t check out the place first, for traps or anything. I took on my usua
l daredevil persona and moved.
The bullet that whizzed past my ear just missed me.
It made me snap into action though and reach for my gun, aiming it directly in the direction the bullet had come from.
That’s when I saw him. On the roof, not ten feet away from me was Balthazar Kane.
Balthazar with a shotgun in his hand, a bright smile on his face, and his long black hair billowing out in the wind like a cape.
“Wonderful to see you Xander Cage.” His voice was heavy with his southern accent. “You guys shouldn’t bother. You won’t stop me.”
He pulled a file from the bag he’d been carrying. I already knew what it was.
The fucking research.
He had it, he actually had it in his hands. All that work to protect Vlad, and shit, this was what happened. Vlad had a hole in his head and the enemy had the research.
The thing was Balthazar only made his presence known for some sort of reason.
What was it?
I glanced out the corner of my eye to check that Claire was safe and thanked fuck she hadn’t taken on that ballsy attitude of hers by following me. She and the other guys had taken cover.
“Why are we seeing you!” I roared. I wasn’t in the mood for his shit this time.
I’d seen this man a total of five times. Every time was a sort of heads up to something disastrous about to happen.
He laughed. “On the news tonight, we’ll hear how Vlad Hanflick, our clever scientist, was killed in an attack and how the entire village got blown to smithereens. Ten bombs going off everywhere. The question is can you get out in time or will you save the children in the orphanage? You only have three and a half minutes Xander Cage, tick-tock.”
I didn’t wait for him to finish. The motherfucker was a nasty piece of work. He’d put a bomb in the orphanage!
In my head I conjured up the map we’d seen of the area. The orphanage was near the lake house. There was a playground nearby.
In blind panic I moved swift like the wind. It reminded me of that first time I ran for my life.
I was sixteen and got involved with the worst crowd. Mobsters. They wanted me to pick something up. Drugs. It was a bag of drugs. The whole thing went wrong and they nearly killed me, nearly beat the life out of me.
I’d managed to escape. That was when Jack and Claire found me. I’d hid in their garage.
The fear from that time fueled my moves now because that was the first time I’d ever felt true fear. Fear that I would die. That I wouldn’t make it. It came to me now because it was that thing again, fear I wouldn’t make it.
All around me the bombs started going off. One, then another. It shook the ground making me stumble. I leapt over a bench and raced to the orphanage.
It was just ahead.
Just ahead.
I was almost there, my goal to get anybody inside out.
I could see people inside through the long French windows. There was a woman and a little boy.
The minute I registered that however the scene was wiped away from me with the blast of a bomb more powerful than the others.
It knocked me back, right off my feet. It knocked me but still I crawled forward. I kept going like I could still save them.
Disbelief took me.
I couldn’t believe I failed. I was sure it couldn’t have been three and a half minutes since I’d spoken to the bastard. Then it hit me. It wasn’t.
It was all part of his game.
I never had a chance.
I never had a chance and he wanted me to know I didn’t. He wanted to teach us a lesson.
We couldn’t stop him.
I couldn’t.
Chapter 9
Xander
Present day …
My first reaction was to contact Ethan and Wes for an emergency meeting.
It was no damn coincidence that we knew The Ra was involved and I saw Balthazar today.
Over the last few weeks we didn’t link his association because The Ra were so vast and there were so many groups of them all over the world.
Now I was for damn certain that he was involved.
The sight of him meant that things were next level bad.
In five years I’d never come close to seeing the man.
To date I’d spent over two million on various missions Wes and I had planned to find him. That was how much I’d spent to get a possible sighting of one of the most notorious terrorist associates and came back with shit.
Nothing every time.
Yet, today he was just simply at the casino. Right there out in the open like the everyday person who went there for fun.
The man had been looking at me, looking at me from across the other building. Right in my line of sight, but so far away.
Far away and positioned in a way to remind me that I couldn’t catch him.
Fucking asshole!
Wes and Ethan were already at the warehouse when I got there.
They knew it had to be serious for me to call this meeting because I was supposed to be floorwalking the casino.
“What happened?” Ethan asked.
“Balthazar Kane. That’s what happened. I just saw him, forty minutes ago at the casino. The man looked at me like we were just passersby and took off.” I wasn’t the sort of guy to blurt in a babble but that’s what I sounded like.
Ethan turned pale and Wes’ mouth dropped open.
“What the fuck?” Wes gasped.
“Yes what the fuck indeed.” I frowned and kicked out at the waste paper bin by the table. It flew across the room and crashed into the wall.
“Xander calm down.” Ethan had the audacity to say to me.
I glowered at him. “What do you fucking mean by calm down?”
I was ready to explode. Ready to explode and take the building down with me.
“This has just become worse but you need to calm so we can focus.” That was his answer. “Did you get close to him at all?”
“No, he was in the other building adjacent to the coffeehouse. I wouldn’t have reached him. He knew that. It’s just like the past Ethan. He was screwing with me, making me run after him, knowing I wouldn’t make it.”
Just like the mission to save Vlad and the orphanage…
The disaster that happened there was something I would never get over.
Knowing you had no chance to save people you knew were minutes from death. Children.
It was stuff like that why I didn’t talk much. I had too much shit on my mind.
All bad. All packed with death. Too much death.
Now there was this.
“I think we need to just focus,” Ethan repeated.
“Like fuck,” I cut in before he could continue that shit about focusing. “Ethan this is a whole other playing field. You and I both know that man only makes his presence known for some reason. The question we should be asking ourselves is what. What is the reason? And, what do we know is in Vegas that this prick could want? The fucking blueprints that Giovanni has. That’s what! The shootout and everything that’s happened so far is all linked to him. It’s him Ethan, not just the Ra in general on their own. It’s Balthazar and The Spades.”
My damn heart was beating so fucking fast I thought it was going to leap out of my chest. The more I thought about all of it, the pieces of the puzzle came together.
And as it did I thought of Jia. I was already worried about her. That worry had filled my soul the minute I knew of The Ra’s involvement.
Now it was so much worse. Balthazar wouldn’t hesitate to take her if he got desperate. The only reason why he probably hadn’t yet was that he’d seen some other way of getting what he wanted.
He’d get desperate though soon enough the longer Giovanni had the blueprints.
It just made me wonder what he could have been planning.
Why had I seen him today?
“How did he know about me? How did he know where to find me?” I asked blowing out a ragged breath. There was so much to f
actor in.
“Jesus.” Wes nodded.
“He must have been watching you,” Ethan surmised. “Xander, we have to get the prints as soon as possible and wrap this up. We can’t allow that man to get them.”
That fucking went without saying.
“The fingerprint mold should be ready for later. Give it another two hours or so. Giovanni needs me on a job tonight, so you guys go to the chamber ahead of me. Wes you take the lead.” I looked from Ethan to Wes. “I’ll meet you the minute I’m done.”
That was how we had to roll out the plans for tonight.
Ethan nodded. “Sure. I’m going to see what the other team on lookout can do, and intel. They may be able to run some searches on the area for Balthazar.”
That would help. “Do everything.”
“Of course, Xander, please focus. I know what seeing him means to you but focus. Balthazar is a very unpredictable man. His presence could mean anything. It could be a warning in the sense of showing you that he’s around and a player in this game.”
I didn’t think it was only that.
Something was coming. Something was about to happen.
I guess that left us in the same situation.
Move fast.
* * *
I returned to the chamber an hour after I did the drop off with Frankie.
It was two in the morning. The search while I was away was on the whole right section and the guys hadn’t found anything.
A search on the next section of a hundred vaults came up with nothing too. That took me and the guys four hours.
I couldn’t express how pissed off I was when we spent all that time to come up with nothing. Worse when I had to leave because I had to be at the casino for work in an hour.
Wes continued though with the other guys.
I planned to return again tonight if they weren’t successful.
The day was the longest ever and yesterday’s event with Balthazar had gotten under my skin in the worst way. I just kept thinking about Jia.
It worried me that Balthazar had just come into the casino. A place she worked. He’d come in as the essence of danger itself.
Only last week I worried sick that she could get taken by the Ra. Now I knew it was Balthazar all along the worry over her was amplified a hundred fold.
Tease of Spades: Game of Love Series Page 7