Kings Falling

by Ronie Kendig

  Unless they were each other’s target.

  No way. You didn’t hardwire triggers in assets and activate them just to have them kill each other. Unless they’d already carried out their mission.

  People started running, some clearing the area, others lingering in morbid fascination. A woman staggered. Her hip struck a wine fountain. She faltered—seized in rigidity—then collapsed amid the wine’s crimson stream.

  Leif’s gut tightened. They’d missed it—poison. The missions were complete. The assets now liabilities, which was probably why they were killing each other.

  How did they carry out their mission? Poison the guests? How many poisoned?

  Leif thought back to the Book of the Wars. The way the Saudi king and crown prince were killed. The attack in China.

  Chemicals. They were always using chemicals. His gaze hit the wine and champagne fountains. “Cut the fountains,” he muttered into the comms, then more stridently, “Cut the fountains!”

  Peyton joined him, nodding. “I think we all had a glass.”

  Her words forced him to wet his lips, thinking of the sips Iskra had insisted he take. “They weren’t after mass casualties,” he said, trying to convince himself they weren’t all about to bite it.

  “What’s going on here, Devine?” A star marched toward her.

  Devine straightened. “Not sure, sir.” She frowned. “Are you okay? You look a bit peaked.”

  The general’s lips were discolored.

  Leif started. “Sir.” Surged forward, needing to know why he was targeted. “What is your job?”

  The general gaped. “I beg your par—”

  “Where do you serve in the Army?”

  “I’m retired.”

  “He’s the SECDEF,” someone supplied.

  Crap! “Samurai, I need you here. Now.” Leif pointed to a chair. “General, sit down.” He touched the older man’s shoulder. “Command, we need medical services here.”

  “Excuse me?” The general still wasn’t cooperating.

  “I think you were—”

  Crack! Boom!

  Sensing the line of the bullet aimed at his back, Leif dove into the general, knowing he was too late. They landed in the sand, and he searched for piercing pain.

  “Sniper!” Lawe shouted. “Down, down!”

  Curses flew. Leif heard two thumps.

  Once convinced he wasn’t hit, Leif glanced toward the commotion.

  Lawe raced to Elvestad. “Stay with me!” He grabbed fistfuls of sand and packed the wound.

  Another uniform knelt beside Vega. “Gone.”

  Beneath Leif, the general was gurgling.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS

  The unmistakable crack—albeit quieter than expected—robbed Mercy of any hope that this wouldn’t happen. That she wouldn’t witness a murder.

  Maybe he didn’t shoot a person. . . .

  You are not that dumb.

  She couldn’t think. Refused to move. Realized that perched at the window was a monster. He swept away, packing equipment with experience and precision. Just as he had killed.

  Surely authorities would be banging down doors soon. Once they figured out where the shot had come from. How long would that take? It required experts and measuring. In other words, time. Enough for him to get away.

  Deflated, she slumped against the floor. This was entirely too familiar . . . memories lurked in the dark shroud of her childhood.

  No. No, it wasn’t the same.

  She reached out and coiled her finger around the thin thread of faith to which Nonna Kat had encouraged her to cling. Closed her eyes and begged God to help her somehow make this right.

  How, Merc? You can’t bring people back from the dead.

  The air shifted, and a crisp scent teased her nostrils. She looked—and flinched to find him squatting over her again.

  “Hate to love you and leave you,” he taunted, “but I have to bug out.”

  When he lifted a knife from a holster at his belt, she tensed. Searched his eyes for intent. Would he kill her now, too? Fear tremored through her muscles.

  “Come now,” he scolded. “You’ve chased me enough to know I’m not a cold-blooded killer.”

  Um, beg to differ, Loki. You just sniped someone! Her gaze bounced to the window.

  He smirked. “Things are never what they seem. Neither are people.” He rotated his stance and went to a knee. Raised the knife.

  Mercy cringed.

  He stabbed it past her shoulder. A resounding thunk made her yelp.

  “You’re a smart girl. Find a way to get it and cut yourself free.” He pushed to his feet.

  Mercy glanced over her shoulder and found the dagger embedded in the leg of the lampstand. When she looked back at him, she caught only the last glimpse as he exited the room and closed the door.

  ***

  “Medic!” Leif called. The threat of the sniper very real, he dragged the general to the side and upended a table for cover.

  Saito dropped to a knee, accessing the general’s swollen air passage. With no doctor on-site and the general dying, he ran an IV, then did an emergency tracheotomy to open his airway.

  In minutes they were hurrying the general toward the street where an ambulance met them. Moving on the blacktop was easier than the sand, making their task faster. The EMT vehicle swung to a stop, and the rear door opened. They loaded the general in, his face splotchy. Saito relayed the one-star’s medical condition, vitals, and what had been done.

  When Leif turned back, he spotted a group of local uniforms coming toward him and stiffened, feeling oddly responsible for what had happened. That was how it might look to the locals, since Reaper was here without authorization. Explaining they had foreknowledge of the attack but were not behind it would be, at best, difficult.

  “Easy,” Leif said to the guys, hands still bloody from helping save the general.

  “Are you Admiral Braun’s people?” the local policeman asked.

  He eyed their combat gear and the tac vests they carried. Warily, he said, “We are.”

  The officer handed over the gear. “Some protection until we get this locked down. Two targets are dead.”

  Vega and Elvestad.

  “Nothing like putting on a vest after a shooting to make you feel safe,” Saito muttered.

  Unsure if the officer knew who those targets were, Leif kept his thoughts to himself. “Both expired?”

  “Yes, which means we can’t get anything out of them.” The officer didn’t look especially frustrated. “At least they won’t be hurting anyone else.”

  Lawe shifted forward, frowning. “The guy I worked on, you sure? I—”

  “EMTs verified,” the officer said. “They removed the victims to avoid having bodies laid out with this many spectators.”

  “You moved bodies out of a crime scene,” Leif repeated, disbelieving this level of stupidity. But when the officer squared his shoulders, Leif shifted tactics. “Who is the woman who fell in the wine fountain?”

  “Amalia Willems,” the officer stated. “She was the NATO Secretary General.”

  Leif mentally backtracked, rifling through the files he’d read on The Hague and NATO. Something like oil simmering in a pan filled his gut as he retraced her file. Willems had been the chair of the North Atlantic Council, the main political decision-making body within NATO. Which meant she’d overseen the political and military processes relating to security issues affecting the whole Alliance.

  And someone apparently didn’t like the job she was doing. Or Veratti simply wanted her replaced.

  “Who is the deputy secretary?” he asked.

  The officer smiled. “Italy’s Matteo Trevisan.”

  Italy. Why did his suspicions always have to be correct?

  Leif inclined his head. “Thank you—for the gear and the intel.” He thumped Lawe’s gut. “Let’s head inside and clean up.”

  “Clean up?” Lawe complained. “Have you—”
>
  “Seen my hands?” Leif held them up. “I have.” He glowered, raising his eyebrows in meaning, hoping the big lug would get the point. They were well across the beach when he shook his head.

  “What was that about?” Lawe asked, keeping pace as they reached the hotel.

  “Willems is dead, so the deputy secretary takes over—that’s Trevisan. Who’s Italian.” Leif balled his fists. “And who’s prime minister of Italy?”

  Lawe growled. “Ciro Freakin’ Veratti. So all this—you think it’s connected, that Trevisan is a puppet. This attack is ArC.”

  “Of course it’s ArC.” Leif gave a cockeyed nod. “It’d be a colossal coincidence otherwise. Think about it—Trevisan is now NATO’s key player, putting all that power in Veratti’s hands.”

  Leif stalked to the back of the hotel, his mind rattled. Why had Gilliam come here? Only two initiation codes went live. And Carsen seemed to know what was going on instead of being brainwashed like the rest. How? Did he have a target here? Had that person survived?

  “Here,” Culver said, stuffing sanitizing cloths into Leif’s hand.

  Leif made quick work of cleaning up, but his mind wasn’t doing so well with the intel or the nagging that said something was off. How on earth could they know if Gilliam had been here for a target?

  “You got that same buggy feeling I do?” Lawe asked as they entered a side entrance of the hotel.

  “Yeah.” Leif deposited the cloths in a bin, deciding that would have to be good enough for now. Where was his team?

  The noise of a vibrating phone made him glance at Devine, who’d fallen in with them. She lifted it from her small purse and eyed the screen. Sucked in a breath.

  “What?” Lawe asked, every protective urge no doubt rising up.

  “We must be getting close,” she murmured, her face white.

  “Why?”

  She showed them the screen.

  Stop interfering or you’ll be next.

  Ticked, Leif keyed his comms and motioned them into the hotel. “Cell, can you track the message that just hit Coriolis’s phone?”

  “Uh, on it.”

  He spotted Iskra walking toward them, blinking rapidly. She hesitated. Frowned and looked back in the direction from which she’d come—a long hall with flowery wallpaper.

  “Iskra?”

  She met his gaze.

  “You okay?”

  She lifted her jaw. “Are any of us?”

  Something in her gaze was off, too. There was a lot of that going on around here. “You sure?”

  She sighed. “No. I thought . . .”

  “Runt! Runt!”

  The shout drew him around.

  Face flushed, Mercy flung herself across the south entrance lobby, wild and frenetic. In the two seconds before she reached him, he saw the bruise on her cheek and wrists. A trail of blood.

  Rage rose up inside him. “What happened?”

  “Andrew,” she heaved. “Andrew was here. When I chased him, he drugged me. He tied me up and held me hostage in the window.” She screwed up her face and shook her head. “No, he didn’t hold me in the window, he was in the window, watching. But he tied me to a column and duct-taped my mouth. I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t stop him.” Eyes glossy, she gulped air, her face flushed—wait. She’d said duct tape. What he thought was a flush could be tape burn.

  “Slow down, Mercy. What—”

  “Andrew shot them!” she shriek-growled. “Right there. Right there in front of me. One second he was watching, and the next he was pulling the trigger and and and”—she waved her hands, brows tangled in despair—“he shot them!” She flung her hand toward the door, tears sliding free. “The two men on the beach.”

  “Mercy, they weren’t shot by a sniper. They shot each other.”

  She blinked. Jerked straight and scowled. “No . . .” She drew out the word. “I was there. He fired a shot. Then he left me—well, he left me with a knife, then fled.”

  “A knife?”

  She held up her hands. “To cut my bonds.”

  “So he didn’t hurt you?” Leif eyed her cheek.

  “Yes, he hurt me!” she nearly screamed, then sagged. “But not really. He just”—she squeezed her shoulders and shuddered—“held me there while he did the deed. He said I was getting in his way.”

  Leif had no idea what to do with this information, though his gaze probed the surrounding darkness, the elevated angles. Andrew wouldn’t be up there still. “Where was his nest?”

  She pointed across the beach. “Third floor.”

  “Why didn’t he shoot her, if he was willing to snipe someone?” Lawe asked.

  Baddar came in through the door, and when his gaze fell on Mercy, the knots and tension in his expression vanished. “Praise God,” he exclaimed as he went to her. “Are you okay?” He cupped her face. Stepped back to visually inspect her. “What happened?”

  “I’m okay,” she said, apparently embarrassed by the attention. But her mojo returned. “He’s here, Leif. He’s here, and we have to find him. He can’t get away with killing those men.”

  Frustration tightened his muscles. Mercy claimed Andrew was responsible, but Leif’s instinct said he wasn’t. “He didn’t kill them.”

  Too many things to process. Too many things that didn’t make sense. Too many people dead. Too many losses. He balled his fists, feeling this thing sliding completely out of his control.

  “How do you know? Were you there?” Mercy demanded.

  “Yes!” he barked.

  She flinched. “You were?”

  “You said Andrew fired ‘a shot.’ One.” He narrowed his eyes. “Just one?”

  She hesitated, wondering at the question. “Yes.”

  “Two men went down. You’re sure Andrew only shot once?”

  “I . . . yes.” She glanced at the others, confused. “I don’t understand. If not them, then who’d he shoot?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” Leif huffed.

  “Mercy.” Iskra’s voice was soft, strained. “What does Andrew look like?”

  Mercy shoved her hair back. “Are you kidding me? I’ve told you a dozen times.”

  “Specific, please,” Iskra insisted, peering down that hall again.

  “What?” Leif asked, pouncing on her tension and the direction of her gaze. “You see something?”

  She stared back at Mercy. “Eye color, nose, jawline, anything.”

  Hands in a wild dance, Mercy tried to explain. “Strong, square-but-not-quite jaw. A slight rise in his nose.” She considered Leif. “Sort of like yours, but not as much.”

  “Eyes?” Iskra pressed. “Were they light green, maybe go—”

  “Golden.” Mercy drew back when they both spoke the same word. “He had a beard. Could be Clint Eastwood’s son.”

  Iskra’s chin lifted.

  “What’s going on, Iskra?” he asked.

  “Here,” Lawe said, angling in with his phone, on which he’d pulled up a picture of the actor. “That’s Eastwood.”

  Iskra sucked in a breath and turned away.

  Leif stepped in front of her, surprised when she lowered her forehead to his shoulder. “Talk to me.”

  When she straightened, tears spilled down her cheeks. She looked around as if she couldn’t find a safe haven. Red rimmed her eyes. “I think . . .” Her gaze collided with his and revealed a twisting agony there. “It could be my brother. Andrew could be Mitre.” She whimpered. “I chased him—twice. He fought me. Hit me.” She shuddered. “I did the same to him.”

  “Your brother is Mitre,” he countered, knowing a name had little meaning in the covert world. “Why now? What makes you think this now when we’ve been chasing him for months?”

  She bunched her shoulders. “I do not know. Something just triggered—then Adam showed me that picture. I saw Mitre in that face, too.” She choked back a sob and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “Vasily told me the book would lead me to Mitre. He knew.” She muttered someth
ing in Russian. “Vasily knew Mitre was a Neiothen, not just part of some big army.”

  “And a sniper, apparently.” Leif tucked his chin, thinking. Recalling. He started for the side door, his thoughts roiling and champing for confirmation.

  “What is it, Chief?” Lawe asked, trailing him.

  Leif trudged across the sand to where the forensic team was still processing the scene. He approached the officer who’d provided the tac vests. “Hey. Got a minute?”

  The policeman stood. “Yes?”

  “The weapons from the victims,” Leif said, “are they bagged yet?”

  “Let me check.” The officer trudged over to where others were collecting evidence and taking pictures.

  “What’re you thinking?” Lawe asked quietly as Culver joined them. “I mean—we were right there. We saw them both get shot.”

  “Yes,” Leif said. “They were both shot.”

  Lawe looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “Hang on.” Moving to a photographer, Leif pointed to the painted outline where Vega had fallen. “That victim. Do you have photos of his body?”

  The photographer pulled them up.

  Lawe scowled. “What’s this? I was there—”

  “You were with Elvestad,” Leif said as they studied the images.

  “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit,” Culver muttered. “Mirrored.”

  Leif nodded as the officer returned with another policeman—apparently the one responsible for the weapons being properly secured—and two bags.

  “Please do not touch the weapons themselves,” the second officer said.

  Nodding, Leif opened the bag, lifted it to his nose, and sniffed. Just gun oil. He handed it back, then did the same to the other, marked as the gun from Victim 2. He sniffed and caught a strong chemical odor. This gun had been fired. “Whose was this?” He handed it back.

  “Second victim. ID’d as Harald Elvestad,” the tech said, pointing to the farther position.

  “Thanks.” Leif headed back toward the hotel.