by Ronie Kendig
She stiffened, then sagged. “Mitre and I have been separated for more years than we were together.” Grief scratched at her features. “Maybe I never knew him. I mean, I knew his skills, encountered them regularly working for Hristoff. I just never knew . . .”
“You think you know his skills. There were two shooters tonight.”
“Right,” she scoffed, “which still means he killed someone.”
He held up his hands, conceding, seizing another thin thread of hope. “You went rogue on Hristoff, turned against him, and made something bad good.” He studied her, searching for some hope. “Maybe your brother is doing the same.”
She drew back, mouth open as if to argue, but said nothing.
“What? It’s okay for you to turn good, but not him?”
Scowling, she glowered. “I never said that. You just don’t know—”
“That’s right,” he shouted. “I don’t know!” The roaring in his head was as loud as his voice, and he had no idea why. “I don’t know because you keep holding things back. You act like I’m not grown up enough to handle things. As if you need to handle me.”
Iskra eased back, gaping. “When have I ever treated you like that?”
Guilt pushed his head down. He spun back to the window. Flung aside the curtain and placed his palms on the ledge. Stared down at the sandy stretch of that taunting shoreline. But for every positive thought, two negatives invaded. “I overlooked you using me once, but I can’t overlook your continued defiance of any trust I’ve tried to build with you.”
“Defiance!” Iskra stomped forward. “Do you remember that night I slept in your arms after your nightmare? Can you possibly imagine what that was like for me after what I went through with Hristoff? But I trusted you—wanted to be there for you. How about the fact that my daughter is with your brother because I trust you. I trusted when you said it would be good for her. Do you know how hard it was for me to do that? To leave her and come out on this mission with you?”
“With me?” He whipped around, the world bleeding red. “You didn’t come out here with me, remember? You diverted from some other mission. So don’t act like you’re making big sacrifices for me. Keep your freakin’ secrets if you want.”
She huffed and rubbed the spot between her eyes.
Her pain and frustration smacked him. What was wrong with him? Why was he so amped? He rubbed the back of his neck. Wished he could just jump into the ocean and never return. But if she could so easily turn against her own brother, after believing for her entire life that he was good, how much more quickly would she turn against him? Or maybe she already had.
No. He had no grounds to think that. Yet his thoughts were thick and aggressive.
“Mitre is six years older than me,” Iskra said in a soft, shaky voice. “Already he had escaped our father by the time I was sold to Hristoff, but Mitre did not find freedom. He found something far worse—an addiction to danger and violence. The last time I located him, it was to beg him to go back to Bulgaria, to our mother’s family. But even then he was not the same brother I had known, and I was not the little sister he knew.”
Leif really didn’t care about family squabbles. Rage vibrated through his blood, begging to be unleashed. He felt a dark desire to feed on weakness and more anger. He planted his feet, wishing they could dig roots into the marble floor, and closed his eyes.
“Next thing I heard, my mother’s brothers and sisters in Bulgaria were slaughtered.” She shuddered through a breath. “On my father’s encouragement, Mitre made a last visit to our mother’s family . . . to silence them forever so they could never again try to influence him. I tried to save my brother and killed my family instead.” Her touch was firm but soft along Leif’s spine. In the glass, her reflection seemed so perfect next to his. “I was already too late to save him. Yet I will not give up on him. I cannot not try.”
His heart thundered, banging in the dark recesses of his conscience, searching for that elusive hope. What if she found out the truth about him? Would she do the same and not give up on him?
Iskra wedged in between him and the glass, forcing him back. Words that sought release perched on her lips. She searched his gaze, as if looking for permission. Or maybe reassurance.
He couldn’t give it. Didn’t care. He should. The man he was should care. The soldier he was should care. But Leif Metcalfe didn’t. Not anymore.
“I think,” she said softly, “the answers you are looking for may be with Mitre and Rutger.”
CHAPTER 27
THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS
The hotel suite was wickedly quiet. Cell sat at the dining table, glad the team was grabbing rack time in the three bedrooms while they waited for direction from Iliescu or Braun.
Until he got that order, Cell would sit with his back to the wall and his eyes open. He might be crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. He could read. He could interpret data. And videos. With headphones on, he didn’t need to worry about anyone overhearing.
Except him. He had no business in this file or the others he’d accessed over the last several hours, but he was a veritable pit bull when he got a hunch. Granted, his hunches were notorious for being wild and out there, but they were—more often than not—accurate.
And holy traitors, he did not want to be right.
What if you are?
Then . . . then he’d need a plan. A really good one. Another reason he couldn’t front his theories, because using a separate system and different server, among other things, to hide his trail, he’d be strung up if the director found out he was still digging.
It was a risk. One massive step backward for Cell-kind. Like, right into a federal pen. His curser hovered over the play icon on the video. Please please please be wrong. He liked the guy. A lot. Most of the time. He considered him a friend, so that chucked the bad in with the good. But being a traitor . . . being a danger . . .
Stop guessing and get answers.
He clicked it. The first few seconds passed in relative silence, and the angle on it was bad, but that happened with piecemealed feeds. On the screen, Leif was hoofing it from the dance floor set up on the beach. He’d broken through the lattice to catch up with Vega. And the speed of these two—on sand!—was crazy. Leif dove into his back. Took him to the ground. Rolled. Straddled him and lifted a fist to coldcock Vega.
Only he didn’t.
Leif froze. Vega pummeled him, then spirited away, only to have another guy jump into the mix—Gilliam. Again, no confrontation. Leif released the guy’s shirt. Slapped at him. No, not slapped. It was one of those guy-pats. Like, I didn’t realize it was you. What . . . ? Wind garbled their words, but they were definitely talking. Cell backed up the video. Enhanced the audio, weeded out background noise—the ocean, the music, the shouts, screams—until he could make out some of the conversation.
“Carsen.” That was all Leif said when he saw the other man’s face.
Then Gilliam had the upper hand. Grabbed Leif. “Do you remember? . . . You must remember!”
Cell flinched, aware that was the moment Gilliam had been shot. But what did Gilliam want Leif to remember? Clearly he hadn’t been referring to his name, since Leif had spoken it. So, what? And why was he so adamant that Leif remember whatever it was?
Okay. No answers to that. Not yet. But he’d find them. For now, he’d save this puppy on a separate drive. Trolling through various emails and videos, he saw a new one populate the server. Strange. Where had that . . .
Oh snap. It was from one of the team’s phones. He checked the address. Leif. He moved his cursor away—but must’ve had too much pressure on the trackpad because the video opened. Played.
“I don’t know why you haven’t figured it out yet, but you’re the one who can stop this. You’re probably thinking I’m one of the Neiothen. I’m not.”
Cell’s heart thudded—that was Carsen Gilliam speaking. Why was he sending Leif messages?
“Well, I was. I went through the training. But I failed, star
ted cracking. So they tried to wipe my memories, tried to make me forget. That didn’t work either, though I let them think it had. They dumped me—”
The file blacked out. His screen blipped, and the video closed.
Cell backtracked to reopen the file, but it wasn’t there. Where had it gone? He searched the recent downloads. Not there. He frowned. Where—
Movement swept in front of him.
Cell strangled a cry, and his blood fled to his toes. Leif stood over him. Where had he come from? He could feel the color draining from his face. “Hey,” he managed shakily. “Scared me.”
Leif rapped on the table. “Know how you said once that you could find”—he motioned to the system—“anyone?”
“Well, n-not anyone-anyone.” Why in blazes did the question make him so nervous? Maybe because you were spying on his phone? Not on purpose, but still. “I mean, there are limitations to what even I can do.” A nervous laugh skittered through his teeth, and he wanted to punch himself. “Why? Who’d you have in mind?”
Distance grew in Leif’s gaze as he stared at Cell’s laptop. Had he seen Cell watching that video?
“Chief?”
Leif pursed his lips. “Never mind.” He walked the five paces to the kitchen, pulled a bottle of OJ from the fridge, and started for the bedrooms.
“Runt,” Cell called, feeling bad for spying and acting so stupid. And insanely curious who Leif wanted to track down. “Try me.”
Again Leif hesitated, glancing down the hall. Finally he closed the gap. “I only have a last name—Gilliam said it when I confronted him.”
Gilliam had said a name? Had Cell missed it in the feed?
“Harcos.” Leif took a swig of juice. “Think he might be one of . . . them.”
“You mean a Neiothen?” Cell wrote down the name.
“Kind of hard to know, since we don’t have the book, but he said the name, said I had to remember.”
“Huh.” Cell hadn’t heard Gilliam say anything like that. Maybe he hadn’t cleaned it up enough. “So, someone named Harcos.”
“Yeah.” The haze in Runt’s eyes was telling. And creepy. “Military. The name might be Hungarian.”
And he knew this all because Gilliam had said to remember? Maybe that made sense—how else would Leif know a possible Neiothen named Harcos if not through the military?
Cell made more notes—anything to avoid looking at Runt’s jacked expression. “I’ll check on it.” He tossed down the pen. “Let you know what I find.”
Leif nodded. Took a step, then leaned closer. “Keep this between us.”
Great way to amp the strain. “Sure.” Shrugging felt like dead-lifting three hundred pounds. “I mean, as much as I can without the agency knowing, since this is their system and they see everything.” He laughed, but Leif didn’t. “I mean—”
“Ya know what? Forget it.”
“No, it’s okay—”
“No.” His gaze sharpened. “I’m good.”
Concern carved a hard line through Cell’s betraying self. “What? You don’t trust me now?”
“I never trusted you.” There was no smile or mirth in Leif’s expression. Just a dark shadow. “You’re just good at what you do, and we need that.”
“Wow. Don’t spare my feelings or anything.”
“If you’re worried about feelings, you’re in the wrong gig.” Leif stalked down the hall.
Cell swallowed. Glanced at the notepad. Then his laptop. The video. Verifying Leif was really, truly gone and not lurking in the shadows, he checked again for the Carsen Gilliam video to no avail. Had Leif deleted it? But there should be something left on the server. Nothing deleted from email was truly deleted.
Which meant . . . He swallowed. There was no way Iliescu and his minions knew what he had on this laptop. He’d protected it.
Trying to shake the feeling of being watched, Cell replayed the feed video from the beach. Over and over and over. Trying to make out the full conversation. As far as he could tell, Gilliam had not mentioned a name.
Could it have somehow gotten caught on the comms chatter? The video was scratchy in a couple of places.
And there it was—Harcos. But not spoken by Gilliam.
Veratti: “I’m holding you to our agreement. Find the book. I told you what you needed to know.”
Leif: “Harcos.”
Iskra: “Who?”
Silence. Leif: “Vega. I have eyes on Vega.”
Leif had said the name. So why had he lied about where the name came from? They were a team, right? What in the name of all the motherboards was going on?
***
“Thanks for enduring an early wake-up.”
“This isn’t early, Dru,” Mercy grumbled, fingering the tangles from her hair as she plopped onto a chair at the table. “This is downright indecent.”
“We need to talk about your statement.”
Mercy paused and frowned. “My statement? I assume we’re not talking about my fashion statement.” She glanced at Cell, who looked like he hadn’t slept. Had he been up all night?
“What’s goin’ on?” Lawe slurred from the couch, where he was laid out.
“Maddox,” Iliescu said, “confirm for us that you heard Andrew fire a shot.”
“I did. I’ll never forget that moment and how powerless I felt.” She’d told them that before, along with the hefty dose of nausea that swept through her at the memory. And they were questioning her about it? “You don’t believe me?”
“On the contrary,” Iliescu said. “We’re just trying to be as precise as possible with this puzzle.”
“What puzzle?” Lawe asked. “I thought the whole situation was pretty straightforward.” He pulled himself off the couch and hovered behind Mercy. His deep, obtrusive voice drew Baddar and Culver from the bedrooms.
“I’m not sure I’d go that far, Mr. Lawe,” Iliescu said with a sigh. “This entire mission from day one has been one-upping us, and Andrew is no different.”
“Come again?” Culver asked, scratching his red beard.
Braun huffed, looking as haggard as they felt. “The trajectory is wrong,” she said. “Marking the room Ms. Maddox referenced, our analysts ran the scenario, and every time, the trajectory is off. Not just by inches, but feet.”
“But—” Mercy stuffed her hair behind her ear. “But I was there. Andrew fired the shot. The curtains even rippled with the tiny explosion from the barrel.”
“Perhaps,” Braun said with a nod, “but it wasn’t his shot that killed the Neiothen. And it couldn’t have been the one that killed Gilliam, because there was no clear line of sight.”
“Then . . .” Holding her forehead, Mercy was sure her brain would fall out if she moved or leaned forward. “Then he missed?” That seemed unfathomable.
“Negative,” Braun said. “We had a team at the hotel using metal detectors to look for casings, and they turned up absolutely nothing other than a wedding ring, bottle caps, and an earring. Nothing matching the caliber of a rifle round.”
“I’m with Mercy,” Cell muttered. “The more we dig, the less sense this makes.”
“To top it off,” Iliescu growled, “this morning we received a credible tip on another name.”
“I’m not liking this,” Lawe said. “Someone is puppet-mastering us.”
“What’s the name?” Saito asked as he joined them, looking determined.
“Before we give that to you,” Iliescu said, “can someone get Leif and Iskra? We’re going to send Reaper out.”
Saito frowned. “I’ll get them.” He stumbled down the hall to the bedrooms. He peered into one, then another, then swung open the bathroom door. “Houston, we have a problem.” He held up both hands as he returned. “They’re not here.”
Lawe and Culver shared a look.
“Think they went out for breakfast?” Devine offered. “I was thinking about it—too cooped up in here.”
“Negative,” Cell objected. “I’ve been up all night. They couldn’t have
gotten past me.”
“But they did get past you!” Lawe smacked the back of Cell’s head. “They’re gone.”
On the screen, Command’s end had blacked out. The bigwigs were obviously having a conversation without letting the children in on the secret. Mercy peered down the hall, wondering where Leif and Iskra had gone. When had they left? What did they know?
The screen flared to life again with Iliescu in the forefront. “Due to heightened security reasons, we want you out of The Hague immediately.”
Alarm spirited through Mercy’s stomach. “Heightened security?”
“Great,” Lawe muttered. “It’s called they’re looking for dumb Americans sitting around waiting to be arrested. Am I right?”
“Close,” Braun said. “You’ll have the itinerary on your devices. Once you’re en route, we’ll relay the intel. Until then, heads down and move fast.”
CHAPTER 28
STUTTGART, GERMANY
He was a Navy SEAL. He had mastered HALO jumps. But this—sailing off a building atop a hillside, letting the wind carry them across a thick forest toward the fortress-like estate of Rutger Hermanns—yeah, it amped Leif’s pucker factor.
Air tore at the wind suit, grabbing the edges and shaking it like someone trying to snap a bug from a sheet. Cold bit his face and nipped at the nylon he’d zipped into like an overripe banana. Landing in the right place wasn’t as easy as navigating a chute down, in his opinion. As his glider tipped and threatened to send him into a spin, he glanced at Iskra, who was all ease and elegance sailing above the trees.
He gritted his teeth and focused on not dying or being shown up. A plus would be landing with all body parts intact. Bruises and scratches he could handle.
She angled her left arm down and veered toward the trees. Close. Very close. His pulse seemed to shudder—or maybe that was his body in the buffeting air.
She’d said they would land in the woods, but he hadn’t given much thought to what that meant. That was what he got for being hung up on a name.
Harcos. Why had he called Vega by that name? Harcos was dead—in his dreams. Vega died in The Hague—someone different. But it wasn’t just a mistake. Something was . . . familiar. Like a song he couldn’t remember the lyrics to, but the tune played over and over in his skull, driving him mad.