by Ronie Kendig
“No.”
“I thought if you could just stay out of his hair, if you could stay quiet, he would . . . forget.” He lifted a hand in frustration. “But you . . . you were Iskra. You were our mother reborn. You could not let it be.”
Her eyes widened and blazed. “You blame me? For being sold?”
“N—”
“A child, Mitre! I was a child!” She pounded his chest. “Innocent, pure. Was I an easy kid? No, but neither did I deserve what Father did, what I went through.” Just as quickly, her confidence drained from her posture. “Or . . . did I? Was I that bad of a—”
“No,” Leif barked, inserting himself into their history. “Nobody deserves that. No living, breathing human deserves that. Ever.”
They both considered him as if just remembering he existed.
“Touché, Mr. Metcalfe.” Rutger Hermanns clapped, pipe dangling between clenched teeth as a lazy tendril of smoke rose from it. “Well said. Well said.”
Leif twitched, surprised to hear his name. Then irritation, so sweet a poison, rushed through him again. “What is this? What do you want?”
Hermanns crossed his legs and smiled, cupping the pipe. “Isn’t it obvious?” He grunted as he came to his feet and started for the door. “Come with me.”
“No way,” Leif called after him, knowing the cuffs would zap him.
“It’s quite safe, I promise. We have no ill intent.”
Leif held up his wrists. “Except to drug us and zap us crazy.”
“Oh yes.” Hermanns chuckled, then nodded to his man. “Release them.”
“This is not a good idea,” Andrew countered.
“What are you afraid of, brother?” Iskra growled. “That I won’t be quiet enough for you? Or are you going to kill us, too?”
“They’re dangerous,” Andrew said to his master.
“I understand,” Hermanns replied, his voice and gaze softening. “But it is time. We need them.”
Andrew turned, considering Leif. Wariness possessed most of his presence, but there was also anger. Uncertainty. He lifted his phone and swiped the screen a few times, gave them one last glance, and pressed it.
The cuffs clicked open, and with a quick flick, Leif freed himself. Of the cuffs and inhibition. He rushed Andrew.
Who produced a gun, leveling it at Leif’s face.
Leif drew up short.
“Stand down.” Confidence and willingness to pull the trigger seeped through Andrew’s every pore.
“Can you shoot us both? In time?” Iskra asked, sliding up next to Leif.
“Yes,” Andrew said without flinching as two more guards drifted into Leif’s periphery. He cocked his head. “Hands where I can see them, or you’ll take a nice long nap.”
***
“Do we have a bead on Leif or Viorica?” Lawe asked once they were thirty-two thousand feet above sea level and racing east across the globe.
“Not yet,” Iliescu said. “But we tagged them in London boarding a plane for Germany, which created some initial alarm and confusion, as we’ll soon explain. They landed, but we lost them in a crowd. They didn’t exit the airport, so we’re reviewing footage to find out where they went next. We hope to track them down and get them to rendezvous with Reaper in Taiwan.”
“Roger that,” Culver said.
“We’ve matched the name of another Neiothen. We have eyes on this individual, so we might actually be ahead of this one.”
“Heard that before,” Lawe said.
Braun nodded. “The Neiothen this time is Herrick Huber, a German lawyer.”
“Thus your alarm and confusion,” Devine said with a nod. “Leif and Iskra land in Germany, and we have a German sleeper agent to hunt.”
“Correct,” Braun said. “We thought Leif and Iskra had a head start on Huber. Either way, we now know their arrival there was irrelevant, because Huber comes from old money and has his own plane.”
“Let me guess,” Saito proclaimed. “It’s missing.”
“It is. And its transponder is not working.”
“I think I’m going to die of not-surprise,” Culver muttered.
“Dude, that’s from a kid’s movie.”
“Back on track, Reaper,” Cell said. “Two matters of interest. The first is that we have credible intel from a source who sent us this image.” A picture appeared on the screen of a merry-go-round with gilt etching splashed over its interior and exterior. “That is at the Taipei Children’s Amusement Park.”
“Come again?” Culver said.
“We’ve been in touch with Taiwanese authorities, and it seems President Kai Yi-Jeou is hosting a birthday celebration for his daughter there in two days.”
“No.” Culver slapped the table. “No, we are not doing a mission where kids are involved.”
“That’s mighty noble of you,” Braun bit out, “but the enemy is, so you’re going to leave these children out for slaughter?”
Culver uttered an oath.
“That is where you’re headed,” Iliescu asserted. “It’s a big tourist attraction, so you’ll be able to integrate without being obvious.”
“What about the text I got at the party?” Peyton asked.
“Oh!” Cell snapped his fingers. “I did some digging on that. Whoever sent it was not very savvy about hiding tracks. The IP address belongs to Bagram.”
“Bagram?” Culver repeated, gaping at the others. “Like, on base?”
“As far as I can tell,” Cell said with a nod. “It didn’t bounce after that, so that’s it.”
“Hold the freakin’ bus,” Lawe said, his face crimson. “You’re telling me someone on our side is threatening Pete?”
“More accurately, it’s entirely possible that someone on our side,” Iliescu growled, “is involved with ArC.”
CHAPTER 30
STUTTGART, GERMANY
“End these games,” Leif demanded.
“End them?” Hermanns scoffed. “My friend, they are just beginning. You think you are armed with knowledge and know what’s happening?”
“You don’t have a clue.” Andrew’s sneer morphed into disgust.
“Mitre,” Iskra said, her voice unusually soft, quiet. “Please. You cannot believe that working with Hermanns is right—or that carrying out the work of Ciro Veratti will bring any good to this world.”
Her brother punched to his feet and turned to Hermanns. “I told you this was a waste of time. Let me get the gun.”
“No,” Hermanns said, motioning for his apprentice to calm down. “Not yet.” He seemed distressed by Andrew’s agitation, but then something changed in his expression at those last two words. Resignation? Regret?
These two were quite the pair, and Leif couldn’t figure them out.
“We do not have time to wait for—”
“Andreas.” Hermanns raised his voice, and it seemed to startle him as much as it did the rest of them. “Please.” He let out a long-suffering breath. “You must forgive him. This has been a most difficult time for—”
“Why are you even listening to him?” Iskra railed at her brother. “He is with Veratti, with ArC. You are better than this, Mitre. You are—”
“I am not Mitre!” Andrew yelled. “I have not been him in a decade.”
“Our mother—”
“Is dead!”
“—gave you the name Mitre.”
“And our father gave me the name that carries me today—Andreas.”
“You are not this stupid,” Iskra shouted, her face riddled with a pain so similar to her protective anger regarding Taissia.
Leif decided to try deflecting to a less personal subject. “Why have you been tagging Mercy, luring her?”
“I never intended to harm your asset,” Andreas said. “But she . . .”
“She’s very good at getting in the way when she wants answers,” Leif said, his internal alarms trilling. “Like your sister.”
“Bright and beautiful,” Andreas affirmed. “It is what they look for.” He
glowered at his sister. “Isn’t that right, Iskra?”
Wait. What? Who looked for . . . ?
Her face flushed. “Do not think that I had any choice in what happened to me.”
“We always have a choice.”
“No!”
As their war continued, Leif’s mind migrated to the bipanel painting in his pocket that felt heavy. Or maybe that was his conscience for taking it. What if it was a million-dollar piece? He nearly snorted. Then he’d sell it on the black market and live comfortably with Iskra for the rest of his life.
The thought alarmed him. Startled him. Live with Iskra? Marry her? They were so far from that, it wasn’t even funny. She with her assassin fury, he with his black-hole secrets.
No, the world was too volatile, their futures too uncertain, to entertain indulgences. He could never settle until that gap in his memory was filled.
And what if you never figure it out?
The bigger fear—what if he already had figured it out?
Still, it just couldn’t be done, him and her. It was like trying to ride a bicycle without a seat. It would be painful at best, dangerous at worst.
His mind retraced the painting. The man in the gazebo with bodies strewn around it, some half in the ground, some skeletal. He internally winced at the dark images that connected to another scene to the right of a cemetery, littered with corpses that had made a mass exodus from some twisted crypt at the top. And to the left of that—
“Are you with us, Mr. Metcalfe?”
He yanked his gaze to Hermanns, irritated with himself for being distracted and with Hermanns for noticing. “Where else would I be?”
“I think it is time for some honesty.”
The thrum of hissed conversation between Andreas and Iskra quieted, both looking to the older man.
Her brother swung into the chair next to the German. “You said—”
“Trust me, Andreas.” Rutger Hermanns was used to getting his way and did not seem the kind of man to be easily maneuvered or manipulated. Indeed, he was probably the one who did the maneuvering and manipulating. Like now.
Hermanns drew on his pipe and squinted at Leif over the hazy coils of smoke. “There are some things you should know,” he said. “First, what is shared here must remain within these walls.” He smiled around another exhale of smoke, looking like a wizened wizard from some movie, save that his mustache and hair were not yet white-gray. “I should start at the beginning, with the Book of the Wars of the Lord and how I found it.”
“The first pages,” Iskra said. “They were found in the salt mines and—”
“But before that,” Hermanns said. “How did I know where to find those?” He was smiling like a child in a candy shop. “A painting. I happened upon a small paneled painting that told me how to find the book.”
Guilt pulsed through Leif, the bifold frame burning against his aching ribs.
“Since the discovery of the first piece of the Book of the Wars of the Lord, I have been intent on retrieving its entirety. I put untold resources to work in locating it.”
“Why not ask Veratti?” Leif challenged.
Another breath of smiles and smoke. “We are not as connected as it might appear,” Hermanns confessed. “It is true that I report to him, that I must answer to him regarding endeavors for the coalition.” He gestured to Leif with the pipe. “I will, for example, make him aware that you broke into my estate.”
Uncertain what that meant or what would happen to them, Leif glanced at Iskra.
“Come, come,” Hermanns said around a laugh. “I am too busy enjoying my pipe and conversation to be bothered with lifting a phone at the moment, which would put you both at risk.”
Was that supposed to comfort them? Leif regretted losing his Sig and KA-BAR to the guards. Did Iskra still have hers? Mitre was armed. Could Leif snag it and turn the weapon on them?
“As I was saying, yes—I must placate the master.” Sadness seemed to etch Hermanns’ brown eyes. “Keep him happy, which keeps his gaze turned away from us, unconcerned.”
“Sir—”
Hermanns again motioned for Andreas to be quiet. “Tell him about the facility. What really happened there.”
A hard edge slid into the young man’s face. He considered his mentor for a very long time before finally dragging his gaze to the floor. “I was at the facility when”—he glanced at Iskra—“you took her to the Pearl.”
Pearl of the Antilles. When Leif still didn’t think he could trust Iskra. When the book had been stolen right out from under them. When the Meteoroi killed one of his men.
Andreas continued. “We used the tracking devices on her and her phone to pinpoint the location.”
“I had no tracking devices!” she said.
“You did. Vasily put them there.”
An objection perched silently on her lips.
“Thankfully, I was closer than Veratti’s men.”
Thankfully? Closer? They were both tracking her?
“Getting into the facility wasn’t a problem, but—”
“Why not?” Leif resented Andreas’s cavalier attitude. “That facility—” Wait. “Mercy said she saw you on the Mount Whitney. That Admiral Manche basically told her to leave you alone.” He glanced between the two men, disbelief stoking the embers of anger. “Are you controlling the vice admiral somehow?”
“Let him finish,” Hermanns said, puffing smoke rings into the air and chuckling at his trick.
“There is a lot you will not understand and things I cannot explain,” Andreas admitted, “for security reasons.”
“Security? I have the highest clearance—”
“You do not,” Andreas countered. There was no arrogance or defiance in his words. Just fact. “If you did, we would not be having this conversation.”
Something snapped off, a piece of Leif’s confidence in Dru, in the system that had promised to find answers to his past. To fill those gaps.
“I got into the facility to retrieve the book, to bring it back here,” Andreas said, nodding to his mentor, “but it was already gone.”
Leif recalled what Iskra had told him about that underwater access, but the question—did Andreas know about it? One way to find out. “Who took it?”
Green-gold eyes held his, but there was an icy quality to them. And familiarity. They looked like Iskra’s.
No. No, Leif knew these eyes. Or maybe it was just the terse glower brother and sister were so skilled at shooting his way. But there was a message here. A question. A . . . warning.
“Nobody entered that facility without authorization,” Leif continued.
“There was a perimeter breach, if you will recall,” Andreas said, all too confident in what he knew. He sniffed, a hint of a smirk in his face.
And now, paired with what Iskra had told him, Leif understood. “But there was no breach.”
Andreas juggled a smile as he returned to explaining. “Like I said, there was only one way that book vanished.”
“Someone on the inside.”
“A powerful someone on the inside.”
Leif folded his arms, digesting that juicy tidbit. It echoed what he’d begun to sense about this whole mess.
“So you took the book from him?” Iskra hissed. “I shouldn’t be surprised—you’ve let me chase you all over the place. How could you do that? Why did you not—”
“You were dangerous,” Andreas snapped. “You not only put yourself in jeopardy, you played right into Veratti’s hands. Had I not intervened, he would’ve had the book. Earlier you said I was not that stupid, but you clearly—”
“I needed that book—to find you!”
“No, that’s not what you were looking for,” Andreas growled. “Is it?”
She recoiled.
“Is it?”
“Andreas,” Hermanns said gently. “Peace, Andreas.”
“She nearly ruined everything!” the younger man railed, his face reddening.
He was so different from the smoot
h operator Leif had encountered, which made him wonder if this reaction was because of Iskra. What had hardened him so much that he could not see how much Iskra longed to know and help him?
“The terror—the lives she has cost!”
Iskra lowered her chin, but not before tears filled her eyes.
That stirred Leif’s anger. “Is that all she is to you? A measure of bodies?” He stood. “I’ve encountered you. Mercy encountered you. Skilled, smooth. Yet here, you’re unhinged. Why? Is it guilt that you let your sister get sold like a piece of furniture?” His breathing was rough. “Or was the human side of you seared out by becoming a ruthless killer for ArC?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Andreas hissed. “If you knew—”
“Back off, man. She didn’t know!”
“That is no excuse!”
“I said back off.” Leif shifted into a fighting stance.
“My missions are tricky enough, going around Veratti and trying to find the Neiothen before—”
“Wait.” Leif jarred, the words reverberating. “Going around Veratti? Finding the Neiothen? Is that why you killed them in The Hague?”
Andreas ducked and expelled a very frustrated breath. “I did not kill them.”
Leif stared, his mind hurdling over that doozie of a barrier to clear thinking. “You were there. Mercy saw you take the shot.”
Andreas strode to the bar, glancing at his mentor as he went. A silent, unsettling conversation ensued between them.
“Now,” Hermanns said, setting his pipe in a bronze tray before he threaded his fingers and eased back, “it is my turn to talk.”
Leif felt as if fire ants were biting every last nerve. That and the stolen painting in his pocket. “I don’t know what your game is—”
“My game, Mr. Metcalfe,” Hermanns replied, his expression serene yet fierce, “is the most complicated chess game of my life. I am but an amateur playing against a master.”
Wariness held Leif hostage.
“Ciro Veratti is that master,” Hermanns went on. “A skilled, ruthless master. If he were to learn of my endeavors, I would no longer have a mouth from which to speak nor a head with which to so delicately weave a tapestry of espionage and betrayal that can only be detected by one intimately familiar with its fibers. I have labored on this effort for the last ten years.”