by N. J. Croft
But all he said was, “When do we do this?”
“As soon as possible. We’re running out of time. I imagine Harper is being held in the U.K. Even so, it will take at least twelve hours to get her here.”
“Okay, then do it.”
He moved behind Peter and unlocked the cuffs. Peter remained seated, rubbing at his wrists. Noah handed him back his cell phone. “Put it on speaker.”
Peter sat for a moment calming his mind, deciding what to say. He had one chance. If she picked up anything in his voice, his attitude, then this was over before it began. Harper would die. His heart raced; his pulse throbbed at his throat. He’d been in combat and not felt this much fear, but he needed to do this one thing right.
He punched in the number then listened to the series of clicks as the call was rerouted through scramblers.
“Peter?” He could tell nothing from her voice.
“Michaela. I have good news. I heard from Noah. He has the location of the tomb.”
“How did he find it?”
“Eve left the image in the safety deposit box in a hotel in Irkutsk.”
“I knew she had it.” He could hear the triumph in her voice, and even after everything that had happened, his heart ached at the thought of betrayal.
“He wants to make the exchange.”
“You’re with him now?”
“He called me. He wants me here so I can look after Harper if anything happens to him.”
“He doesn’t trust me. I’m hurt.”
“He doesn’t know you. But I can work the exchange on this end. Noah trusts me. ”
She was silent for a moment, though her breathing was fast. She was excited. “Darling, you’re sure he doesn’t know about us? He’s not playing you?”
“No. He’s too worried about his daughter. He wants her back in one piece. Well, two pieces. Apparently, they sent him her finger. There was no need for that. You said she wouldn’t be harmed.”
“I didn’t order it. I just told them to make it convincing.”
“Well, believe me, he’s convinced.”
“Okay, I’ll wait for him to make contact. The timing is close, but as long as we make it to the opening ceremony with the Banner and the Talisman in my possession, it will work. That gives us two days. You’ve done well, darling.”
She ended the call. Peter handed the phone back to Noah.
“She called you ‘darling.’” Eve’s tone held accusation.
He shrugged. “We’ve known each other a long time.” He sighed. He wouldn’t ask for forgiveness. He knew it wouldn’t be forthcoming, but he needed Noah to know one thing. “I didn’t know about Harper. I would never have condoned it. I would have found a way to stop her. You have to believe me.”
“Actually, I do. But Christ, Peter, how could you? How many innocent people have died? Over ten thousand in Germany.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Why? Was it money? Power?”
Never money. Personal wealth wasn’t something that interested him. Power, maybe a little. It was intoxicating, but not the truth. “Would you believe I wanted a better world?”
Eve snorted. Noah’s expression didn’t change. “I could believe that. What I find almost impossible to comprehend is that you stayed with them after they showed their true colors. How could you support an organization that killed so many indiscriminately?”
“It was never indiscriminate. You know that. You’ve always known it. You saw the patterns. Each attack was carefully thought out, with a purpose. They’ve been putting the pieces in place for eight hundred years. They might have killed, but it was never without reason. Is that so different than war? So different from the bombing of civilian targets during the Second World War? Than Hiroshima that killed thousands yet ultimately saved millions?”
It was an argument they’d had so many times. Trouble was he was no longer sure he was right. But he owed Noah to maybe try and explain. “I met Michaela Clayton when I was twenty-one.”
Shock flared on Noah’s face.
“We met at a political rally. I can’t even remember what it was about. We were both at Harvard. She was studying political strategy. She had opinions about everything and a dream of a better world.”
“Did she mention collateral damage at that point?” Eve asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Torture? Mutilation?”
Strangely, he believed that Noah could forgive him, if they had long enough—say, a million years. However, Eve would never forget or forgive.
“No. We were lovers for two years before she told me about the Descendants. By then, I was sold on the idea. You don’t understand how…exciting it was. To have a direction, a goal, and it was so vast. A global empire.”
“World peace?” Eve said.
He ignored the sarcasm, took the comment at face value. “Yes. And open trade. People could follow whatever religion they liked. Nobody would be hungry or go without medicine or education.”
“Wow,” she said. “You’ve almost convinced me. Maybe we’d better move on to the terrorism part. The part where thousands of innocent people die so your girlfriend can be ruler of the fucking world. You’re unbelievable.”
“I loved her.” He shook his head. “If I’m honest, I still love her. But love is never enough. And it was only later when things got…bad. Michaela was hitting a lot of opposition within the group. She needed to prove that she was the legitimate heir. She needed the Banner and the Talisman. Once she had those in her possession, no one would question her right to rule. And there was a time frame, and it was running out.”
“And that’s where I came in. How convenient that I was already researching the tomb.”
“I remember when you first mentioned it. Just after the two of you were married. At the time, I thought it amusing. Later, I thought it a way to get you…involved. To bind you to the cause. I’d always hoped that one day Noah would join us, so I introduced you to Michaela. She liked you. That’s how you got the funding to carry on your research.”
“If she liked me so much, then why the hell did she send John Chen to kill me?”
“He was never there as an assassin. He was there to protect you. We knew the Darkhats were watching you. The minute they believed you were close, they would kill you. And that’s exactly what we thought had happened.”
“And yet here I am.”
“I’m glad.”
She snorted in disbelief. “You talk as if this is still happening.”
“It will happen. Maybe not this year. Maybe not with Michaela. But it will happen. The Descendants are everywhere.”
“You know I have to stop her?” Noah said. “I can’t just walk away.”
Peter had suspected as much. “Then you will die.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Harper sniffed, a tear leaking from her eyes.
She couldn’t tell whether they were moving or whether the motion was all in her mind.
Whenever she woke up they gave her a drink that tasted funny and made her sleepy. Now, though, she was awake, and her hand was one big lump of throbbing pain. She bit back a sob. She couldn’t even look at the bandaged stump. If she did, then the sick crawled up the back of her throat.
How long since she was taken?
She’d lost track of the days.
She didn’t know how long it was since they had woken her up and hurt her. They’d filmed it on a phone, said she had to smile for her dad, and then they’d chopped off her finger.
It hadn’t hurt when they chopped it off, though she had screamed anyway. Things like that only happened in the movies. That had lasted all of about five seconds. Then it had hurt real bad, and she’d screamed again. One of them had stabbed her with a needle, and everything had gone dark.
It might have been better if she’d never woken up.
The one good thing was that he
r mom was dead. She’d never thought she would think that. But this would have upset her mom if she wasn’t dead already.
Her gran always said be thankful for small things.
Two men. A tall one and a taller one. Both dark haired and brown eyes. Round faces. Eyes like the pictures in her mother’s books about Mongolia. She hated Mongolia. And she hated Genghis stupid Khan.
Was this something to do with her mom? She’d always known that something bad had happened to her. The last few times they’d spoken—they’d Skyped while her mom was in Mongolia—something had been wrong. Her mom had changed. She looked both better and worse. For as long as Harper could remember, her mom had been afraid. She often woke up screaming. She’d tried to explain. That something bad had happened to her a long time ago and that she was trying her best to put it behind her but didn’t always manage to do a good job. After that, Harper had always been aware of the lingering fear in her mom’s eyes. Those last times Harper had seen her, that fear had gone. Replaced by another.
And then she’d died.
Her dad had come for them. She’d thought he wouldn’t. That they’d be alone. Or at least left with Gran and Gramps. But he’d come, and while she hadn’t let him see it—he had forgotten her birthday—she liked having him around. He was so big, and he made her feel safe.
She’d even liked the fact that her dad had a gun. That had made her feel safe as well. Whatever happened, he would look after them. And then her dad had disappeared. He’d promised them all he was going to be there for them. And then he wasn’t.
For days, her few conscious moments had all been in the same room. An ordinary-looking bedroom, not much light, with shutters on the window. And a small bathroom that they had made her get up and use each time she woke. At first she hadn’t been able to. Not with them so close. Then they’d said they would chop off another finger if she wet the bed, so she had forced herself. And then she’d thrown up.
Then last night everything had changed. They’d woken her up and made her get out of bed. Then they’d made her hold a newspaper in front of her and taken a photograph. And instead of the bathroom, they’d wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and half-carried, half-dragged her out of the room, down some stairs, and into the open air. She’d tried to look around, to get some idea of where she was, listen to the sounds, but she’d had only moments before they had shoved her into the back of a car. Then the stab of a needle and she had gone out again. When she’d woken, everything was different.
Except the pain.
She wanted to cry from the pain, sobs building up in her throat. She swallowed them down; she didn’t want them to know she was awake. She tried to think of anything but her missing finger.
Lucy and Daniel. They’d lost their mom, then their dad, and finally Harper had disappeared. They’d be a mess. They were so little. Not like her. She had to be strong for them. Get back to them. Except she was pretty sure the bad men planned to kill her.
And she didn’t want to die.
She bit back a sob and blinked a couple of times. She wasn’t back in her room. She was laying on a row of seats, the blanket still around her.
Now there was a continuous low roaring noise in the background. And above that the sound of voices. The two men were somewhere behind her. She turned her head slightly, the movement jolting her hand, which was cradled against her chest, and she swallowed a cry of pain. She didn’t want them to know she was awake.
The roaring changed, overridden by a whirring, clunking noise. And she realized she was in a plane. She’d only flown once before, when they’d moved from America to England. She’d only been five at the time, and she couldn’t remember it at all. But she’d seen enough airplanes on the TV to recognize it. She was flying somewhere.
Maybe they were taking her to her dad.
The noise was growing louder, and then the whole plane jolted, and she reached out with her free hand to grab onto something and only just stopped herself from falling to the floor. There was a roar in her ears now. Were they crashing?
She didn’t want to die, and the screams were building up inside her again.
But she could sense them slowing down, and finally, after what seemed an age, the plane stopped moving.
One of her guards stood in front of her. “Stay,” he said. Like she was a dog.
As he walked away to peer out of the window, she pushed herself up so she was sitting, pulling the blanket tighter around her as though she could somehow stop the shivering. Her teeth were chattering.
He said something to the second man who was still behind her. He stood up and came around to her, grabbed her arm, and yanked her to her feet. She couldn’t bite back the scream that was torn from her, and he shook her arm. “Shut up.”
She bit her lip until she tasted blood and choked the scream to a whimper.
The first man was pushing open the door now. Then he stood in the open doorway, watching something outside the plane.
Was someone coming?
Could it be her father?
She wanted that so much, her chest ached with the need.
Please, Daddy. Please, Daddy.
If he could just come through that doorway, then everything would be all right.
The man stepped to the side, and she squeezed her eyes tight shut. She couldn’t bear it if she was wrong.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The sun was just rising as they parked the vehicle at the edge of the airfield a few miles outside the city of Ulaanbaatar.
The plan was to get Harper and then get the hell out of there.
Part of Noah wanted to stick around, somehow get the senator to meet them and take her down. Alive or dead. She needed to be stopped.
They had talked and talked around it but could see no way to make it work if they rescued Harper. As soon as that happened, Clayton would realize Peter had betrayed her, and there was no way she would come to any meeting.
And rescuing Harper had to be the number one priority.
There would be time to go after the senator later. She would have nowhere to hide. And as soon as Harper was safe, Peter would contact the president and get the summit stopped. That would buy them more time. They would take down Clayton and then go after the Descendants. They had the knowledge to track them down now. To dig them out of wherever they were hiding. Peter would tell them everything they needed to know.
First: Harper.
“Where the hell are they?” he muttered. Had Peter lied? Betrayed them?
“There.” Peter waved a hand toward the deep blue sky. Noah stared and finally made out the small speck of the plane, getting bigger by the second. Some of the tightness around his chest eased. This was going to work.
Eve and Zach were waiting at the hotel. As soon as Noah and Peter had Harper, they would meet them there. Peter had arranged to fly them all back to the U.K. in a plane belonging to the Descendants, which was ironic, but Peter claimed it was the one way to get out of the country undetected. And right now he had no choice except to trust his uncle.
The plane landed, taxiing to a halt at the far side of the runway.
“Okay, we’re on.” Peter drove across the grass toward the plane, Noah crouching in the back in case anyone was watching their approach.
As they pulled up beside the plane, his heart hammered, and his mouth was bone dry. There was so much that could go wrong with a hostage situation. They would likely kill Harper at the first inkling that anything was not going according to plan. Or she could be shot in the crossfire. They had to be fast and careful.
Noah focused on the cockpit, willing the pilot to move. They needed everyone in the same place. Finally, the man got up and disappeared into the main cabin. Noah blew out his breath. “Pilot is moving.”
“Give me thirty seconds,” Peter said. “I’ll keep them talking and locate Harper. Then you come in, and we take them d
own. They can’t be allowed to get a transmission out or the country will be in lock down and you’ll never leave.”
Noah nodded. The plan depended on Michaela Clayton believing Peter was still loyal and that he had Harper. He would call the senator as soon as she was safe. While the ruse wouldn’t last for long, it would hopefully be long enough to get them out of the country.
This would work. It had to work. They had given him proof of life, a short video clip of Harper holding up today’s paper. She’d looked pale and fragile. Unlike herself, but alive.
As Peter climbed the stairs, the door opened, and a man appeared. He was medium height with short black hair and dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt. He stood aside to let Peter pass. Noah counted the seconds. As he hit twenty-five, the roar of a gun exploded inside the plane, followed by a staccato rattle of shots.
What the hell had gone wrong?
He was out of the vehicle, pulling his gun from the holster as he raced up the stairs of the plane. He kicked open the door then crouched down.
The plane had gone silent.
He peered inside; Peter stood in the center of the cabin. Two men lay sprawled across the seats, bullet holes in their foreheads. A third lay in front of the door to the cockpit. He’d been hit in the chest. Harper was nowhere to be seen.
He searched the cabin frantically, with increasing panic, pistol held out, except there was no one left to shoot. Dropping his hand to his side, he turned back to Peter. “Where is she?”
“Not here.”
The words didn’t make sense.