by Amity Cross
I glanced up to say a little prayer, and that’s when I saw the block of C-4 explosives stuck to the wall. The red LED display read seven minutes and counting. 6:59… 6:58…
Fuck. Kneeling beside the fallen guard, I rifled through his pockets until I found the encoded keys that would get me inside the holding cells. I had to check if X was in there.
Swiping the card through the reader, the light flashed green, and I shoved my way inside. As soon as I stepped into the clinical room, I felt his presence. It drew me forward like a magnet, and my heart began to race even faster as his gaze met mine.
“Mercy,” X exclaimed, wrapping his hands around the bars.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” I asked, shoving the key in the lock. Unlike the first, it was an electronic skeleton key, encoded to each cell. I had to insert the column into the mechanism and turn. There was a click, and I wrenched the door open.
“Moltke,” he replied, taking the keys from me.
That’s when I saw who was in the cell next to him, and my heart skipped several beats. “Lorelei?”
She just stared at me, her eyes glassy. She looked like shit.
“X,” I said as he unlocked her cell. “The guard is dead. That’s how I got the keys.”
“What?” He frowned, looking totally perplexed.
“We need to get out of here,” I said, urging him to hurry up. “There’s a block of C-4 on the wall… With about six minutes and counting down on the timer.”
“Fuck,” X cursed and scooped Lorelei up into his arms.
“What?” Lorelei stirred, suddenly realizing something was happening.
“I told you I’d get you out of here,” X murmured to her as I ushered them forward.
The hall was empty, the block of C-4 still stuck to the wall like a spitball of death, the timer counting down to boom time.
X set Lorelei on the floor, leaning her back against the wall. Inspecting the wiring looping in and out of the explosives, he shook his head. “I can’t deactivate it. It’s on a loop, and if I break the circuit…”
Boom. I’d been through ballistics training. I knew the amount of C-4 on this wall was enough to blow out a support beam of a building about the size of the one we currently stood in.
“There’s no telling how many others are set,” X went on, mirroring the conclusion I was coming to myself. “I could get one, but the others…” Because there wouldn’t be just one down here. There’d be others set around the building. Someone was trying to bring down Section Seven…literally.
“X,” I said, my heart beginning to thump wildly in my chest.
“We need to get out of the building,” he commanded, picking up Lorelei again. “Now.”
We stepped into the elevator and I thumped the button for the ground level. I’d have to pull the alarm on the way out. In the event of an emergency, the elevators were shut down, and they were the only way to access the lower levels. We had to get to the ground floor before I could raise the alarm, or we’d be blown into itty-bitty pieces.
“X,” I said as the car began to rise. “We don’t—”
“Don’t say it, Mercy,” he snapped, interrupting me.
We didn’t have enough time to get anyone out.
“It was Moltke, wasn’t it?” I asked instead as the numbers on the display ticked over.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We’ll figure it out if we can get out of here,” he shot back as the doors slid open with a cheery ding that was totally out of place considering our predicament.
Launching myself out of the elevator, I almost slammed headfirst into Jackson.
“Oh, hey,” he said. “I’m just going out for a kebab. Can I get you guys anything?”
There was no time to ask him why he thought a kebab at nine a.m. was a good idea. Grabbing his arm, I wrenched him toward the door, pulling the fire alarm. Klaxons and wailing began to go off, but deep down, I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
“Hey!” Jackson exclaimed, his gaze flicking from me to the fire alarm, to X, and finally to Lorelei. “What—”
Without breaking stride, I pushed him out the security entrance and into the misty London rain. “Run!”
He stumbled, still unaware of the danger he was in. Fisting my hand around his tie, I pulled him along behind me as we sprinted down the alley and around the corner. Behind us, Lorelei bounced in X’s arms as we tried to get clear of the blast radius.
A deafening boom split the air, sending debris flying, and an unbelievable heat seared my back as I flung myself over Jackson. We fell in a heap on the footpath, huddled just around the corner—I hoped it was far enough to get out of this alive. Didn’t matter the condition as long as we were still breathing when the dust settled.
Lorelei landed beside me, and X curled his body over hers as glass and rubble exploded over us.
Time seemed to slow down as hellfire rained down on our backs, debris opening hundreds of tiny cuts in my clothes and tearing into the skin below. Rock pounded against my flesh, bruising right to my bones. It seemed to go on forever, and I found myself praying for an end to the carnage.
My ears rang, the sounds of passersby running and screaming on mute as I shoved myself to my knees. Traffic had come to a standstill. Cars and buses had crashed into each other, and some had even borne the brunt of flying masonry. I’d seen a building blown up before—X had leveled Lafayette’s wine bar in Paris—but there hadn’t been any bodies then. I couldn’t think about that…I couldn’t think about it, or I’d never be able to get up.
Jackson stirred beneath me, his clothes covered in dust and grime. I fell back against the wall behind me and thanked fucking God that the stupid bank next door had walls strong enough to protect us from most of the blast.
I slapped X on the arm, and he knelt before me. Holding my face in his hands, he placed a hard kiss against my lips. He was okay. I was okay.
Lorelei, I mouthed.
X nodded. She’s okay.
Knowing his ears were probably ringing just as bad as mine were, I got out my phone and tapped in a message, my hands shaking. Lorelei needs to get out of here before the emergency services arrive. Turning the screen to him, he nodded again and took the phone from me.
His message was simple. The cottage.
I nodded and deleted the text. X pointed to me, then to Jackson, then to himself and Lorelei. He’d take care of her, and I’d take care of him.
He turned to Lorelei and scooped her emancipated body into his arms before pushing to his feet and disappearing into the haze.
“Jackson,” I said, my voice still muffled. My hearing was starting to come back, but that god-awful ringing was still there.
His hand came down on my shoulder as he climbed to his feet. Wobbling, he leaned against the wall and wiped the dust from his face. His forehead was bright with blood, the color looking odd against the ashen color of his skin.
He stumbled forward, making his way toward the place where Section Seven used to be.
“Jackson, wait!” I called out as I scurried to my feet, but he didn’t stop. Following his path, I climbed over a pile of rubble and came to a halt, my gaze colliding with what was left of the Section Seven headquarters.
I felt sick.
Jackson’s mouth fell open, and he began to shake as he stared at the destruction. “What…”
Most of the building had come down, the insides of the east wall still intact with filing cabinets and desks perched precariously over the smoking crater. It was a full-scale war zone.
The work day had been well under way, the offices full of agents and clerks going about their jobs, sacrificing their happiness for the greater good… There had to have been two hundred people in there.
I was too late. I couldn’t save them.
Color and beauty, color and beauty, color and beauty…
Sirens wailed in the background as the cavalry swarmed toward us. I reached out for something to hold onto before I fell and fo
und Jackson’s hand.
“A kebab saved my life,” he declared. “A fucking kebab.”
Chapter 4
X
Later, Mercy told me about the hole that once housed Section Seven.
Thinking about Mei, I began to regret the way I’d taken advantage of her since I’d come back into her life. She was gone, but so were a lot of other people. No one from my old life, apart from Jackson, still drew breath. The deeper I went into my existence as an agent, the more of my old self I lost. Oliver Cassel was dead in name, but his soul still clung onto that of Xavier Blood, trying to co-exist with the monster. I’d always tried to be one or the other, but in recent months, I’d attempted to be a mixture of both.
Seemed like I was destined to be X after all. What a fucking way to find out.
Mei… She didn’t deserve her end. Moltke would pay one way or another.
I sent Lorelei to the cottage in Exeter on the proviso she made herself scarce once she was well enough to travel. Then I executed the back door protocol that would take me into MI6 headquarters where I found Mercy waiting for me.
She wrapped her arms around me and sank against my chest, oblivious to the commotion around us. The office was in full throttle in the wake of the bombing. Screens were alive with news reports and images of the rubble that used to be an office block in the financial district of East London known as the City.
“Okay?” Mercy asked, wanting to know if Lorelei was away safely. The last thing we needed was her embroiled in this and unable to get to Vaughn.
“Okay.”
I glanced up as a suit tapped me on the shoulder and gestured for us to follow him through the office. He was a tall guy, probably in his mid-thirties with short, cropped black hair and a no bullshit look about him. He had to be a high-ranking agent of some kind…and our contact in the event of Section Seven’s demise.
MI6 had a protocol for every possible scenario, even their black ops divisions, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had one for leaving your desk to take a shit.
As we were led into a private office and closed inside with the agent, the din was muffled through the walls lined with television screens showing much of the same footage playing outside.
“Blood, Reid.” The agent nodded at us before undoing the button on his suit jacket and leaning against the edge of the desk. “I’m Agent Alexander Folsom. I’m head of MI6’s International Anti-terrorism Taskforce, codenamed Black Heart…and I’m your handler.”
“You knew about Section Seven all this time?” I asked.
“Section Seven isn’t so secret anymore, Agent,” he replied. “Not since its director turned the entire building into matchsticks, but yes. In the event of a breach of operations, I’m the appointed contact at MI6 to handle the transition.”
“Those matchsticks were two hundred people,” I snarled.
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t falter. “Two hundred valuable, honorable, irreplaceable British citizens.”
Mercy’s hand found mine, and she pulled me down into the chair next to her. I hadn’t even noticed she’d sat. I’d been so intent on holding in my rage my world view had narrowed to what was right in front of me…and that was the path to blowing Moltke’s head right from his shoulders for murdering all those people. And Mei. Fucking Mei.
“The Prime Minister is declaring the bombing an act of terrorism,” Folsom said, watching my mannerisms carefully.
“And how does that affect our response?” I asked.
“It doesn’t. We want Moltke to be held accountable for what he’s done, but we also want to know his end game. There may be more to this than just destroying Section Seven.” Agent Folsom leaned over and pressed a key on the tablet beside him. A surveillance image flashed onto the screen next to one that displayed Moltke’s personnel file. “How much do you know about Moltke’s past?”
“Not a great deal,” I replied. “It wasn’t required knowledge to get the job done.”
“We know he was dark for a few years before MI6 brought him back in,” Mercy added. “Also, he’s a mean son of a bitch. Tough and deadly. Not someone you want to piss off.”
Folsom inclined his head. “All correct in their own way, but we do know his motives for going dark may have something to do with the bombing.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Which are?”
A photo of a woman appeared on the screen. She was willowy with delicate features and honey-blonde hair that fell around her jaw in a perfect bob hairstyle, her cheeks dusted with fine freckles, her lips pink with lipstick. She looked like any one of the women who paraded their riches around the wealthy areas of London, but something about her stood out. She was a woman who would get a second glance, her shoulders strong and commanding.
“This is Vesper Cunningham,” Folsom said. “She was Moltke’s wife.”
I glanced at Mercy, already seeing where this was going. Lorelei had told me he’d been trying to recreate something with her while he’d held her captive. She’d been beaten, drugged, and starved… Had the same thing happened to Vesper?
“Ten years ago,” Folsom went on, “Moltke was undercover with a human trafficking cartel in France. You may know their leader as the late Jaques Lafayette, though another man operated it at the time, Jonathan Tatau, who is also deceased. Tatau’s men discovered Moltke was a double and made an assassination attempt on Vesper, which ultimately failed but landed her in hospital.”
“Did she know about Moltke?” Mercy asked. “That he was MI6?”
“We don’t know for sure, but we believe he may have told her after the attempt on her life. The day after she was admitted to hospital, there was a power surge in the ward where she was being treated.”
“They got to her anyway,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“They didn’t just get to her,” Folsom said. “They took her from right under our noses. Moltke himself was there, but that still wasn’t enough to stop them. There was no word from her or whoever abducted her—”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “It wasn’t the cartel?”
Folsom nodded. “When we later apprehended Tatau, he denied to his last breath that they were responsible for Vesper’s disappearance.”
“That’s why Moltke went dark,” Mercy stated. “To find her.”
“When we brought him back in, during debriefing he stated he never found her or the people who were responsible.”
“You think he used Section Seven to track down these people?” I asked. “Then why blow it up?”
Folsom shrugged. “There has been no contact or list of demands, so who the hell knows. Right now, we don’t know his motives at all. We need to track him down and bring him in so we can determine what it is he wants.”
Something wasn’t adding up. What Moltke had done to Lorelei and then the bombing wasn’t making sense. There was a massive chunk of the puzzle still missing.
“Are there any leads?” I asked. “I assume that’s why we’re here.”
Folsom nodded. “From your mission reports, I see you’re a man who can get things done. And you and Reid are the only surviving agents from your division.”
The realization Mei and all the other souls were gone hit me again, and I averted my gaze to the screens behind Folsom. “What’s the lead?”
A new image appeared, replacing the one of Vesper Cunningham. The surveillance photograph was slightly pixelated, but it was more than enough to make out the features of the man who was its subject. He had a shaved head and a craggy complexion, but he didn’t look a day over thirty-five. He had a mobile phone against his ear, talking to some unknown business partner. Typical bad guy asshole. I’d dealt with a lot of them during my time under Royal Blood’s thumb.
“His name is Ulrich Gruber,” Folsom explained. “He’s a bomb maker specializing in biological and chemical explosives and is known as a man who can get things done. His bombs are aimed at maximum fatalities, not at all instantaneous. He deals in human suffering. He’s moved up the food chain
in recent months, his work more in demand than ever with the rise of terrorism in the last decade.”
“What does Gruber have to do with Moltke?” Mercy asked.
Folsom sent a new set of documents to the screens. “He hasn’t been as thorough in scrubbing his tracks as he probably thinks he has. We’ve picked up a paper trail that’s disturbing to say the least.”
Bank transactions appeared on the screen. Rows and rows of times, dates, and numbers that showed significant amounts of money changing hands between the two men.
“Moltke is planning a bigger attack,” I said, picking up the threads of evidence and twisting them together. “Section Seven was only the beginning.”
“He was using Section Seven to dig for information and forge alliances, that much was clear,” Folsom said, not denying my assumption. “Whatever he is planning, it runs deep, and Ulrich is a large piece of the puzzle. He may know of Moltke’s whereabouts and what it is he’s planning.”
Mercy glanced at me, her expression troubled, and I nodded.
“We’re the only ones who know about this, aren’t we?” she asked.
Folsom nodded. “Earlier, when I said ‘we,’ I meant me…and you. There’s no way of knowing who Moltke got to or who we can trust with this operation. You need to understand with this, you’re on your own. There’s only so much support I can offer without tipping off any conspirators.”
I nodded. We’d done it before, and I’d done it my entire life…at least the life I could remember with clarity.
“We were meant to die in that blast,” I said after a moment. “He planned on it. No loose ends. No evidence.”
Mercy’s hand wrapped around my forearm and squeezed. “Jackson.”
Glancing at Folsom, I asked, “Where’s Jackson?”
“He should still be in the building undergoing debriefing,” he replied. “Let me check.” He picked up the phone on his desk, punched a button on the keypad, and pressed the receiver to his ear. “Is Marcus Jackson still in debrief?” There was silence as the person on the other end replied. “He left?” Folsom asked, thumping his fist on the desk. “When?”