‘Whatever you do to me, it can’t be worse than what he will do if he finds out I’ve betrayed him!’ Miller hissed, spit staining his chin.
Conrad frowned. ‘I can heal your hands and the gunshot wound to your shoulder. And we can protect you from Vlašic.’
Miller blinked. Lines slowly contorted his face. He bent forward, his shoulders shaking.
Coldness gripped Lucas when he realized the general was laughing. The sound erupted from the man’s lips a moment later, loud and tinged with a hint of hysteria.
‘Let me try something,’ Ethan said suddenly.
Lucas turned and studied his cousin’s enigmatic expression.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ivan stepped out of the rear of the SUV and eyed the imposing facade of the building before him with a faint frown. Although the sun was high in the sky and autumn was still a month away, he could not help the shiver that danced down his spine when he looked around and beheld the desolate landscape he stood in.
Vlado Krall’s ancestral home was a sixteenth-century Baroque castle located on a twelve-hundred-acre estate twenty miles north of Dresden. He had inherited the place from his dead father, a man Ivan knew little about despite the fact that he had counted Vlado as a friend and ally for nearly two hundred years.
Although Ivan had visited the estate on many occasions in the past, he had never overstayed his welcome. He knew Krall was a private man who liked to keep to himself. There was also the fact that the castle was not the most pleasing sight in the world, its austere, gray walls and domed towers rendered even more uninviting by the bleak gardens and dark forest surrounding it.
Still, he’d had no option but to come here.
There was only one other person in the world besides him and Victor Dvorsky who had known what was inside the vaults of the secret facility in Mongolia.
Two years after the incident at Yuma, after a night spent drinking with Krall and commiserating over the arduous task of managing their respective sections of the Crovir First Council, Ivan had inadvertently let slip the location and purpose of the outpost the Bastian and Crovirs had built in Mongolia. Since Krall never mentioned it the next day, Ivan had assumed his friend had been too inebriated to recall his accidental revelation.
He’d tried to raise Krall on the phone that morning after Dvorsky and Reznak’s visit but had been unable to reach him. As the SUVs carrying him and his bodyguards had left the headquarters of the Crovir First Council and made for Krall’s estate, Ivan had hoped there was a logical explanation for why the head of his Counter-Terrorism Section was uncontactable.
He turned to the men who’d accompanied him. ‘Stay here.’
The Crovir Hunters glanced at each other warily before muttering their acquiescence. Ivan strolled up the stone steps fronting the castle and headed inside.
Sunlight washed through the giant cupola above him and illuminated the stark furnishings of the hallway dominating the entrance. Ivan crossed the vast space and stopped before the majestic split staircase rising to the upper floors of the castle.
‘Vlado?’
His voice echoed against the stone walls and sculptured arches.
Ivan made for the corridor flanking the left side of the stairs and walked past a sun room and a library. A murmur of voices reached his ears as he neared Vlado’s study.
His cell rang, startling him. Ivan slowed and pulled the phone from his suit jacket. He narrowed his eyes at the name on the screen before taking the call.
‘What do you want, Victor?’ he snapped.
‘Where are you?’
Ivan stopped outside Vlado’s study. ‘I’m at Vlado Krall’s estate.’
‘Get out of there! Now!’
Ivan froze, his hand an inch from the door handle. Unease filled him at the alarm he could hear in the Bastian leader’s voice.
‘Why?’
‘I was wrong about you! It was Krall all along. He’s the one behind all of—’
The door opened before him. Ivan blinked, Victor’s words washing over him from a distance.
A blank-faced figure in a dark uniform stood facing him.
Ivan stared past the stranger to where Vlado Krall and a woman he had never seen before sat on a couch in front of the fireplace.
He slowly lowered the cell, his heart thumping a rapid beat against his ribs. ‘Vlado?’
The woman finished injecting something into Vlado’s arm and turned to observe Ivan coldly from dark, almond-shaped eyes. Vlado rolled down the sleeve of his shirt and rose to his feet, his bright gaze focused unblinkingly on Ivan.
‘Well, what have we here?’ he murmured, strolling casually toward him.
The sound of gunfire and muted screams rose from the front of the castle. Ivan took a step back and reached for his gun.
The man in the uniform moved so fast his figure blurred.
Ivan gasped as the weapon was knocked out of his hand. He dropped his cell and blocked the fist heading for his solar plexus. Pain erupted in his left forearm. He gritted his teeth when he felt bone shatter.
Air left his lungs in a guttural grunt in the next instant as the man kneed him in the stomach. Ivan doubled over, bile at the back of his throat and black spots blurring his vision as he fought for air.
A hand closed around his neck.
Ivan choked and wheezed as he was lifted off his feet, fingers rising to clutch and pull at the wrist of the man who held him. He looked down into Vlado’s chilling stare.
The other man stood silently behind him, his expression vacant as he watched Vlado hold Ivan high up in the air. He stepped on Ivan’s cell where it had fallen on the ground and crushed it beneath the heel of his boot.
Super soldier!
A buzzing noise filled Ivan’s ears as his gaze shifted to the man who held him—the man he had considered a friend for two centuries.
How? How is he as strong as them?!
A dark veil dropped across Ivan’s vision as his oxygen-starved brain started to falter. The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him was Vlado’s mocking smile and the super soldier’s vacuous stare.
Lucas’s cell rang just as they reached the international airport in Baltimore. His eyes narrowed when he looked at the screen.
He took the call and brought the phone to his ear. ‘How did it—?’
Trepidation washed through Ethan as he watched his cousin stiffen.
Lucas stared blindly out of the window of the SUV. It had just pulled to a stop on the tarmac next to their jet.
‘Are you sure?’ he said, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He listened for a moment. ‘Okay, we’ll call you when we get there.’ He disconnected and lowered the cell into his lap before turning to Ethan and Reid. ‘That was Victor. Both Vlašic and Krall are missing. Victor was mid-conversation with Vlašic when he heard gunfire in the background and got cut off. Vlašic had apparently gone to see Krall at his estate outside Dresden. The Crovir First Council has called an urgent meeting to discuss their disappearance. Dimitri is there right now.’
Ethan tensed.
It was thanks to his wild idea that they had finally managed to extract some salient information out of Miller. When he’d suggested what he wanted to try, Lucas and the others had stared at him for a silent moment.
‘Can you really do this?’ Lucas had said finally, his eyes bright with hope.
Ethan had hesitated before nodding. ‘We’ve practiced it a few times.’ He’d smiled wryly then. ‘I’m not as powerful as she is at borrowing my elemental energy, but it’s worth a try.’
They’d all watched through the one-way mirror as he headed inside the interrogation room where Miller sat pinned to the table by Alexa’s sais. The general had lifted his chin and glared at Ethan as he approached.
‘And what the hell are you going to do?’ he snarled, his voice laced with pain.
Ethan had ignored the man and stepped behind him.
Miller had startled and cursed when Ethan gripped his head in his hands.
‘What the—?’
Ethan had drawn a shallow breath, closed his eyes, and focused inward.
It had taken but a couple of heartbeats for him to see the shimmering lines of power inside his chest. It was thanks to Olivia that he could visualize them so easily now. He had searched for the bright thread of his bond with his soulmate and followed it with his mind until he sensed the source of her unearthly gifts. Drops of sweat coursing down the side of his face, he had reached out and drawn upon the golden, pulsing mass.
Miller had cried out in his grip and started thrashing about in the chair.
Ethan had curled his hands into the general’s skull and pushed at the mental barriers he could feel beneath his fingertips. His breath had frozen on his lips when he felt them yield and snap. Images had started flashing across his inner vision. He had stared unseeingly ahead, thrilled at what he’d managed to pull off.
He had never been able to conjure up a person’s thoughts so clearly before, even during his previous attempts at using Olivia’s power.
Ethan’s mouth had gone dry when he’d finally registered what he was seeing. He’d waited until the final memory had danced in front of his eyes before letting go of an ashen-faced Miller and storming out of the interrogation room.
‘He was on his way to the airport in Lethbridge, in Alberta,’ Ethan had said curtly as he barged inside the chamber where the others stood waiting. ‘Call Victor, now.’
‘Why?’ Lucas had said tensely.
Ethan had clenched his teeth. ‘Ivan Vlašic isn’t our man.’
He had told them what he had seen in Miller’s mind and the general’s intended destination before he was captured at the Canadian border.
‘He doesn’t know where the research facility is but he was headed somewhere he was going to get picked up.’
Alexa had frowned. ‘Where?’
‘Uranium City. It’s a settlement north of Lake Athabasca, in Saskatchewan, Canada. That’s all I got from him.’
The CIA agent had opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, his shocked gaze switching from them to the dazed figure behind the glass wall.
‘How?’ he had blurted out. ‘All you did was touch his head!’
‘I’m telling you, man,’ Anatole had muttered. ‘Magic.’
They had left Miller in the care of the CIA agent and contacted Victor as they left the facility; now they were done with him, the general would be transported onward to Washington DC, where he would be handed over to Connelly and the NSA.
The door of their SUV opened. Alexa frowned when she saw their expressions.
‘What is it?’ Conrad said behind her.
Lucas stepped out and updated them about the recent development in Dresden.
‘Well, that ain’t good,’ Anatole stated in the taut silence that followed.
‘The sooner we get to Uranium City, the better,’ Alexa said. ‘Let’s go.’
They boarded the jet and had just lifted off from Baltimore when Lucas’s cell rang again. A puzzled look flashed across his face when he saw the number.
‘This is Soul.’ Lucas went still as he listened to his invisible caller. He rose from his seat, the cell at his ear and his eyes bright with excitement. ‘Wait, I’ll put you on speaker.’
Priya Chatterjee’s animated voice rang out across the cabin as they gathered around him.
‘As I was saying, I’ve identified the components of the metal making up the 9mm casing. It’s an HEA containing rare earth elements. I—’
‘What’s an HEA?’ Conrad interrupted.
Chatterjee paused mid-flow. ‘An HEA is a high entropy alloy,’ she said briskly. ‘It’s a substance made from fusing several metals together. The aim is to produce something that has the combined properties of the primary constituents and more. In this instance, I believe they used spark plasma sintering to meld chromium, tungsten, and titanium with three rare earth elements, namely neodymium, samarium, and dysprosium. The tensile strength and fracture-resistance of this thing is unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it!’
‘Any idea where those metals could have been sourced?’ Alexa said.
‘I’m getting to that,’ Chatterjee replied. ‘By far the biggest source of all six elements is China. It’s got the most mines in the world and is the largest exporter of rare earth elements thanks to its Bayan Obo mine in Inner Mongolia. About the only other place that used to compete with it before it was shut down was the Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California.’
Ethan raised an eyebrow. ‘So, you’re saying this new metal came out of China?’
‘No,’ Chatterjee said. ‘It could have been made anywhere in the world. But there’s one place where the production of rare earth elements has taken off recently that will be of interest to you. I found an article from 2013 alluding to the specific chemical signature of the REEs in your 9mm casing. It was written by a geologist from the Saskatchewan Geological Society. I called him just now and asked which mine his sample came from. He said the place was about a dozen miles or so northeast of Uranium City. It was apparently abandoned following a major rockslide back in 2015.’
Ethan drew a sharp breath. Lucas’s knuckles whitened on the cell phone.
‘Uranium City?’ he repeated, the shock on his face mirrored on everyone else’s. ‘Are you certain?’
‘Yeah, I am,’ Chatterjee said.
‘Thank you. For everything.’ Lucas disconnected and stared at them. ‘This can’t be a coincidence.’
Alexa dipped her chin. ‘I agree.’ She twisted on her heels and headed for the onboard computer, her expression determined. ‘Let’s see what Eva can find out about this place.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘Dimitri Reznak is suspended from the Crovir First Council as of this moment,’ the woman on the video call stated. ‘We believe he’s on his way to his estate in Sumava. He is to be placed under house arrest once he gets there, until we make a final decision on his case. We have declared a state of emergency for all the Councils while we decide our next steps. Needless to say, we will act swiftly and decisively against our enemies.’
Victor quelled the dread rising inside him and observed the woman impassively. ‘And what, Sylviana? Are you saying we’re at war?’
Sylviana Koviatovich, the Head of the Crovir Immortal Legislations and Conventions Section and the acting leader of the Crovir First Council, narrowed her eyes. ‘After the stunt you and your Hunters pulled in Dresden, I’m surprised you even dare ask that question, Victor.’
Victor clamped down on a burst of irritation. Although there was no love lost between him and the Crovir noble, she was one of the few Crovir First Council members who had objected to what Agatha Vellacrus had done all those years ago, just before the latter had killed Tomas Godard.
He summoned as patient a tone as he could muster. ‘Before we slap each other across the face with a glove like in the good old days, why don’t you elaborate on what Dimitri and I are accused of, exactly?’
‘There’s no point trying to pull the wool over my eyes,’ Sylviana snapped. ‘We found Ivan’s cell phone at Vlado’s estate. The last person to call him was you. And from the ashes we discovered outside, his bodyguards obviously met their ends there as well.’
Victor frowned. ‘I was trying to warn Vlašic. Why don’t you dig a little deeper into Krall’s background and his recent activities? I’m sure you’ll find some interesting things there.’
Sylviana straightened in her seat, her expression indignant. ‘Are you still going with that lie? That Vlado is somehow behind Ivan’s disappearance?’
‘It’s the truth,’ Victor said stonily.
‘Then how do you explain the blood we discovered in his castle?’
Victor went deathly still. ‘What?’
A triumphant light dawned in Sylviana’s eyes. ‘The remains of the Crovir Hunters guarding Vlado Krall were scattered all over his study, as was his blood. It’s obvious that’s where he was attacked too.’
‘There are things at play here that are beyond your understanding, Sylviana,’ he said in a low, hard voice. ‘I had made Ivan aware of the relevant facts only this morning.’ He hesitated, remorse stabbing through him. ‘I have to admit that I misjudged him. I won’t do so again.’ He studied the woman glaring at him coolly. ‘I and the Bastian First Council have no wish to go to war with you. We have much bigger fish to fry and I, quite frankly, don’t have time to play mind games with you or the rest of the Crovir Councils. I am going to do my damnedest to find Krall. I have little doubt that Vlašic is his prisoner right now.’
Victor heard Sylviana’s outraged gasp before he abruptly terminated the call and felt a flash of grim satisfaction. He sobered in the next instant, pulled his cell from his pocket, and hit a number on speed dial.
Dimitri answered on the second ring. ‘You heard?’
‘Yes. How are you doing?’
‘Apart from having to block the Council’s irritating calls, not too bad, thanks.’
Victor smiled faintly. ‘They’ll have Crovir Hunters waiting in Sumava to place you under house arrest.’
A bark of laughter echoed across the connection. ‘I’d like to see them try.’
Victor sighed. ‘Don’t fight them. The house arrest is meant for you only. As long as they let the others leave, you’re just going to have to batten down and hold the fort.’
‘That sucks. And you know how much I hate being imprisoned.’
‘It’s a twelve-thousand-acre estate. With a castle. And I’ve known you to live in those damn labs for, like, a month or more when you’ve gotten obsessed with something.’
‘That’s besides the point and you know it,’ Dimitri retorted in a sulky tone.
Crovir observed the unconscious man on the monitor with an inscrutable expression. ‘This is the current leader of your…race?’
‘Yes.’ Vlado hesitated. ‘I have to admit, I was not expecting Ivan to discover the subterfuge in Mongolia so quickly, nor to find out I was behind it. I suspect the Immortals who bear the reborn souls of your and Bastian’s children had something to do with that.’
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