by Lexi Blake
“I thought you gave up brokering information.” Simon stood up, looking perfectly ready to discipline her.
Charlotte held a hand up. “Whoa, boy. Ian asked her to monitor some of the old sites. He wants to have an ear to the ground.”
“But it’s not the ground she’s monitoring,” Simon argued. “She’s on the Deep Web. He’s got her out there with terrorists and traffickers.”
“And intelligence agencies,” Chelsea pointed out. “I can handle myself, Weston. But unfortunately Walter Bennett can’t. Mother flying fucker. Someone’s been talking.” She closed her eyes briefly before touching the button that connected her to the team. “Damon, you might have a problem. I can’t promise anything, but the Agency and MI6 aren’t the only interested parties anymore. And there have been hits on your information and Tag’s. Sixteen in the last twenty-four hours. And I’m finding chatter about the boat and Berlin.”
Penny’s stomach dropped. If the word was out, there would likely be several governments and organizations who would love to have the information Walter Bennett was offering.
There was a knock on the door. Candice seemed lost in her computer. Charlotte was staring at the monitors. It looked like she got to play hostess. Simon and Chelsea were talking about all the ramifications of trying to get Bennett out of the country if other agencies were after him as well.
She clenched her fists. It was hard to be the only one without a task. Well, she was British and they damn well knew how to handle a crisis. Tea. There was nothing she could do except make sure everyone remained calm, and tea would help.
Penny stepped out of the main room of the suite and answered the door. She ushered in the room service men.
They pushed a cart along. A cart they needed to push into the suite, and then there might be questions about why they had an army of computers set up. No one had thought of that. Yes, thank you, Super Spies. She gave the two men her best smile.
“I’ll handle it. Sorry, I’m afraid my husband isn’t completely dressed, if you know what I mean.” Better to let them think she was having an orgy than spying. She initialed the bill and left them a decent tip, hoping they wouldn’t walk away talking about the crazy Brits and their sex party. The last thing she needed now was a curious staff.
“Of course, Miss Cash,” the larger of the two men said in heavily accented German as he turned and left. She locked the door behind them.
She pushed the cart through the marbled foyer and into the main room. Everything smelled delightful but she doubted she could eat a thing.
Candice looked up, closing the top of her computer. “I’ll help you.”
“Who do we think is interested?” Simon was asking. He had his headset on so she couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. She imagined Damon was using a lot of curse words.
“Definitely the Germans. God, I can’t even pronounce that,” Chelsea complained.
“Bundesnachrichtendienst,” Penny said, looking at the screen. Chelsea had pulled up what looked like a series of messages written in German.
Chelsea sighed. “Oh, I forgot. Penny, please come work with us. It would take me forever to run that through damn translation software, and half the time it comes out as gobbledygook. I’ll print it out so you can see it more easily.”
Thank god, something she could do. “All right.” She could already hear the small printer starting to spit out paper. “I speak most of the Northern European languages. I’m starting to learn Mandarin and Pashtun. I’m not excellent at either but I can likely pull enough information out.”
Candice set a cup of tea in front of Simon, who immediately took a long sip. She passed out the rest, pouring it with the expert hand of a woman who had served more than a few times.
Charlotte shook her head. “I’d rather have the coffee. I know. I’m a horrible American. I’ll get it.”
Candice shook her head. “I don’t mind. I can’t do much else. Cream and sugar?”
Penny pulled the printout into her hands and immediately started working. She walked out toward the balcony. The rest of the group was talking and she needed some silence.
Warm sun stroked her skin as she looked down at the words, her mind making sense of the puzzle.
What Chelsea had found was the discussion between two operatives about something they had heard from informants. One of Walter’s colleagues had been talking. A woman. She sighed. Walter had kept in contact with a German woman from his lab, and she’d reached out to the authorities with what he’d told her.
Damn it. She also knew he would be in Berlin today. She was going to have to call Nigel and likely get more than just SIS involved. This could become an international incident.
She looked out over the Platz, wishing she could catch sight of Damon. He was in such danger. He was an intelligence operative working on foreign soil. If the Germans caught him, he would at least be in for a long, possibly uncomfortable interview. If Nigel wasn’t willing to negotiate for him, Damon might disappear. It wouldn’t matter that England and Germany weren’t enemies. No one would want to admit they had the information on the bioweapon.
How had the waiter known her name?
The question flipped through her brain, stopping all other thought. The suite was under an assumed name. Damon had paid for it with a safe card, one set up with SIS. Her name hadn’t been involved in any way.
Yet he’d thanked her as Miss Cash.
Bugger, the Germans were already here.
She pushed through the door and then her stomach threatened to roll.
Simon was slumped over the desk, his tea dripping onto the carpet below. Chelsea’s head was thrown back. Charlotte had slipped to the floor.
Not a one of them was conscious. Please don’t let them be dead.
“You really should have some tea,” Candice said. She stood in the middle of the room, a gun in her hand. Though her voice shook slightly, she held the gun like she knew what she was doing.
“Did you kill them?” Tears filled her eyes, but she was determined to remain calm. She had to figure a way out of this. She could handle Candice. She had to.
“No. They’re just asleep and you should be, too. I don’t want to do this, but do you understand how hard it is to move up in my world? If you aren’t gorgeous and don’t have great connections, you end up on some bloody town paper reporting nonsense about local gentry. That’s not going to happen to me.”
“Miss Jones is getting a promotion. You see, my employers run several of the world’s largest news agencies,” a familiar voice said.
Terror threatened to take over. She wasn’t dealing with German intelligence. Oh, it was so much worse.
Basil Champion stepped into the room.
“Hello, Damon’s whore. It’s so good to see you again.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Damon tapped the communications device in his ear. “Chelsea? Are you there?”
“Hey, I hate to pull you away from all your talk, but Walt’s going to be here any minute, and he might run if he hears you talking to your bloody self,” Carter said.
Technology could be so frustrating. He forced himself to focus. Chelsea would get it back on line. She seemed very competent. And he had to hope they weren’t supremely fucked. “We have a slight change of plans.”
He needed to keep the Aussie calm.
Carter couldn’t help but draw some notice. The man was at least six foot seven. Germans weren’t small people, but everyone looked a bit tiny compared to the Aussie. Damon wasn’t used to being forced to look up at anyone. “What’s gone wrong? Damn it. He should be here any minute.”
“We’re going to need to get him to the embassy.” Both the British and the American Embassies were in the plaza behind the Brandenburg Gate. The American was closest and Taggart had informed him that Tennessee Smith was inside, awaiting the outcome. Or more than likely waiting to see if he could get his hands on the package. Apparently he wasn’t the only one.
Damon had to hope
their plan went down properly. The addition of the American operative put a kink in everything, but Ian assured him that Ten was in. Tag and Tennessee had spoken during the train ride to Berlin. Jesse and Jake were ready to do what needed to be done. They’d been forced to think on their feet. Not even the women knew what he and Ian had decided to do.
Which was good, because some people might consider what they were about to do treason.
Brody Carter wouldn’t. He’d been the one to come up with the plan in the first place. Too often soldiers only followed orders and not their consciences. This was not going to be one of those times.
“The Germans are looking for Walter. And they very likely aren’t the only ones. Before our system went out, Chelsea said she found some communications between Walter and some German woman.”
Carter cursed, pulling on his ball cap as he shook his head. “Horny bugger. I told him he couldn’t contact anyone. Damn it. She worked in his department.”
“The good news is she didn’t knowingly work for The Collective. The bad news? She decided to inform on him to her government. I can’t imagine this hasn’t gotten out. We have to get Walter to the embassy. We could all find ourselves in a German holding tank talking to their intelligence, and they will get him to hand over the goods.”
What Walter Bennett had in his hands was a weapon of mass destruction. Every government in the world would want it. Every single one of them would kill to get it or keep it out of every other country’s hands.
Carter nodded. “All right. We have to find him first. I don’t know what the fuck this is.”
Damon stared out over the Holocaust Memorial, understanding a bit of Carter’s confusion. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, as its designer had named it, consisted of over 2700 concrete slabs in a grid pattern. From the outside everything looked uniform, as though the slabs were all of the same height. It was very different when Damon walked through to get to the other side. The ground was uneven, sloping in places. One moment he could easily see the tops, and the next he’d been staring up as though he’d gone underground. He’d walked a straight line to the other side but if he’d gone even once off the line, he would have found himself lost.
That massive maze stood between him and the embassy. He wondered what else would be in the way.
Jake Dean walked by, his eyes on a map of the city. “Comm’s down.”
“Yes, I got that.”
“Jesse’s going back to the hotel. Ian doesn’t like it. He can’t get Simon to answer his cell.”
A cold tendril of fear laced through him. “Penelope?”
“Not answering hers either.” Jake put his phone to his ear, looking for all the world like he was talking to someone on the other end. “You handle this. We’re going to figure out the rest. Tag’s on the other side of the…whatever it is. I’ve got to move to the embassy in case we actually get the package. I have to be in place or this could all go to hell.”
“Do you have what you need?” Jake was very important to the plan. He had to be in place.
Jake nodded. “Yes. When Jesse calls, we’ll let you know what’s happening.”
He couldn’t panic. Panic was what whoever was causing the disruption wanted him to do. Weston was deadly. If someone attacked the suite, he would likely be able to handle it. For that matter, Charlotte Taggart wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet.
And neither was his Penelope. She’d killed a man when she had to. She could do it again.
“There he is.” Carter sighed beside him. “God, it’s a miracle he hasn’t got himself murdered by now.”
Carter stepped away, moving toward the trees that lined the road, and Damon got his first look at Walter Bennett. The scientist was a lanky man, looked more like a kid really. Though he knew Bennett was in his thirties, his face was younger, more open than any man who had managed to create one of the deadliest bioweapons in the world should look.
Damon turned away, not wanting to scare the man off, but he strained to listen. He had to stay close because Taggart had no idea the target had arrived. Dean had moved out of his sight line, likely doing long turns around the memorial.
“What the hell happened? I nearly freaked when you didn’t call after Helsinki,” Bennett said.
“I ran into a bit of a mess. And you’re in further than you realize. Why the hell did you talk to Heidi?” Carter sounded brutally annoyed.
“I was lonely,” Bennett whined. “I’ve been hiding here for weeks. I missed her.”
God, Carter should have made sure the poor guy got laid because he couldn’t seem to go for very long.
“She called the Germans,” Carter shot back. “Their intelligence is looking for you. If they know where you are, it’s likely The Collective does, too.”
“Fuck. What are we going to do?”
Carter sighed. “You’re going to listen to a friend of mine. I’ve got a security team around you.”
Damon turned. Walter was starting to back up.
Carter got a hand on him. “Don’t try to run. You’re paying me to keep you alive and that’s bloody well what I’m going to do. I’m going to keep you alive even if it kills me. This man is British intelligence. He wants us to walk over to the embassy.”
Walter went pale. “I can’t. I can’t give this information up to a government.”
“But you were willing to give it to the Internet?” It was time to point out a few things to the very naïve scientist. And it was also time to get out of sight. He nodded toward the memorial. The good news about a maze was everyone tended to get lost.
Carter entered first, hauling Walter along easily.
“If everyone has it, then we all have mutually assured destruction,” Walter said, his feet tripping slightly as they started on a downward slope.
“That might work when it’s two or three superpowers who have nuclear arms,” Damon explained. “I’m going to suspect this is easier to get hands on than uranium and a hell of a lot easier to deliver a payload. If you turn it over to a reporter and it gets out, every extremist group in the world will be cooking up smallpox and unleashing it on their enemies.”
“I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way. God, that sounds horrible. I still don’t think I should give it to the British, though. I’m an American.”
Damon moved carefully toward the other side. He caught a glimpse of something metallic and turned. A man was moving past, roughly ten rows down. He was holding a Ruger.
So the Germans were here. He would bet his life that man was German intelligence. The man disappeared behind the columns as he moved away.
Damon needed to hurry this along. Carter’s eyes had widened. He seemed to have caught the threat, too.
“Nothing is going to matter if we don’t get you out of here now. The Germans likely don’t want to hurt any of us. They don’t particularly want an international incident, but they aren’t bloody stupid. They can’t allow this information to fall into our hands any more than we can let it fall into theirs. We have one shot. We get to the embassy and then I’ll find a way to destroy it. No one should have it. No one.”
He would probably lose his job, but that didn’t sound so terrible anymore. He would try to play it off as incompetence and not a brutal lie.
Of course he had to get to the embassy first. “Do you have the package?”
Walter frowned, though he seemed to be walking on his own now. “Yeah.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a thumb drive. “I brought it with me. I kind of want to get rid of it altogether. I wish I’d never worked on it. It was a puzzle. I’ve never been able to turn down a puzzle.”
Damon didn’t care. He just wanted this whole thing over with so he could figure out what had happened with the communications.
“Wir haben sie gefunden,” a masculine voice shouted.
Damon turned to his right, and one of the German agents was moving their way.
“Let’s go,” he said. He ran forward, turning to the right and then the l
eft.
“We can’t get lost in here if we stay together and we bloody well need to get lost,” Carter said. “Give him the package.”
Walter’s eyes widened. “You really trust him?”
“I trust the man he’s with and he tells me to trust this bloke. I also think his girl would kick his arse if he didn’t do the right thing.” Carter put his back against one of the slabs. “We need to split up. There are two things they want. They want the package and they want what made the package. It’s still in Walt’s head.”
“Shit.” Walt’s hands shook as he passed the thumb drive over. “I wish I never did this.”
Scientists had been saying that since they realized their work could be used for mass destruction. They still did it. Damon grabbed the thumb drive. The lives of thousands, maybe millions, were on that drive, and he had to figure out a way to destroy it. He and Taggart had decided hiding it wasn’t good enough. They could hide Walter, but the physical information had to be destroyed.
“Halt!” A tall man started running toward them.
There wasn’t time to debate.
“Get to the embassy if you can or somewhere safe. He needs to disappear.” Damon moved again, running into a tourist and forcing his way by. Maybe if they split up the Germans, their odds would increase.
He needed to find Taggart, needed to know Jesse had made it to the suite and everything was fine.
He also had to hope German intelligence wanted to keep this as quiet as the rest of them or there would be a line of cops waiting for him when he hit the street and started for the embassy. He jogged, the world a gray blur on either side of him.
And then his comm came back online. “Hello, Damon.”
Baz. He would know the voice anywhere.
He stopped, touching his comm so he could talk. “What the hell are you doing on this line?”
“Oh, I thought it was probably time to talk. After all we’ve got some business to do. You’re going to bring me the package and I’m going to trade for something you like.”
His blood went cold. “What?”