by Ronie Kendig
She lifted her fork, telling herself to just chill and eat. But her fork froze over the mashed potatoes.
What if she lost Baddar the way she had lost Ram?
Lost, because she had him. Didn’t she? If she wanted him. And she did—well, not like that, not now, because . . . morals and all.
But this gorgeous man was every bit the warrior like Ram. And that was terrifying—seeing the way he’d fought in that stairwell. The fury and violence of him drew such a dichotomy to the quiet, mild-mannered commando sitting so awkwardly in this high-end restaurant. They should be back at her place eating pizza.
His large, callused hand closed over hers. Warm, comforting, strong.
Mercy swallowed and met his gaze, hating that she’d put the wounded-dog look into his expression.
“Friend.” His word was quiet but true. “I am glad for that. For now.”
As he said the words, Mercy realized how wrong she’d been. He wasn’t just a friend to her. And she didn’t want things to stop there.
“For now,” she agreed, then added, “but not forever.”
Holy Human Torch, his face lit up with hope and unrealized dreams.
ELEVEN
REAPER HEADQUARTERS, MARYLAND
“This is all we have after three weeks of looking for him.” Alene Braun sighed, glancing at the stills of Leif at the airstrip with Andreas Krestyanov.
“He is the best,” Dru said, “which is why we recruited him to the team.”
“He got recruited because you knew he was connected to the Neiothen.” Her accusation was a shot across the bow and a warning to be straightforward.
“No.” How had she figured out that he’d known?
Braun barked a laugh. “Please. I’ve known you too long and seen you in situations most of these newbs couldn’t imagine.”
He had to give some truth to get her to back off. “Okay, yes—I knew something happened to Leif when he came off that mountain. But I also felt the puzzle pieces he laid out were too neat and too . . .” How could he phrase this? “Like I was assembling a thousand-piece puzzle, and in my hand I had the right shape for the final piece that would pull it all together—answer all the questions—and it fit, yet it didn’t. The image on it didn’t match the rest. Right size and shape, but wrong picture. What he told me? It fits, makes the timeline work, yet . . . it doesn’t.”
“So you knew something was up.” Braun sniffed, more than a little offense in her tone. “How? How did you know he was—”
“I didn’t know,” he said, too aware this could bite him in the rear. “But there were facts that I tried to chase, and every time I did, I got warned off or shut down. It was getting obvious and obviously dangerous.”
“The intel you do have?” She pointed toward the hub, where Reaper sat, heads and spirits down. “You need to read them—and me—in on it.”
“No way. Too dangerous.”
“For whom?” Alene said with a hefty dose of venom. “Their team leader is MIA, gone rogue by all accounts. Yet you sit there spitting out a narrative contrary to what we’re seeing and experiencing. How do you reconcile that?”
“Because I’m protecting Leif.” He stood, unwilling to be questioned by someone who didn’t have all the facts.
“Read them in. I mean it—or I will.”
“You don’t even know—”
“Exactly. Bad intel or accurate intel—your choice.” She glowered at him for several long moments as the silence thickened between them. “It’s clear you know why he went to ground. They need to know, too.” Her lips thinned. “I need to know.”
This was a ticking bomb. No, it was worse—it had a megaton blast yield once opened. He’d avoided that for the last four years. Haphazardly opening it now would guarantee death.
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours to inform them and figure something out,” Alene warned. “Because in forty-eight, I’m going up the chain with it.”
“Do that, and Leif has zero chance of staying alive.”
“How am I to know you’re not the one behind him going MIA? What if he’s been under ArC’s control this whole time, and you—”
“That’s not true.”
“How am I to know that? How do you know? Look at Ibn Sarsour and Kurofuji! They had no idea they were sleepers until they were putting holes in heads. You cannot guarantee Leif isn’t the same, that the young man who led Reaper, who had access to our systems, people, and weapons, won’t come in here and decimate everything.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“You can’t know that!” she roared. With a fat exhale, she shook her head, nostrils flaring, before coming to her feet and tapping his desk. “Forty-eight and it goes topside.”
“You’ll regret this. I promise you.”
At his office door, she stared over her shoulder. “Careful, Dru. That sounds like a threat.”
He watched her leave, cross the hub, and enter her office. A couple of heads swiveled his way, including Cell’s. Dru had no time or patience to expend on them. Not right now. He packed his attaché case and strode out of the bunker, ignoring the call of his name.
Leif had really messed this up by going to ground. Running.
Yeah, he was running all right—but not from trouble. He was sprinting headlong into it. Eyes wide open. Stubborn, defiant spirit embracing whatever danger presented itself. Was that one of the Netherwood alterations to his psyche, or did he come by it naturally? His brother Canyon hadn’t been much different.
Up the concrete tunnel and into the parking garage, he wondered how to nail this down. Get Leif to come back. If that . . .
Too late. Alene had called him out and wouldn’t back down until she was satisfied. He yanked open his car door and stuffed himself inside. Hit the steering wheel. After a huff, he raked a hand over his face and hair. After placing an online order for sweet and sour chicken and chow mein to arrive shortly after he did, Dru started the car and headed out. Chinese food didn’t fit with his health regimen, but neither did this stress-inducing fiasco.
At home, he let himself in, punched in his security alarm code, then headed into the kitchen. He retrieved the mail from the counter where his housekeeper had left it. Rifling through the envelopes, he heard a car rattle up the drive. The fifteen-year-old Camry belonged to Dustin, a college student trying to make ends meet while he earned his degree.
Dru’s stomach growled as he dumped the junk mail in the recycle bin and glanced out the window. The delivery guy climbed out of the car.
Dru lifted a hand to wave . . . then saw his face. Before he was seen, he jerked out of view and palmed his weapon. That wasn’t Dustin, but he had the kid’s car. It could’ve been borrowed. Was Dustin busy at the restaurant?
On his phone, Dru dialed, telling himself he was overreacting. But after that conversation with Braun, talking openly about Leif and the Neiothen . . .
No, it couldn’t be.
When the line picked up, he lowered his voice. “Hey, is Dustin in today?”
“Dustin no here—do delivery. Be back soon.”
Well, crap. “Thanks.” If Dustin was doing delivery—then he’d have his car. And this guy buzzing the doorbell must’ve intercepted him between here and Ming Wok.
Likely, Dustin was dead. If Dru wasn’t careful, he would be, too.
The bell rang again.
He angled his head so his voice sounded more distant. “Who is it?”
“Delivery from Ming Wok,” the man announced through the opaque door. He could have a gun under the carton he held.
An assassin would need to make sure his mark was dead, which meant coming inside, one way or another. Dru could just shoot him through the door. But what if Dustin had switched routes or cars with another driver for some reason? He could see the headlines: Deputy Director of Operations Kills Chinese Takeout Delivery Guy.
Better to get him on his own turf, familiar ground.
Weapon tucked at the small of his back, Dru opened the door. “Hey.
”
Midthirties, clean cut. Though the guy tried to act all chill, Dru was trained to see things others missed—like the tension roiling through his shoulders. The way his gray eyes reconned the living and dining rooms in the space of two seconds, likely to verify Dru was alone.
This guy was here to deliver—but not chow mein.
Dru reached toward his back pocket. “Oh shoot. Left my wallet in the kitchen.” Deliberately, he stepped back, holding the door as a barrier. “C’mon in. I’ll grab the money.” He kept his hands loose and his stance ready.
“Yeah.” The guy shrugged. “Sure.” He stepped inside with the takeout boxes and a drink Dru hadn’t ordered. The lid of it wasn’t on correctly.
No sooner had Dru detected that than the drink sluiced out—right into his face. Eyes clenched, he dove at the man’s gut. They collided against the wall, sweet and sour chicken splattering across the room and floor, making traction impossible.
The assassin twisted and hooked Dru’s neck.
Realizing the inherent danger, Dru dropped to his knees with a yank, swiping the guy’s legs out from under him at the same time. He felt the assassin’s momentum flip backward.
They went down. Laid out, his own arm now around his assailant’s neck, Dru held him in a scissor hold. The attacker thrashed, noodles working against the restraint. Letting this man up meant death. And that wasn’t going to work.
A foot snapped upward, nailing Dru in the face. His teeth clacked and pain reverberated down his spine. He had enough training not to release the assassin, who was throwing punches, doing all he could to free himself. Dru just had to hold on, keep him deprived of oxygen until he was unconscious. Temptation screamed to make that permanent, but he needed to know who had sent him. And most importantly—was this connected to Leif?
TWELVE
REAPER HEADQUARTERS, MARYLAND
The spit was hitting the fan and a little too close to home. Cell folded his arms, noting the ominous cloud hanging over the hub as four Marines in tac gear escorted a chained, hooded prisoner down the access corridor to the brig. Director Iliescu brought up the rear, his cheek swollen and split. Blood and something else stained his shirt.
It bothered Cell in strange ways to see the director, who was fastidious about his appearance, unkempt. Or maybe it was his haunted look.
Reaper grouped up as he came toward them.
“Are you okay?” Mercy moved closer with a limping Baddar.
Iliescu nodded, slowing, though his gaze tracked the security detail.
“Braun said you were attacked in your home,” Culver prompted.
“Posed as a delivery guy, but he was driving the car of the college kid who normally delivers. Had I not recognized the car, he might’ve gotten the drop on me.”
“By your face,” Culver noted, “he dropped something on you.”
“My skull is thick.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t use a suppressed weapon through the door,” Culver said, processing the incident.
“He likely had to confirm the kill. After I secured him, he wouldn’t talk and had no ID or phone to identify him with.” Dru huffed. “He’s a professional. I want to know who sent him.”
“Maybe they can get it out of him.” Saito had a lot of insinuation in those words.
“Bringing him down here . . .” Culver said, squinting. “That means you’re keeping this off the books.”
Iliescu bobbed his head. “For now.”
There was something a little off about that. And by a little, Cell meant colossally. Holding a man who’d attacked the deputy director of operations of the CIA in a belowground bunker that technically didn’t exist . . .
“Couldn’t you get more intel with prints and blood?” Mercy asked.
“Already on it,” Iliescu said, a distance in his gaze. “But if he’s who I think he is, then that won’t get us anywhere.”
One thing Cell always admired about the director was that he had it together. Even after being roughed up by an assassin, he still held that confidence, the air of a man in charge.
Except . . . something was . . . missing. Off.
The director patted Culver’s shoulder as he looked at the team. “Dig hard and fast. We need to find Leif before they do.”
Culver crossed his arms. “You think this is connected to Runt? How?”
“The noose is tightening—they came after me, I guess, because I’m getting too close. Or, like us, they can’t find him and thought tossing my place and me would net intel. And I’m getting pressure from all sides.” The director’s gaze hit Braun, who was emerging from her office with an ashen expression. “Let’s find him—and that book. Maybe it’ll tell us how to write a happy ending.”
Cell watched Iliescu leave. Why hadn’t he told the others what he knew about Leif? Why not come clean? Because Cell knew what little he’d unearthed was the sun-glistening tip of the proverbial iceberg.
“Cell.” Culver planted his backside on the hub table. “What can we find out about Veratti?”
“Besides the fact he is controlling the Neiothen, and therefore a very real threat to my ability to breathe and exist?” Cell’s mind ricocheted off the video of Leif buddying up with that long-legged psycho Andrew.
“What if we’ve been going about this wrong?”
“Well, obviously we have, because we have exactly zilch.” Cell pointed to his office. “I’m digging into Hermanns, trying to find something that leads to Leif.”
“Right, but why Hermanns?” Culver prodded. “He’s not the head of the serpent—that’s Veratti.”
“Which means if we go after him, we end up dead or dispatched to some black hole in Area 51 by whomever in the American government he’s bought.”
“You don’t seem interested in finding answers.”
“I’m interested in not ending up six feet under. I’m interested in figuring out what Hermanns had that made Leif go all Anakin Skywalker on us.”
“Why are you so petrified of Veratti?” Saito asked. “He’s not the first in the Most Wanted deck we’ve gone after.”
“But he is the first one incredibly adept at making enemies”—Cell patted his chest in frantic emphasis—“disappear or turn up dead. I do not want my face on his deck of cards.” Shrugging didn’t dislodge the ten-ton boulder attached to his shoulders. “And he turned a new Leif, if you get my badly placed pun. Now . . . I have things to do.”
He paused. Considered the team and the expressions that read like coding right off his own motherboard. With a sigh, he returned to his desk. Shoved both hands up over his head and tried to bury the guilt that seemed hot-wired into this entire Book of the Wars mission.
Getting over Leif choke-holding him was harder than he’d imagined. It was a technique they’d all been taught and had used in combat. But to have the arm of a friend slip around his neck . . . to know what was happening . . . nothing compared to stepping from suspicion into confirmation that Leif had turned against them.
Cell drew in a long breath, taking in his workstation. The trails that led nowhere. He clicked the tab on the biologics company Hermanns owned, the one whose system Iskra and Mercy had broken into. Headquartered in Germany, Frankfurt & Stuttgart Biologics had a subsidiary office in New York and other offices in France and London. Doing well, turning a profit, nothing mind-blowing or nefarious. He’d already gone through its records and reviewed analysts’ reports from within the CIA as well as the CDC, since F&SB dealt in the biological. He’d even re-reviewed the files from that gallery in France where Iskra had the run-in with Andrew. He double-checked those files, but this time the second listing on page fourteen—Alisz Vogt—nagged at him.
A German. Hermanns was German. But so were a lot of people working for him in his German company.
Yeah, so move on, numbskull.
But he couldn’t. Especially with the way his luck ran these days. Listed as a consultant, Alisz Vogt received regular payments from the gallery in France. A German in France. Not t
erribly unusual. But when he saw the amount deposited each month, Cell started considering a change of profession.
There was something about her. What? What what what?
Gritting his teeth, he searched backward through the company’s locations, thinking maybe some nugget would stand out that previously hadn’t. It was a desperate thought, but sometimes desperate worked. Two hours on London and still nothing. He hit France—he’d love to be there. Anywhere away from this place and this nightmare.
Hours later, his phone rang, and he let out a low moan of frustration. Why wouldn’t they just leave him alone? He grabbed his phone. “What?”
“Um,” came a soft, sweet voice, “I think you were looking for me.”
Cell frowned, glancing at the caller ID too late. “Who is this?” He softened his tone, because hers had been more matter-of-fact than threatening.
“Why are you looking into me?”
“If you want me to answer that, you have to tell me who you are.” But his hand had already moved the mouse over the tab, and his gaze rested on a name. No way.
“Alisz.”
His heart tripped. Trusting his self-installed program would track her call, he swallowed. Tried not to freak. Sound calm. Natural. Like you know what you’re doing. And how she freaking found you. “This is a surprise.” Considering he hadn’t told anyone he was looking for Alisz Vogt nor tried to contact her. “How can I help you?”
“What makes you think I need your help?”
“Well, since you knew I was searching for you, I don’t think you do,” he said with a nervous laugh. “But you haven’t threatened me yet, so that leaves a guy wondering.”
“I think we can help each other, Mr. Purcell.”
Cold splashed through his stomach. How had she gotten his name? His gaze sprinted over the open tabs, wondering which one had given her—“The gallery.”
Her laughter was light, infectious. “See? I knew we would make a great team. Can we meet?”
Not if he wanted to live. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s smart.”
Another twitter carried through the connection—a breathed laugh. As if she knew who had the winning hand. “Like you said, I haven’t threatened you, so there’s nothing to fear from me.”