The 3rd Cycle of the Betrayed Series Collection: Extremely Controversial Historical Thrillers (Betrayed Series Boxed set)

by Carolyn McCray

He had to pull it together before Brandt told him to pull it together.

  Instead of tugging on his lip, he bit down on the tender flesh.

  The pain helped him focus.

  That hadn’t been something he had learned from Brandt. He had learned that from the Knot. Anytime you felt like you were slipping from grace, you were trained to hurt yourself.

  Pain always worked.

  He was able to calm himself, well, as calm as you could get riding with Lopez in the pouring down rain in the narrow canals of Venice.

  His number one job was to prepare to take the shot, if he got one, to save Prenner and Sallah.

  This was not going to end like the last mission. They could not lose two team members in as many missions.

  Not if Davidson had anything to say about it.

  * * *

  Brandt listened as Vanderwalt explained that he had been followed at the airport.

  Brandt was furious. Furious with Vanderwalt. Furious with Sallah. Furious with himself.

  He should have asked Vanderwalt how his trip had been, but he had assumed that the man would have told him if their cover was in danger.

  Good to know for the future.

  And Sallah? He would handle the Foremen once he caught up with him.

  Brandt checked the line, but it was still too staticky to get through to Stark’s team.

  Right now Lopez was circling the area, waiting for a direction to go. They hadn’t caught sight of the attackers, but that wasn’t surprising since there were a lot of tunnels that crisscrossed this area that were built during WWII. The resistance needed some way to travel without Mussolini’s men seeing them.

  Prenner could be anywhere under the city. They had to find them in the next three minutes, period. Honestly, if the clock went past one hundred eighty seconds, you were generally screwed. Forget first forty-eight hours. You barely had three minutes to thwart a kidnapping, otherwise the trail went dead, and the chances you were going to get the hostages out alive plummeted.

  The line clicked on, possibly the sweetest sound he’d ever heard outside of his daughter’s tinkling laugh.

  “Tell me I made the right decision,” Brandt stated.

  It was Stark’s mother who answered, “Prenner’s locater just left the jammed zone. You need to take a left then a right, go three streets then hang another left.”

  Brandt breathed a sigh of relief. Each of them had a medically implanted locator. It was passive and intermittent and could pass nearly any scan for communications devices. Nearly.

  He certainly had sent Prenner into danger, however he was betting they could locate both kidnapped men by the tracking device.

  The clock was ticking down on those damn one hundred eighty seconds. They had already wasted forty-seven of them chasing their tails.

  Lopez was a mad man as always, banging up against the canals, but Brandt didn’t care. They needed every bit of speed the corporal could give them.

  “There!” Lopez screamed over the storm and the speedboat.

  Brandt was soaked, but he didn’t care. His feet were under a foot of water from all the water that sloshed into the speedboat every time Lopez took a turn.

  Up ahead there were two Sea-Doos.

  Prenner appeared unconscious, slumped over the driver, his wrists hand-cuffed together to keep him from falling over backward off the jet ski.

  He had been wondering how they had gotten Prenner onto the Sea-Doo.

  Brandt couldn’t believe that he was actually saying this, but he had to. “Lopez, we need more speed.”

  * * *

  “Don’t bother,” Davidson stated.

  Steadying his arm against the boat, which wasn’t exactly stable, he tried to line up his shot. There was a lot of motion to compensate for, but that’s why he made the big bucks. Right.

  “I’ve got a shot.”

  He hoped…

  “Prenner is over the driver,” Brandt stated.

  “No kidding,” Davidson replied.

  Davidson took in a breath which brought a mouthful of rain with it. He could do this.

  He didn’t have to hit the driver. He just needed to hit the engine.

  Lopez was doing a fine job of catching up, but there was a cross canal up ahead and if Davidson was a betting man, he’d guess that the Sea-Doos would split up. And that just wouldn’t do.

  He steadied his heart rate. He checked his breathing. He stretched out his fingers. He kept his other eye open as he checked his bearings.

  The shot was lined up.

  “No sudden movements,” Davidson warned Lopez.

  The corporal snorted. “No guarantees.”

  Davidson did notice that Lopez kept the boat a little steadier though, despite his bravado.

  With only a moment’s hesitation, Davidson pulled the trigger.

  He reloaded the chamber before he even checked if his shot had been true.

  “They’re going down!” Rebecca screamed, pointing at the Sea-Doo that was beginning to sink.

  Had he saved Prenner only to kill him?

  * * *

  Rebecca was a good swimmer, but trying to save two men soaking wet? She didn’t think she could do it.

  Luckily she didn’t have to.

  It appeared that Prenner had been greatly exaggerating his unconsciousness and as the Sea-Doo sank, he heaved backward, taking the driver off and into the canal.

  Just when Rebecca started getting worried again, Prenner breached the surface, sucking down air.

  There he used his handcuffs around the kidnapper’s neck and subdued the man, all while swimming over to the side of the canal.

  “What are you doing?” Prenner demanded. “Go, go, go. I’ve got this!”

  Apparently the point man thought he had it under control. Lopez didn’t hesitate, gunning the engine, streaking after the other Sea-Doo, which held Sallah, who was more than likely not exaggerating his unconsciousness.

  Rebecca really didn’t want to watch what happened next. She pressed her forehead against Brandt’s back, praying for Sallah.

  The Sea-Doo should have had the advantage. It was smaller, faster and able to take the canal’s turns better, unless of course you were up against Lopez. Rebecca felt pretty confident that he would have found a way to catch the Sea-Doos even in the gondola.

  Those kidnappers were doomed.

  Lopez shoved the speedboat right up the Sea-Doo’s behind. Her husband and Vanderwalt climbed over the windshield of the boat. Suddenly aware what they were going to do, she disagreed, but guess what? She didn’t have a vote in this.

  Thank goodness. The last time she’d been on the hood of a boat, she’d nearly killed herself on an overhead bridge. And, of course, up ahead was a pedestrian crossing.

  The men seemed to recognize the danger as Lopez got them a few more miles per hour. Brandt grabbed Sallah by the back and pulled him onto the hood of the boat. The action also jerked the kidnapper back as well.

  Vanderwalt put his gun in the assailant’s side and shot twice.

  Brandt removed Sallah’s hands from around the kidnapper’s neck and let the body slip off the boat. It plunked into the water with a splash. Lopez dodged to avoid hitting the body, sloshing even more water into the boat.

  Both men ducked as the arch went overhead. That had been close. The tips of their hair were bent by the stone.

  Rebecca looked back at the kidnapper, floating face down on the surface.

  She didn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for the man.

  Vanderwalt helped Brandt get Sallah into the seating area of the boat.

  “How are we going to get Prenner?” Rebecca asked.

  “He knows where the rally point is,” Brandt responded.

  Of course, the point man did. What was she thinking? Rebecca had to admit she kind of zoned out when the men talked about all of that non-religious stuff. She was far more interested by the historical theory than she was by such things as rally points.

  Her husband tried not to l
eave anything to chance.

  Rebecca looked down at Sallah, who was still unconscious on the floor of the boat. She did feel a little sorry for the Foremen.

  Brandt was not a happy camper, and he let the person he was interrogating know that.

  CHAPTER 18

  Stark sat by Bunny’s bed listening to the team rendezvousing at the rally point, a lovely haberdashery on the Grand Canal. They couldn’t exactly return to the hotel. Not after that escapade on the canals.

  Instead they went to the CIA-front hat shop. Prenner joined them, soaked to the skin, however, the rest of the team wasn’t much better.

  The team was waiting for Sallah to wake up to decide how to proceed next. The man had it in his possession, hopefully not on his person at the moment. But Sallah supposedly had the Book of Noah, if you could believe the bookstore’s owner.

  * * *

  It was a moment of quiet across the pond.

  Stark had finally been able to sneak an ear bud past the nurses. He had double-checked to be sure that it did not interfere with any of Bunny’s monitoring devices.

  She was in a state of unstable stability. Her vitals had leveled out. Sure, her blood pressure was low, and her heart rate was high, and her O2 was at eighty eight percent on 100% oxygen, but hey, that was better than she’d been for hours.

  A doctor walked in, who knew which one at this point. They all looked the same in their white coats and dour expression.

  “Miracles do happen,” the doctor said.

  Stark was sure that the man was trying to be supportive, But all those comments showed how little faith the doctors had in Bunny’s chance of recovery.

  Of course, Bunny took this opportunity to arch her back, tugging on her tube.

  At first Stark just thought that Bunny was just waking up again. But then her entire body started to spasm as her head flailed from side to side.

  Stark didn’t need to be told what this was, as he threw his body over hers to keep her from shaking right out of the bed. It was a stroke. The worst possible consequence to all of the trauma that Bunny’s body had experienced.

  The doctor ran out of the room. Stark knew that that man wasn’t abandoning Bunny. Instead, he was going to get medications to stop the seizure.

  Stark screamed and cried in his head, sobbing against Bunny’s cheek. He’d learned that any outburst of emotion would get him kicked out of the room.

  So instead he spoke to Bunny in his mind as her vitals pinged all over the place.

  “Please, please, please,” Stark begged. “Don’t die. You can’t die. You have to stay here.”

  He heard his mother rush into the room. “Oh no,” she sighed.

  She ran over and hugged him from behind. And his mom was not a hugger.

  Tika came in and stood at the foot of the bed, openly crying.

  But Stark had to ignore all of that. He had to say focused on Bunny.

  He kissed her hand, squeezing it tight. He spoke loudly in his mind “I’m here for you. I will be here always, I swear. I don’t expect you to return the favor, I know you’re with Davidson. The world would be so dim without you. You’ve got more to do. You can’t leave. You just can’t.”

  His mother rubbed his back, as the doctor came and gave Bunny an injection. Immediately her spasms calmed, however once she was still, it was easy to see the devastating effects of the stroke.

  While she was unconscious, she still had some muscle tone in her face. Now on the left side there was none. Her eyelid, cheek, and lip sagged down.

  “You’d best prepare yourself,” the doctor suggested.

  But Stark refused. If he gave up, Bunny would give up. And he would never forgive himself.

  Instead he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead and said aloud, “I’m shooting to be Godfather of your children here, Bunny. Don’t let me down.”

  Again he just draped himself over the side of bed, laying as close to her as he could.

  They could weather even this storm together.

  * * *

  Brandt rose from the chair in the back of the haberdashery. Sallah had stirred, finally awakening from the chloroform.

  He leaned over so that he was right in Sallah’s vision. “Bet you didn’t expect to see me.”

  Sallah frowned, “I certainly did not.” The man slowly rose to a sitting position. “I have not necessarily been as forthcoming with you as I let on.”

  “Yah, buddy, we kind of figured that out,” Lopez said, wringing his sleeve out, sending a cascade of water onto the carpet.

  “Let’s start with who tried to kidnap you?”

  The man wouldn’t look Brandt in the eye. “Those would be my fellow Foremen.”

  “Because?” Brandt prompted.

  Sallah looked down at his feet. “Perhaps my superiors are not as in love with my idea to join forces with you as I implied.”

  Brandt crouched down to be at eye-level with Sallah. “How ‘not in love’?”

  The old man shrugged. “They were adamantly against the idea.”

  “So what? What did you do?” Brandt asked.

  “I secretly stole off in the middle of the night to join you.”

  “And the Book of Enoch?” Brandt pressed. He felt like the guy was used to a lot of deference from his cult. Something that Brandt just couldn’t give him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Really? That’s your story?”

  Sallah frowned.

  “The gig is up. We know you traded the ark fragment for the book.”

  Sallah put his face in his hands. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  Brandt cocked his head. “What was it supposed to be like?”

  “I read the Book of Noah, thinking it would give me the insight I needed to build a new ark. But I was wrong. It offers great insights into the original ark, but nothing really about the foretold second flood.”

  “So what?” Brandt asked. “You decided to bamboozle us into helping you find Noah’s tomb?”

  “I thought it would hold the clues we needed to heed God’s word.”

  “You thought a lot of stuff incorrectly, Buddy,” Lopez interjected.

  Brandt gave him the look to button it up.

  “What? I was just saying?” Lopez countered. Brandt shook his head.

  Brandt stood back up. “Exactly how much time did we waste dinking around?”

  Vanderwalt cleared his throat.

  “What?”

  “May we speak in private?” the MI-5 agent asked.

  “No,” Brandt answered flatly.

  “Pardon me?’

  “You know what? We are at the point where all of our cards have to be on the table. So spill it.”

  Vanderwalt’s usual boyish good looks faded into a grimace.

  “It isn’t my fault. I helped you as much as I could, endangering my own job.”

  Brandt put up a hand, to stop the Brit from rambling on.

  “Full disclosure. I think I’ve earned that, Walt.”

  Vanderwalt sat down in one of the plush chairs, despite being soaking wet. With a sigh he began, “It appears that a very, very highly placed Member of Parliament is a Foremen.”

  Brandt looked to Sallah, who looked away. That was confirmation enough for Brandt.

  “Of course, I didn’t know about the Foremen then, but it was obvious he was very invested in keeping this entire Chinese drilling disaster under wraps. I swear that I gave you as much support as I possibly could.”

  Brandt shook his head. “If that were true Walt, you wouldn’t look so damned guilty.”

  * * *

  Damned Brandt and his bloody insight. Vanderwalt hated being in this position, especially with a good friend like Brandt.

  Vanderwalt sighed, sooner or later Brandt would find out.

  “I might have learned where the Chinese drilling team went.”

  Lopez threw his hands in the air. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Might or did?” B
randt challenged, as Lopez walked around the room muttering to himself.

  “I did get the intelligence, but not until late in the mission.”

  “When exactly did you find out?” Prenner asked.

  It seemed the tall man might be holding a tad bit of a grudge, given the fact he had been abducted and nearly drowned in the canal.

  “It was sometime after I left Hammerfest.”

  Even Brandt looked shocked and bewildered.

  “So let me get this straight. You,” Brandt said pointing at Sallah. “’You had Noah’s personal account, yet you allowed us to run around Venice like a bunch of morons.” The sergeant swung around and pointed at Vanderwalt. “And you knew the location that all this running around in Venice was supposed to find.”

  Vanderwalt couldn’t look his friend in the face.

  “Seriously with allies like you, who needs freaking terrorists?”

  Vanderwalt really couldn’t argue with the American. He had been afraid for his job, plain and simple. But as the storms worsened and the global flooding became a crisis, pissing off one old fuddy-duddy Member of Parliament became a moot point.

  “All I can say is, I’m sorry.”

  “A well as I,” Sallah said.

  “Crocodile tears,” Brandt grimaced.

  * * *

  Rebecca’s husband was pissed. And he had every right to be. However that wasn’t getting them closer to solving the riddle of the second flood or the second ark.

  “Where was Chen drilling? Southeast Turkey?” Rebecca asked.

  Vanderwalt shook his head. “No, it was high in the Pakistan Mountains where they border Afghanistan, the Noshaq region.”

  “There’s no oil there,” Prenner noted quite accurately.

  “Which makes one wonder why the Chinese were even there the first place,” Vanderwalt commented.

  Rebecca shook her head. “That area makes no fundamental sense on any count.”

  “How so?” Brandt asked.

  “It has long been rumored that Noah’s Ark is somewhere in mountains of southeast Turkey. I mean these claims go back to biblical times,” Rebecca explained.

  Davidson stepped forward. “Maybe that’s the point though. After all this time and all the searching in Turkey, no one has found conclusive proof that the ark is there. Maybe everyone has been looking in the wrong area this whole time.”