“Do you want me to pick you up again?”
“Maybe later, after we’re clear. But for now stay close.”
She pulled him along the corridor, past a series of rooms, some with doors flung wide open to show ornate furnishings and fancy four-poster beds. When they reached the windows at the end, Mai pulled up short. “Oh.”
Drake’s heart jolted. “Whaddya mean—oh?”
“Plan A and Plan B may have become muddled. We ran the wrong way. This was where we ended up at the end of Plan B.”
“You mean the fuck it part?”
Mai peered through the window. “Yes. The fuck it part.”
Drake stepped forward. He saw a thirty-foot drop straight down to the swimming pool. Mai was staring at him. “The water’s lovely and warm.”
Drake heard shouting in the halls adjacent to them. It wouldn’t be long. “Plan B,” he said for the first time in his life. It wouldn’t be the last. Mai ran into a nearby room, a streak of tanned limbs and white designer nylon. She returned a moment later with a heavy desk lamp and launched it through the window with all her might.
“We couldn’t just open it then?”
“All locked. No keys. Doku doesn’t afford his guests much freedom.” Mai flicked away the shards and perched barefoot on the wide sill. “It’s been wild, Drake. See you at the bottom.” She paused and ran an eye over his clothes. “You stripping?”
Drake coughed, almost choking. “Bollocks to that.”
Mai laughed and threw herself backward, a free spirit, crazy-good at her job. Drake wondered how anyone so young could be so expert. Did the Japanese train them from birth? Wasn’t that the way they used to train Ninjas? He’d read somewhere that the Ninja clans had all but died out—with only a handful left.
Without another thought, he climbed onto the sill, recognizing that their escape counted on them remaining unseen, and threw himself out into the warm night. A heartbeat of nerve-wracking tension zipped by and then he crashed feet-first into the churning waters, trusting Mai to give him space, shooting down until his shoes clipped the bottom of the pool and then kicking back up as hard as he could.
He broke the surface spluttering, wiping streaming water from his eyes. Mai floated easily beside him, laughing. She pointed to the pool ladder and struck off powerfully. Drake pursued her hard, now laughing himself, and followed her up the ladder. Mai took a second to appraise the area and then sprinted for some nearby trees. By the time she stopped, panting, they were lost among the thick trunks and hanging boughs. Fire blazed from the top floor of the mansion they had left.
Mai pulled him along for a few more minutes until they broke free of the trees and emerged near a shallow lake with a smooth, sandy beach. Moonlight glittered across its flat surface. When Mai’s toes touched the lapping waters, she used a judo throw to set him on his back. He didn’t resist.
She climbed on top of him. “This is one relationship I think should be consummated immediately, Mr. Drake.”
That was his first experience of Mai Kitano.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The caves were dark, musty, full of cobwebs and debris, dirty-smelling and unconnected. Apart from shelter from a storm, they offered the castaways nothing. After a cursory check, Drake and Mai soon realized their time would be best spent elsewhere. They took some time circumventing the mountain from the height of the highest cave, but even up there, at that time of the morning, the hanging mist refused to relinquish its secrets.
“Bastard gets thicker by the day,” Drake said, dubiously. He shielded his eyes, squinting. Mai turned her nose up at him.
“Whoa, you stink, my friend.”
“Well, thanks. Guess I forgot my Lynx.”
He led the way down the mountain, head still pounding in a turmoil of mixed feelings. He’d become very conscious that Mai had been leading the way since they’d been shot down, much like she had led the way when they first met. He ploughed down the steep mountainside until he reached the foothills and then the forest. Of course, he knew where they were going long before he admitted it to himself. It was a foregone conclusion, had been for some time.
The lake glistened invitingly, sparkling with promise. Mai regarded him innocently from beneath hooded eyes. “Remember the first time we discovered a lake together?”
“Vividly.”
She unzipped her jacket, the sound loud in the stillness, and shrugged the heavy material off her shoulders. It fell to the ground with a thunk. With her hands above her head, she stripped off her vest. In another minute, she had unbuckled her trousers and stepped out of her underwear.
Mai Kitano stood before him naked. It was a sight he remembered well, a sight he would never forget. He watched as she turned and sauntered into deeper water, at length turning to face him once more.
“You joining me?”
“Fucking right I am.” He rushed into the lake, crashing face forward, not even bothering to take off his clothes.
And when he reached her, it seemed like the past had merged with the present.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Walter Clarke had been traveling for days along what he liked to call his “east coast run.” A grueling schedule to be sure but, when finished, a run that gave him three days straight with his family.
He sat inside his car for a minute, listening to the sound of the hard-worked engine tick, and watching the sun settling vibrantly across the Vermont skies. Then, closing his heavy, black briefcase and shoving whatever insurance documents spilled out carelessly under the front seat, he cracked open the car door and climbed out.
Cool, fresh air greeted him. Walter breathed deeply. Time for some wonderful downtime with the kids. He hadn’t had this much free time since he’d stayed—
The light footfall startled him. He spun, expecting a playful neighbor or his buddy Chris to be sneaking up behind. But the sight that greeted him made him think he’d inadvertently stumbled onto the set of The Walking Dead.
A tall, spare man stood six feet away. Walter gasped. The man’s eyes gave him a thousand-yard stare; his movements were robotic, but the big handgun never wavered. Walter stared down the wide, cruel barrel and wondered what he’d ever done wrong.
“You’ve got the wrong—” he started to say, but the weapon boomed and Walter Clarke knew no more.
Lights went on in houses close by. Curtains twitched.
The residents who dared to peek out forever wished they hadn’t. They were front-row witnesses as the zombie-like shooter took his own gun, placed it over his heart, and pulled the trigger.
*****
Hayden rubbed tired eyes, increasingly frustrated by the lack of anything concrete in this case. Both she and Kinimaka were starting to wonder if Senator Turner’s attempted assassination had indeed been the random act of some nutjob. But other elements of the case didn’t add up. Chiefly, Dai Hibiki’s forewarning. Drake’s unofficial shooting down. The perp’s demeanor. An autopsy had found no chemicals in his body, no puncture marks in his flesh, no signs of foul play.
A mystery. Much like another mystery they had all contemplated frequently over the last few weeks—why the hell had Russell Cayman removed Kali’s bones from the third tomb of the gods in Germany? Despite a huge effort, the man and the bones were nowhere to be found. But he’d resurface, they all agreed. He’d resurface with a plan.
Hayden sat down, momentarily stumped. She was just about to announce her intention to take a couple of hours off when all hell broke loose. Ben squawked and Karin hit her desk hard. “Red flag,” she cried. “Putting it up on the monitor.”
Hayden stared as a police report flashed up on screen. A man in Vermont has been shot dead about an hour ago. Nothing unusual there, she thought. But what did raise the hairs on the back of her neck was the description of the shooter. The same MO, the same appearance, the same outcome. If Hayden hadn’t recently seen Michael Markel lying on a slab, she’d have thought he might have reanimated and done the deed himself.
Fire shot thr
ough her nerves. “Mano. Alicia. Dahl. Take a look at this. Looks like it’s about to kick off big time.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The mist lifted on the sixth day.
Drake and Mai, Romero and Smyth, immediately hotfooted it to the mountain and scrambled as high as relative safety allowed. The rockface was crumbled and shale-strewn, but offered several sturdy ledges to use as viewing platforms. They each took a side.
When Drake stopped, he took a deep breath and then stared hard out to sea. He saw something that almost made him stumble and fall off the mountain. Vestiges of a hanging fog bank still clouded the view but there was no doubt about what he was seeing.
“Here!” he shouted. “And hurry the fuck up!”
Within minutes, they joined him, panting and looking expectant.
There, a few miles distant, stood a second island. This one clearly larger, but still hard to make out. But it wasn’t the island especially that made them all gawp.
It was the large warship docking in its natural harbor.
Drake watched intently. The warship wasn’t all that big compared to, say, an American aircraft carrier or Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, but it looked capable nonetheless. And without being up to scratch on his languages, it was also pretty clear that the long red banner with the glyph-like white characters stretched across its rails, and the hanging red and blue flag with the red star, that this baby hailed from Korea—of the northern variety.
Romero whistled. “Now there’s a fly in the ointment.”
Mai pursed her lips. “Not really. That’s the island we were aiming for initially.” She smiled. “The mission’s far from over, my friends. Hibiki is on that island along with everything he spoke about.”
“And now we have a ride.” Drake eyed the warship.
Smyth grunted angrily. “We have to get there first. And then overpower a shitload of the little bastards. Not quite that easy, SAS.”
Mai shook her head. “For you, maybe. Now, get your gear and pack up whatever food and water we have. Hide the Zodiacs. We should do this before our strength gives out. We should do this now.”
“And when we get there?” Smyth grumbled.
“That’s when the fun starts.” Drake winked and started to make his way down the mountain. “It’s a long way home, guys. Time to stop tossing it off and get hustling.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hayden stepped out of the new HQ for a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, she stepped straight into the path of Sarah Moxley, pain-in-the-ass news reporter extraordinaire.
“What do you have to say about the random murder in Vermont?” The redhead thrust a mic in Hayden’s face. “The similarities to Senator Turner’s attempted shooting are uncanny.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We know your bloodhound was on site when the shooting happened, Miss Jaye. We know more than you think.”
My bloodhound? Hayden wondered. Then she thought of Alicia and gave the woman a pitying glance. “Piece of advice—I wouldn’t say that to her face.”
Moxley blinked. “Point taken. I’ve met her. Colorful to the point of garish.”
“You won’t get me talking, Miss Moxley. If you’ll excuse me—”
Hayden stalked back inside. She’d forgotten about the goddamn reporter who’d made it her life’s mission to harass the new agency. What the hell had Alicia been saying to her?
The control room was full of conversation for a change. Mano and Dahl were discussing the poor insurance salesman and tracing the route he’d recently taken up and down the east coast. Problem was, it didn’t overlap with Senator Turner’s—at least not yet.
A senator and an insurance salesman, Hayden thought. What on earth connected them?
Ben and Karin were delving into the background of the shooter. A man of thirty-one—Calvin Torrance was a bus driver and a loner, a respectable member of a nearby Vermont community who had never put a foot wrong in his life.
“Juvey record’s locked,” Karin commented. “Just like Markel’s.” The blond turned toward Hayden. “I think we should bring some pressure to bear. That’s two out of two and pretty much our only link.”
“There’s a reason they lock a kid’s record, sis,” Ben said. “It’s to protect them.”
Hayden agreed with Karin. They had found a link and it needed pursuing. Trouble was, their own agency didn’t have any clout yet. “I’ll call Jonathan.”
But then Karin’s eyebrows shot up and she started to stare oddly at her screen. “That’s odd.”
Half a minute passed. Hayden tried not to throttle her. “What’s odd?”
“Sorry, boss. Senator Turner’s name just jammed up the airwaves. Our red flag system has gone friggin’ crazy. I can’t—” Karin tapped furiously, like a woodpecker on speed. “Can’t pinpoint the source. Give me a few.”
Hayden moved behind her. Dahl looked across from his perch. “I’m smelling some action.”
Karin isolated the source in less than a minute. “Crap,” she said. “Unbelievable. There’s a bank robbery in progress. In D.C. Something’s fucked up ’cos there’s reports of live fire. And the shooter…” She started to chew on a nail. “To quote a police officer from the scene: another one of those freaks who tried to kill Senator Turner. . .”
Hayden felt a chill deeper than fear, deeper than terror, something that ran through her bones and into race memory. She managed two words. “Mount up.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The area around the bank was a war zone. Torsten Dahl began to feel right at home. This was his stage, at last. He quickly threaded his way through a dozen haphazardly parked cop cars until he reached the front line.
A cop stared at him. “Who the hell are you?”
Dahl whipped out the brand new I.D.
“SPEAR?” The cop shook his head. “What will they come up with next?”
“Do you have a situation report, sir?”
“Yeah. We have fourteen hostages in there, a dead guard and a crazy perp. Damn bitch is shooting every few minutes. Situation’s going straight to hell, man. That’s my report.”
Dahl rocked back on his heels. “The shooter is a woman?”
“Yeah. Of the female variety. ’Sup, you don’t get ’em back in Blighty?”
“I’m not English.” Dahl related his findings through his throat mic.
“Special Tactics are here.” The cop pointed to a newly arrived vehicle. Special Tactics were DC’s equivalent to SWAT.
“You want me to handle this?” Dahl asked Hayden. “Or leave it to SWAT?”
The cop considered him more closely.
“We need the shooter alive.” Hayden’s voice crackled in Dahl’s ear. “And preferably the person she came to shoot. Whoever that might be.”
Karin’s voice then joined the connection. “One thing’s clear—the person she came to shoot is still alive. Otherwise, she’d have killed herself by now.”
“We have to get in there, Dahl.” Hayden decided. “Now.”
The Swede just nodded. He didn’t have to check to know Alicia had his back. When he turned back to the cop, the man actually backed away. “I ain’t going anywhere with you, bud. You both got that crazy in you. My ole bud, bless his soul. He was the same, plain—”
Alicia shushed him. “Listen, bud. How did you know?”
The cop pulled a face. “What?”
“That this bogus bank robber acted the same way as Turner’s shooter?”
“I was there, miss. I saw it all. A lot of us did.”
“But how have you seen her.” Alicia gestured at the bank building.
“Oh. She’s been wandering about the place. Staring out the windows. Checking rooms and offices, according to the spies in the sky. Who knows what else? Seems like she’s searching for something.”
“Someone,” Dahl corrected him. “When’s the last time you saw her.”
“Before you got here. Maybe ten minutes.”
“This i
s a rescue mission,” Dahl said. “Check with your lookouts now. Do they see her?”
The cop took out his radio and looked up at the surrounding buildings. “You guys. You seen any activity in there?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“Negative. Been a while—”
A shot rang out from inside the building. The Special Tactics team looked like it was gearing up for action. Dahl didn’t wait. He vaulted the police car, sprinted the hundred yards to the front door and pressed his face to the glass. Alicia kept pace.
Inside, the bank was a scene of desperation and confusion. Several people were knelt with faces to the floor and hands on heads, others were standing hesitantly, still more were walking uncertainly toward the doors.
Dahl wrenched them open. “Move it. Get out of here!”
He pushed inside with Alicia. The Englishwoman stopped the first group. “Where’s the crazy bitch?”
A young man with slicked back hair pointed in the direction of the open offices and interview rooms. “Back there.”
“She with anyone?”
The man nodded, a guilty look flashing across his face. “Chased Michelle back there a few minutes ago.”
“Who’s Michelle?” Dahl said as he tore off.
“Just a teller,” the man said with bewilderment. “She’s just a bank teller.”
Dahl crossed the open floor in seconds. At that moment, he saw movement ahead—a woman stepping into the open and holding a gun as if she knew how to use it. Dahl launched into a forward skid, feet first, bringing his weapon around as he flew across the polished floor and placing a few pounds of pressure on the trigger.
“Stop!”
But the woman fired reflexively. The bullet flew past, striking a nearby desk. Dahl hit the woman’s shins at speed, knocking her legs out from under her faster than she could think. She hit the ground even as he shot by and he grabbed her—going for her hands and the gun.
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