“In basic terms the President feels your team should be relocated. Somewhere new. Fresh. And secret.”
“A secret base?” Hayden blurted.
Bob Todd chuckled. “Exactly that, yes.”
Hayden bit her tongue, managing to cut off the ooooohhh sound only a second after it began. She thought she’d gotten away with it.
“Sounds good, yeah? We’ll be getting on that right away but be prepared to travel and let your team know in the next few days. In related news, our new Secretary has been chosen and she will be in office very shortly.”
“She?”
“Yes. Miss Kimberly Crowe is a woman.”
Hayden filed it all away as the Shaftesbury Theater passed by and then they were on Bloomsbury Street. The cops waved and pointed out an imposing building up ahead. Hayden opened her mouth to end the call but closed it quickly as Todd offered up a little more information.
“Miss Crowe has expressed an interest to meet you all very soon. We’re trying to arrange it even now.”
“That may be, um, tricky.”
“Understood. But that is part of what Secretary Crowe is all about. If she thinks somebody or something is worth taking the risk—nothing’s gonna stop her.”
Hayden shook her head. Shit. How the hell do I explain the attributes of this crew?
“Maybe wait until we get back home,” she said tactfully. “It’s gotta be easier.”
“That sounds very amicable. It will be arranged.” Todd signed off before she could reply.
Hayden looked up. The British Museum was larger than she’d imagined. The truth that then settled was that it could take all day to find a determined man in there. She looked over at the cops.
“Can you get the curator down here? The manager?”
“Which one, ma’am?” One of the cops tried sarcastic.
Alicia still stood at her shoulder. “You can get Santa and all his fucking elves if they’ll help, boy. Just do it now.”
Hayden took a moment to relax and look over the imposing structure. Inside was a man who’d dogged her dreams and waking nightmares for far longer than she cared to remember. In addition, she remained certain that Amari or his cronies would make some kind of appearance. If they’d been watching the previous locations then they would be here too. She looked up as a man came running down the steps.
“The curator,” one of the cops said.
“What on earth is the meaning of this?” the tall, self-important man asked them, his voice a piercing wail. “I am a busy man, you know.”
Drake stepped into his face. “We ain’t exactly lounging around, pal.”
Alicia said it best. “Look, man, shut the hell up and answer her questions. The faster you do it the less chance there is of you getting shot.” She viewed the area. “Best be quick.”
“Shot?” The curator faltered.
Hayden pushed him toward the museum. “Move it, move it. Faster.” The team followed the now sprinting curator all the way up the steps.
And to whatever hell waited beyond.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Splendorous hallways that merged the old with the new, the ancient with the cutting edge, led a multitude of ways inside the British Museum. Drake watched Hayden as she followed the curator, her attention focused on some volatile middle-distance, her body language as tense as ever he’d seen it. Like Alicia, Hayden could be a fiery package. He wouldn’t like to be the man on the wrong side of her.
Kinimaka plodded along beside him, concentrating as ever on walking straight and not knocking down ancient statues and filigreed pedestals on his way past.
“I can’t reach her anymore,” he told Drake.
“She still loves you, mate. Give her time.”
“She may still love me, but she’s already gone. She doesn’t waste her time once her mind’s made up.”
Drake tended to agree, but kept his own counsel. “Remember the good times, mate. If you’re sure that you could have done no more then . . .” He paused. Who the hell was he to be giving out relationship advice?
Kinimaka planted a huge arm across his shoulders and then leaned in. “Thank you, brah. But I’ll tell you this. You got a big reckoning coming. You. Alicia. Mai.” He pursed his lips and blew out a heavy breath. “Judgment Day.”
Drake felt the weight increase across his shoulders. “Thanks for that.”
The vaults were vast, dusty and incredibly disorganized. Hayden quizzed him about Saint Germain but it took time to boot up a computer and search the digital archives. Only after that was done could the man point them to the right area. “Two compositions,” he said. “Donated around the mid-1750s. Are they of significance? I do hope I haven’t missed anything.”
The team calmed him, then sent him back to relative safety. Drake was already prowling the dusty passageways, keeping to the darkest of byways and listening hard. Ancient tomes and curled scrolls lay on unending wooden shelving, the only movement they ever knew just the motes that sifted all around them. Bare bulbs flickered overhead, though most were dead. Drake found it in contrast to the sparkling halls above; down here it seemed the forgotten relics resided in age-old dreams. But then, like people, not all of them could be put on display all of the time.
“Creepy,” Alicia muttered at his side. “You don’t really know what they have down here.”
“Prehistoric hounds,” Drake said. “Chained zombies. Voodoo priestesses. Or so I heard.”
Alicia gave him the elbow. “Don’t be a co—”
Mai clicked her tongue. “Shut up, Taz. I can’t hear anything over your pathetic whining.”
“How about my knuckles? You think you’ll hear those?”
It was escalating.
Drake ignored it.
A row of chest-high crates continued the row to the right, their lids in disarray, some nailed fully shut whilst others were broken into jagged pieces. Drake saw pottery, small statues and a broken mirror. Red lights blinked everywhere, catching his eyes, sensors to catch would-be thieves, and the security up top had been first class. This was one of the main reasons Tyler Webb had recruited Sabrina Balboni.
He turned the next corner and Tyler Webb was crouched on the floor, his back to them, rooting around inside a low cardboard box. Drake blinked in disbelief, came to an abrupt halt, and just stared.
Alicia froze as if she’d just been turned to ice. The rest of the team crowded around the corner and paused; shocked, but all hardening very quickly.
Webb scrabbled about inside the box, jeans and coat thick with dust, surrounded by a dozen ripped apart cartons and a shelf that had clearly broken. Sabrina, crouched before Webb and watching, met eyes with Drake but said nothing.
Webb cackled away to himself. “It’s in the song. The song is all. Where to next, my equal? Where to next? You traveled far and wide. You traveled near. Europe was your playground. Kings and queens your friends. But where are you now? Where will we end?”
Each sentence was punctuated with a ripping of paper or a scroll being flung to the side. Drake wanted to listen longer, conscious of the clues that may be dropped, but Hayden only saw the man who’d once stalked her every move from dusk till dawn, and made sure she was the first to speak.
“Stand up carefully, Webb. This is as far as you go.”
He stiffened, then clapped his hands together to free them of dust, sending plumes into the air. He rose slowly, and Drake saw he held two fragile looking sheets of paper. “Found you,” he said softly.
Then he turned.
“Hayden Jaye.” He smiled in a lewd way. “Been a while. You look slimmer in person than you do on CCTV. And Mano Kinimaka. Is that beef or is it fat? Wait, I’m sure I have some pics. Oh, and the inimitable Matt Drake. Your memory involves Mai Kitano. Let me know if, sometime, you want to relive it. Oh, and the rest of you . . .” He waved and flapped and backed away. “Email me. I’m sure I have all you want.”
Drake restrained Hayden as she stepped forward in anger. Webb was entir
ely too confident and nothing they did was ever so easy. He saw Webb pass over Beau with disdain. It couldn’t be easy seeing your old bodyguard who’d always been a double agent. With purpose, he gave Webb one more chance to spout his malice.
“Come to think of it, Hay,” he spat out Kinimaka’s nickname for his lover. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you stood upright before.” He cackled. “And Alicia? Does Drake satisfy you the way Beau used to? Hmm, ’cause I have the audio and I know. Mai Kitano? I’d love to relate sometime. Oh wait, I’ll call you. Have to watch from afar first. And dudes, bitches, guys—I will watch all of you. I will have the resources and endless, endless hours of time.”
“You think you know everything because you’re an utter creep, a sliver of scum with resources. But you don’t know us. You know nothing,” Hayden spat at him.
“You think?” Webb’s face opened and a light in his eyes spoke of pure honesty and viciousness mixed. “I know one of you is a lesbian. One of you is embarrassed all the time. And one of you is dying. I know that. I know one of you killed their parents in cold blood. One of you who is missing is far from what you believe. One of you will die by my hand in three days’ time just to wring those tragic emotions from those who remain. One of you cries themselves to sleep . . .”
“You do seem utterly confident you’re about to escape,” Dahl said blandly.
“It’s the only reason you’re all still alive.”
Drake felt a cloud of suspicion and disbelief start to settle in.
“I don’t understand,” Dahl admitted.
“My big plan. My master plan. Did you actually think it began when I started this last final search for Saint Germain or do you think it began before I formed the Pythians? Truly?”
Drake searched the shadows, watched Sabrina, racked his brain for clues.
“You’re gonna be shocked.” Webb laughed.
Alicia aimed her gun between the man’s eyes. “I’m ready. Shock me.”
“You’re all still alive so I can stalk you forever. Understand? My plan started twenty years ago. Yes, it’s had adjustments, most recently to accommodate every last one of you, but the structure still stands. The bones of it—” he chuckled “—and the meat.”
“He’s a fuckin’ loon,” Smyth grunted. “Somebody just shut him the hell up.”
“Happy to.” Alicia squeezed her trigger.
But Webb held up a hand. Sabrina backed away, still playing her part for as long as she was able.
“Really,” Webb said. “I have enjoyed letting you follow me.”
“Nobody followed anyone,” Dahl said. “We found you out and you got lucky. If not luck then it was absolute recklessness and your disrespect for human life. In chaos, you thrive.”
“Ooh, good one. I’ll write that down, commission a T-shirt. But really—everything you have done has been at my whim.”
“But how?”
“Because that is as it should be. I am better, of godly stock. I am a master of the human race. And you shall all bow down before me.”
“Really?” Alicia grunted sarcastically. “And how will you make us do that?”
Drake couldn’t believe the audacity, the utter belief of this man. Truly, completely, he knew that he was born to be superior. Webb glanced back at Sabrina and said, “Get ready.”
And then whipped his head around.
“Don’t kill them, Beau,” he said. “But hurt them just enough.”
He started to run.
CHAPTER FORTY
The whirlwind started inside his head—a horrifying mix of incredulity and doubt—quickly becoming a physical presence as Beauregard Alain finally showed his true colors and betrayed them. The man of smoke and shadow flitted among them like a wraith, taking every advantage of their shock and reluctance to believe.
First he felled Lauren, the New Yorker at his side and totally unprepared, going down clutching her throat. Then he took out Smyth, the soldier totally focused on Webb and collapsing in agony from a blow to a nerve cluster behind the neck. Next, he went for Mai, probably realizing her reactions were the quickest, and won on the trust factor. Even as she whirled to see him coming at her she just didn’t believe what she was seeing. Then, Yorgi and Hayden and Kinimaka with single blows, whirling like a genie released after a thousand years of captivity, darting and striking among them, every punch a blow of devastation.
Hayden was incapacitated, lying on her back and able only to claw feebly at the air, trying to catch her breath. Kinimaka fell hard on his face, blood splashing into his eyes. Then Beau was spinning at Drake, Dahl and Alicia, and still only seconds had passed since he acted. The latter two still hadn’t turned around, still processing, but the Mad Swede was swiveling, reddening, and inclined to trust his own gut.
The punch came around, a fraction of a moment too late to impact against Beau’s skull. The Frenchman was inside, feeling relieved, and dealt out a painful flurry. Even then Dahl manned it beyond Beau’s expectation, catching him with a sharp jab as he went down and then kicking out. Beau’s feet tangled for a moment, but he was fleet and fit enough to skip free.
Right into Alicia. Her eyes were wildfire, pits of magma, her features firm with disbelief. Beau wiped it away from her with two fists, unfeeling, uncaring it seemed. The perfect, emotionless weapon of death.
“You live or die by my will alone,” Webb shrieked back. “Remember that.”
Drake faced Beau.
“Why?” the Yorkshireman managed. “We trusted you. And what about Michael Crouch? Is he—?”
Beau assailed him like a bullet and a battering ram, making him feel little like a Special Forces soldier and very much the backstreet kid. Pain erupted from several nerve masses and his legs went to jelly. Still, he barely believed.
“Why?”
The Frenchman was already leaving, following his master, but glanced back with a snarl of disdain.
“The thing Webb seeks. The thing he will find. It will make me live forever. When you people lie old surrounded by your deathbed memories, I will still look like this.” He preened.
Alicia, on her knees, somehow managed to look up and croak: “A big cock?”
Then Beau turned and was quickly gone. Footsteps could be heard behind as the cops came along to investigate and the SPEAR team tried to recover. A long, heavy minute passed.
Drake contemplated all that Webb had told them.
Then came the explosion, deep and terribly dark, so powerful it shook the entire British Museum to its foundations.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
Dahl dragged himself to his knees, ignoring several rivulets of fire streaming through his system. Even with their protection Beau had struck unerringly at their weak spots. Part of the problem this time was shock; it wouldn’t happen again. He crawled among the others, encouraging and helping where he could even as the walls and ceiling rocked and rained plaster all around him.
Images of Johanna and his children darted before his eyes. Dahl staggered upright, pulling Hayden with him. The cops swayed and shouted into their radios. A high stack of shelves began to crumble, showering timber and paper confetti upon their shoulders. He watched Drake help Alicia to her feet and then moved over to aid Kinimaka.
“Up you get, pal. Was this you? I mean, what on earth did you knock over now?”
The Hawaiian managed a weak smile. Hayden came to his side and asked if all was well and Dahl thought that a kind act. Smyth was cradling Lauren, whose eyes were open but swimming with agony. The woman could barely croak.
“Fucking Frenchie’s gonna pay for this,” Alicia gasped first. “How’d he do it?”
“Well, you certainly didn’t help,” Mai said, rubbing her shoulders and neck.
“Bitch, explain yourself.”
“Everyone here lowered their guard as soon as you started . . . shagging him. Shame on us all.”
“Who I pole bounce is my own concern. Not yours.”
“Wrong.” Mai narrowed her gaze. “It used to be.”<
br />
“Look,” Drake said. “Can we stop blaming and get running? This room ain’t gonna repair itself in a bloody hurry.”
The cops bolted, one of them shouting that the explosion was localized and bore no threat to the actual building. Probably extra insurance to aid the escape. Drake dragged Alicia away from Mai and bolted in the midst of his team, racing the collapsing ceiling, the crumbling shelves and the disintegrating crates stacked thirteen-high as the cave-in came down all around them.
Staggering, falling headlong, he grasped Alicia’s arm in one hand and reached out to pull at the shadow on his other side, who had slipped in deadly wreckage and stumbled to her knees.
It was Mai.
Grimly, he heaved them both along.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Tyler Webb was ecstatic, proud, practically orgasmic. The fruits of long years, the labors of his lifetime had finally come to fruition.
So to speak. He cackled aloud.
London was a crackling hub of movement and motion. Webb melted among the crowds, slipped through the comings and goings, wondering when the locals might employ their much-vaunted CCTV facial recognition software on him.
On them.
The two mortals he currently allowed to share his air: Beauregard Alain, his magnificent triple agent; and Sabrina Balboni, the master thief come major betrayer. French and Italian. Cunning and fire. The hardest part was treating them like the human beings they clearly were. Webb was above all that now—in his mind already ascending. The trail of Saint Germain had been tough so far and fraught with danger, but someone worthy—like him—took one more step toward immortality with each passing day.
And now he had the great composition that Germain had gifted to the British. And what had they done to it? Thrust it into some deep, dark and grimy hole in the ground beneath a thousand lesser treasures. Later, he would visit a special kind of retribution down upon them.
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