Terminal Vendetta (A Diana Weick Thriller Book 3)

by Cate Clarke

  “Nehemias!” a woman called from upstairs.

  “Shut the fuck up, Ma,” Laird called back, contemplating Cameron’s words, his face and eyes filled with the low-hanging smoke from the joint. It was almost burned down to a roach. He ashed it out on the floor by his leather boots.

  “Is that not the pitch?” Laird said. “Sounded like a pitch to me.”

  Cameron shrugged and replied, “I like to talk about our cause.”

  The heat was filtering in through the outside, humidity landing on all of their bodies, the fans not doing enough but certainly putting in some of the hardest work that this farmhouse had seen in years.

  In one instant, everything went quiet. The fans turned off. The constant hum of the electronics went silent. The remaining smoke fell through the hushed air, spiralling around their feet.

  “Nehemias!” Laird’s mother called again. “The breaker!”

  “I know!” Laird yelled back, slowly standing up from the chair; the scars on his chest and neck illuminated by the sunbeam from the open door. He crawled over the back of the chair, squeezing himself between it and the stairs, and heading into the living room, disappearing from view. It wouldn’t be difficult for them to step over the tripwire, put a gun to Laird’s head and force him to do what they needed. But it wasn’t necessary because Laird yelled through the soiled quiet, “Send me the info!”

  There was a click, and the fans, the electronics, and a TV upstairs all sprang back to life.

  Chapter 8

  Diana Weick

  Dawson City, Yukon

  Through the scope of the sniper rifle, it was obvious how far out in the middle of nowhere they truly were. They had taken another flight—the three of them. After Taras had slightly convinced Amber to take him on, the next few hours had proceeded with awkward stilted conversation and discussion regarding what information Taras actually had on Zabójca. The two of them trying to determine if Taras was not reformed but at least sane enough to work alongside them. Diana did believe that Taras had information. But he was being protective of it because it was the last remaining bit of power that he had. It may have been one of the only things keeping him alive. But Diana understood that her chances of success were higher with Amber and higher with Taras. Working alone wasn’t practical in the eyes of the military, and Diana couldn’t shake what had been engrained.

  Dawson City was beautiful. Low mountains covered in pine trees, mist weaving its way between them and over the rust-colored Yukon River. Isolated from civilization—once the site of the Klondike Gold Rush. Close to the Alaskan border. A great spot for a United States military safe house.

  But they weren’t looking for the safe house, not yet. Right now, they were looking for the Readers. They had to be here. If the MI6 had this information, it meant Zabójca and David had it too.

  Amber was on the phone with the local hotels, pretending he was a family member of Zabójca’s, innocently asking about recent sightings. Taras was splayed out over the mountainside that they were set up on, a vantage point to look out over the whole city. He was still sweating from the climb up.

  “I thought Canada would be much colder than this,” he said, staring up into the painted blue sky.

  “It’s the middle of June,” Diana scoffed. “Even Canadians get summertime.”

  Scanning through the main street of the town with the scope, Diana scrutinized the pastel-colored businesses on either side of the road, reeking of tourism because what else was there to make money off of up here?

  “Found them,” Amber said as he crouched down next to Diana, putting his monocular to his eye and looking down at the city. “Gold Road Motel.”

  “I guess there are only so many places to stay in a town like this,” Diana muttered.

  “More than I thought, actually,” Amber replied. “I only got one of the last names they’re using for aliases—Cooper.”

  Looking over his shoulder toward Taras, Amber whispered in Diana’s ear, “Is he okay?”

  Taras had closed his eyes and was just lying there on the mountainside, the wind lightly running through his hair and beard.

  “No,” Diana replied. “Never.”

  She shook her head and asked, “So where?”

  “Down,” Amber said, moving his hands to hers to help guide the scope. “There.”

  It was a gray and navy building designed to look like a Western-style saloon with a porch out front and fake tumbleweeds on either side of the steps. Almost all the curtains were drawn on the second floor. On the first floor, Diana could see straight through to the lobby—a chubby woman with blonde and pink hair leaning on the counter and talking on her cell phone.

  “I don’t see them,” Diana said.

  “I’m sure they’re laying low until they’re ready to make a move to the safe house,” Amber stated.

  “We can go kill them now,” Diana replied.

  “We don’t know their room.”

  “Can’t you charm your way through the hotel staff? This place has only got like thirty rooms max.”

  “I already tried.”

  “Okay, so what then?”

  “We wait.”

  Diana let out a frustrated growl.

  “What if we flash them the MI6 badge?”

  “We’re working off the grid, Weick.”

  “There is a restaurant,” Taras said from Diana’s other side, and they both jumped. Staring through his own set of binoculars, Taras was pointing to a neon sign that said: Molson.

  “So?” Diana said, taking her eye off the scope to look at him.

  “Well, they must eat,” Taras replied. “So we wait at the restaurant.”

  Diana looked back to Amber, whose expression had dropped into contemplative approval—his lips turned down, nodding.

  “If we miss them at the restaurant,” Amber said, “we’ll have to wait for the safe house.”

  Ignoring Amber, Taras said, “I must eat too.”

  Of all the people and places Diana had envisioned herself in her adult life, she never expected to be eating hamburgers and drinking beer in a diner in Dawson City, Yukon with Idris Amber and Taras Kushkin. At one point, Kushkin’s only goal had been to kill her and take her down. Though she wanted to believe he had changed, she wasn’t opposed to the idea of using the information he had to kill Zabójca and then turning the barrel back straight to him.

  Taras had tried to traffic her daughter, held her ex-husband hostage, and tried to kill her on more than one occasion. His father had been responsible for the deaths of dozens of American soldiers, including some of her closest friends and colleagues.

  But watching him munch on a burger with no beef patty from across the booth was humanizing. Despite the scraggly beard and the running of his own terrorist corporation, Taras was just a lost kid. No purpose. No family. No seaside mansions anymore.

  It was a bit of pity—the same feeling she’d had when she and Rex had left him in the Empty Quarter desert to die. Zero trust, just suspicion and pity with a dash of curiosity.

  “So,” Amber said, wiping at the sides of his mouth with his napkin and leaning across the linoleum table. “I’ve got a question.”

  Taras picked up one french fry at a time, placing them in his mouth and contemplating every single one before swallowing it. His light eyes met Amber’s dark stare. Diana had found herself on the other end of that stare one too many times already, and she could see something stirring across Taras’s face—anxiety or attraction maybe.

  “What makes you so positive that this information you have on Zabójca is going to bring him down?” Amber asked, tucking his hands under his arms.

  “Well, I don’t know that it will do that exactly,” Taras said, his eyes rolling up but covering the animosity by pretending to look out the window. “But I know that it will get in his head.”

  “Does anything get in that guy’s head?” Amber scoffed.

  “Everyone has a weakness,” Taras replied. “In his case, more than one.”


  “You can’t give us a little hint?”

  “If I told you right now...” Taras stuffed in another fry and took a sip of his light beer, making a sour face after too big of a glug. “You would certainly kill me.”

  “Arrest you probably…” Amber corrected, his eyes sliding to Diana. She gave him a knowing look and a slight shake of her head. “Ah, okay. Well, maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I am,” Taras said. “Just as I am right about Rex Tennison.”

  “Don’t—” Diana warned.

  “What is it, Diana?” Taras asked. “Why can you not admit that he is still alive? You see me here across from you, do you not? If I am living, so is he.”

  Shaking her head, not wanting to hear this, Diana murmured, “You’re so dumb.”

  Taras stiffened. A sharp hurt ran across his eyes as he pushed his plate away from him and finished his beer.

  “I live as he lives… I die as he dies…” Taras continued. “Your son, on the other hand—”

  Diana jumped across the table, knocking her plate off the edge. It smashed against the ground, her half-eaten burger and fries flying across the already-stained carpet. With one hand, she grabbed the collar of Taras’s sweater, holding it for a second and then using it as a ripcord to bash his head against the table.

  Customers across the restaurant gasped at the sound of Taras’s forehead smashing against the linoleum.

  Diana stormed out of the restaurant, taking the stairs up to the room they’d rented. The curtains squeaked along their ancient metal track as she ripped them open, letting the June day into the musty room, needing something to help her breathe. Her heart was pounding in her ears, Taras’s mentioning of Wesley uncovering some of the darkness she’d been pushing down for weeks. Did Taras want her to kill him? He was well on his way to accomplishing that if it was his goal.

  She sat down on the bed. It hadn’t been that long since she’d had a panic attack in a motel. But that time, she’d been chasing Kennedy, overwhelmed by the idea that the man downstairs in the diner was adding her to his personal ledger of trafficked souls. That was when Cameron Snowman had still been an ally and not an enemy, when Diana had bonded with Cameron over his father’s time in the SEALs and regaled him with the story of his valiant death.

  Exactly what Cameron had wanted.

  Maybe Taras had been sent by the Readers to mess with her psyche. And she’d accepted him in with open arms because of a story about a damn spider.

  She was spinning, reeling in her thoughts.

  There was a soft knock on the door. Slowly, after the click of the keycard, it opened, and Amber stepped inside.

  “You okay?” Amber asked as the door shut behind him.

  With her hand clutched over her chest, more than just a small amount of tears burning at the sides of her eyes, and her legs curled around the side of the bedspread, Diana nodded.

  “Uh…” Amber said, keeping his voice low and gentle. “You know I trust you a lot, Weick, but I don’t believe you on that one.”

  He sat down on the bed opposite her, his knees almost touching hers.

  Diana didn’t want to talk about this. She was vulnerable and panicking, and all she wanted was a fucking release.

  With one warm palm against Amber’s scar, she pulled him into her, kissing him hard. Sensing her need or just needing comfort himself, he immediately wrapped his hands around her waist, grabbing her from her bed and pulling her onto his. They were on top of each other, rolling, melding together with groans, warm fingers and avoided conversations.

  But they didn’t get much beyond a teenage make-out session because Taras barged his way into the room. Not knocking, fast-walking right by them toward the window.

  “Don’t mind me,” Taras said in a singsong tone.

  “God,” Amber exhaled in Diana’s ear. “This fucking prat.”

  “It was your idea to share a room,” Diana whispered back.

  “Because I don’t want him to sneak off in the middle of the night.”

  “I have no plans to do so,” Taras replied. “But if you two would like some time, please let me know. I can make myself busy. Either that or I can occupy myself between the two of you.”

  Diana gagged as she peeled herself off of Amber, rezipping her hoodie.

  “Ah, but I was right,” Taras murmured, still staring out at the town and the mountains beyond it below.

  Rearranging her clothes and flattening her hair, Diana slid herself off the bed, standing behind Taras.

  “There they are,” Taras said, again in that annoying melodious way.

  “Who?” Amber snapped.

  “Zabójca.”

  They all rushed to the window. Zabójca and David were rounding a rented Jeep in front of the motel. The windows on the Jeep were tinted, but David opened the trunk, lifting something long and heavy into the car. There was a large bruise across the top of his forehead. Diana was sure that she had concussed him pretty well after slamming his head into that garbage can and that brick wall in Seoul.

  “I think we know where they’re headed,” Diana said.

  The three of them watched as the Readers piled into the front of the Jeep, seemingly with no words exchanged between them. They were working on their own takeout container from the restaurant, shoveling french fries into their mouths as Zabójca started the car.

  The panic and the anger had subsided slightly. It hadn’t been the release she wanted or needed but at least, it was a direction to head in—something to distract her from the grief that Taras loved to dredge up. Something to push down the feelings, deep beneath the surface, that Taras was right.

  Chapter 9

  Amita Voss

  London, England

  “Three of these, please.”

  Through the rows of golden pastries, Amita picked out the best, using her fingernail to tap on the glass. There were chocolate and sweets that she managed to resist from the other side of the rounded glass, but when she got up to the counter to pay, the impulse buys managed to sink their claws in. She had always had a sweet tooth; from a very young age, she’d preferred sugar over spice. Much to her mother’s annoyance, because Amita’s favorite hobby as a child had been to eat every confectionery in the house before her mother cooked her best curry for dinner that Amita would be too full for.

  With the white box in her hands, Amita nodded at the gentleman who opened the door for her.

  She was lonely. It had been months since her last date, years since her last husband. Amber had been a sufficient distraction because he was so nice to look at, but now with him running off with Diana Weick, that desolation had set in again.

  At least, Amber was making progress. Diana was coming out of her shell again, making moves to become the soldier she was meant to be—the one that Amita had seen in her for a long time. It would be a lie to say that Amita was not a fan of Weick’s. In her early SEAL days, Amita had admired her on the Tonight Show, in her few interviews and the footage that paparazzi and news outlets caught of her. It was an odd feeling to be inspired by someone that was so much younger than her—to want to invest herself in every aspect of Diana Weick’s life.

  Amita got into an Uber Black, going back to the office to deliver the pastries despite it being outside her work hours. Again, Chief Harlow was away so it was up to Amita to handle the entirety of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service until he managed to peel himself off of his hookers in Malé.

  After her expansive career, Amita had no patience for incompetence anymore. Perhaps that was why she admired and had so much faith in Diana Weick, because she seemed to be one of the only American soldiers left with a semblance of competence—who didn’t want to destroy the very system she had enlisted into.

  She picked at the plastic bag of chocolate as the driver weaved through the streets of London, honking at the occasional misplaced tourist. The chocolates were nearly gone by the time they arrived back at Vauxhall Court.

  Yes, Amita had overstepped her boundaries. But
she had done a good thing. A great thing for Ms. Weick. She would see that soon.

  The elevator went up, the numbers counting with her ascension, reminding her of how important she was and how little respect she truly got. All the administrative staff had already gone home, only agents remaining and walking the halls, joining the elevator and avoiding eye contact as they stepped off on the floors before hers.

  She placed the pastries down on the desk as she threw off her light jacket and hung it on the metal coat rack. As always, she did a quick sweep around her office to see if anything was askew, but all was in order aside from the light knocking on the other side of the bathroom door.

  On the inside of her arm, there was still a scrape from the last time she had tried to show kindness. The pastries would act as a buffer. They had to be hungry, near starving by now.

  With the keycard on her hip, she swiped it along the gray panel and it flashed green.

  There was the squeaking of skin along ceramic as she stepped inside.

  The two of them finally tired out, not attacking her on sight even if they could only do so with their bare feet. The boy’s wrists were zip-tied around the back of the toilet, and he was sitting on the seat in order to minimize the pain on his shoulders. The father likely didn’t even need to be tied up anymore considering his status. He was spread out in the corner affixed to a metal towel ring above his head. His face was painted with a shiny film of sweat, his lips were gray and chapped, and his wrists were covered in red scrapes from pulling on the zip ties. The worst part of it all was his back. His shirt had been raised up so she could analyze and try to disinfect the burns, without which he surely would have died much sooner.

  Amita had cared for him, brought him back to life after that explosion.

  But he didn’t look well.

  “I brought you some pastries,” she said, dropping the white box onto the counter of the sink and opening it. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her short brown hair tucked behind her ears, the new wrinkles popping out between Botox sessions, her mother’s lips and eyes tainting her face, Amita averted her gaze.