“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 through 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.”