“I was lonely,” Bennett whined. “I’ve been hiding here for weeks. I missed her.”
God, Carter should have made sure the poor guy got laid because he couldn’t seem to go for very long.
“She called the Germans,” Carter shot back. “Their intelligence is looking for you. If they know where you are, it’s likely The Collective does, too.”
“Fuck. What are we going to do?”
Carter sighed. “You’re going to listen to a friend of mine. I’ve got a security team around you.”
Damon turned. Walter was starting to back up.
Carter got a hand on him. “Don’t try to run. You’re paying me to keep you alive and that’s bloody well what I’m going to do. I’m going to keep you alive even if it kills me. This man is British intelligence. He wants us to walk over to the embassy.”
Walter went pale. “I can’t. I can’t give this information up to a government.”
“But you were willing to give it to the Internet?” It was time to point out a few things to the very naïve scientist. And it was also time to get out of sight. He nodded toward the memorial. The good news about a maze was everyone tended to get lost.
Carter entered first, hauling Walter along easily.
“If everyone has it, then we all have mutually assured destruction,” Walter said, his feet tripping slightly as they started on a downward slope.
“That might work when it’s two or three superpowers who have nuclear arms,” Damon explained. “I’m going to suspect this is easier to get hands on than uranium and a hell of a lot easier to deliver a payload. If you turn it over to a reporter and it gets out, every extremist group in the world will be cooking up smallpox and unleashing it on their enemies.”
“I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way. God, that sounds horrible. I still don’t think I should give it to the British, though. I’m an American.”
Damon moved carefully toward the other side. He caught a glimpse of something metallic and turned. A man was moving past, roughly ten rows down. He was holding a Ruger.
So the Germans were here. He would bet his life that man was German intelligence. The man disappeared behind the columns as he moved away.
Damon needed to hurry this along. Carter’s eyes had widened. He seemed to have caught the threat, too.
“Nothing is going to matter if we don’t get you out of here now. The Germans likely don’t want to hurt any of us. They don’t particularly want an international incident, but they aren’t bloody stupid. They can’t allow this information to fall into our hands any more than we can let it fall into theirs. We have one shot. We get to the embassy and then I’ll find a way to destroy it. No one should have it. No one.”
He would probably lose his job, but that didn’t sound so terrible anymore. He would try to play it off as incompetence and not a brutal lie.
Of course he had to get to the embassy first. “Do you have the package?”
Walter frowned, though he seemed to be walking on his own now. “Yeah.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a thumb drive. “I brought it with me. I kind of want to get rid of it altogether. I wish I’d never worked on it. It was a puzzle. I’ve never been able to turn down a puzzle.”
Damon didn’t care. He just wanted this whole thing over with so he could figure out what had happened with the communications.
“Wir haben sie gefunden,” a masculine voice shouted.
Damon turned to his right, and one of the German agents was moving their way.
“Let’s go,” he said. He ran forward, turning to the right and then the left.
“We can’t get lost in here if we stay together and we bloody well need to get lost,” Carter said. “Give him the package.”
Walter’s eyes widened. “You really trust him?”
“I trust the man he’s with and he tells me to trust this bloke. I also think his girl would kick his arse if he didn’t do the right thing.” Carter put his back against one of the slabs. “We need to split up. There are two things they want. They want the package and they want what made the package. It’s still in Walt’s head.”
“Shit.” Walt’s hands shook as he passed the thumb drive over. “I wish I never did this.”
Scientists had been saying that since they realized their work could be used for mass destruction. They still did it. Damon grabbed the thumb drive. The lives of thousands, maybe millions, were on that drive, and he had to figure out a way to destroy it. He and Taggart had decided hiding it wasn’t good enough. They could hide Walter, but the physical information had to be destroyed.
“Halt!” A tall man started running toward them.
There wasn’t time to debate.
“Get to the embassy if you can or somewhere safe. He needs to disappear.” Damon moved again, running into a tourist and forcing his way by. Maybe if they split up the Germans, their odds would increase.
He needed to find Taggart, needed to know Jesse had made it to the suite and everything was fine.
He also had to hope German intelligence wanted to keep this as quiet as the rest of them or there would be a line of cops waiting for him when he hit the street and started for the embassy. He jogged, the world a gray blur on either side of him.
And then his comm came back online. “Hello, Damon.”
Baz. He would know the voice anywhere.
He stopped, touching his comm so he could talk. “What the hell are you doing on this line?”
“Oh, I thought it was probably time to talk. After all we’ve got some business to do. You’re going to bring me the package and I’m going to trade for something you like.”
His blood went cold. “What?”
“Oh, my gorgeous boy. I think you know.”
He did. Baz had Penny, and he was out of options.
Penny closed her eyes against the bright light of day as she was pulled out of the van Baz had shoved her in.
“Do you remember what our deal is, love?” Baz asked, his voice silky and smooth. He was dressed for the occasion in slacks and a sport coat, his eyes hidden behind a pair of aviators.
She forced herself to nod. She’d come quietly because he’d been willing to not put bullets in the unconscious team members’ heads. “I do.”
“Excellent. Because I have friends who can finish the job if I call them. I actually feel a bit sick that I didn’t take the chance and off Weston. I always hated that bastard. So far above the rest of us.”
“The waiters.”
“What?” Baz shook his head and then it cleared. “Yes, of course. The waiters.” He stepped behind her. “Of course I could always just shoot you, but I think Damon wants you warm.”
She had no doubt that Baz would prefer to murder her in front of Damon.
Baz shoved her a little. “You better hope that your lover isn’t lying about having the package.”
“You better hope that the German intelligence agents aren’t waiting for you.” She stumbled but managed to keep on her feet.
“What are you talking about?”
He didn’t know? The word about Champion had always been that he could be hyper focused to the point that he missed things he shouldn’t. He tended to work alone. He might not know.
“Nothing.” She wasn’t going to hand him information. “I’m sure if Damon says he has the package that he has it.”
“He better.” He looked back into the van at the woman who was driving. “Stay here. You don’t want to cross me. I got you that job. I can take it away, and you won’t like how I get you fired.”
Candice, the turncoat traitor who hopefully would die horribly, nodded. “I get it. Just please hurry. I don’t know how long I can keep the van here.”