“Sure. That’s what they tell me.”
Kenzie spread both her arms. “And where is India?”
Hayden rose to her feet. “Crap, India is a part of the Asian continent.”
“Which we’ve already dealt with.”
Lauren was thinking on her feet. “Which leaves only Europe and America,” she said. “Hey guys, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Probably,” Alicia moaned. “Is your arse numb from sitting on a crappy floor too?”
“Chicken,” Kinimaka said. “But then I’m always thinking ‘chicken.’”
“The Order are war criminals from the forties. By the time they concealed the weapons the term ‘native American’ was in use, but they wouldn’t have thought of it that way. They were born in the twenties or earlier, for God’s sake.”
“Red Indians?” Drake said. “From the Wild West? Bloody hell.”
“It’s possible,” Lauren said. “That the think tank has been looking in the wrong place.”
“So who was the worst that ever lived?” Dahl asked.
“Let me get back to you on that. For now, just get on a plane.”
Drake wasn’t the only one that stared hard at Hayden.
Back to America?
Shit.
Hayden, in particular, watched Smyth. They had no idea what might have transpired since Peru, or what the authorities were thinking. The soldier, to his credit, immediately began to rise and check his pack.
The third Horseman? Famine? And America? Do our rivals know?
Would she ever get a moment’s peace to sort her life out?
Not today, Hayden, not today. Signaling the others to remove their comms and turn them off, she made a point of standing in their midst.
“We do this,” she said. “And we do it right. As we should, as we always do. But guys — I have reservations. I believe—” she paused “—that Crowe and the American government have a second team in play. SEAL Team 7, and obviously they’re damn good. This team might not be in play just to make sure we get all of the Horsemen.”
Drake frowned at that. “Sorry?”
“Well, did you think there might be a second scenario? What if they’re here, essentially, to take us out?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Karin Blake sat with her black boots resting on a table top, a cellphone tucked between her neck and chin, clicking away at a keypad with her free hands. She wore a ratty T-shirt and jeans, and had tied her hair back with a thick scrunchie. The voice speaking into her left ear was almost drowned out by Palladino’s laughter.
“Shut the hell up, Dino!” she turned and shouted.
“Yeah, yeah.” The soldier turned with a grin and then saw her face. “All right, all right. Jeez, who put you the hell in charge?”
Karin apologized to the speaker. “Kids are rowdy,” she said. “Any more and they’ll be outside on the naughty step.”
The woman laughed quietly. “Oh yeah, I got me two of those.”
Karin eyed the tall muscular Dino and their comrade-in-arms — the smaller, lean Wu. Both soldiers were letting off steam, bored being cooped up in the desert house for the last week, setting up various systems. What they needed was some real action.
Karin said, “And they escaped?”
“For sure. I was part of the communications unit. They got us on shifts. Team SPEAR took the box from the Chinese and managed to sneak off to Taiwan. Part luck, part reserve on the side of the other teams, I guess.”
Karin knew it was much more than luck. There was no better team operating in the world today than SPEAR. Once, she had been proud to be a part of it.
“This Horseman shit doesn’t mean much to me,” she admitted. “I’m focusing on other things. But tell me, where are they headed next?”
“Well, I don’t know yet. India, it seems. But there appears to be some disagreement. Look, I agreed to help a little because of what happened to Palladino’s poor parents and because we’re on the same side, but there’s a limit to what I can say.”
Karin sensed the growing suspicion. “We don’t need much more. Just this — when I call I need to know the position of Drake’s team. Whether it be tomorrow or in a month’s time. Can you do that?”
The response was steady. “Yes, so long as I stay on the same unit. I guess.”
“Thank you.” Karin ended the call quickly before any more questions could be asked. She took a moment to appraise the room and see where they were at. Since appropriating this place from a nest of drug dealers they had cleared out anything bad, finding paraphernalia in all kinds of places, from under the floorboards to under the house, and within nooks and crannies throughout the loft space. Burning every last scrap had been an indulgence, and a desire. Still off the grid, Karin, Dino and Wu had installed computers, communications, surveillance devices and more. If the desert house was to be their HQ, it should be fortified, defendable, a castle in its own right.
Karin thought they were almost there.
A new, nagging thought now occurred to her.
She watched Dino and Wu work with the computers, attaching leads as per her own instructions and installing software, firewalls and more. She had been dynamite at this kind of thing before she took her training. Now, she was much more. Yes, they were still short of a few things, but current funds would only stretch so far. They needed some source of steady income.
Don’t ignore it. You can’t push it, bury it down deep.
Karin knew all about SEAL Team 7. She knew why they were in the field, what their objectives were; their strengths and weaknesses; their agenda and ultimate, secret orders. Effectively and supportively then, she could now warn Matt Drake.
It roiled, it twisted, it made acid in her gut.
Every incident they’d been through, highlights and low times, days of utter craziness, plucked at her emotions like a bird pecking at a stubborn worm. Karin had been hurt so badly once before and had given up on life, only to find it again in the most unlikely of places. A new purpose had been granted her.
And again, totally unexpected, she’d found devastation when her brother and family died, and then love when Komodo fell for her. Perhaps that very early incident, when she was so young, ruined her and set her on a course for life.
Devastation.
Now, all she really wanted to do was destroy the good things she had. If something went right, she wanted it to fail. If something great awaited her, she would make sure it fell apart with prejudice.
If the new team started to thrive, to bond, she would tear it apart.
Self-destruction was not a new way of life for Karin Blake. It’s my chosen way of life. My comfort blanket. She’d always wondered if it would come full-circle, right around and back to this.
So here she sat, relaxed, possessing information even the SPEAR team lacked as they traversed the four corners of the earth in their efforts to secure four nightmare weapons. The junction stood wide open at her door.
One path led to possible redemption, to friends, camaraderie, and the pain of life.
The other path would destroy all that history, all that uncertain future, and would give her everything she needed: chaos.
Karin gathered up her things and wandered outside onto the front porch. The desert air was arid, edged with dust. A bright orb blazed high in the sky. Somewhere, far away, a super-elite American Special Forces unit called SEAL Team 7 was stalking her old comrades — Matt Drake and Alicia Myles, Torsten Dahl and Mai Kitano and the others — with an intention to kill.
Karin thought about warning them.
Then stuck her head back inside the door. “Hey losers, get your asses in gear. We have places to go and fools to see. Tyler Webb’s secret stash won’t stay hidden forever.”