Now Smyth looked over. “What? You wanna date?”
“Stop being an ass. I want what we—”
Drake’s cell vibrating interrupted them. “This isn’t good,” he said and slithered further back down the slope until he was clear of the ridge. “Yeah?”
A deep voice explained the situation at the electrical substation where all contact with Agent Jaye and the SPEAR team had been lost just ten minutes ago. An assault team had been readied but the man had initially been ordered to inform Drake of any unexpected incidents. Drake listened with features as hard as a rough-cut diamond, then thanked the man and hung up.
He relayed the conversation to the others as they lay on their sides halfway down the dusty slope.
“Even more important now,” Lauren said.
“What was your other job?” Jenny abruptly wondered.
Drake put his phone away. “Why is it more important, Lauren?”
“We need to know what the Pythians are planning. Now and next week and next month. Where the hell is Webb and what’s he doing? The ghost ships are all about money, yes? Well, why? They already have a ton of the stuff.”
Drake looked bleak. “And that’s not even half the problem. Saint Germain, I believe, is paramount. Then we have Beauregard and the Pythians’ endgame, which is already afoot.” He regarded Lauren with a rueful smile.
“Now you want me to go in?”
“Bloody hell, no. I trust the bastard less than I would trust Alicia with a male stripper at a bachelorette party, but I’m not sure we have a choice.”
“I can’t imagine Alicia at a bachelorette party,” Lauren said. “But the rest is accurate enough. I truly believe I can turn Nicholas Bell.”
Smyth sat up. “I’ll cover for her. All the way.” He patted her shoulder. “As usual.”
Drake saw the care and concern in the soldier’s face. Lauren was not a woman who easily accepted help — or needed it in fact — but she gave him a grateful smile.
“So what are we waiting for?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he said. “But let’s go talk to our friendly Pythian.”
“He ain’t friendly yet,” Smyth growled low in his throat like a dog would.
“True. But it’s either friendly or dead,” Drake said. “We’ll see how he wants to play it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Hayden winced as one of the twenty surviving mercenaries struck Kinimaka across the back of the neck, sending the large Hawaiian to his knees. Whilst he was down there two more mercs strapped his hands behind his back with plastic ties. Dahl was shoved into a corner and similarly secured. The majority of enemy weapons, she noticed, were the MP5SDs, a variant of the venerable MP5 Heckler and Koch MP series. It featured an aluminum suppressor integrated into the muzzle. Hayden refocused when the leader of the ragtag group approached her.
“Your cop friends have arrived outside and are preparing an assault. It won’t work. We need about five minutes to get what we came for. You killed six of my men but I’ll still let you live if you promise to cause us no more trouble.”
Hayden stared and said sarcastically, “Oh, I promise.”
“Can’t even lie without mockery.” The leader kicked out at her. “Must be a fuckin’ fed.”
“And you can’t lie at all,” Hayden spat. “No way are you lazy fucks going to let us live.”
The leader grunted at her fearless obstinacy and tried again. “First your gun, then your badge. Then we secure you. It’s my way or their way.” He pointed to his men. “And believe me now, my way’s easier for you.”
Hayden didn’t take her eyes off the leader. He was a bearded individual with long sideburns and straggly hair all the way down to his shoulders. He was talking nice to avoid more aggro and save time, of course, not for her benefit, but he did have a point.
Hayden dropped her gun to the floor along with her badge, then got to her knees. A man tied her hands behind her back and shepherded the three together so that they knelt under the long row of windows that looked into the office.
“Get in there,” the leader told two of his men. “Secure the transmission lines with the grid links. Then we’re done. And check these badges.” He kicked the pile over to another minion.
Hayden listened intently, and eyed the badges dubiously. One merc might not recognize the SPEAR logo, nor even the leader, but if he reported it back to the Pythians… tied hands would be the least of their problems. But hey, she thought, if it draws Tyler Webb out from his filthy burrow…
Two men started toward the office with laptop bags tucked under their arms. Hayden eyed the leader. “Transmission lines?” she asked. “Grid links?”
He looked surprised. “You don’t know? All this, and you’re just swimming blindly uphill against the current.” He seemed to weigh his next words, then said, “You ever hear of Path 26?”
Hayden shook her head. At that moment another man approached, this one with a ghastly snarl to his bearing and bright red scars up and down his bulging arms. “We should be torturing these fuckers, not shooting the shit with ‘em.”
The leader shrugged. “You think you can get anything worthwhile out of them, Hunt?”
“Who gives a fuck? Be good to practice on at least.”
“They look pretty tough.”
Hunt puffed his chest out. “Even better.”
“You have five minutes, max.”
The leader stalked away, casting an eye toward his dead men. Hayden wondered how a man who showed remorse for dead colleagues might then exhibit such a lack of consideration for captives. This was war, after all, not terrorism. The rules should be different.
But Hunt couldn’t keep the spiteful grin from twisting his face. With a leap he was upon her, forcing her over backwards so that her ankles bent and her tied wrists ground on the floor — both their combined weight pushing them down. The pain made her grimace.
“You’re going to die for that.” Dahl’s voice drifted across, and the tone was unquestionable.
Hunt met the Swede’s eyes, then pressed some more. Hayden bit her lip hard to stop from crying out as her bones grated together. Blood ran from the wound. Hunt snarled at the sight. “Don’t ya worry, Englisher. I’ll be at you next.”
“You should have been ‘at me’ first. Any real man would.”
Hunt stared at Hayden’s lips, seemingly transfixed at the trickle of blood. “So you’d rather bleed than scream,” he noted. “But you will soon do both,” he promised. “First I gotta teach this foreigner some manners.”
Hayden stared up at him, waiting for an opportunity. As his head lifted she saw it — and smashed her forehead against the bridge of his nose. “You bleed first,” she said. Her legs weren’t tied, so she twisted hard to wrap her thighs about his neck. Hunt saw her and rotated out of reach.
Several mercs laughed at him. “Run away and hide,” one of them muttered. “Hunt’s goddamn motto.”
Hunt was furious. Jumping up, he stalked back to Hayden’s feet, blowing strings of blood from his nose.
“Untie me,” Hayden snapped. “Then we’ll see how you do.”
“Yeah, untie her!” a merc shouted. “See if you can take her down, ya fuckin’ psychopath.”
The mercs were all becoming unruly as they waited for the others to finish. The leader came back, looking angry, but Hunt pushed him aside.
“Fuck off.”
Then he attacked Hayden for all that he was worth. Arms bulging, he punched at the side of her head, rammed another into her gut. Hayden rolled with it, but the punches still hurt. She caught a third blow on her arm, saw an ounce of leeway, and flung her body backward whilst kicking upward.