He retained the gun, leveling it at Stone’s face. “Don’t move. Any of you.”
“You’ll regret this,” Stone said. “Whoever you are. And Nightshade too. I did wonder about you from the very beginning.”
Lauren fought to stand, but found her battered body couldn’t quite manage it. Damn, she wanted to help her rescuer. Never had she felt so inadequate. Without warning two men broke from the group and ran at them. Smyth, still supporting her, shot one in the thigh whilst ensuring the last ran into an elbow.
Smyth back toward the door. “First one to stick his head out gets it blown off.” With that the short-tempered soldier pulled Lauren out into the corridor. “Sorry about the whip,” he said. “Didn’t have time to grab it.”
“It… it’s okay. I’ll get another.”
“Do you mind if I pick you up?” he asked with more courteousness than she could have believed possible. “Over my shoulder? We’ll move faster.” He threw a guarded look back toward the hotel room.
“Whatever you have to do, Smyth. Just get me out of here!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Smyth bent at the waist, heaved Lauren over his shoulder, and sprinted forward. They raced down the hallway as one, stopping at the first bank of elevators.
“How the hell did you find me?”
“Followed you here. Used the bellhop to get Stone’s room number. Sat on the comfy seats there—” he indicated a set of deep, leather couches positioned opposite the elevator doors. “Until I heard all the commotion. I always figured if Lauren Fox were in trouble she’d put up one hell of a fight.”
Lauren let her head hang, trusting that Smyth would protect her. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
“Not needed.” Smyth maneuvered them into the elevator. “You’re a part of my team, Lauren. You’re family.”
“I am?” She caught a look at herself in the highly polished walls. “Christ, I look such a fright they could hire me out as a Halloween ghost.”
Smyth, defying all that she knew about him, kept his eyes on the ground. “Maybe a kinky one.”
Lauren slipped off his back and landed on her feet, groaning. “Thank you.”
“Like I said. You’re family.”
CHAPTER NINE
Drake took the call in the dead of night, instantly awake. This early, Hayden’s words were a little fuzzy but he got the gist.
“Get down to the freakin’ HQ! Now!”
Mai was already awake, staring up at the high ceiling. “Time to go?”
Drake sat up in bed, rubbing his face. “Aye. Have you slept?”
“A little. I’m worried about Grace and… other things.”
“I know. I thought, during the last few weeks, we might have broached that subject a little more.”
Mai glanced at him. “A little more?”
“Well, just once would be fine.”
“It’s my mess, Matt, and if it comes back to bite me…”
“We’ll deal with it together.” Drake hugged her close. “I knew I should have gone to Tokyo with you.”
Mai pulled away and rose, keeping her back to him as she dressed. “Really? And what would you have done so differently?”
Drake sighed, realizing he was on shaky ground. “I dunno, love. You haven’t told me a bloody thing. Any road, if we’re quick, we can cadge a lift off the Mad Swede.”
Mai gave him a quick, long-suffering smile. “You talking gibberish again?”
“Oh, sorry. In the Queen’s English — put a spurt on, my dear, and perhaps we can share Mr. Dahl’s vehicle.”
“That’s better.”
Together they rushed out of the room just in time to see Dahl, who rented the large apartment opposite their somewhat more conservative one with his freshly arrived family, struggling to extract himself from his wife’s embrace.
“Need a hand, pal?” Drake asked drily.
Dahl managed to free one arm.
“We can wait two and a half minutes if you like.”
Then Dahl was free, but Johanna snagged his hair at the last second.
“Seriously. We’ll wait in the car.”
The Swede caught them up a short while later, giving Drake a sideways glance as he fell in. “Not a bloody word.”
“Me? As if…”
DC was quiet in the absolute dead of night; office buildings, museums and monuments still blazing to give it all the appearance of a functioning ghost town. Mai stared out the window as they made the short journey to the famous five-sided concrete structure, her mood also affecting the men. None of them knew why they’d been called in but, with the current unrest and hypothetical fallout from the Pythian threat, the prospects were bleak. Not knowing where in the world they would be by this time tomorrow, Drake made a point of addressing Dahl.
“Seriously though, mate, is Johanna enjoying DC?”
Dahl made a non-committal face. “It’s like picking my way through a minefield with them. So far, they’re treating it as a holiday. But when the novelty wears off, who knows, especially now since the Blood Vendetta has been lifted.”
“You did the right thing.” Drake said with eyes fixed forward. “Bringing them here.”
“Try telling them that,” the Swede grumped.
“Doesn’t matter, mate. Sometimes the best thing to do is the one that upsets someone the most and you can’t explain why. They’ll get over it.”
Mai chose that moment to catch his attention. “Do you believe that?”
“Of course.”
“Good.” She turned away again.
Drake shared a couple of raised eyebrows with Dahl and fell silent. Soon, they were entering the Pentagon and making their way toward their new HQ. Drake was still getting used to the diverging hallways and highly polished floors, the black-suited and military-garbed men striding the halls, medals catching the light, the endless walls of security. At last they entered through an oak door.
The first thing Drake saw was a disheveled, bloody Lauren Fox. Then the peculiar sight of Smyth hovering protectively behind her, also looking battered.
Hayden walked to the center of the room. “Lauren’s mission went a little… awry.” She proceeded to give a potted account of the night’s events, focusing mainly on the conversations Lauren had overheard. Drake was amazed by the scope of information, happy to see several scrappy clues fall into place.
“So London, Paris and LA are the locations of the three plague pits and they’re going to attempt to weaponize whatever they find in there? Score one, two and three for Miss Fox.”
He saw Smyth nod and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, then suddenly think better of it. “We should all have been there,” Drake said softly.
Hayden held up both hands. “We’ll save the blame for later,” she said. “Right now, those cities are in grave danger. We must focus our efforts on them.”
“What about this factory?” Dahl asked. “Take the factory out immediately — destroy the threat.”
Lauren shot him an apologetic look. “Sorry, they didn’t reveal its whereabouts.”
“No need to apologize,” Dahl said. “This is a great step forward. Jonathan never trusted the general and because you saw his opinion through to the end, you’re allowing him to help us even now.”
Lauren’s face broke out into a smile.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Kinimaka said from behind a wooden desk. “Nicholas Bell; this Webb guy and Miranda Le Brun — they need identifying.”
“And the plague pits,” Karin added. “Where exactly are they?”