Lea gave him a look and he immediately wished he hadn’t said it. “Sorry.”
“Forget it… unless doing it in cupboards is something you want to talk about.”
“It was all her,” Hawke said, relieved she had taken it as a joke.
“I bet she’s done it everywhere,” Ryan said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Scarlet had left the room. “In fact I think I heard a rumor about her and a Dunkin’ Donuts car park in California.”
“Really?” Lexi said.
“Yeah, just Scarlet, a Dunkin’ Donuts car park and half the US Pacific Fleet.”
“Now I know you’re lying,” Lexi said. “Scarlet would never settle for just half the fleet.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hawke hadn’t opened his eyes since the Gulfstream had roared off the runway back in Munich. His mind was busy enough without adding more sensory input to it, and even the sound of his friends talking among themselves was distracting enough. Reaper was the loudest — his gravelly laugh filling any silence in between the moments of silence.
Half asleep now, he heard Lexi speaking Mandarin — or was it a dream? Maybe she was on the phone, or talking in her sleep. The gentle sing-song words leaped from her lips like exotic birds, and he started thinking about Han, the Shaolin monk he had fought alongside against Sheng Fang in China. Han and his secrets — Khan’s secret treasures, Qin’s immortality quest, and maybe even some missing idols…
Lea and Camacho were talking about Dublin. The American was describing a vacation he’d taken there with a girlfriend who wanted to visit because her grandparents had been born there. Camacho had a solid, deep laugh that projected his honesty to the world.
Ryan was nowhere to be heard, and he guessed he was busily engaged in his laptop as usual… earbuds keeping the wild world at bay and some kind of crazy ancient conundrum keeping his polymath mind whirring all the time.
Closer to him, at the table, Maria was sitting opposite and now he sensed Lexi join her. He was sure they thought he was asleep as neither had spoken to him since takeoff.
“We know you’re not asleep,” said the Russian voice.
Hawke didn’t move. Kept his eyes shut. He tried to focus on getting to sleep but with every passing second he knew it would be impossible. Under the table, one of them gently kicked his shin, but he was ready for it and pretended not to feel it.
“You’re not fooling anyone,” said a second voice — this time it was Lexi, backing up Maria’s initial salvo.
He heard Maria sigh. “So open your eyes, Joe.”
“And stop pissing about it,” Lexi said flatly.
Despite the effort not to, his lips cracked into a smile and he relented, opening his eyes and focusing on his two friends. “Did someone say something? It’s just that I was asleep.”
Lexi rolled her eyes. “The world of comedy missed out big when you joined the army.”
“Marines.”
“Does it matter?”
“Not to idiots.”
Lexi also tried to suppress a smile but failed.
“Anyone want a drink?” Maria said.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Lexi said. “That phone call was me arguing with my mother.”
“It sounded ferocious,” Scarlet said yawning and turning over on the couch. “At one point you almost raised your voice to a whisper.”
“Go back to sleep, honey,” Lexi said.
She turned to Hawke and smiled warmly. It was true he and Lexi had slept together, and it had been good. It was also true that he found her attractive, not that he would ever tell her that. Giving her information like that would be like giving your worst enemy your most secret attack plans. But despite all that he loved Lea. He wondered if he had ever told the Irishwoman that. He didn’t know. Maybe he had and maybe not. Did it matter? It would matter to Lea, but she would never let on. She wasn’t that kind of woman. She was too independent.
Did she feel the same? He thought so, but couldn’t be sure. In their quiet moments she talked about a man called Danny Devlin a little too often and with maybe a dash too much admiration. Maybe it was nothing. He didn’t know exactly who this Devlin was, but he sounded like he might like him. As long as he didn’t get too close to Lea Donovan.
Hawke looked toward Maria in the galley. “Where’s that drink?”
Maria returned with three beers and they relaxed into their seats once again. Outside, forty-thousand feet below, the Austrian Alps gave way to the more gentle hills of Slovenia and northern Croatia as they raced closer to their destination. Hawke looked at the flight display on the partition wall and read the names as they slipped by: Ptuj, Varaždin, Zagreb.
He sipped his beer and started to put together a plan for the attack on Korać when he was interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing.
Alex.
He picked up the call. “Hello, the Regent Cocktail Club. How may I help?”
Without hesitation Alex said: “How do you make a Jungle Bird?”
“I really don’t know.”
“In that case it looks like your little joke fell flat on its ass.”
Hawke smiled. “You could say that.”
“For future reference, it’s Bacardi superior, Campari, lime juice, pineapple juice and sugar.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Or just answer your phone like a normal human being.”
“Or that, yes. How can I help, Agent Nightingale?”
“I’ll get right to it. Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“If you mean Reaper and me going off the grid and infiltrating Korać’s private army to get closer to Kruger, then yes. It’s the only way we can be sure the idol doesn’t vanish into the night.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Out with it.”
“You need me to say it?”
“Well, I’m not going to.”
“Come on, Joe. Serbia was a big deal for us both. It was the first time I’d ever had to save someone’s life and you nearly died in there.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I’ve nearly died lots of times.” He winced as soon as he said it. Bravado bullshit like that wasn’t something real Special Forces operatives talked about, at least not any of the ones he knew.
“Fine, if that’s your attitude.”
He softened his tone. Alex Reeve was one of his oldest friends, and it was true that she had saved his life. In fact that was how they met. He cared about her, and he felt responsible for the fact she was back in her wheelchair. He had supplied her with the elixir in the hope she would walk again, and instead it had done nothing but give her a taste of freedom. Now, its absence mocked her, and he had failed to secure her another source of the precious liquid.
“I know you’re concerned, Alex, but we have no choice. Korać has powerful connections and as soon as he gets his army together we will be massively outgunned. If we’re going to stand a chance of getting close then it’s now, before he can organize his forces.”
“I’m not convinced, Joe. This could be dangerous.”
He resisted the urge once again to tell her that nearly everything he did was dangerous. “We’re not going to get close enough unless we get on the inside and this is the only way to do it. It makes perfect sense and I’ve got Vincent to hold my hand if that makes you feel any better.”
But he knew it wouldn’t. He knew what she was going through, confined once again to the wheelchair and trapped on Elysium when everyone else was in the chase. Now she’d just found out he was going into the monster’s lair with the minimum of backup, and they would both be forced to relive that day in Serbia all those years ago.
“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”
He smiled again. “You take care of yourself over there Agent Nightingale.”