Drake met Alicia’s crazy blue-eyed gaze. “The investigation will be even harder,” he said, “now that we know Wells wasn’t controlled by the British government, but by some greater secret organization. Now that we know he wasn’t the man he pretended to be.”
Alicia buckled up. “Oh, I’m pretty sure he was a perv, Drake. But I guess his being dead doesn’t help us much.”
Drake stared, a little amused despite himself. “I guess not.”
Once through passport control and past the luggage carousels, Drake headed immediately for the depths of the underground. Tired old escalators groaned as they descended, taking them past dozens of picture frames, all inlaid with advertisements of the latest shows and movies and expo’s. Walking With Dinosaurs. The Hobbit. Eurogamer. Once at the bottom, a spider web of signs seemed perfectly designed to confuse newcomers. Drake, Mai and Alicia spent a few minutes deciding which line to take and then which direction to go. Hordes of Londoners and tourists of every color and race flowed past them without checking. A busker strummed a jaunty tune at a nearby junction.
“Piccadilly line,” Alicia finally said. “Takes us all the way to Green Park. Isn’t Wells’s place just off that?”
“On the other side of Piccadilly,” Drake said. He slipped his mobile back into his pocket and worked out the time difference back in L.A. Only about seven a.m. in the land of sunshine and celluloid. Hayden and her CIA colleagues were due to meet Dahl off the plane at nine a.m. and then proceed to meet with Cayman at ten. Drake’s suspicions of the shady DIA operative deepened with every mile he traveled. He didn’t just fear for Ben; he feared even for the highly capable people like Hayden and Kinimaka. And Dahl. What was his Swedish friend about to walk into?
Who was Russell Cayman? And just how far up the food chain did his bosses make their, no doubt, sumptuous and immoral nests?
So far up, Drake thought. They were beings of mist and shadow, fleeting like ghosts. The power behind the power.
They found the right station and waited behind the yellow lines for their tube. Mai drifted to his right, Alicia to his left, unconsciously putting a barrier between them. Alicia stepped forward as the tube whistled past.
“Shag it, it’s packed out. If I get groped on this thing, some bastard’s getting off minus a set of balls.” She paused. “Unless he looks like Boreanaz. Then…we’ll talk.”
“Or Belmonte?” Mai said, her soft, sweet voice belying the venom intended. “I’m surprised you didn’t stay in L.A., Myles. You knew your old lover was arriving with Dahl, didn’t you?”
“Been there,” Alicia said. “Banged that. I’ve had better.”
“Oh, hundreds I’m sure.”
“Bloody hell.” Drake exploded. “If I’d known it’d be this hard with you two, I’d have bloody well come alone.”
The train rattled through the darkness, the bright windows illuminating pipes that twisted and snaked their way along the tunnel walls. As he studied his fellow travelers, Drake was amused to see how many of them stole glances at each other when they assumed they weren’t being watched. And the traditional open paper was long gone now, replaced by Android phones and Amazon Kindles.
Green Park arrived quickly. They exited the tube station and found themselves on a busy London street near the sprawling Ritz hotel. Drake zoned out for a few minutes when a black Bugatti Veyron took the right turn at the lights to head down the side of the famous landmark.
“Earth to Drake,” Alicia murmured. “It has four wheels, a bonnet, and a windscreen. It’s just a car.”
Drake glared. “Don’t push it, Alicia. I still haven’t forgiven you for shooting up that Shelby Cobra.”
“You mean the one with the bad guy in the boot?”
“You could have easily shot him and missed the car, Alicia. I’m not that stupid.”
Mai spoke up as they crossed the road. “Or maybe she’s not as good as you think she is, Matt.”
“Fuck off, tiny sprite.” Alicia strode ahead, aiming for the street where Drake indicated Wells’s flat was situated. After a few minutes’ walk, they paused outside a nondescript three-story building built of grey stone, cast-iron gutters and thick, darkened windows.
“Guess I’m not so bad after all.” Alicia raised an eyebrow at Mai. “This is the place. I only came here once, maybe seven or eight years ago. But this is definitely Wells’s home.”
Drake checked the address he’d been given. “Yep.”
They started up the steps.
“We’d best be quick,” Mai said quietly. “A pack of bruisers has been following us since we entered this street. They’re hanging back for now. Probably just guards hired to watch Wells’s place. They’ll take their time checking us out or they’ll be on us in minutes, depending on orders. My guess is the former. We could be anybody, after all. Keep going.” She hissed as Alicia faltered.
Matt Drake knew better than to look back. He’d been looking back and staying purposely stagnant for seven years.
It was time to move forward and fully embrace the power and the violence and the tremendous skill he had been born to utilize.
He could be a force of nature. A savior of worlds. Deep down, he’d always known it. The time was coming when he’d have to prove it.
CHAPTER TWO
Hayden Jaye tuned out the conversation around her for a few moments. Ever since Dmitry Kovalenko ordered the attack on the CIA safe house, killing most of her team and taking her hostage, events had unfolded with such crazy rapidity that she’d barely had a moment to take stock. Even the weeks convalescing after the first knife wound had passed in a blur as she tried to piece together all that had happened and what the Blood King’s next move might be.
But now, healing slowly from the second knife wound — a wound that hurt less and healed faster with the intimate knowledge that Ed Boudreau was dead — she had consciously been taking as many spare moments as she could to sort out her feelings for Ben Blake.
He was too young for her. He was too immature for her. At a professional and career level, they were poles apart. If it were a business decision, it would be easy.
Hayden wondered if the spirit of old James Jaye was still riding her back, forcing her nose to the ground so she couldn’t see straight. But it didn’t feel that way. Her heart was telling her the relationship was wrong, not her mind. But what was the problem? Could she let something that had, at first, felt so right dissipate without a fight?
And here she was, about to meet not only the famous Torsten Dahl but also Daniel Belmonte — one of her old flames — whilst Ben and his sister waited back at the HQ, ready to process any information Dahl might bring with him. The big Swede had been toiling persistently inside the Icelandic tomb for weeks upon weeks and had actually stepped up operations when Cayman appeared and took charge. But Dahl had kept many secrets to himself, and Hayden believed, had even managed to place a trusted man on the inside.
As for Belmonte, it seemed Gates had been so impressed with his clandestine burglary at Kew Gardens that he had instantly decided Belmonte’s special skillset might prove of further value before this increasingly desperate operation ended.
Belmonte, ostracized for years, had jumped at the chance to return to the government fold, albeit under the directions of a different country. He had even offered the additional help of his protégé, a woman known only as Emma.
As the passengers began filtering through, Hayden again put her life on hold. At this rate, the friggin’ pause button would be worn out before she got the analysis down.