Alicia rocked on her heels. “I wouldn’t describe Webb as a poor bastard.”
“Whatever, dude.
“But do go on,” Dahl encouraged.
“Versailles changed the game. Suddenly they were all on alert, taking calls and disappearing to make quiet calls. Favors here and there too. The big boss man called us long-distance like, every hour. More guns, more ammo. And dude, I don’t even know what we were guarding.”
Alicia slapped him across the face. “Call me dude again, I dare ya.”
“Umm, sorry. I call everyone du… that. But like I said — I don’t know what we were guarding.”
“Any of those guys know?” Drake jerked his head at the other mercs.
“Dunno. Maybe. Try Milner there. He’s a veteran. We were told to watch for Webb and take him out. Before that though, orders were to find an old book inside his jacket. They said we should get that too.”
Drake watched Dahl stride off to chat with Milner. “Your boss then, mate? Who is he?”
“Ah, I don’t know much, dude. It’s some kinda organization, or group. Low key. But, shit, they’re firkin fanatics. Pure, radical freaks. I know they have good lives, wealthy lives. They’re privileged, and I mean like gods. But this one thing with Webb seemed to set them off.”
“Names?” Drake asked. “Anything? Addresses? Nicknames? Phone numbers?”
“I got nothing. But I could list all the places we were tasked to guard.”
“That’s a start.”
The merc broke out into another fit of coughing, making Alicia shuffle back. Drake waved to a nearby medic.
“Make sure he lives.”
Alicia tucked her gun away. “Doesn’t matter who we follow,” she observed. “Webb and these assholes won’t be far apart.”
“True. But we’ll soon know what Webb visited in Paris. And then we’ll know why. Next time, the good guys will be a step ahead.”
Alicia squinted. “Good guys? Did I miss something?”
“You don’t think we’re good?”
“I guess we have our moments.”
Mai walked up then, and Dahl returned. The looks on their faces said the other mercs hadn’t talked. Kenzie hovered at the fringes, eyeing proceedings, as Hayden garnered as much information as she could from the local cops and Interpol.
“So where did Webb come from?” Mai asked.
Hayden reeled off an address. “It’s a ten-minute walk from here.”
The team gathered, checking weapons and ammo, staring at the dark street from where Webb and the mercs had previously come.
“Any more of his friends down there?” Smyth asked, referring to the chatty, despondent merc.
“Says their team was eight strong. Could be some went back to keep watch or—”
“Or destroy the place,” Alicia said. “Let’s move.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“So what the hell is all this crap?”
Alicia kicked at a chipped table leg, clearly bored. Drake studied the underground room which looked like it hadn’t been visited in decades before tonight. Alicia kicked again and moved the table, wood dragging across the concrete floor and plumes of dust taking to the air. The small room felt cramped and the team looked stressed out — they had taken precious time finding this place and now every moment of it appeared to be a waste.
Kenzie flicked through the old book, fingers leaving prints in the grime. Kinimaka almost dropped a glass vial in his efforts to read its label. Smyth leaned glumly in a far corner, waiting for someone to tell him what to do. Mai said she felt a little exposed and wandered out of the room, to a few baffled looks. Drake knew she just wanted to be useful, and since there was nothing she could do down there she decided to guard the perimeter. Smyth went with her, and then Beau too. Not a bad border guard.
“So what do we have here?” Hayden asked the obvious rhetorical question. “Let’s put it all together.”
“It would take weeks to sort through,” Yorgi said.
“Liquids.” Kinimaka pointed at a stuffed shelf. “Potions maybe? Medicine? I’m not sure.”
“A book.” Kenzie slammed it down. “Full of masonic symbols and spidery, smudged handwriting. Old stick drawings.”
“Chemical paraphernalia.” Dahl pointed out a burner, test tubes and several other items.
“So many containers you could sink a ship.” Alicia indicated the haphazard clutter of shapes.
“Tells us very little,” Hayden said. “But this is all we have to go on, guys. We can’t rely on facial rec the next time. This was our best chance to find Webb when we knew he was here. The man’s a ghost again.”
“There’s nothing obvious,” Drake said. “A map would be nice. Or a set of clues.”
“Not exactly a treasure trove,” Dahl said. “More a collection of grunge. C’mon, Drake. I’m sure there’s a Yorkie expression for it.”
“I’d just call it a shithole,” Drake remarked.
“All right.” Hayden looked like she agreed with the overall consensus. “Only the experts can root through all this—”
“Crap,” Alicia added in helpful fashion.
“Yeah, that. What else can we do?”
“Head back up top,” Kenzie said. “Give me my katana and one of those uncooperative mercs. I’ll make him sing like Shakira in concert.”
“Would we have to pay five hundred for a family ticket?” Dahl wondered.
“Probably, yeah.” Kenzie stalked out of the room.
The team made their way out into the night once more, despondent and a little desperate by now. What appeared to be their best lead had quickly vanished almost as fast as their prime suspect. An Interpol agent saw Hayden and came over, gesturing with a cellphone.
“Take this please.”
“Sure. Who… oh, hi Armand.”
Drake listened to her one-sided conversation with Argento, the gist being that they needed more information and by any means. Argento had an awful lot riding on this, as did his superiors.
Including the SPEAR team’s involvement.
Hayden nodded at Kenzie. “Choose your man.”
The Israeli looked surprised and pleased. “Really?”
“They tried to kill us and the French cops. They fired randomly across a busy street. I’d choose the leader, but it’s your call.”
Drake watched as Kenzie considered her first real directive as part of the team. With a snarl she hauled the leader to his feet and dragged him by the collar nearer the shadows that surrounded the house. No sounds emerged, no screams or muffled thuds, but something was going on in there. Drake could see a constant shift of the darkness.
He heard Kinimaka’s whisper, “You gave her the job you wanted.”
And Hayden’s reply, “Leave it, Mano.”
Kenzie returned, an injured look on her face. “I honestly believe they don’t know anything.” The merc crawled along at her side, unable to stand.
Smyth surged forward, muttering angrily. Clearly, the soldier had had enough of waiting in the wings. His victim struck out, but Smyth subdued him with a simple punch. A broken rib and jaw soon followed, the soldier’s anger getting the best of him.
As Kinimaka leapt in to pull him away an aggrieved voice shouted, “Dubai! They’re in Dubai, but that’s all I know!”
Smyth paused and so did Kinimaka. The soldier stepped away. Lauren caught his shoulder.
“What was that?” she hissed. “You scared me.”
Smyth turned away.
“Now you’re scaring me more.”
“Interesting,” Smyth said. “That I scare you more than a Pythian terrorist.”
“Oh, give it a rest. And hey, you’d better not have hurt him before we left.”