Smyth looked like he wished otherwise.
“You’d better not hurt him, Smyth.”
“And how could I do that?” Smyth rumbled. “He’s in lockdown.”
Lauren clammed up, staring up at the skies.
Drake was busy wondering if he’d heard correctly and nodded at Yorgi. “He said Dubai, right?”
The Russian widened his eyes. “Oh, dah. I heard that too.”
“That just makes everything weirder,” Dahl stated. “Dubai? I mean how do you connect that with… this?”
“Guys, we have to focus,” Hayden urged them all. “Right now, Webb is in the wind and we’re nowhere.”
“He’s getting desperate though,” Beau said quietly. “Webb. The man I guarded and worked for all those months would not make mistakes like this unless…”
“What?” Smyth cut in quickly.
“He is nearing the end. Anxious. Webb is almost at his ultimate goal.”
“And, I’d like to point out,” Hayden said. “That’s something else we’re practically clueless about.”
“Chemistry. Versailles palace. Transylvania. What’s the connection?” Dahl shrugged.
Hayden brandished the cellphone. “Let’s head out,” she said. “There’s nothing more here for us to do. Get some rest guys, because when this all plays out I’ve a feeling we’re gonna need it.”
Argento came through the old fashioned way. He called Hayden and she called the team together, and they traipsed down from their hastily acquired rooms to a cold, empty conference room. They all sat about the dusty table, staring at the bare floor and shivering, watching the windows grow brighter as dawn began to rise.
“You mentioned he’d get desperate.” Hayden nodded at Beau. “You were right. Webb is now on the trail of something else, another part of the quest. The guy’s injured, hounded by whoever those mercs are working for, and now hunted by us. Not to mention half of Europe.”
Beau nodded. “He has no choice.”
“He also knows the Dubai-run group will be waiting for him at every stop,” Drake pointed out. “I hope he’s a sniveling bloody wreck.”
“Not Webb,” Beau said. “He truly believes he is owed something. The man will assume he’s able to dodge bullets until this is over.”
Hayden laid her cellphone on the table and hit the speaker. “Go, Armand.”
The Italian Interpol agent let loose in characteristic fashion. “So, this Webb, he is running around like a boy chasing a mouse, yes? He seems to be following a trail, a map maybe, who knows? But until Versailles he kept it all very quiet, on the down-low as you Americans say.”
Hayden nodded agreeably. Drake stared at Alicia and then at Dahl, eyes wide and lips about to start flapping. Then the Swede chuckled. “Now,” he said. “Now you see what it’s like.”
Argento’s word-storm never abated. “So he’s back on the map, this Tyler Webb. Most wanted scum-sucker in the world, you say. I say there’s worse, but it matters little. Ever heard of the cannibal cult of Peru? No, well, never mind. Interpol knows all. You will catch up. Webb is no longer sneaking, he is in full-tilt, fully-exposed, pressurized mode, hounded everywhere. He needs every ounce of assistance, every last morsel of help he can muster. Clearly, he still has money, influence, a network of sorts.” Argento paused to draw breath before he died of asphyxiation.
The team realized they’d been holding theirs too and gulped air.
“And thanks to your pet Pythian — Nicholas Bell — we now have names, contacts, locations and files for all of them.”
Drake couldn’t help glance over toward Smyth and Lauren, conscious of their differences. The soldier sat tight-faced, eyes fixed dead ahead whilst the New Yorker made a point of shifting in her seat to stare right at him.
“Don’t say it,” Smyth mouthed.
“What? That I told you so?”
“Yeah, that.”
But Argento was forging ahead. “Everything’s monitored. Everything. Webb recently used fake IDs to buy a flight to Barcelona. We can’t intercept that because he only made contact after he landed to arrange something else, something very worrying for Interpol. We have no facial recs so he’s now hiding successfully. My friends, you have to get to Barcelona. Fast.”
“Why?” Hayden asked. “What’s so worrying?”
“He bought tickets and arranged to meet a contact at the Camp Nou tomorrow night. And knowing Tyler Webb, the distractions he arranges… well, that could be catastrophic. He has no sense of morality.”
Alicia was looking blank, and so was Mai. But Drake sat bolt upright. “The Camp Nou? As in the football stadium? Oh shit, is there a match planned?”
“Yes, mi amico. A big one. The stadium — it will be full.”
Drake was already on his feet. The rest followed as Hayden headed for the door, Argento’s voice urging them on like incessant machine gun fire. The pictures he painted were truly shattering.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The jet hummed along, thousands of miles above the earth. Darkness pressed all around, a dense cloak enfolding all the simmering secrets that traveled within.
Drake found himself seated around a table with Alicia, Mai and Beau and hours to kill. After eating they sat back and took advantage of the night flight, dozing and day-dreaming. Drake asked Mai about Grace’s welfare, and the ex-Ninja inquired as to Karin. Drake found himself floundering; Karin had been out of touch for weeks and a gentle enquiry had told him she’d almost finished training and was on some kind of special mission. Unhappy, but unable to learn more, he’d swallowed a bitter bullet — it was one thing pulling strings to practically force an unexpected recruit into a unit, it was quite another to then keep track of that recruit.
He told Mai as such.
“It will be hard for her,” she said. “But necessary, I think, if she is to stay with this team.”
After Komodo’s death she could have gone many ways. Drake was pleased she had taken this unexpected route, after losing everything she loved to war. The young woman had buried too many people for this stage of her life.
“She’s a fighter,” Alicia added. “My kinda girl.”
“Do not tell me you’ve kissed her as well,” Beau queried, only half-joking
Alicia shrugged. “Not that I can remember. But who knows? Some of the older things clattering around my mind are a little woozy.”
“Does that include Drake?” Dahl put in with a guffaw from across the aisle.
Drake narrowed his eyes. “You just keep on cozying up to your new bird, mate. You two look real happy over there.”
Dahl looked a little embarrassed, pulling away from Kenzie.
Drake gamely tried to include Beau in their conversation. “So, how did you meet Michael?”
“Crouch?” The Frenchman waved it away. “It is a long story. And not for idle chit-chat. I worked for Crouch and you by infiltrating the Pythians, yes, but the initial decision was not made lightly—” he paused “—or wilfully.”
Drake allowed his eyes to widen. “Bollocks. And here’s me thinking you’re a good guy.”
“No, my friend. Are there any left?”
“I’d like to think so.”
Beau settled back. “I see none. You think Crouch is all good? You ask him one day how he influenced my help.”
Drake found it hard to gauge just how upset Beau was over Alicia. Common sense told him the two had been merely passing time; but intuition said more. How did it all become so complicated? Everyone happy on the outside, or at least accepting, but what are they all really thinking?
Mai put it out there. “Sleep, I think, is probably best for now.”