“Yeah, but we can still make it.”
Smyth grunted, giving nothing away. “It would have been easier—”
She rounded on him. “Say it. Why don’t you just say it?”
He gave her the familiar tetchy grimace. “Thought a girl from New York would have held out longer.”
“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” There was an underlying danger in her voice, something he only understood when he re-examined his words and considered her past.
“Your secret,” he said quickly. “I only meant your secret.”
She looked like she had a thousand secrets to keep, probably because she did. “That is one broad statement.”
Smyth grunted again, testy. “You know what I mean. You know exactly what I mean. Dancing around it only makes it harder.”
“I don’t dance around anything, Smyth. Like you said — I’m from New York.”
“What do you see in him?”
There it was. Laid out on the line, grated, drawn from Smyth’s raw throat like a length of taut barbed wire.
Lauren toned down her quick, caustic attitude when it came to Smyth, he knew. She’d had a tough upbringing, a hard life, and had once told him she found it hard to engage fully with the opposite sex because she’d seen it in all its forms of degradation. He saw the struggle to stay civil on her face.
“He’s trying to help us.”
“No. He’s a freakin’ terrorist, caught red-handed. And now he’s trying every trick in the book to stay out of super-max.”
“He was coerced. In any case, he’s changed.”
“Nicholas Bell is a Pythian,” Smyth threw at her. “Nothing’s changed.”
“You don’t know how he’s been helping.”
“I don’t want to know. I don’t care.”
Lauren threw her hands up in exasperation. “And there you have it. It’s just you. Anger before reservation. Guilt before question. Stop being such a negative asshole all the time.”
Smyth flinched. “So now I’m the asshole, huh?”
“Don’t expect an apology.”
Smyth didn’t. Lauren found it almost impossible to say sorry even when she was blatantly wrong.
“You spent time with this guy before. Only one night, but yeah, you managed to get close. That didn’t stop him colluding with the enemy, Lauren.”
“Once you’re in it’s hard to get out.” She alluded to her own past.
“What’s this? You trying to identify with him?”
“Of course not. But I see what he’s doing. Smyth,” she licked her lips. “He’s helping us track Webb through their network of old contacts. Thanks to him we know Webb visited Romania recently. His giving us every name, every number. This is information you can’t find anywhere, because it only exists in someone’s head and doesn’t have to be given up!”
Smyth watched her face as she broke off, trying to rein it all in. Saw the emotions there, the deeper feelings, and grew scared.
More than scared. Lauren was being manipulated and didn’t know it. Bell was using her, and Smyth hated the terrorist all the more for it. How could he stop Nicholas Bell now?
Lauren indicated the time. “We’re gonna be late.”
He didn’t care, but picked up his jacket and followed her out of the room. Usually, through years of training he was easily able to compartmentalize.
Not this time. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that Nicholas Bell had to be stopped. Permanently.
Torsten Dahl made the journey to work swiftly and alone, still smarting from his recent ‘discussion’ with Johanna. Since the very recent reality checks in their lives they had been trying to make a better go of it, to work something out. At first, after the Barbados hell appeared to change them forever, the rocky road had smoothed out, given them an easy passage, safe havens opening up all around. But even in the short time since, pitfalls had started to reopen, past problems rearing their obnoxious heads. On the positive side his kids seemed to have shrugged the horrors of that day off, with only an occasional reference bringing back the nightmares. Oh, and Julia never wanted to see a beach again. At least for the next three weeks.
Dahl flicked his ID through a couple of card readers and then stopped abruptly as his name was called. Well, shouted actually. No—screeched.
“Torsten! Torsten! Hold up!”
He sighed. He was the only person assigned to look out for her and without him, she wouldn’t be able to gain admittance to the building.
Not the worst possible outcome, he thought.
Kenzie slipped through the gates, the only comforting sight in his opinion the lack of the customary katana. Offensive and dangerous, the ex-Mossad antiquities smuggler had developed a soft spot for him, and never failed to remind him of it.
“So you’re still here,” he said gloomily.
“Helping you people has its perks,” she said. “And also keeps me under the radar of several notorious kingpins who may or may not be on the lookout for me.”
“Not to mention the hope that the US government gives you a pass on older crimes,” he said.
“Yeah, and I wish they’d, how do you say: get their asses in gear?”
Dahl saw no reason to remind her yet again that he wasn’t American, or English or any other of the nationalities she kept coming up with. Together, they started down the corridor, side by side.
“You given Mrs. Dahl the hoof yet?”
Dahl rounded on her. “That’s none of your business. And, Kenzie, stop trying to get under my skin.”
“Where would you like me to get?”
He tried not to see her long black hair and lithe body, the promise in her eyes.
She grinned. “I won’t be around for long, you know. Best take advantage while I’m agreeable.”
“Why? ’Cause you’re gonna be trying to kill me in a month or two?”
Kenzie shrugged, not ruling it out. “Sides change, my English friend. As do allegiances. Every day sometimes. Just ask the Americans. Oh, and speaking of side changers…”
Dahl glanced up as she nodded. Mai Kitano and Beauregard Alain were heading up the corridor, also side by side. He found it a little odd at first that they’d arrived together, then realized Kenzie and he must appear the same way. He nodded at Beau and smiled at Mai.
“Heard anything from Grace?”
The Japanese woman smiled softly. “All the normal, natural, content and typical things that one might expect from a teenager.”
Dahl returned the smile. “I’m happy for her.”
The group carried on, treading the halls with care, at least two of them more than a little wary of the signs of heavy security that were positioned all around. A few moments passed in silence and then Beau spoke up.
“Do you think they, ah, found us a new headquarters?”
Kenzie studied him with a critical eye. “Who knows? So where’s the bodysuit, my friend? I much prefer the bodysuit. Makes things… easy on the eye.”
“They prefer I dress normal in the five-starred building.”
“I bet they do.” Kenzie laughed and even Mai smiled.
Dahl followed Beau’s thread. “I hope they have. This constant security tires me.”
“You guys do have a bad track record for HQs,” Kenzie pointed out, having been apprised of most of the SPEAR team’s history by now.
“Point taken. But the new Secretary of Defense may well move us out of here.”
Mai looked back. “See anyone else arrive?”
“Ah, no, sorry. They may already be here.”
“They?”
Dahl grimaced. “I thought you meant Drake and—”
“There are ten people on our team.” Mai threw Kenzie an appraising glance. “Well, nine for sure.”