Chapter Fourteen
My mind was buzzing, pain splintering through my chest with every breath. Ian Keller had gotten away… I had failed my mission. Fuck. Fuck!
“Aquarius, come in. What’s going on?” I could hear Freddie’s voice in my ear, but he sounded so faint, so far away.
My arm shook, hand squeezing tight around my gun. I gazed into a familiar set of blue eyes, wide with shock and panic. Agent Dixon. What was he doing here? This had to be a fucking nightmare.
He couldn’t see my face, obscured as it was by my helmet.
My whole body trembled with adrenaline and rage.
I couldn’t bring myself to speak. How had things gone so wrong, so quickly?
I knew what I needed to do. Agent Dixon had compromised my identity.
He had to be neutralised… Though for how much longer I would be a member of The Guild I couldn’t say.
They were very clear on their stance around failed missions. It was a death sentence.
I gritted my teeth, finger hovering over the trigger. The barrel of my gun was pressed firmly against Agent Dixon’s forehead. It would be quick, painless… Still I hesitated.
“Is it really you?” he gasped.
“Fuck!” I growled, lowering my gun and turning on my heel to pace back and forth. I pressed a finger to my earpiece. “He got away. Keller got away.”
“Y-you’re here for Keller?” Agent Dixon replied, unaware I wasn’t talking to him.
“Shit,” Freddie hissed. “Shit. Okay, I’m triangulating the tracker on his car. We can still recover this.”
I laughed bitterly. “It’s not as easy as that…” I turned to look at Agent Dixon. He frowned back at me, confused.
“Agent Dixon, MI6. He’s here. Nearly got himself fucking killed trying to be a hero,” I spat.
“What?!” Freddie gasped.
“Hey, fuck you!” Agent Dixon growled. “I’m here doing the exact same thing as you!”
“Aw, that’s cute,” I snarled. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“Alright… Alright, let’s think about this,” Freddie muttered. “The mission isn’t failed until we give up, right? If we can make this right, we can still come out on top.”
My stomach churned. I could hear the panic in his voice, the fear…
Freddie knew as well as I did what would happen to us if we weren’t able to retrieve Keller and finish what we had come here to do.
My chest ached. In truth, I didn’t much care about what happened to me, but knowing Freddie was in the firing line because of my failure… I couldn’t take that.
“And Dixon? What about him?” I murmured.
“Who are you talking with?” Agent Dixon’s face grew pale. “What’s going on, Roberts? Who are you? What is this?”
Freddie was silent for a long moment. “You know what you should do.”
I didn’t reply, staring at the man in front of me. This had never happened to me before. Killing and death had become so commonplace in my life it was almost frightening how little it fazed me… but this? This fazed me.
“I… can’t,” I all but whispered.
There was a long moment of tense silence. Moving slowly, I unfastened the clips on my helmet and dragged it off. Agent Dixon’s eyes widened, sweat beading on his brow. We gazed at one another, finally face to face.
“Finding Keller is of utmost importance right now,” Freddie murmured in my ear. “Let’s… Let’s figure out what to do with Agent Dixon later. For now, we need to clean up this mess before it’s too late.”
“Any ideas?” I sighed, craning my neck back and staring up at the night sky. “Keller was hard enough to track down as it was, but now he knows someone is out for his blood? He’s going to fucking disappear. The man is a fucking ghost—”
“No, he’s not.”
I blinked, looking back at Agent Dixon. That familiar steely determination I had always found so fucking attractive shone back at me.
“He’s flesh and blood, and we’ll fucking nail him. Together.” When I didn’t immediately respond, Dixon continued. “I have no idea what the hell is going on right now, but I do know you, Roberts. You can’t give up now. We’ve almost got him.”
He was right. I knew he was. I ground my teeth together.
“Relay? We cannot let this slippery bastard get away again. Have you still got eyes on the car?”
“Yes, tracking his every move,” Freddie replied.
“Good. If he looks to be heading to the airport, I want you to ground every fucking plane in Venezuela.” My eyes met with Dixon’s. “And what about you? How did you get here?”
“On a shitty rental moped.”
My lips curved into a smile. “That won’t do. Looks like you’re riding with me. Come on, this way. There’s still time to fix this fucking mess.”
I sprinted across the gardens, back the way I had managed to get inside, Dixon hot on my heels. We slipped through the gap I had made in the fence with my tools and hurried away through the undergrowth back to where I had parked up.
There, hidden away beneath the boughs of a tree, was the motorbike Freddie had hired for me only a few hours earlier. I rushed to it and lifted a leg as I hopped up into the driver’s seat.
“You take the helmet,” I instructed, throwing it to Dixon. He caught it easily, turning it over in his hands. “I’ve got this one.”
I tugged my tactical head protection back on, pleased when Dixon did as I asked and squeezed his head into his helmet.
I held the bike steady as he clambered into the pinion seat.
With a smirk, I turned the ignition, the powerful engine roaring to life between our legs.
I tapped Dixon’s knee for his attention.
“You’d better get cosy with me quickly because this is going to be a bit hairy. Hold on nice and tight.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, but Agent Dixon shifted his body in closer behind me, pressing his strong chest into my back and wrapping his arms around my waist. Despite the rage and panic still rushing through my veins, I felt a shiver of satisfaction ripple through me.
I kicked the bike into gear, the powerful vehicle shooting ahead and throwing both Dixon and I backwards. In seconds we were back on the main road and tucking down low, I opened the bike up, smug when Dixon was forced to hold me tighter still.
“How far ahead is Keller?” I asked breathlessly.
“Just coming up for eight miles. He’s really booking it, but your bike is faster. Go balls to the wall and you might catch him before he hits the city.”
“Easier said than done considering I don’t have balls, Relay,” I teased, pushing the bike on faster still. He didn’t reply outside of a chuckle. “Is Hangman there with you?”
“Of course. He doesn’t have an earpiece in, but I could—”
“No, just pass the message along. Tell him he’s in charge of scrubbing the evidence we’ve left behind at Keller’s house. Free pass to be as creative as he fancies. Go crazy.”
There was a pause, just muffled voices as Freddie parroted what I had said back to Hangman. A laugh rumbled in my ear.
“He’s disturbingly excited about it.”
“Good to know. Now, I need to concentrate. Let me know when we’re coming up on Keller.”
“Will do.”
The bike whizzed through the night. We didn’t see many civilian vehicles, but those we did, we screamed past. I wasn’t worried about being spotted.
By the time they had realised we were there, the bike was already disappearing into the distance.
I gritted my teeth. We had to catch up with Keller. My life literally depended on it.
As the events of the evening began to soak in and my adrenaline ebbed away, I was more than aware of how battered my body was.
Dixon had really done a number on me. The Kevlar had done its job and had kept me alive, but fuck I was hurting.
I was pretty sure something was fractured, but there was no time to think about it.
I would have time to roll around in agony later.
Finding Keller was of utmost importance and I wasn’t about to be resting until I caught him.
Sooner than I had realised, city lights glowed in the distance and the road became busier. We were no longer in the countryside, and I was forced to slow just a little as I began to weave through the traffic.
“You’re almost on him, but he’s turning off the main road,” Relay said.
“Keep on him,” I instructed breathlessly.
“Just scanning the area,” he replied. I could hear him typing. “Where is he going? Left here.”
I did as Relay told me, cruising down a side street. Dixon was tense now, looking this way and that as he scouted the area, hunting for signs of Keller.
“Ah, fuck… He isn’t…” Relay groaned. “Damn it. He is.”
“What?” I snapped. “What’s going on?”
“Another left. You’re coming up on his car, but I suggest you keep driving.”
“What do you mean? Stop speaking in riddles.”
Dixon tapped my thigh hurriedly, pointing ahead.
There. Keller’s car. He hadn’t parked it up, simply stopped it in the middle of the road.
The engine was still running, driver’s door ajar.
He hadn’t been hanging around, that much was for sure.
I did as Freddie had asked, cruising by, ignoring Dixon’s insistent tapping.
Keller had bailed. He couldn’t have gotten far. We could—
“That building, the one on the corner? That’s the hub for the Tren de Cobra.”
Fuck. The Tren de Cobra was a huge criminal organisation.
They had branches in every continent but had originated in Venezuela.
I had personally neutralised a few members of their gang in my time, but they were so vast in numbers it was almost impossible to eradicate them.
Of course Keller was buddies with those scumbags.
One thing was for sure: Dixon and I couldn’t just rock up here, guns blazing. The Tren de Cobra were known for their numbers and that place would be teeming with armed and dangerous criminals. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Alright, can we get eyes on the building? If Keller is inside, I want to know his every move. Make sure that fucker can’t take a shit without us knowing about it,” I muttered, guiding the bike back towards the main road.
I could sense Dixon’s confusion, but he had the good sense to quit nagging me about it.
I’d explain everything as soon as I could.