Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
One hour south of Zürich
“You still see them?”
Ice nodded, gripping the steering wheel. “Did you get all that?”
Steph looked at the tablet on her lap. Never mind that she’d asked him for an update on their pursuit. The van up ahead that had both Vesper and Kai in it that they’d found and managed to follow from the ship. “I got it.”
“Press Enter.”
She watched the circle that popped up swirl around. “It’s processing.” A few long seconds later, it finished. “No signal.”
Ice bit off a curse in Russian.
“So then don’t lose them, all right? We don’t need the tracker to get him back.”
“He could be dead before we catch up.”
“If she wanted him dead,” Steph said, “she would’ve killed him on the boat.”
“I just don’t get why he said there was a bomb when there wasn’t.”
She’d been thinking about that. “What if it wasn’t him, it was just made to sound like him?”
Ice gave her a quick glance. “Who else would it be?”
“Whatever program Adam was looking at. The one that wormed its way into Marina’s system. Polaris.” But Vesper hated AI, so why use it to mimic a man’s voice? It could have been the same program, but run by those who set up that lab. But why? To see what they would do, and learn from their actions?
Ice glanced over. “You know something we need to know?”
As if she was going to just tell him. Steph was more interested in how she managed to get here, speeding down the highway south, toward Italy. “What are we going to do when we get to the border?”
“You have your passport, right?”
She glanced at him. “Was that your idea of a joke?”
“One hurdle at a time.” He cracked a smile. “How ’bout we catch up before the Italian border and get my friend back?”
“Fine by me.”
Ice pressed his foot harder on the gas pedal and she felt the car speed up. “Tell me about Polaris.”
“Adam asked what it was, and that got me wondering, because it could be the system he was looking at.”
“Okay, so we assume Polaris is…what? Some kind of artificial intelligence?”
Steph shrugged. “Maybe it’s the same AI program that learned from what happened at the server farm.” They’d told her all about that. “And who is Kyle?”
“No idea.” Ice rapidly changed lanes.
Steph shifted in her seat, which just reminded her she was still soaked. The heat coming out of the car vents on her side wasn’t going to do much to warm her, but it was better than being wet and shivering.
She dipped her head to the tablet and looked up the CEO of Earthnet while Ice worked to catch up to the van. He’d made it to the deck in time to see two men and Vesper shove an unconscious Kai into the back of their van.
She got the feeling Ice wasn’t ever going to quit chasing the van. Regardless of national borders, or the potential to get caught by local law enforcement for exceeding posted speeds. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who cared about that in the face of losing his buddy—his brother.
The CIA had sent their new Division Zero team to retrieve her when she’d been captured.
Getting to know them only showed her what she didn’t have and never would.
Her life was about doing her job and keeping the agreement she’d made with the CIA that kept her father alive.
He would never be free, but what he’d had before she was burned was far preferable to the situation now.
One she had to rectify.
Steph needed to find that book, but that mission would come after this one was completed.
She reached up and curled her fingers around the vial on her necklace, because it made her feel close to her father. Right now, it was all she had.
Ice changed lanes again, closing the gap between them and the white box van in front. “Why would she take Kai?”
Steph figured he didn’t need a lecture about how sometimes things happened in life and there was no explanation that would satisfy. Instead, she said, “She’ll hit you where it hurts. Vesper is ruthless, and if she wants something to happen, she won’t quit until it does.”
“Sound like personal experience.”
She watched as they passed a red Fiat, going slow. “It doesn’t matter how I know.”
“What does matter?” Ice shrugged. “Like this Lazarus Protocol thing.”
“You think I know about that?”
“I think you know a lot, but what you’ll actually tell me is different.”
Steph eyed him. “And?”
He didn’t respond to that.
“I’m not part of your team, and I never agreed to full disclosure.”
“And yet you’re in this car with me, helping me go after my friend.”
“The others needed to focus on helping Adam. Besides, I’m no good with medical stuff.”
“Or it’s too real to see someone you might care about hurt, or incapacitated.”
“Sounds like personal experience,” she shot back.
Ice almost smiled.
“So we agree.”
“Fine,” he said. “We’re here because we’re better at this than feeling helpless when someone’s hurt.”
“Works for me.”
He glanced over at her. “What do you know about the Lazarus Protocol?”
“Not much,” she said. “Most people in the intelligence community think it’s a myth. Like some old-school spy craft kind of…” Huh. Not the first time she’d thought that today. Before it had been about poisons. “Nothing about this adds up to anything that makes sense.”
“Yet,” he said. “Do you plan to let it go and walk away?”
“Not if I want to get my life back.”
“Then we’ll figure it out. So start with what you do know,” Ice said. “It’s a myth?”
Steph nodded. “A way forward for someone who has been compromised to such an extent they have to fake their death. Special Forces, tier one type guys. Intelligence assets. Traitors. The rumor is, you don’t contact them, they contact you.
Like they just know that you need to fake your death and get a new ID. ”
“Wouldn’t work for you, right?”
“Not really. Though, I haven’t been contacted.” She bounced one knee up and down. “Someone like Adam? I don’t know what he was into before he was declared dead, but there’s got to be a reason he seems to know what it is.”
“That old guy in the lab was probably going to question him about why he was there, but then he realized the whole team was on board.”
“And Vesper,” she said. “But where did he go?”
“I don’t like not going after the guy who cut Adam any more than you do, but our team is the priority.” Ice changed lanes again, right behind the van now. “Hold up the tablet.”
“You guys really have trackers?”
“Assuming he has his comms earbud on him, we should be able to determine if he’s in there,” Ice said. “And if it’s functional, we can switch it on remotely and listen to what’s going on inside the van.” He glanced over. “Isn’t that how your necklace works?”
“Nope. It only activates from my end. They can’t use it to track me unless I turn it on.” She lifted the tablet like she was about to take a picture with the device’s camera. “That’s impressive tech the CIA would probably be interested in.”
“Then they should make me an offer,” Ice said.
“It’s scanning.”
“The tablet uses satellites that belong to a range of companies, and countries, and bounces off different ones so it’s untraceable.”
“He’s in there.”
“We knew that.”
Steph said, “Let me try and—”
The rear door of the van swung open, and a man in black with a black ski mask clung to a handle with one arm and lifted a rifle, pointing it at them.
“If I swerve, they’ll hit—”
Bullets spat from the rifle and hammered into the hood.
“—whoever is behind me.”
She dropped the tablet between her feet and grabbed the pistol she’d borrowed from Adam. “If you don’t, they’ll hit us!”
She hit the button on the window, and it descended excruciatingly slowly. Not the time to wish for a handle to wind it down, but there it was.
The windshield cracked, and the popping sound of gunfire got louder.
Around them, horns honked and people swerved to get out of the way. She heard brakes squeal and the unmistakable crunch of metal as two vehicles crashed into each other.
Steph stuck her gun hand out the window, and Ice yelled, “Don’t hit Kai!”
As if she would? Even under duress she had better aim than that.
She squeezed off a series of rounds and hit the shooter in the shoulder, causing him to fall back into the van, where he landed on Kai.
The Division Zero team member lay unmoving, and she had a great view of the soles of his boots but not much else.
Another guy in black with a ski mask took the shooter’s place.
Steph didn’t let him bring his gun up. She nailed him in the chest, and on the side of his neck. Blood sprayed out. He fell forward, hitting the hood of the car before they bumped over him. Her forearm slammed on the open window.
“You good?”
She hissed. “Yes.”
In the open door, she spotted Vesper. Steph fired two shots in the woman’s direction, certain that whatever happened next, later she would wish she’d reacted fast. So she did.
The shots missed her target, who lifted Kai and put a gun to his head. Vesper had to hold his chin to keep his head up. Kai’s eyes were closed. He had no idea he was being used as a bargaining chip.
Ice yelled, “Don’t hit Kai!”
“Back off, or she’ll kill him.”
Vesper had to have read Steph’s lips, because she nodded slowly.
“Back off, Ice.”
He let out a cry of frustration and eased off the gas. Behind them on this stretch of busy motorway, flashing lights and sirens could be heard.
“There’s nothing we can do.”
“Live to fight another day? That’s all you’ve got?”
Steph’s fingers flexed on the gun. “You’ve got the comms tracker. That’s going to be enough.”
“We can’t find him unless we’re in range.”
“Right now, we need to get out of range of these cops coming up fast behind us, or we’ll end up going to prison in a foreign country and starting an international incident.”
“Nah, we’ll be shivved before that. Both of us have enough enemies.”
“So let’s not get caught!”
Ice hit the gas again, and they sped up to the van—both vehicles already going at blistering speeds. He rammed the van.
“What are you doing?!”
The van swerved, and Ice fought to keep the car straight and not lose control. Vesper shook her head, but she didn’t kill Kai. Thankfully.
“That was reckless. She won’t hesitate to kill him.” Steph was careful not to move her lips enough and give away what she was saying.
Ice did the same. “She wants him alive. Now we know for sure. She isn’t going to kill him.” Then louder he said, “Hold on.”
Ice swerved across three lanes, cut off a small SUV pulling a camping trailer, and just made it to the off ramp. Leaving a spread of honking horns behind them, he hit the brakes and eased to the end, where they had to wait for the light to turn green.
She glanced over. “Live to fight another day?”
“I don’t like that option any more than you do. But we have no choice. The question is, why did she take him?”
“Because she knows you’ll do whatever she demands in order to get him back.” Steph blew out a breath. “And after that, she knows exactly how far you’re willing to go.”
Ice turned into the flow of traffic heading for a town with a tall redbrick church in the center. “What I want to know is why she looks like you. Not a lot, but there’s a noticeable similarity in your features.”
Twisting around to look out the back window, Steph saw local first responders stream by on the motorway. She waited until she could be certain they hadn’t been followed before she faced front again.
“Steph?”
“Vesper is my half-sister.”