Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Steph powered down the boat, slowing their approach, but there was no way to come in close to the barge without bumping it and alerting everyone inside that they were here.
Redbrick warehouses with smashed windows lined the bank on this side, and the boardwalk was deserted.
Across the river, chaos still reigned as people ran from the scene even though the drones had been destroyed.
“We need to approach with a little more stealth.”
Steph glanced at Adam. “Yeah, I know.”
“So you have a plan?”
She eased up to the bank on this side of the river. Not the promenade of the opposite side, over here was far more industrial. “I’m accustomed to coming up with one on my own, yes.” She slowed to a stop.
“Not exactly what I asked, but fair enough.” Adam jumped from the boat.
Steph thought she heard someone chuckling over the comms channel in her earbud.
She stuffed it in her pocket, shut off the boat, and followed Adam, clasping his hand when he offered it to her to aid her off the boat.
When she let go of his hand and drew his gun from the back of her waistband, she realized he hadn’t moved. “We should go.”
He nodded, then turned away. Leaving whatever he’d been thinking unsaid, and the space between them full of too many secrets.
After his reaction to that postcard, she knew he was hiding something. Probably as many things as her.
Steph had to admit the guy was intriguing.
She wouldn’t mind getting to know him, hearing his story.
Sitting on lawn chairs at the castle with a cold drink, talking the day away.
But the dreamlike quality of that idea told her everything she needed to know.
It needed to stay an idea when there was far too much for her to focus on—like rectifying the situation with her father.
Which meant finding that book.
Two men approached from the far side of the boat, coming around the corner of a warehouse with a lot of smashed windows. Dan, who’d come to Switzerland with them, and the other guy who’d shown up in Syria, Jay. Both had wide, thick shoulders, where Adam was leaner and a couple of inches taller.
All of them were the kind of warriors who lived with shadows in their eyes and yet still maintained the ability to set that aside and work as a team. Their respect for one another was obvious, as was the natural way they let Adam set the tone—and make the final call.
Jay handed Steph a vest, which she lowered over her head at the same time as Adam, who put on the one Dan gave him. “Extra magazines.”
Steph said, “Thanks.”
“Let’s go.” Adam took the lead, and they jogged up the gangway to the ship, yet another reason why she didn’t think this thing was deserted. Just the deck at least, and the pilot house that looked down on them from the central tower.
The boat seemed bigger from here. And a little too quiet.
Adam found a door on the back side of the central tower and kicked it open. His boots pounded each stairstep on his descent. Steph turned, taking the steep set of stairs facing the rungs so she could move fast and watch his back on the way down.
Through the rungs she spied a long corridor with multiple doors on either side. “It’s going to take forever to clear this whole place.” She hopped off the bottom stair and turned to Adam, who had waited for her to catch up.
He headed down the hall. Gun up in front of him, shoulders squared.
He moved in a way that told her he’d been doing this for so long it had become natural.
Operating for him was like putting on a second skin.
He probably struggled with shrugging it off.
Someone like Kai, with his more relaxed demeanor, likely helped them all cut loose a little and blow off steam.
In a sense, she would never be part of a group like this. Not without changing what they were into something new. For the sake of giving up her independence? Steph wasn’t sure she was prepared for that kind of an exchange, even if she wouldn’t mind living in a castle and working with a team.
“On your left.” Jay eased up beside her in the narrow hall and took the left fork into another corridor that bisected this one.
To her right, a man crossed the end down that way. Steph instantly recognized him and took off running. The guys called after her, but they had a job to do and so did she—and despite Kai’s crack about “Mom and Dad,” none of them needed to get used to her being part of their unit.
The door had been left ajar.
Steph went in, gun first. “Sebastian.”
When she entered, he sat at a desk, a frown creasing his brow. The guy had to weigh thirty pounds less than the last time she’d seen him, and he’d grown a beard. The clothes he wore, a pair of jeans and a gray cotton shirt, seemed grimy.
He looked over at her through bloodshot eyes. “Stephanie.”
“I’ve been looking for you.” Steph shook her head. “You were thrown out of a van in Germany.”
“That was just a decoy.” He shook his head, easing back in his chair as if trying to escape but unable to make much progress in his aim. “You shouldn’t have come.”
She crossed the sparsely furnished room, probably reserved as the captain’s quarters when the ship was in service.
Now the shelves were broken, books had tumbled into a heap at the bottom of the bookcase, and the seams of the couch were coming apart.
Apparently, someone had destroyed the coffee table’s glass top but had cleaned up, leaving only the frame.
Steph went to the desk and crouched by the corner so she could see his face. He looked at the gun in her hand and winced. She spotted a web of scars on his neck, above the shirt collar. “Sebastian, let’s get out of here.”
“I can’t leave.”
“It might seem like that, but you can. We can go together. I’ll take you back to your family.”
He shook his head. “They’re dead, and no. I can’t leave.” He pulled up his pant leg so she could see the tracking device on his ankle. “If I step off the ship, this thing will kill me.”
Steph set the gun on the floor and took a look at it. “Are you sure it’s not just a tracker, like an ankle monitor?” If they’d lied to him about his family, then they’d probably lied about a lot of things.
He tucked his leg back under the desk. “I have a lot of work to do.”
“What are you working on?” She went to the window and looked out, running her thumb across the grip of the gun.
Thinking. Needing him to talk while she figured out what this was.
“Are you controlling the drones outside? They’re hurting people, Sebastian.
I know that’s not what you do. It isn’t something you’d ever be a part of. ”
“We’ll be getting underway soon, so I’m sure you’ll be here long enough to see what they have downstairs. It’s amazing really.”
Steph turned back and spotted Dan at the door, his back to her. Standing guard. She thought about putting her earbud back in but wasn’t used to working with constant chatter, and the conversation was a distraction she didn’t need right now. “Sebastian, who are you working for?”
It would take time to convince him to go with her. Faster probably to knock him out and have Dan carry the doctor over his shoulder, off the ship.
The distant sound of gunfire on board told her that Jay and Adam had met resistance.
She faced Sebastian. “Will they come back?”
He shook his head. “They only come to bring me meals. Other than that, they leave me to my work.” His tone indicated she should do the same.
“So we have time for you to explain this to me.”
A shadow crossed his expression. “I’m sorry, but I’m unable to do that.”
Steph went to the door. “Dan.”
He turned just slightly, only a fraction to let her know that he was listening—and watching the hall. “We need to go search downstairs.”
“It’ll take too long to unscramble what he believes.” For all she knew, whoever took Sebastian had tortured him for days before bringing him here. “We need to subdue him and get out of here.”
She’d spent weeks talking to him, cultivating the asset.
Now she had swooped in and undone all that work, leaving him with no free will and even less hope that his situation would ever change.
Later she could cry over the unfairness of it, but that sentiment had no place in the job she did. This had to be Vesper’s doing.
Steph said, “Sebastian, you can’t stay. We have to get out of here.”
Dan turned to her, stepping into the room. “Okay, here’s what—”
His eyes widened. Steph spun, but it was too late. Sebastian snatched the gun from her hand. She tried to keep hold of it and wound up in a tangle that twisted her index finger. She wasn’t sure who squeezed the trigger, but it went off, the barrel angled to the underside of Sebastian’s chin.
His head flung back, and he fell to the threadbare carpet, dragging her with him. His life splashed around him. His eyes were unseeing now, and his heart would eventually be cold. He would never know that his family were alive and waiting for him.
Steph let out a cry.
Dan wrapped one arm around her waist and dragged her back, tucking her against the wall beside the door. He spoke, but she didn’t understand the words.
She wasn’t supposed to care about assets. But then, every rule they’d taught her she wore like ill-fitting clothes. All of it not quite right. A bargain she’d never wanted, and a life she had to live regardless.
Maybe it was just her that didn’t fit.
Dan jostled her against the wall. “Put your comms earbud back in.”
Steph did as he ordered, trying not to look at the body on the floor. She dug in her pocket, stuck the earbud in, and broke away from Dan.
“…almost there.” That was Ice.
“Wherever here is,” Adam replied. “I’m heading down to a lower level, but it’s sealed with a polycarbonate door and a keypad. Looks like a lab.”
“I’m almost to the bridge,” Jay said. “I haven’t seen the woman, Vesper. So far it’s been just men. The kind who work for whoever is willing to pay them, and they’ll do it without asking questions.”