Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Undisclosed Location, France
“You should be resting.”
Adam didn’t bother responding to that. Mostly because Dan was right, but also because it would take energy he didn’t have. “I want an update.”
He was determined to make it to the great hall under his own steam. When he got there, he could rest.
“Thank God,” Dan muttered.
Adam realized what that was about when he turned back in time to see Winston come up behind him with a wheelchair.
He moved so fast Adam didn’t have time to react before the butler’s momentum took out Adam’s knees from behind and he sat hard in the wheelchair.
Adam let out a groan, and even though he wanted to touch a hand to the bandages over his chest, he didn’t.
The burning sensation didn’t get better if he touched it. In fact, it got remarkably worse.
“Lift your feet.” Dan grabbed the handles.
“This is ridiculous.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Dan pushed the chair forward. “You’re like an oak tree that got struck by lightning and keeps growing even though it’s been split halfway down the middle.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “Hey, tell me something.”
“You’re only trying to change the subject.” Dan turned down the west hall where the storage rooms were, and the door that led to the garage via a tunnel and a secret door. “But what?”
“Why did the verse of the day say ‘don’t fret’ like it’s an order. Like just don’t, okay? Rather than a suggestion.”
“If you believe, if you follow God, then why can’t He give you orders?” Dan stopped outside the great hall. “You really want to know?”
Adam nodded.
“As humans, we are going to fret. It’s a given that we worry. So why wouldn’t it be a given that we’re told not to?” Dan tipped his head to the side. “What are we not fretting about?”
Adam unlocked his phone and pulled up the screenshot. “Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.”
“Good advice,” Dan said.
“Like, worry about what you can control?”
“Or accept the fact there’s plenty you can’t control, give up the worry as well, and trust that God has it all in His control.”
Adam wasn’t sure how that stacked up against the state of the world, and the horrors he’d witnessed. “I’m gonna have to think about that.”
Dan pushed him forward, into the hall. “Are you going to explain to us all what that was in the lab?”
The others looked over. Ice wasn’t here, and Adam needed an update. Kai was gone. Jay and Ash sat at their desks. Jay should be back in Montana, with his fiancée and his new life, but instead he was here and one of their own had been captured.
Adam touched his chest before he realized that wasn’t going to do squat to relieve the ache. He dropped his hand to his lap and groaned.
Jay leaned back in his chair. “Is that supposed to make us want to let you off without explaining what’s going on?”
“If you don’t wanna be here, go back to Montana.”
Jay’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not leaving until Kai is back.”
Adam looked at Dan. “Where’s Ice at?”
“We’re waiting for him to call in. But from what we can see on the trackers, he caught up to Kai but backed off for some reason. Now he isn’t answering the phone.”
Not that they had phones, per se. The phrase was more of a catchall when a team member was incommunicado. Which didn’t happen often and usually wasn’t a good sign.
Especially not with Ice. “We need to find him.”
Ash said, “Ice or Kai?”
“Both,” Jay answered.
Dan pushed Adam to the edge of his desk, resituating the chair so he could sit in it and immediately raising the seat. Adam shot him a look. “Mess with your own chair.”
“Quit stalling and talk.” Dan laced his fingers across his stomach. “Or I’ll give you a sedative that will knock you out for a week.”
Adam wasn’t going to admit that a week-long nap sounded pretty good. “Some old guy caught me by surprise and went all Bruce Lee on me with a knife.”
Jay said, “Does that even make sense?”
Adam didn’t think his buddy was talking to him. “I can’t remember his face. But I know I saw him.”
“You were talking about the CEO of Earthnet,” Dan prompted. “And you were asking Marina about Spetsnaz, like we can just pull up a list of current and former Russian Special Forces soldiers.”
“I figured she might be able to.” Adam just couldn’t remember why the information was relevant. “Maybe looking at an image of the CEO would jog my memory.”
“Maybe it would, but you need to tell us about Kyle first,” Dan said. “Who is he and why do you need to find him?”
Adam caught Ash’s attention.
Dan twisted to the guy. “You know?”
“We’ve been working together too long,” Adam said.
“Because I can read you,” Dan said, “or because I’m hypersensitive about people I trust keeping secrets from me?”
“It’s not like that. It isn’t.” Adam lifted his hands. “This predates us, and this team. It wasn’t relevant to what we do, and I can’t talk about it even if I wanted to.”
“You sign an NDA or something?” Dan asked.
Ash said, “Or something.”
“It’s ironclad.” Adam didn’t like keeping secrets, but it wasn’t as if they sat around on chairs outside, wiling away the day with stories from their pasts. The team was about getting the job done. “And it’s all history.”
Overhead, high on the wall in the corner, an alarm sounded. A couple of loud Klaxons. Then a voice said, “Incoming aircraft detected.”