Chapter 54
FIFTY-FOUR
Undisclosed Location, France
Adam spun the handle. The ball shot across the foosball table and went into the goal. He raised his fists in the air and whooped.
Across the table, Kai swung back. “No way! Spinning it is cheating!”
“So you want best thirteen out of twenty? Is that it?” Adam went around the table and nudged his friend’s shoulder, then grabbed his soda. “We’ve been playing for an hour.”
“I know. Steph isn’t back yet.”
“I don’t need distracting.”
Kai just snorted. He went over to Ash and slumped down on the couch, dislodging the guy. Ash shoved him. “Now I’m dead.”
The TV screen said, Mission Failure.
Adam wandered out of the room, not because he was waiting for Steph to get back with the plane and tell him how her trip went. Or because he was worried about whether she would be safe, and she’d insisted he not go with her. That she had to do this on her own.
“Because I’m fine,” he muttered.
“Talking to yourself suggests otherwise.”
Adam backtracked a couple of steps and entered the library, where Dan sat on a high-backed chair that looked like it belonged in the French Renaissance, a Bible open on his lap. “Want some company?”
Dan waved to the other chair. “I know you’re trying to distract—”
“It’s fine!” He checked his watch to see if she’d have hooked up with Ice for the final leg of the trip back. He should be hearing from one of them shortly. “She’ll be back soon enough.”
Dan chuckled.
“You good, bro?”
The big man shrugged.
“Wanna talk about it?”
Dan closed the Bible and set it aside. “The doc told me I’m simply more susceptible to heavy metal poisoning.
It hit me harder than the others. Even Kai, who’d been there longer.
The longer I’m away from it, and keep taking the medication he gave me, the better I’ll feel.
Eventually, I’ll be back to mission ready. ”
“Take all the time you need.” Adam set his ankle on his knee.
“Thanks.” Dan sat silently for a few minutes. Finally, he said, “I got an email from Sarah.”
“Surely, she didn’t hear what happened?”
Dan shook his head. “She has a new assignment and wanted me to know. Just in case something happened to her. Apparently, I’m still listed as her emergency contact.”
Neither of them had filed for divorce, so that tracked. Adam kept his mouth shut instead of suggesting “fixes” Dan wasn’t interested in. The guy would figure it out in his own time, and the rest of the team would be there to support him.
He and Sarah might get back together, or they might let what had happened tear them apart officially.
“What’s the new assignment?” Adam rubbed his chest, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles.
Dan almost smiled at the antsy way Adam moved. “She accepted a contract with Earthnet to captain the crew of the rocket they just launched into orbit.”
Adam jumped to his feet. “I need to call Noah.”
He strode out of the room, using his watch to locate where he’d left his phone.
It rang on the sideboard behind the foosball table next to a glass that now had melted ice cubes in it.
He made the call, explaining what Dan had told him and pacing up and down the entryway between the two suits of armor that flanked the rug while they hashed out the implications of Dan’s estranged wife being on an Earthnet satellite station.
Noah kept him talking, distracting him for a good hour with how it went talking to his parents and their meeting at the CIA.
Finally, the front door opened. “Gotta go.” Adam hung up.
Ice tapped knuckles with him and headed down the hall.
Steph looked around, worry in her features. “Just us? No one can hear us?”
Adam said, “What is it?”
“I have a safe deposit box at a bank.”
He didn’t figure she would ever tell him what bank it was, and where it was located, and that was fine. He knew enough and had time to learn the rest. He said quietly, “The book?”
She nodded. “The box was empty. The book is gone.”
The story continues in book 2 The Bolshoi Deception, coming November 2026.
Keep turning the page to read a note from the Author.