Chapter Twenty-Eight

Striker knew there was a problem the moment they hit the first checkpoint. The queue into the city was longer than it should have been for a Saturday evening, and it was crawling along.

“Maybe there’s an event happening tonight?” Friday sounded as worried as he felt.

“Maybe.” But his instincts were twitching, telling him something was wrong.

“Should we give up and try to find another way in?”

He glanced at his watch. Something he’d been doing increasingly over the past few hours, all too aware that time was slipping away fast. It was seven p.m., Friday had twenty hours until the poison activated in her system. More than enough time to drive into the city and get to the clinic. But it wasn’t enough time to find a way to sneak over the monitored border fences. No, their only option was to stay on the road. He reached for her hand. Her fingers were icy cold. She’d been sleeping deeply for most of the trip, and there were dark purple circles under her eyes.

“No, we’ll stick to the plan. This queue will move fast enough. We’ll get through the checkpoint, no worries.” He hoped. “I’ll make a call to the team, see if they know what’s going on.”

He pulled an old satellite phone from his daypack and hit the team’s HQ number.

“What is that?” As usual, she was fascinated by his tech.

“Satellite phone. I’ll let you play with it after we get out of La Paz.”

“Another relic that should have been obsolete. I need to look into the tech your team use. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She beamed at him. “I feel like an archeologist who’s been thrown back in time when I’m with you.”

“Thanks.” He shook his head at her as someone answered the phone.

“Yo there, dude.” There was only one person on the team who dared call him dude—Hunter, their tech expert.

“My radar is going off here. The queue into La Paz is backed up for miles.”

“I’m on it.”

There was silence as he heard Hunter type on his old-fashioned keyboard, something else that would no doubt fascinate Friday. They’d moved up two car spaces before he came back with an answer.

“There’s been an attack of some kind in the city. They’re tight with their information. Not sure if it’s a domestic situation or terrorist.”

“That explains the tighter security. Is our permit gonna get us through this checkpoint?”

Friday stiffened beside him as he listened to Hunter type. He rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand to soothe her.

“You’re solid,” Hunter said at last.

A wave of relief rolled through him. “Has Friday’s name come up anywhere outside of the Territories?” What he was really asking was whether Enforcement had made a deal with Bolivian security to pick her up for them.

“No. You’re good to go, boss. Anything else?”

“One more thing. Any word on that issue Mace is looking into?” As the point of contact for all of their teams in the field, Hunter would know exactly what issue Striker was talking about. Mace had gone off hunting the mole on their team.

“He’s following a lead.” Hunter’s voice was tight. “We think the leak is a guy calling himself the Broker.”

“Seriously?” That was a relief. “At least we know it isn’t one of our team.”

“Yeah, nobody on this team would use that lame ass-name.”

“Any idea of the identity of this ‘Broker’?”

“Mace is checking out a hunch, and I’m hunting online. He thinks it’s someone we use to arrange transportation and weapons. He’s got Sandi for backup.”

“Keep me informed.” He ended the call after Hunter grunted his agreement.

Friday’s eyes were wide when he turned to her. “Does your team have its own satellite, or do you piggyback on other people’s?”

As usual, it wasn’t the question he’d expected. Seemed nothing could derail her curious mind. Well, nothing but him. And didn’t that make him feel ten feet tall?

…

They drove through a built-up, industrial area of the city, that seemed to go on forever. Friday watched it all pass as she held Striker’s hand, fighting the ever-present weariness that made her bones ache. Tension was heavy in the car, as they were both painfully aware that each delay ate up time. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Nineteen hours until the Interferan-X activated. And they weren’t even inside the old city yet. The roadblocks had stolen time from them.

“We’re about half an hour from the clinic,” Striker said. “We’ve got plenty of time to get you that antidote.”

His gaze stayed firmly on the road in front of him, his eyepatch in place to hide his snake from the world. It felt wrong. He was magnificent in his entirety, both halves making up a fascinating whole. None of it should have been hidden from the world.

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?” He skillfully negotiated the traffic to make sure they were never stuck waiting behind another driver.

“Know what I’m thinking.”

Oh, how she loved his smile. It was easy and charming, just like the man. “We’re attuned to each other. You’re thinking what I’m thinking. Plus”—his smile turned mischievous—“it’s usually written all over your face.”

“I thought I was good at projecting an expressionless demeanor.” For goodness sake, her life had depended on the ability.

“You are good at it. I guess you just relax more around me.” And didn’t he sound smug about it.

The flat road they were on suddenly dipped and curved to the right. She couldn’t help but gasp at the sight before them. They’d driven into a massive twinkling bowl, a valley filled with a billion multicolored stars.

“Pretty, eh?” he said.

The city had been built into a steep and narrow valley, spreading out and up the mountainsides. The result was mesmerizing in the dark. It felt like they were riding into a distant galaxy with swirling bright stars all around them.

“In the daytime, the mountain peaks are so close you can almost touch them.” His voice was low, gentle, intimate.

“I didn’t expect this, not after the flat area we just drove through.”

“The high plains. In my day, that was a different city called Altiplano. It grew to join with La Paz proper.”

“You were here a hundred years ago?”

His laugh was deep. A rich molasses. A decadent chocolate torte. A full-bodied wine.

“Now, that makes me feel old.” He steered the car down into the valley, where the buildings that had seemed like glittering fairy lights from a distance became tall skyscrapers up close. And yet, even above the tops of the highest buildings, there were still more lights to be seen on the sides of the mountains.

“It’s a serious question. Were you here before your sleep?”

“Yeah. Couple of friends and me, we came down here to South America to see the place. We visited all the Inca sites and did crazy shit like bungee jumping and caving.”

“Bungee jumping?”

“You stand on a bridge, they tie a thick elastic band around your ankles, then you jump off and bounce upside down until you stop, then someone lets you down.”

Friday’s jaw dropped. “Are you nuts?!”

“Yeah, maybe. Don’t think they do bungee jumping anymore.”

“I should think not.” What kind of idiot threw themselves off a bridge headfirst hoping a piece of elastic would save them? “You don’t do crazy things like that now, right?”

He gave her a hot look. “Bébé, my life is crazy enough without seeking that shit out.”

He had a point.

“Right, the clinic is round the next corner, at the end of the street.”

She could hardly breathe. They’d made it. Eighteen and a half hours before the deadline and they’d made it. Her whole body tingled in anticipation as their car turned into the clinic’s street.

And came to an immediate halt.

A police barricade blocked the road.

“Come on.” Striker parked illegally in a loading zone. “We’ll walk from here.”

“Is this normal?” She tried to keep her hands from trembling as she climbed out of the car.

“I dunno.” He took her hand and held it tight. “Let’s find out.”

Together, they walked toward the barricade.

The street was narrow, a testament to a city built in a different time, when cars were fewer. The road surface was new and looked out of place among the older buildings. Tall, narrow buildings that made her feel hemmed in, the lack of space compressing the anxiety growing inside her.

“What’s going on?” Striker called to the officer standing by the barricade.

He spoke Spanish, one of the world’s three official languages, the other two being English and Mandarin. Friday had learned all three as a child.

“Gas explosion. Several buildings have been damaged. There are many casualties. This area has been cordoned off for inspection. You need to leave at once.” He turned his back on them, uninterested in whether they followed his instructions or not.

“What buildings?” Friday called after him as a sinking feeling started in her stomach.

The officer gave her a stern look. “I said, move along.”

“Come on.” Striker tugged at her hand. “We won’t get any answers here.”

“Where are we going?” She trotted along beside him, struggling to keep up with his long stride.

“Up. We need an overview. See what’s happening and whether we can find a way in there.”

He pushed through the doors of an old hotel and approached the desk. Money changed hands, and the woman manning reception pointed them to the lifts. Once inside, Striker pressed the button for the top floor, and they sped upward. Friday wrapped her arms around her stomach. She couldn’t voice her fears, worried that if she did, they’d become reality.

“Hey.” Striker pulled her in against him. “It’s gonna be okay.”

She rubbed her cheek against the cool cotton of his shirt, feeling the firm muscle beneath it. “What if your spy found out where we were going and told CommTECH? What if this is just a way to smoke me out?”

“Then we deal with it.” His voice was calm. Even. Full of confidence. “And you weren’t supposed to know about the guy leaking information. I thought my conversation with Hunter was cryptic. Guess I need to be more careful in future, because you’re a hard woman to sneak something past.”

Future.

She wasn’t sure she had one.

The lift stopped, and the doors opened, letting them out into a nondescript corridor that was badly in need of a makeover. It was hard to tell the pattern on the faded wallpaper, and the carpet had worn bare in places. She followed Striker through the emergency door at the end of the corridor and up the concrete stairs to the roof. There was a one-way lock on the roof exit, and he made sure to prop the door open, lest it slam shut behind them and trap them on the roof. Together, silently, they crossed the flat expanse to look down into the street.

Striker stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders as they looked out over La Paz. It took a minute for her to understand what she was seeing. The explosion must have been huge, as several buildings were damaged. But the one in the center of the devastation, the one where the explosion occurred, was entirely gone. There was nothing but a pile of smoldering rubble where it once stood.

It wasn’t until she felt hands tighten on her shoulders that she forced herself to compare the scene before her to the map of the area she’d memorized in the car. Her knees went weak when she realized which building had been destroyed.

The clinic was gone.