“He's supposed to be dead.” Christina pushed the words out angrily through clenched teeth. She fought not to wail them.
Shray Menon had gone down. She’d hit him multiple times. Surely, he had broken ribs and it looked like some part of him was bleeding—an arm, a leg, she didn’t know.
Christina had been spraying bullets all over his retreating form. He wore a vest and helmet, so many of her hits had simply failed to kill him. But she'd battered him to the point where he’d fallen, then raced to the spot where she’d seen him disappear below the tall grass, only to find …. Nothing.
Hadn’t she run fast enough? She knew she had! There hadn't been enough time for him to get away—but somehow, he had.
He must have crawled away.
Following the trail—blood droplets and broken stalks of the wheat-like grass—she found a point where things changed. It appeared that someone had found him and quickly dragged him out of range. She could still see where the grass was bent, but the way the blood thinned out along the trail indicated he’d been moving fast. She wouldn’t catch up. And he wasn’t alone.
Even if she could track him, she shouldn’t.
Fuck.
Walter looked at her a little sideways, having caught up faster than Christina expected. But that was Walter.
“He's damaged, that's for sure,” Walter said as they turned away and headed back.
The others were in view sooner than expected, so she hadn’t run quite as far as she’d thought. Still, her heart hadn’t stopped pounding and her anger hadn’t dimmed.
She was speaking to all of them, though Noah probably didn’t fully understand what she meant. “The last time we were here, we were quite certain that fucker was dead.”
No one else commented. And she knew it was because there was nothing more to say. She'd had Shray Menon in her sights … and he'd gotten away.
Giving up, she led them back to the de Gottardi/Little land. They took turns dragging the unconscious instigators behind them. It was slow going. Dead weight was hard to pull, but harder to carry. By the time they arrived and Will’s people greeted them, they’d been awake more than twenty-four hours and Christina was exhausted. Only Walter looked ready to go back out.
Christina fought the urge to swear at her.
Once she was changed and showered, she met up with the others, whom Will and the family were already feeding some kind of meaty stew. Only after she was well into her bowlful did Will ask, “It means Marks is here, doesn't it?”
“I’m almost certain he is,” she replied. She looked up from her food. “I can’t be positive it was Menon, but…” It had to be. Christina looked to GJ, who nodded silently. It was him.
Looking to the others, she wondered if Walter or GJ had anything to add. Christina stared for a moment, knowing that the junior agent knew more than she said.
“Do you think your grandfather is here?” Will pressed GJ without softening the blow.
It turned out that what GJ knew was that she didn't know. “In the past, I would have said that was true. Shray was my father's personal assistant, and he’s also a PhD archaeologist. He was always on the digs I went on with my grandfather, and only occasionally left behind when they had to split up. That would be only when someone needed my grandfather to be in two places at the same time.”
She paused, but then picked up the thread again. “The last time he was here, Grandpa—” she cut the word off, no longer the right term for the man they hunted. “Dr. Marks was here. But I didn't know that Shray was alive. And I have no idea where my grandfather's been for the last six months. His assistant’s presence might mean that Murray Marks is nearby, but I can’t be sure.”
That wasn’t entirely true, Christina thought. Dr. Marks had broken into GJ’s lab at some point. The lab that had once been his lab. GJ and Walter had found secret passages, missing bones, and stolen documents.
GJ had grown up in the building, working at his side. She probably knew every bone and had a pet name for it. So when GJ said something was missing, Christina believed. And when GJ said the only person who could have gotten into the secured and locked lab was her grandfather, Christina believed that, too.
But GJ wasn't sharing that with the family yet.
Will ran a hand over his military-short, white hair—as though that even did anything. “So, we know for sure that Menon is on site.”
“Well, we know he was until this morning,” Christina corrected.
“We can figure it out, right? We've still got two of their people.” Will rubbed his hand over his head again. “Though I'm not sure what you plan to do with them.”
Christina was certain she heard a tone of censure. Will had said once before that he wasn't in favor of killing, so he probably wasn't in favor of torture, either. However, Christina also knew he was in favor of keeping his family alive and keeping the farm property in the hands of those family members.
The question was, Which one did he believe more deeply?
But there was also a second question: Did she care?
Will knew they’d killed four others in the field. Maybe he thought that murder was only justified if the other person was actively trying to kill him. She didn’t know.
But Christina needed information from the two soldiers that they had tied up.
She’d already sent people to attend to their wounds. Though she wasn’t offering grade-A medical care, she’d asked Will’s medics to be sure they didn’t die from any cuts or hits they’d received in the field.
The medics had reported back that both captives were alive and well, awake, and angry. She’d ordered them left in one of the dirt rooms under one of the burned out houses, a short walk away from where she sat now.
Guards that Will felt could handle whatever happened if the captives got loose, sat in waiting outside the trap door. They would work in shifts until Christina decided that it was time to go back and interrogate them. But she wasn’t ready yet, and she figured they could sweat for a bit.
Christina looked to her group. They were all at the end of their energy. “We need sleep.”
At least they were fed. She pushed away the empty bowl from the first hot, full meal she’d had since yesterday. Even so, they couldn't do a decent interrogation when they were all half dead. They hadn’t just been awake, they’d been running at high adrenaline the whole time and even dragging unwilling captives behind them.
She looked to Will and was satisfied when he nodded in agreement.
“You’ll head back once you’ve slept?” When she nodded he added, “Let us know when you want a wake-up call.”
Christina just wiggled her phone at him. It was a nice offer, but they could take care of it themselves.
Still, as she stood, she realized she had another thing to deal with. “Noah, did you leave your vest with whoever Will said?” Honestly, she didn’t know who that was. She’d just asked Will to direct her new partner.
Noah had been wearing a vest they’d stolen from one of the soldiers they’d killed. Putting it on Noah to keep him safe on the trip back had been her primary thought, but now she hoped some of Will’s people examine it for any kind of forensic information that could be gathered. Hell, even the manufacturer tags might be helpful, if they could be traced.
Will held out a hand and waved her on. “We got it. They’re already looking at it.”
With that, she turned and gathered her tiny crew of NightShade agents. They headed from the enclosed dining area into a room with huge holes in the walls, letting in the growing daylight. The four of them hopped down through the trap door and into the tunnels, to head to the other house.
Once they were back at the room that held their beds, Christina sat down, grateful she hadn’t had to walk her agents through the grass. She was more convinced than ever that everyone above ground was a target. Walter was right—there were far more soldiers out beyond the property than she’d even imagined. They were fitted with excessive safety equipment and long-range rifles and scopes.
But what are they waiting for?
She hoped to find out from the soldiers they were holding in the compound, but first she told the others, “We still have to call Westerfield.”
Though Noah seemed to have no reaction, GJ’s and Walter's eyes immediately darted toward each other, as if drawn by magnets. Both looked back at her and replied, “Later. When we're awake.”
Christina had to admit, that made sense. If they weren't in any shape to interrogate the soldiers they'd brought back, they were certainly in no shape to get interrogated by their boss.
Almost simultaneously, they all plugged in their phones to charge. They each turned to their corners, to peel clothing and climb into whatever “group appropriate” pajamas or clothes they would sleep in. Privacy was out the window on this mission, and Christina was far too tired to care.
It shouldn't have felt so damn good to crawl into her bed, but it did.
She was grateful that—despite the dawning daylight—the room down here remained nearly pitch black. She was asleep instantly.
Before she felt rested or that any time had passed, Will was shaking her awake.
Has she even slept? She blinked at him, turning her head to look to the face of her phone. Even as he spoke words she didn't comprehend, she managed to check the time and absorb his tone.
“Christina, you have to get up. We have a problem.”
Four hours. She'd been out cold for four full hours.
It wasn’t long enough, but it would have to do. She looked up to see Will staring at her. And the words he'd said started filtering through her cloudy brain.
“Problem… Soldiers… Dead.”