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I RETRACED MY STEPS to the jet and got clearance from the Dark Sparrow base in Norway to take off. I informed Lukas that I was on my way back, and he gave me permission to land. It was a bit tricky to guide the jet down on the smaller runway hidden by trees that the central base used in case of emergencies. But I was nothing if not professional, and I made it back quickly.
I hurried through the post-flight routine, getting out of my suit and making sure the jet was handed off to the engineers. I hurried through the base, wanting to find Clark. I needed to tell her about the digital key and make sure she got it removed as soon as possible. But there was one thing I needed to do first.
I couldn’t allow New Dawn to conduct any more business on my watch. The one thing Regg hadn’t shared was the timeline. I knew that Ashcroft had all the hardware in place, the nuclear bombs and the digital keys he needed from slain operatives. But how soon he was going to push the button was another thing entirely. Of course, he couldn’t do it without Clark, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t very close to unleashing Armageddon.
I paused at the elevator, debating which way to go. If I hit the ‘down’ button, that would take me to the crew quarters, where I would look for Clark. If I hit ‘up,’ that would take me to the command center, where I was likely to find Lukas.
I couldn’t choose. Either way, it was imperative that I find Clark and get that thing out of her. Knowing what I did about New Dawn’s strategy, I was reasonably certain that they couldn’t destroy the world without it. Yet if I wasted even a second getting the coordinates up the chain of command, I might blow our opportunity for a raid.
Finally, my rational mind won out. I would just have to trust that Clark was okay and delay our reunion by a few minutes. I could drop off the phone, give Lukas my assessment of the situation, and then hightail it down to our bunk.
Riding up, I hoped I was making the right choice. Knowing what it was that my girlfriend held in her body made me nervous. What if the thing was radioactive and causing her some kind of harm? Didn’t I owe it to her to minimize the time she had to spend with that chip implanted?
I strode out of the elevator to find both Clark and Lukas in the command center. I went straight to her, all professionalism aside. She opened her arms and welcomed me in. I took a step back after we embraced and checked the skin beneath her shirt. It was smooth and unblemished, not even a spot of scar tissue to mark the intrusive object.
I frowned. “Did you get your shoulder checked out?”
“I did,” she replied.
“And?”
“They’re still reading the scans,” she answered. “Why? Did you hear anything?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “There’s definitely something there. We need to get you down to Med Lab and light a fire under them.”
“What about me?” Lukas asked, offering me his hand.
I shook it, nodding gravely. “All the New Dawn agents had them.”
“We’re not New Dawn agents,” Clark corrected me.
“Sorry.” I gave her an apologetic smile. “Ashcroft implanted them.”
“All right, let’s go,” Lukas said, agreeing easily now that he had the whole story.
“Wait.” I held up a hand, passing the phone over. “This is Regg’s. I pulled the coordinates for the New Dawn headquarters off it, but there may be more information.”
“I see you didn’t bring him back with you,” Lukas observed.
I looked at Clark, who knew exactly what I was thinking. “The situation got out of control, and I had to handle it,” I remarked.
“What did he say about New Dawn?” Lukas asked.
“He said there are nuclear weapons all across the world, and that Clark holds the key,” I reported.
“What?!” she gasped.
“Literally,” I explained. “That thing in your shoulder is a digital key. They can’t set off the fireworks without it.”
Clark gave me a stunned look. She had been a walking detonator all this time without knowing it. No wonder Ashcroft wanted her to get in the helicopter. He probably wanted to kill her so that he could take control and level the planet. Training her to become an assassin, when he originally implanted the device, he might have imagined that she would be easy to keep tabs on. She would come when he called and submit to whatever procedure he required. Only that’s not how it worked out.
She had her own mind and had gone off to pursue her own life. When she became involved with the CIA, there were layers of security he had to go through to reach her. I wondered if that wasn’t part of the reason he left town. Maybe he thought he could get to her easier if he was off the grid.
“So it’s not a locator?” she asked.
“No,” I informed her. “I don’t think they know we’re here. Not on the basis of that technology, anyway.”
“What else did Reginald say?” Lukas wondered.
“Not much else,” I admitted. “We were a little pressed for time.”
“Okay,” Lukas said with a sigh. “Let’s get down to Med Lab.”
“Right,” I agreed.
“You stay here,” Lukas commanded, blocking my path.
“Why?” I snapped.
“Because you can’t help us down in Med Lab. You need to let everyone else know where we stand.”
The thought of conducting a briefing while my girlfriend went under the knife was outrageous. There was nowhere else I wanted to be than by her side. I nearly told Lukas to shove it, but Clark reached out and took my hand.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said reassuringly.
I shook my head. “I need to be with you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted.
“What about you?” I asked Lukas, knowing that he had a similar surgery to undergo. Why was he putting it off? Why weren’t all of us going down to the clinic to have both keys removed?
“I’ll go as soon as Clark is done,” Lukas said. “Come on. It’ll just take a minute.”
I let her go, watching her get in the elevator and ride it down. I tried to convince myself that it was a minor surgery and that everything would be fine. The problem was that I didn’t trust anyone except Clark. I hoped there would be only local anesthetic involved, and they wouldn’t want to put her under.
Lukas put in a call to the leaders of MI6 and the CIA. Wherever they were in the base, they weren’t hovering around the command center like Lukas did. I waited impatiently until they joined us and then gave them the bare bones of my interaction with Regg.
“Your instructions were to bring him here alive,” George said.
“Unforeseen circumstances,” I lied.
“And what were those circumstances?” the British leader wanted to know.
“I found him in the middle of a basement fight. Things got out of hand.” I gave them just enough of the truth to keep them satisfied but not enough to incriminate myself.
“So explain about these keys,” George demanded, folding his hands over his midsection.
“I would really rather be at the medical center.” I cut him off. There was only so much handholding I was willing to do. I appreciated the firepower they brought to bear, and the fact that there were protocols to follow, but I was tired of jumping through hoops.
“You have the coordinates,” I said, standing up. “Now plan the attack.”
I left them seething, letting Lukas deal with the fallout. Hurrying down to Med Lab, I found Clark on the table. She was awake, thank goodness. The surgeon was just about to go in, having scrubbed up and donned latex gloves.
“Please, wait outside,” she instructed.
“What did the scans show?” I asked, ignoring the doctor’s instructions.
“It’s in there,” Clark confirmed. “Now get out.”
The doctor smiled unexpectedly. I liked the strength in my lover’s voice, so I moved away, trusting that she was in good hands. If they had the device on a scan, that meant they could get it out. And as long as Clark was awake for the procedure, I didn’t have to worry about anyone taking advantage of her.
I walked back out to the lobby of the medical clinic and found two Dark Sparrow soldiers who had clearly been in a fight. One man was nursing a broken arm, and one guy had a shiner. There were two other young men with them, making sure they stayed on opposite sides of the room.
It didn’t look like a stable place to wait, since I had been known to get involved in random bar brawls. So I left the clinic altogether and wandered back to the cafeteria. Thinking I could grab a cup of coffee, or maybe two, and return by the time Clark was finished, I wasn’t paying attention to other people in the hallway.
I nearly bumped into Ryan, cursing myself for being distracted. That was the worst sin a spy could commit, and one that habitually got people killed. You were supposed to be alert at all times, even in familiar surroundings. Especially in familiar surroundings.
“Theo,” Ryan mugged, putting a hand on my shoulder as if we were old friends.
“When did you get back?” I asked, not quite pulling it off.
He knew he had taken me by surprise, and he was gloating about it. I was positive that behind his annoying smile there was a smug assertion that he was the better agent. I shook it off, determined not to start the conversation two paces behind.
“Never left,” Ryan admitted. “Listen, no hard feelings.”
“About what?” I asked, my mouth suddenly dry.
Half of the reason I left Clark alone was because I’d thought Ryan was safely engaged elsewhere. I didn’t want to think about what he had done while I was in Norway. Had he approached Clark? Had they talked? Or was there another shoe about to drop?
“Clark and I made up,” Ryan informed me with a shrug. “You had to know it was coming. We were engaged.”
A fire was lit in my furnace, blowing smoke up my spine and out through my ears. I barely heard what he said afterward; I was so enraged I couldn’t see straight. It didn’t occur to me that Clark never would have fallen for his lies. When I left her, we had just made love, and she’d professed her feelings toward me and only me.
But none of that infiltrated the mushroom cloud of rage that consumed my mind. All I could see was Clark in the arms of another man, this man. Of all the slimy, low-down critters in the world, Ryan was the worst. My fingers itched to throttle him, but for a critical moment, I was frozen to the spot.
