The door opened and Emily walked into her office. The clock on the wall ticked incessantly, which was one of the reasons she did her paperwork with plugs in her ears.
Sean was sitting in one of two leather chairs across from her desk. He’d been there for a half hour, heading to her office after getting her call.
The day before, Emily’s people had arrived on the scene within twenty minutes. Paramedics had made sure the man with the stomach wound would survive before he’d been bound and placed in an ambulance with his partner.
After being stabilized in a Kansas City hospital, the men were moved to a more discreet location in Atlanta, with higher levels of security. There were also no prying eyes, and the doctors were on the Axis payroll to ensure no information on the identity or condition of the patients was leaked.
Emily maintained a tight ship; that was certain. She wasn’t a micromanager, but she had eyes and ears in place that would give her instant updates if anything went wrong. If something happened to one or both of the prisoners, she’d know how, why, where, and who had done it.
Axis answered only to the president, an ultra-secret agency formed during the Cold War to combat espionage and terrorism. Most of the public didn’t know about Axis. Emily intended it to always stay that way.
She eased into her seat and crossed one leg over her knee, then folded her fingers, intertwining them with one another. “Can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can you?” she said.
He shrugged and put his hands out wide. “It’s what I do.”
Sean didn’t have to ask for an update. He knew she’d tell him what was going on. From the look on her face, he assumed she’d been unable to get anything useful out of the men.
“They aren’t talking,” she said.
He smirked. “Yeah, they wouldn’t tell me anything either.”
“We’re running an analysis on that tattoo. Both of them have one, by the way.”
Sean figured that too.
“So far, though, we don’t know much about them.” She exhaled and placed her folded hands on the desk. “They don’t have any criminal records, not that we can tell. No matches on their fingerprints.”
“That’s a tad strange. Don’t you think?” He raised an eyebrow with the question.
“It can be. Not really, though. You know that. Most of these international criminal types don’t carry ID.”
“True,” Sean agreed. “How’d they get there? They able to fly or something?”
Emily rolled her eyes. “That theory notwithstanding, we’re going to keep working on it. Found an abandoned car nearby. It was rented under a false name, most likely. Our new facial analysis software should be able to pull up something from Interpol. If not, we have a few other tricks up our sleeve. We’ll figure it out one way or the other.”
Sean wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t let on. Since getting on the plane to come back to Atlanta, he’d been visualizing the tattoo on the guy’s wrist. Where had he seen it before? That question had rattled him the rest of the day and all through the night until he’d fallen into a shallow, troubled sleep.
He knew about the tech Axis had at their disposal. He also didn’t have many doubts about Emily’s team figuring out who the men were. The problem was who they worked for. Their identities didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. They were goons, nothing more. Dangerous goons but goons nonetheless. Sean doubted it was a case of two guys out for revenge. The people out in the world who wanted him dead wouldn’t have been so careful, so calculating. And it was unlikely they would have been able to locate him in the middle of nowhere.
The only people who knew he was in Missouri were Tommy and his lab/field assistants, Alex and Tara—affectionately known as the kids—and Adriana, although she’d been out of touch lately. It had been a week since they’d spoken, which wasn’t unusual. It did, however, cause a deep longing in his chest.
Sean missed her, everything about her. While they led separate lives much of the time, the moments he was able to spend with her were his favorite. He wondered what piece of art she was chasing down in some foreign country. As he considered the question, he said a silent prayer for her safety.
“I’ll leave you and the rest of your experts to it, then,” Sean said and stood up.
“That’s it?” Emily’s eyebrows knit together. “I thought maybe you’d hang out for a while. We could get lunch in a half hour if you like.”
“Thanks, Em. I appreciate it, but I need to get over to HQ. I have a few things I’d like to discuss with Tommy.”
Her analytical eyes pored over him. “First of all, this is HQ. Second, are you telling him you’re coming back to work here?”
Sean cracked a smile. “Love you, Em. Give me a call when you have something.”
He didn’t look back as he left the room. He didn’t have to. He knew the look on her face. She was probably curling her lips and shaking her head, a second before she resumed her normal spy activities, whatever they were.
The drive over to the International Archaeological Agency headquarters was a short one. He was glad Emily had moved Axis HQ to Atlanta several years before. It was far enough away from Washington to reinforce the autonomy with which they operated, but it also kept the agency out of sight and out of mind from the political ambitions and meddling of the would-be kingdom builders in the capital.
Sean parked his car along Centennial Olympic Park Drive and stepped out. The new IAA building’s windows glimmered in the sunlight. It was a far cry from the old, gray building that had once stood on the same grounds—destroyed by an explosion targeting Sean and the others who worked there.
He scanned his security card at the front door and walked inside, giving the guard on duty a nod as he passed.
“Morning, Henry,” he said.
“Morning, Mr. Wyatt. Baseball’s coming. You excited?”
Sean and Henry had discussed the Atlanta Braves more times than either could remember. Their conversations were usually brief, due to the passing nature of their relationship. On occasion, though, they’d paused and discussed trades, pitching and hitting, and a few other aspects of the team that preoccupied true fans.
The truth was, Sean enjoyed the game—and he loved the team—but his hopes weren’t high for the upcoming season.
“I told you to call me Sean, Henry. And yeah, it should be a fun year.” He lied, thinking the team would underachieve once again.
“I hope you’re right, Sean.”
“That’s better. Mr. Wyatt is my father.”
Sean hated the line as soon as it passed through his lips. He detested using clichés, but that one had slipped out. And it was true: Sean didn’t yet feel like an “old man.” Not like Henry.
“Have a good day, sir,” the older man said.
“You too, Henry.”
Sean made his way to Tommy’s office but found it empty. He knew that usually meant his friend was down in the lab with the kids, although Tara and Alex had recently been out in the field considerably more than in the past. Tommy felt like it was good for them to get out and see the world, to feel the history they were helping to make. Neither Sean nor Tommy had any concerns about the two handling themselves if things turned sour on a mission.
They were both accomplished marksmen and were more than capable in hand-to-hand combat.
Sean reflected on how they’d made a judgment call a few years back, flown to Japan, and saved his and Tommy’s skin at a mountaintop monastery.
Down in the bowels of the building, Sean pushed through a glass door after pressing his thumb to a print scanner. Security in the building had been tightened after a recent attempted break-in. There were more points of entry, each with a different method of verifying who was trying to get in.
It was slightly annoying but understandable. One could never be too careful when it came to protecting some of the most secret and mysterious artifacts in the world. That’s why, after all, so many governments and private entities trusted the IAA.
Sean saw Tommy and the other two across the room and made his way through the maze of desks, tables, and countertops.
Tommy was staring down at a small piece of pottery on a desk when he caught a glimpse of his friend approaching.
“Why can’t you use the clean-room entry?” Tommy asked, irritated. “That’s why we put it in.” He stood up straight, crossed his arms, and shot his friend a disparaging glare.
“If you want that to be the only way in, why don’t you take out this side door then?” Sean’s question was both funny and true.
Tommy rolled his eyes. “Vacation to the heartland get cut short?”
“I…ran into some trouble.”
“I heard.”
Sean stopped next to where his friend and the kids, who were in their late twenties, were working. Sean and Tommy were convinced something romantic was going on between them, but there was no way to confirm it. Besides, it wasn’t any of their business.
Sean looked surprised. “You heard, huh? Emily tell you?”
“Maybe,” his friend said with a grin.
Sean shook his head. “She can’t keep her mouth shut.”
“She also said you’re leaving me to go back to work for her.”
“All these years, and she still won’t let it go.”
Tommy rolled his shoulders. “I guess she thinks you’re good at what you do. I keep trying to tell her you’re not, but she won’t listen.”
Sean chuckled at the barb and turned to Tara and Alex, who were meticulously brushing debris off the clay shard. A stone tablet sat off to the side, carved with a script unlike anything Sean had ever seen.
“What’s this? You guys doing actual archaeology stuff?”
They grinned.
Tommy scowled. “You’re hilarious,” he said.
“That’s kind of part of our company name, right?” Tara answered.
Alex looked up. “Hey, did you find anything out in Missouri? I mean other than trouble.”
“Ha ha,” Sean said. “Sometimes I wonder why we don’t just take this show on the road and hit every comedy club in the country.” He paused for a second. “And no, I didn’t find anything. Kind of left in a hurry.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Yeah, although I did come back with something.” Sean reached into his jacket and pulled out a printout of a picture. He set it on the table, careful not to touch the stuff they’d been working on.
The other three crowded around and looked at the image of a man’s wrist with a strange tattoo on it.
“What’s that?” Tommy asked.
“A tattoo,” Sean said.
“Solid burn, Sean,” Tara remarked. “Whose is it?”
“Not sure. That’s why I brought it to you guys.”
Alex looked up in surprise. “Well, it’s gonna be kind of difficult to pinpoint an identity with nothing more than a tattoo. That’s not really what we do here.”
Sean snorted a laugh. “I’m well aware. No, I am wondering if any of you guys recognize the design. It looks familiar, but I can’t place what it is or where I might have seen it.”
Tommy bent down to get a closer look while his associates examined the image.
“Sure seems like something I’ve seen before,” Tommy said. “I’ll have to do some looking around.”
“You guys?” Sean asked the other two.
They both shook their heads.
“No,” Alex said, “but whoever the artist was did a good job. The lines are clean, ink is dark, no smudging, no fading. If I had to guess, I’d say it was new.”
Sean listened and considered the comment, not that it was extremely helpful. He hadn’t come here for their critical opinions on skin art.
“Well, I’ll be in my office if you need me. I’m going to figure out what this is.”
“You know, Sean,” Tommy said, “it might just be a design he came up with. People get tattoos. Lots of people, in fact. It’s kind of the in thing to do these days. I see random stuff on people’s arms, necks, you name it, all the time. Doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Sean had thought the same thing at first. His friend was right on that count. People came up with all kinds of wild ideas they paid to have drawn on them in permanent ink. This, however, was different.
“I would agree with you except for one important fact.”
The other three looked at him with expectant eyes.
“Which is?” Tommy prodded.
“Both of them had the same tattoo, like it was a brand or something.”
“Maybe they’re brothers?” Tara asked. “Or it could be a friendship thing.”
Those were both ideas Sean had considered as well. He’d blown it off. There was more to these guys than met the eye.
“Possibly,” he relented. “But they didn’t look much like brothers, in spite of their similar haircuts. I don’t think those dudes are related.”
“Dudes?” Tommy asked.
Sean ignored his friend. “Like I said, I’ll be in the office if you need me. Take a look at that when you’re done…brushing that piece of clay or whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Real work, Sean,” Tommy’s voice escalated as Sean dipped out of the room. “You know, actual archaeology, like you said?” He snickered and shook his head.