The Protectors (5 page)

His eyes widened and he swallowed. He motioned for the phone.

“You have to put my ID number at the beginning of the text or they’ll know I was compromised.” His voice was sullen, like a nine-year-old who realizes for the first time the world isn’t truly fair. He punched in a string of digits and then even did me the courtesy of typing the message. He handed the phone back and let me approve before hitting
SEND
.

“All done,” I said. Rodney stared up at the ceiling before blowing out a long breath.

“Well, there goes my career,” he said.

“I wouldn’t worry. You’re not the first agent to bargain with me, and the others are still around.”

“Great. I feel better already,” he said with precisely zero enthusiasm.

He was pissed, and sure to get a first-class dressing-down from his section chief, but he’d live. I slapped my hands down on my thighs and he bolted upright in his seat at the noise.

“Now comes the time for the good news/bad news portion of our program. The good news is you will be well rested when we reach Madrid. The bad news, unfortunately, your rest is mandatory.”

Panic flashed over him, which I dismissed with a wave of my hand.

“Don’t worry. It’s just for the duration of the trip. I swear I won’t do anything more . . . so long as I don’t run into more of your friends in Madrid.”

The nine-year-old answered. “You promise?”

“Yes, Rodney, I do. Trust me—I’m one of the good guys.”

We listened to the thrumming of the train against the tracks for a
long moment.

“Y’know—if you have to tell people you’re the good guy, you’re probably not,” he said.

I dropped him, and he slumped into his seat. The words stung, but all I could think of was how true they were. Knockout couldn’t fall asleep after that, which has to rank pretty high on the universe’s Irony Meter. Didn’t help to stare at Rodney’s snoring body directly across from me.

If you have to tell people you’re the good guy, you’re probably not.

“It is what it is,” I whispered to a train car full of unconscious passengers.

Of course, getting the last word doesn’t really have the same punch when no one else can hear it.

CHAPTER 6

R
odney was true to his word—Madrid was busy, but uncluttered by Langley’s finest. After disembarking, getting truly gone was just a matter of avoiding security cameras and finding a train to Paris. Once in France, being outside Agency surveillance made travel ridiculously easy. All it took was being polite and asking for a ride to the coast. Well, polite, plus the power to render someone unconscious and borrow their car when polite fails.

Henri didn’t seem to mind, plus I left a few euros on the dashboard for his efforts.

A ferry ride to Dover and yet another train to London were all I had left, but over the miles I felt a gradual shift within me, and it wasn’t a happy one. It was easy to get involved in all of the CIA nonsense and focus on what needed to be done when I was matched against Agency types. Moving fast, feeling the pursuit, thinking on the run . . . it was invigorating and made me feel sharp—like knocking off five years of accumulated rust.

But after the heat of the chase dissipated, the impending showdown with Lyla loomed large. My initial plan after talking with Tucker had been simple: I’d explain the larger ramifications, she’d understand the danger, and we’d come to an agreement. It had sounded brilliant in my cabin five thousand miles away, but when I came around the corner and stared at the awning over the St. Moritz entrance, I realized distance is a powerful hallucinogen.

I’m seconds away from the most seductive, alluring, amazing woman
I’ve ever known. Which is great, except for the whole
“she can turn me into a leather-clad love slave with no more than a glance and a whisper” thing. Oh, and also—she hates me.

I felt my entire body vibrate with nervous energy, and the crazy thing was, I couldn’t tell if it was the “I’m on a first date” kind, or the “I’m about to die” kind.

She’d said 7:45 in her email, and I assumed she’d been coming every night since then waiting for me to show. I glanced at my watch: 7:30. No matter. When you have a dinner date with a goddess, it never hurts to be early.

I shook my hands out and took a couple of deep breaths before reaching the door, which almost slammed into me as two patrons exited in a huff. They were complaining about being denied a table—apparently St. Moritz was in big demand tonight—but I entered regardless. The maître d’ took only a cursory look in my direction before it was clear that I’d be more fortunate.

“Mr. McAlister! We’ve been expecting you. Thank you for coming. May I take your coat?”

I shook my head, distracted by the noise from the dining room. A small place, St. Moritz packed about twenty tables in fifteen spots, and every one of them was at capacity. I scanned several and saw no trace of Lyla. I turned back just in time to catch a glimpse of the maître d’ twisting the dead bolt on the front door, but played it off as though I hadn’t. No reason to throw a fit—locking the door didn’t alarm me in the slightest. If anything, it would keep distractions out of the restaurant. His outstretched arm pointed toward the far end of the room.

“Your party is waiting,” he said, beckoning me to follow. We carved a serpentine path in and out of the tables, and my eyes focused on each one as we went past. No surreptitious looks, no signs of stress. Every diner involved in conversation or eating, and not one person cast even a glance my way, which should have screamed “red alert,” but it didn’t.

Because I saw her.

At the worst table in the house, near the kitchen doors, she waited alone. Her eyes locked on to mine and I practically floated the last ten
feet to the table. She’d straightened her long black hair, which framed the sides of her face in gleaming curtains. Her skin was exactly the way I’d remembered—perfect, olive, radiant—made even more striking by her simple white dress. The elegant fabric was brilliant in the low light and the thin straps highlighted her slender shoulders. And the eyes—my God, always the eyes—flecks of gold twirled around her pupils. It reminded me of a hypnotist’s charm, almost impossible to look away from. Especially if you’d never seen her before. But this wasn’t my first time, and the only thing impossible for me
not
to notice was her mouth—she wasn’t smiling. I stopped short of the table and made no movement toward the empty chair facing her.

“Hello, Scott.” None of the distinctive purr to her voice. All business.

“Lyla. It’s been a long time.”

She unlocked her gaze long enough to look me over.

“You even wore your duster. You know, I’ve never felt them appropriate for men under six feet.”

“Nice. Leading off with a height joke. I’m five eleven. And a half.”

“Look at you, like a picture from years ago. You’re exactly the same,” she told me. Her voice sounded tired.

“Not exactly.”

She raised her hands from beneath a white linen tablecloth and rested them on the surface. A glass of red wine sat on the table in front of her. It looked untested. Another full glass sat in front of my empty chair. She examined her fingernails, distracted or unwilling to look at me.

“Still haunted by the past, I hope,” and her mouth finally formed a smile, a cruel one. She was angry, which made two of us.

“Look, this is about bigger things than Crusher . . . ,” I began. Her eyes widened and her nostrils flared as her face contorted with rage.

“His name was Carsten!” she hissed. “Carsten Walker. Don’t you dare talk about him like he was a comic-book character. He was my friend. He thought he was
your
friend, too. Until you killed him.”

A five-year-old argument, made new again. Just as painful now.

“Wow. Thirty whole seconds before mentioning Carsten. Thank
you. That’s about twice as long as I thought I’d get,” I told her. She geared up for another tirade, and I lifted my arm to point a finger in her direction. Surprised, she shrank back in her chair. “Just listen for one minute . . . ,” I started, without recognizing my old habit of extending an arm and pointing at someone before dropping them. As soon as my arm moved, the restaurant changed around me. Conversations—
all
of them—stopped. I heard a flurry of chairs screech across the wooden floor, plates and silverware clanging, and the distinctive sound of cocking hammers.

Lots of them.

I let the arm continue and had my other one join in, pointing at the ceiling. Taking extreme care, I turned my head to look over my right shoulder. Every single customer, every waiter, and even the courteous maître d’, was armed. Revolvers, automatics, and submachine guns of all types, presumably hidden beneath the tables when I’d entered, were leveled in my direction. People near me were crouched on the floor in shooting positions, while people farther away at the front of the restaurant were standing on tables and chairs. It looked like a theater-seating shooting gallery, and I was on the wrong end. I turned back to Lyla. Slowly.

“Jesus. You embraced all of these people?”

She looked a great deal more relaxed now, standing by the kitchen doors outside the line of fire.

“Yes. With your history it felt prudent. Remember how you once told me you couldn’t affect more than forty people simultaneously?”

“How many of them are there?”

Lyla smiled. “More than forty.”

“Well done. Although unnecessary. I’m not here to hurt you, Lyla. I just want to talk.”

She sneered.

“ ‘I just want to talk’? Do not try that hostage negotiation drivel with me. I’m not some moronic criminal you can manipulate. I’m disappointed you would even try.”

“Sorry. Force of habit,” I told her, then offered a mean-spirited chuckle.

“What is so funny?”

“You’re offended I’m trying to manipulate
you
. If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black, I don’t know what is. You’ve got a room full of mind-controlled people with guns standing here, and you’re pissed-off at
me
? C’mon, even you have to admit that’s funny.”

Her expression stayed flat. In spite of my jokes, it took everything I had to hold my arms still and belie my nervousness. I don’t care how powerful you are, having more than forty guns trained on your back generates many sensations, none of them pleasant. I was an inadvertent sneeze away from looking like shredded cabbage. I needed to ratchet the tension down, and it was useless to say anything directly to Lyla’s mob. There was only one person I needed to calm down, so I fell back on the most reliable form of persuasion I know.

“You look wonderful. Better than I remember. Incredible job on the setup . . . none of them looked embraced.”

A glint of satisfaction from her eyes.

“Thank you, flatterer. My abilities have changed over the years. I am . . . better . . . now.”

“I can tell. Their conversations were so natural, I didn’t see any of the old signs. You totally fooled me,” I told her.

“Well, I do love making you a fool.”

Ouch.

“Happy to oblige, but seriously, could you please ask them to put safeties on or at least lower the guns? They’re making me nervous. Even if it sounds like a line, I
am
only here to talk. Hate me as much as you want, but you know I’m not a liar.”

She returned to her seat and stared back at me with those eyes, weighing the decision. My arms were starting to tingle from holding them aloft. Finally, she shrugged.

“Friends, please lower your weapons and engage the safeties. I believe him.”

I heard the mob do exactly as she commanded, with zero hesitation. Even so, I didn’t lower my arms until I had time to check again over my shoulder. Not only was I no longer a target, but the crowd sat down and resumed dining as though nothing had happened. They looked
harmless, as before.

“Very nice. Thank you.”

“Like I said, I’m better now.”

I rolled out a crick in my neck and said, “So am I.” Then I dropped every single person in the building except us.

Glasses and plates crashed against tables and then to the ground. Diners slumped out of their chairs, waiters collapsed to the floor, and the maître d’ fell right into a potted plant. Even four guys out of sight in the kitchen went down. I never took my eyes off Lyla. “Honest conversations rarely happen with loaded guns in the room,” I said.

She only shook her head.

“So you are stronger now. Why not drop them when they drew their weapons?”

“All those guns, all those fingers wrapped around triggers . . . some of them would have gone off when they fell. Didn’t want anyone getting hurt.”

Her smile was tinged with sadness.

“Same old Scott. Always worried about the innocent,” she whispered.

“Not the same old Lyla, though, is it?”

Her gaze drifted away before answering, and I noticed dark areas under her eyes. She looked exhausted.

“You are correct. I am different.” Soft and quiet at first, Lyla sounded like a shy child telling me her age, but when her eyes came back to mine, she had an edge. “I’m not a pawn anymore.”

Here we go.

“Like me, you mean.”

“You are what you are. If you take offense, perhaps you should wonder why the truth riles you so much,” she said. Lyla’s ability to make an insult sound regal hadn’t waned. God, even without using her powers she had a way of controlling my emotions. Especially when she wanted to piss me off.

“Says the woman whose entire existence is built around making people into pawns. Nice, but I’m nobody’s lackey.”

“Then you apparently have a very poor memory,” she said.

I could feel burning in my cheeks and neck as the anger boiled.

“You wanna hate me because of Carsten—fine. I made the tough choice, and I’ve had to live with it every goddamn day for the last five years. But don’t tell me my memory sucks, because it works just fine. My memory is disgustingly, nauseatingly perfect . . . no matter how hard I try to forget.” I wasn’t lying. Over the last few years, I was lucky if more than two days went by without me reliving the moment.