Instead of answering, the leader fell to the ground, dead.
Sam pushed hard against his captor.
And Guinevere raised the Walther P99, and fired a single round into the man’s head.
She didn’t wait to see if the round had connected.
Instead, she swung around and shot the man who’d been holding her twice in the chest.
The man gasped for air as his lungs quickly filled with blood.
Guinevere moved like a demon. She gripped his head with her hands and whispered, “I warned your friend, no one was getting out of here alive if he touched me again.”
The man tried to say something, but it came out as a bloody gurgle.
Sam said, “We’ve got to go.”
Guinevere said, “You’re lucky… I’m not so big on the revenge thing.”
An instant later, she pushed hard, and snapped the man’s neck.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sam took his dead captor’s handgun.
It carried 20 rounds of 9×19mm Parabellum in a detachable box magazine. None of the rounds had been fired.
Outside, he heard the two mercenaries guarding the Pearl Room debate their next move. Sam didn’t wait for them to come up with a plan.
He glanced at Guinevere, who had already taken the second soldier’s handgun, and carried one in each hand. Sam mimed the positions of each assailant, indicating that he’d take the one on the left, and she would take the one on the right.
She nodded.
And they both stepped into the Pearl Room.
Their attackers got as far as aiming, before both had been shot dead.
Sam’s eyes raked the room. There were a few civilians lying on the ground with their hands over their heads.
Guinevere stepped back into the Rare Books Room.
She grabbed the Historia Brittonum.
Lindsay looked at her as though she was going to stop her.
Guinevere said, “I’m going to need this. I’m sorry, but you heard them. They were willing to come in here during broad daylight to steal it by force. That means they know something I don’t. I’ll make it up to you when we return it, I promise.”
Lindsay looked like she was going to complain, and then, having thought better of it, she said, “Okay, that will be fine. I’ll just mark an I-Owe-You… or You-Owe-Me, shall I?”
“Sure.”
Police sirens rang out.
Sam said, “Guinevere! We’ve got to go!”
They ran down the stairs the way they had come, through the Red Room, down into the Rose Room, and out the Orange Room.
Sam climbed into the T-Bird.
He swore. “Caliburn’s missing!”
Guinevere looked around. The dog was gone. “Drive!”
“We’re missing Caliburn!”
“It doesn’t matter! We need to go!”
Sam gritted his teeth. She was right. He planted his foot on the accelerator, and the T-Bird set off with a jolt.
He turned right into SW Riverside Drive, following the Willamette River, passed Lewis and Clarke College before turning off into a residential area.
“What are you doing?” Guinevere asked.
“I’m getting off the main roads. Someone knew about the T-Bird. They know what we’re driving and they’re actively hunting us. We need to find somewhere to lay low until we can get help.”
Guinevere cocked an eyebrow. “You got a plan?”
“Yeah. There’s a house nearby, surrounded by giant pine trees that will block anyone with satellite access from locating the car. The place has been vacant for years.”
Next to him, he heard a dog bark.
Sam swore.
And Caliburn sat upright on the bench seat. His tongue was out, and panting hard.
Sam glanced at the dog.
There was nowhere for it to hide in the T-bird. It was a two-seater.
His brow furrowed. “Where the hell did you come from, Caliburn?”
The dog tilted its head and barked happily.
Guinevere said, “I saw what happened!”
“Really?” Sam said. “That’s great, because to me it looked like he just appeared out of nowhere.”
“That’s because he did.”
“Oh great. So now we have a dog that reads and spells, and what… goes invisible?”
“He was camouflaged.”
“You’re kidding me.”
Guinevere sighed. “Hey, I’m just telling you what I saw. The dog’s fur matched the color and material of your T-Bird precisely.”
Sam leveled his eyes at the dog. “Is that right, Caliburn?”
The retriever barked.
“How is that even possible?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know. Other animals in the wild are capable of it. Think of a chameleon or some of those marine creatures that change their colors to hide from predators…”
Sam said, “You mean octopus, cuttlefish, and some squid?”
Guinevere shrugged. “Sure, those things too.”
“All right, but Caliburn’s a dog. No amount of breeding can cause a dog to develop such an efficient natural camouflage technique, can it?”
“I don’t know. Beats me. It’s just one of those bizarre things I have no explanation for.”
Sam grinned. “On that subject…”
“What?” Her liquid eyes met his, her jaw set with defiance, as though daring him to ask.
Sam said, “I thought you said you were a healer?”
“I am.” She smiled. “I do Reiki energy work.”
Sam took a right and turned into Military Road, Dunthorpe. “Do you care to tell me how you learned to kill with such efficiency?”
Guinevere swallowed hard; she bit her lower lip, and said, “Before I was a healer, I was an assassin with British Military Intelligence.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sam slowed the T-Bird to a crawl.
He took his eyes off the road and looked at Guinevere, genuinely studying her face all anew. She was strikingly beautiful. Her liquid jade eyes were full of intelligence. Her fiery red hair framed her strong jawline. She met his gaze straight on. Sam knew he was good at reading people. But somehow, all he could see was kindness.
He frowned. “You weren’t always like this, were you?”
“No.” Her voice was soft. Her eyes glassy.
Sam turned his attention to the fork in the road up ahead. “When you spoke about your brother having this natural evil inside him, and the fact that the two of you were identical twins, you were speaking about yourself as much as him… that’s it, isn’t it?”
She took his hand and squeezed it. “I can’t explain it. Our parents were fine. Our upbringing was normal. No one hurt us; no one abused us as children. Our desire to hurt others was inbuilt in our DNA. That’s the best I can do to explain it.”
“You joined the Army together?”
“Yes.”
“And both of you were selected for special — off the record — operations with MI-6?”
She nodded. “They said we shared a certain set of moral parameters and flexibilities that made us uniquely valuable to them.”
“Did you work together?”
“No. We completed basic training and then field training together, but after that, we went our separate ways. Truth is, most assassins like to work on their own. It becomes more dangerous, to the government and to us, if we work as part of a team. My brother and I needed to kill people. We killed the people that our government told us were bad — we were legal killers — but if we were really honest with ourselves, we would have just as happily killed the same people if our government told us they were good.”
“What happened?” Sam squeezed her hand back. “I mean what made you change?”
“You’re certain I’ve changed?”
Sam’s response was emphatic. “Yes.”
Her eyes turned somber, but her voice was filled with defiance. “When my brother died, my desire to hurt people left with him. It wasn’t a conscious decision. Just something that happened. As the time went on, I knew I needed to make amends with the world. I needed to serve people, and make the place better. For seven years, that’s all I have done — until today.”