Drake whispered in Kenzie’s ear. “Just so you know — we’d rather not do it right now but we intend to raze this place to the ground. Respect us and you live. Reveal us, and you’ll be the first to die. Are we clear?”
“As moonshine,” Kenzie muttered.
Drake thought that was probably an affirmative and pushed her forward. Together, the team emerged from the foliage, glancing surreptitiously at the guards who picked up on them. Yorgi, remaining in the background until now, immediately emerged at the head of the group and brushed himself down.
“Spot of fun,” he said, his accent seeming strange when forced, but receiving little attention from the guards. Drake reasoned their directive was no doubt to stop and prevent any trouble inside the bazaar. What happened beyond its confines was up to the guests themselves.
“Go,” he muttered to the Russian. “Back to the tent. A little regroup first and a chat to Hayden. Make sure nothing’s happened and then back to it.”
As if with perfect timing, the rain began to fall.
If Drake had thought the tent a little cramped before, the addition of Kenzie and her ego practically filled it. Though a prisoner, the woman acted as if in charge. Drake listened to Kinimaka making his quick call to Hayden, heard the expected insistences, and then watched darkness fall through a slit in the front of the tent. It took a long time for the rain to stop, and when it did the bazaar’s entertainments had become muted. Dahl and Alicia took a walk and returned fifteen minutes later with glum looks on their faces.
“No go,” Alicia said. “Everyone’s hunkered down for the night. Guess even hardened terrorists don’t like to get wet.”
Dahl nodded along. “The few specimens who are out barely warrant a second glance. I remember one of them from my days with the Swedish Special Forces. Elusive old boy; looks a thousand years old now.”
“I had to drag ole Torsty away,” Alicia said with a frown. “Almost blew our cover.”
Kenzie eyed the Swede. “Now I am jealous.”
Drake ignored the antiquities smuggler though watched carefully as she began to pace. “We stay on mission,” he said. “No exceptions.”
Alicia glared at Kenzie. “Can I gag her?”
“Not without a hell of a fight,” Kenzie shot back. “But Torsty can, just for fun.”
Drake rose, hands out, feeling a little like a parent trying to calm squabbling kids. “Tomorrow is our last day. Let’s grab a little rest. Doing this thing in daylight will only make it more dangerous, but we can’t go creeping around every single tent at night. One way or another, tomorrow, there’ll be a hell of a fight.”
The mood turned somber, the pitch of conversation quieter. Drake plonked himself down beside Alicia and Dahl at the front of the tent, peeling back one half of the flap and staring into the black, seeping jungle, counting down the hours. They talked quietly, murmuring of their exploits, their past and their better times together. After a while, as moonshine appeared over the heights of the trees, Kenzie crawled over to join them.
“I’ve been listening to you guys,” she said quietly. “You’re real heroes, huh?”
“Nope,” Drake said shortly. “Just soldiers doing our jobs.”
“Speak for yourself,” Dahl said. “I’ve been more than heroic on several occasions.”
“I was heroic once,” Kenzie said unexpectedly, staring straight ahead. “An agent with Mossad. We took people like this—” she waved a hand outside. “Down every day. And every day more rose. What is it they say? Kill one of us and a thousand more shall arise? I don’t know… but it is true.”
“So you became dispirited?” Dahl asked.
“No,” Kenzie said quietly. “I became a victim.”
They fell silent for a time, and then Kenzie shuffled a few inches closer. “One time I stopped a firebomb attack from two thousand meters.” She clicked her tongue. “Two shots. Two kills.”
Drake wanted to believe her. “I killed Dmitry Kovalenko, the Blood King, up close. Put an end to his savagery.”
“I think you’ll find that was me,” Alicia said.
“Nah, you put down the guy in the bullet-proof kill-suit. With a knife.”
“True. I did both.”
“Another time,” Kenzie said. “During a stakeout, the cell we had under surveillance received a tip-off. They torched the entire floor of the apartment block to escape, but we caught them and pulled everyone to safety. No casualties that night.”
Dahl sighed. “Well, where do I start? Odin? North Korea? Earlier—”
“You defeated Odin?” Drake blustered. “Wow.”
Kenzie allowed a small smile. “I never had what you have. The companionship. My team was never that. We were always for ourselves and so were our superiors.” She shook her head sadly.
“Truth be told,” Drake said, also despondently. “It’s much the same everywhere. Our team? It’s different, but it works.”
“But you have lost people along the way?”
Drake nodded but said nothing.
Kenzie massaged her forehead as if to wipe away memories. “I lost everything. We were in the field, isolated, dependent upon our satellite office. Our superiors were sat on their fat behinds in Tel Aviv, feeding the bullshit that they wanted us to believe. My team were caught without hope; we were exposed, identified, our families laid bare.” Kenzie paused, swallowed and then went on. “They were slaughtered as our superiors rubbed their hands and accepted bribes. And then we were allowed to live as punishment, as warnings to others that law enforcement didn’t work.”
“You took your revenge?” Dahl asked, his eyes far away.
“Of course. Every one of them saw my face covered in their jetting blood before they died. And now I am a fugitive, a criminal, a terrorist,” she spat.
Alicia cleared her throat. “All that withstanding, you do smuggle artifacts, guns and drugs.”
“It is safer than being a Mossad agent.”
“So you are a criminal.”
“A girl’s gotta eat.” Kenzie jerked her head up, as if shaking off a terrible, old nightmare and fixed on Dahl. “Speaking of which…”
“He’s married,” Drake said.
“Oh. How about you?”
“I’m… umm… I’m—”
Alicia laid a hand on his arm. “He’s under offer, and you can’t match the highest bid, bitch.”
“Uww, snappy, snappy. And you said I had a dirty mouth.”
“I could match you for insults any day.”
“Really? Then let’s—”
“All right.” Dahl stepped in quickly. “Playtime’s over. We all need a little rest before it starts to get light.”
Kenzie looked away. “The last time I slept properly I was in my twenties.”
Drake made a motion to include the entire tent. “You won’t need to keep one eye open here, I guarantee it.”
“That’s not really the problem.”
“Yeah,” Drake agreed quietly. “I know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
In the blackest, darkest watches of the night a great evil stirred. It stalked the narrow paths, watchful as it progressed, mindful to sneak a glance inside every open tent. It saw things it enjoyed and others it simply dismissed. It catalogued each spectacle and stored them for later. Perhaps it could make use of the pick of the bunch in its own delicious endeavors. But this night was not for distractions; this night was the culmination of a lifetime of investigation.
Beauregard went ahead, vetting the way. Tyler Webb paced in his wake, basking in his preeminent status, his untouchable prestige as the leader of an organization that had brought America to its knees, and knowing that its success had been dependent entirely upon him. This trip, this little journey, sealed his legend.