The mad chase continued until Ethan veered onto an exit at the last possible moment, concerned about roadblocks. Two of their tails missed it and kept on going on the freeway. One, however, managed to follow them, but lost them when Ethan cut across two lanes and made a highly illegal left turn.
“Um, Ethan.” Jack’s hands tightened around his seat belt. “We seem to be going the wrong way.”
Oncoming traffic was scrambling wildly to get out of the way of the speeding Vanquish.
“It would appear so.” Ethan deftly swerved them around a confused hatchback. “We are, however, clear of pursuit for a moment.”
Jack leaned forwards and peered up through the windscreen. “Chopper’s still with us, though.”
“It won’t be a problem soon.” With only a mild near miss, Ethan hooked the car into another left turn so they were going with the traffic, not against it. “Jack, in the glove compartment you’ll find a phone.”
He did and, under Ethan’s instructions, sent a short message he didn’t understand but which had to mean something to the person on the other end, because about thirty seconds later, K appeared on the screen. Short for okay? Or some indecipherable assassin code? Jack didn’t ponder too long over it, however, as Ethan threaded them further into the heart of Sydney. With the chopper still overhead, it wouldn’t be long before the police found the Vanquish again. If everything went to plan, even that wouldn’t matter soon.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, Ethan cut across a rather busy intersection, swerved around a delivery truck, and entered the car park of a large shopping centre. They lost the advantage of speed but gained the cover of overhead sails.
Jack let out a long breath. Somewhere in the maze of the car park, Ethan’s associate waited with the name of the traitor. One way or another, by the time the sun had set, this would be over. Hopefully with the traitor locked up and Jack not. And if meeting this mysterious associate gave him another insight into Ethan Blade, then that would just be a bonus.
Several turns later, they eased up a row of parked cars, and there, about halfway along, was a woman. She looked like she belonged exactly there, leaning against the back of an Audi SUV, in sunglasses and a flowery summer dress, waves of white-blonde hair falling beautifully around her shoulders, bags of shopping at her high-heel-encased feet. Phone in hand, she appeared to be waiting for someone. The moment she saw the Aston Martin, she slipped the phone into her purse and waved.
They pulled up beside her, and Ethan opened his door.
“What is this?” the elegant woman demanded while smiling brightly. “This wasn’t the deal.”
Getting out, Ethan said, calm and collected, “The plan changed.”
She lost the smile and poked Ethan in the chest, sharply. “You were told, specifically, that this couldn’t happen.” She gestured at the interior of the car as she said it.
While she could have meant the car, Jack didn’t believe that. For some reason, this person he’d never met before had decided he wasn’t supposed to be here.
“This is my job,” Ethan replied, no change in his tone. “I’ll conduct it however I see—”
“That excuse is getting pretty thin.” Though some of the hardness was gone, as if she were about to cave. “Remember, it was you who wanted this. Not me, not the others.”
Now it was Ethan’s turn to relent. “Yes, I remember. However—”
“No.” She stopped him with an imperious hand. “I don’t want to hear it again. This isn’t the time. That chopper’s still up there.” She dipped a hand into the valley between her breasts and produced a data stick and a car key. “Here. Don’t make any more stupid changes.”
Then she slid into the Vanquish, taking Ethan’s place behind the wheel. Before Jack could move, she turned and regarded him. Even with the sunglasses between them, he could feel the burning glare.
“Well?” she snapped. “I’m not here to babysit you. Get.”
Every memory of failing to obey his older sister when they were kids fuelled Jack’s hasty escape. Between him and Ethan, they piled the shopping bags onto the passenger seat and stood back while Ethan’s associate revved the engine. The growling roar made her smile. She dipped her glasses and looked over the top of them.
“Don’t get caught,” she admonished Ethan. Then she was gone, burning away in the sleek car.
“Come,” Ethan said. “We’d best get moving.”
“Yeah,” Jack muttered, still digesting the sight of her eyes. All white, with large pupils. Just like Ethan’s.
She was a Sugar Baby. And if he chose to interpret her words one way, there were others.
Ethan was on the move, weaving between parked cars. Holding up the key, he hit the Unlock button, and a sedan in the next row blinked and beeped. In the sky, the chopper was circling, waiting for the Vanquish to reappear. Which it apparently did just as Jack reached the new car. Somewhere distant, horns blared, tyres squealed, and the thrumming of the chopper moved in that direction. Poised at the driver’s side of the understated sedan, Ethan looked up, following the sound. He frowned worriedly, then got in.
Even though Jack wondered if the worry was for the Vanquish or the disturbingly big-sister-like woman, he jumped into the new car, which was refreshingly more his style. He might not have found any more answers to the puzzle that was Ethan Blade—had, in fact, been handed more mysteries—but inside this car was the answer to the most pressing question.
“So?” he pushed. “Let’s look at the info on the stick.”
Without a word, Ethan produced a small tablet and inserted the stick. Jack leaned over and together they watched page after page of data scroll across the screen. If this was a summary of what the Matryoshka program had found, he could understand the ire of Ethan’s “associate.” Still, that was a minor matter when they finally reached the end and a single name was highlighted.
“Shit,” Jack cursed.
“Not who you were expecting?” Ethan pulled the stick and tucked it in the front of his armour.
“No.” Settling back as Ethan started the car, Jack added, “But it makes perfect sense.”
“Yes, it does. Shall we go do something about it, then?”
He didn’t bother waiting for Jack’s affirmative. Within minutes, they were out of the car park and, sans chopper, resumed their journey back to Darling Harbour.
As opposed to when they’d actively been pursued, Jack’s tension now ratcheted up. He had a name at long last, a reason for all the trouble the Valadian job had caused him, both then and now. They were so close to ending it Jack worried about all the things that could still go wrong. None of them were anything he could fix right now, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.
“It’s not going to work, you know.”
Ethan glanced at him. “What isn’t going to work?”
“Your plan. The other directors won’t believe you. Not until they’ve gone through every skerrick of data. Which can, and will, take weeks, probably months. They aren’t like you, Ethan. They have to follow the rules.”
“They won’t be able to keep me there.”
Jack conceded with a nod. “You might get out. I probably won’t.”
Ethan’s fingers flexed around the steering wheel. “Then come with me.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
Jack swallowed hard. He could do it. Ethan was fun and smart, occasionally endearing, and sexy as hell. Even his personality quirks were intriguing. The stone-cold killer thing was an issue, but it wasn’t why Jack answered as he did.
If he ran, he would have no hope of convincing anyone he was still, and always had been, loyal, but that wasn’t why he said what he said.
“Right now, it’s won’t.”
Ethan kept his gaze on the road ahead, then nodded once.
It was on the tip of Jack’s tongue to explain. To say something like, It’s because I’m finally home. Back from the desert. Out there I was lost and confused, wondering what sort of person I was if I could feel any sort of sympathy for a total bastard like Valadian. Or you. I was struggling to keep myself together. I wasn’t fighting for a reason. I was fighting myself. But here, now, I’ve found a target again. Something to aim for. My job is to protect. My family might not approve of what I do, or remember me, but they’re the ones I have to keep safe. And if you stuck around, I’d try to keep you safe, as well.
But he didn’t. Just kept his trap shut, let Ethan drive—and planned a betrayal.
A block away from their destination, Ethan pulled over into a loading zone. He left the car idling as they watched the building. Everything appeared normal—massive glass panes shining in the afternoon light. It was an illusion. No matter the distraction of the unmistakable Aston Martin, those inside the Office wouldn’t be fooled. Security would be amped up, traps ready to spring around every possible ingress. They knew Jack and Ethan would be coming back. It was how they’d get in that was the mystery.
Jack’s stomach tightened in a sudden burst of nausea, but it passed as quickly as it came, and the soothing calm he’d been missing since the desert finally arrived. Why it decided to return now, he didn’t know. Didn’t want to admit it was because of the man beside him.
“Are you ready?” Ethan asked.
“Let’s just get it done before the building goes into lockdown.”
“As you wish, Jack.”
At the far end of the block, the lights at the intersection turned red. For a precious few moments, the lane opposite them was clear of traffic. Revving the engine, Ethan spun the wheel, and the car charged out of the loading zone, then crossed to the far lane in a cacophony of horn honks. The car leaped forwards down the empty lane. By the time they reached the Neville Crawley Building, they were doing nearly eighty K/hr.
Armoured gates were dropping over the façade of the building as the car bumped up over the footpath and aimed for the huge glass plates. Ethan floored the accelerator.
At the last moment, he spun the wheel and the car screamed, skidding in sideways, then backwards, then coming around as it shattered through the thick glass. The armoured gates clanged shut just behind the spinning car. Another rotation and the car crashed into the foot of the pointless staircase in the middle of the foyer.
Head spinning, Jack pried himself off the caved-in door of the smashed car. In the abrupt silence after the crash, noise was slowly returning. The ticks of the hot engine, the faint click of something inside it still trying to work. The woot woot of the building alarm and the growing shouts of security converging on them.
Unfolding as much as he could, Jack reached for Ethan. “You okay?”
Ethan moaned. “I believe so.”
This was it. According to Ethan, what happened next would be a protracted fight against the security teams converging on them. Then a running battle through the halls, looking for a traitor who would be doing anything to not be caught.
Or, they could do it the easy way.
“Good.” And Jack punched him.
Stunned, Ethan crumpled against his door. Before he could defend himself, Jack hit him again. Gun pressed to the assassin’s ribs, Jack scrambled for the handcuffs he’d tucked into the back of his pants earlier, cursing the tight confines of the car. He got them secured around Ethan’s wrists before he recovered enough wits to retaliate. A furious search later, Jack found the data stick and slipped it into a secure place.
Getting out proved to be another minor disaster, ending up with Ethan’s door popping open suddenly and spilling them both onto the debris-littered marble floor.
“Come on, you crazy bastard.” Jack hauled Ethan to his feet, making sure to keep the pistol trained on him.
Blood smearing his mouth and trickling from a shallow cut on his cheek, Ethan wobbled. “Half right, Jack,” he managed before his legs buckled.
“Stop right there,” Gerard Maxwell commanded. “Put the man and weapon down and your hands up.” He sounded like he hadn’t forgiven Jack for smashing his face in.
Jack stalled in mid grapple with Ethan. They were surrounded, black-armoured security personnel closing in, rifles at the ready. Letting Ethan slide the rest of the way to the floor, Jack straightened. He didn’t drop his gun, though, keeping it pointed at Ethan’s back.
“This man is Ethan Blade,” he announced clearly.
“We know who he is, Reardon.”
“Good. Then I don’t have to explain how he’s a wanted criminal. I’ve brought him in to be put in custody.”
Maxwell removed his helmet, revealing his split lips and broken nose. His cheeks were still puffed up but his eyes, in their pools of yellowing bruises, were clear and full of anger. “Only after helping him escape.”
At his feet, Ethan groaned and tried to get up. Jack pushed down on his back with his boot, pinning him to the floor.
“Get Director Tan,” Jack said calmly. “He’ll straighten everything out.”
Stepping back, Maxwell murmured into his phone low enough Jack couldn’t make out the words. Under his foot, Ethan’s shoulders tensed as he tested the strength of the cuffs.
“Quit it,” Jack snapped. He quietly added, “Turnabout is fair play, you crazy bastard.”
Ethan went still.
It was a tense wait. Five minutes, then ten, passed. Pinned by a circle of rifle barrels, Jack sweated buckets. It all depended on Tan now. If the man didn’t live up to his word, it would get ugly fast.
Finally, the ETA director arrived. He entered from the back of the staircase, as Jack had when Ethan first showed up. Surveying the ruined foyer, the crashed car, and the prone assassin, Tan nodded. “Good work, Reardon. I have to admit, I’d wondered how you would manage it, and frankly, I was surprised with your methods. Still, the results speak for themselves.”
“Sir?” Maxwell demanded.
Tan smiled smugly. “Stand down, Maxwell. Reardon’s still one of us. He was just on special assignment.” From a pocket, he took a jet-injector and tossed it to Jack. “To ensure he doesn’t get free.”
Jack caught it and crouched by Ethan. Belly down, breathing hard, the assassin lifted his head enough to peer at Jack. The wounded expression was a perfect image of betrayal and how it felt. Jack wondered if that was how he’d looked at the compound.
“Like before, Blade.” He tapped the injector. “I guess we can both pretend, huh?”
Ethan swallowed, winced, and coughed. “I guess we can, Jack.”
Jack pressed the injector to Ethan’s neck and the assassin gasped, eyes rolling back in his head before he slumped boneless to the floor.