Chapter Thirty-Five
Marcus awoke to a heavy fist pounding on his hotel door. He struggled to pry his eyes open and check the time on his phone. 0345.
Shit. He was supposed to meet Jean-Luc at 0300 and his phone had a missed call from the Cajun. “I’m coming,” he called. His voice sounded like he’d swallowed glass. He pulled on his jeans and tried again. “Hang on! I’m coming.”
Grumbling to himself, he shuffled out to the living room of his suite. His head pounded. He really shouldn’t have hit up the minibar, but lately he couldn’t sleep without alcohol in his system.
He pulled open the door, and the apology for missing the 0300 rendezvous died on his lips. He blinked. “Lanie?”
The rest of HORNET stood in the hall behind her, including two guys he recognized from Tucker Quentin’s team, Devlin and Sean Carreras.
“You look like shit,” Carreras said by way of greeting.
Lanie put her hands on her hips. “Where are Jean-Luc and Dr. Oliver?”
“Uh…” He dragged a hand though his hair. His alcohol-logged brain still wasn’t processing. “They’re here. In the suite across the hall.”
“No one’s there,” Jesse said and hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Door’s wide open.”
He stared, still not comprehending. “What?” He shouldered through the group and found himself looking straight into the empty suite across the hall. He strode inside, found gun-cleaning supplies in a pile in the living room. In the bedroom, the bed was a mess. The bathroom had a dampness to it indicating it had been recently used, and the tub was still wet. Clothes scattered the floor—the outfits Jean-Luc and Claire were wearing earlier.
He walked back to the living room. “No, they were here.”
“Then where are they?” Harvard asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Is anything missing?” Lanie asked.
He rubbed both shaking hands over his face and tried to think. He mentally went back over the suite room by room. “Jean-Luc’s rucksack. His gun and knives. And I didn’t see either of their shoes.”
Lanie put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle push toward a chair. He went without protest. If he stayed on his feet, he might throw up everything he had drunk.
“Okay, Marcus. Think,” Lanie said, not unkindly, and sat down in the chair across from him. “Is there any reason Jean-Luc would take Claire away from here?”
“Why does Jean-Luc do anything?” Ian muttered and shut the suite’s door. “Because he wants to.”
Marcus shook his head. “No. Guys, this is different. He’s different with her. He wouldn’t do anything crazy to put her in danger.”
“So it tracks he’d only leave if he thought she was in danger,” Seth Harlan, the team’s sniper, said.
“Yeah, that’s the only reason I can think of, but it doesn’t make sense. He knew she was safe here. He knew you guys were on the way.”
“Someone must have convinced him she wasn’t safe.” Lanie crooked a finger at Harvard and pointed at the dining table. “All right, there’s gotta be security cameras in this place. What can you find for us, kid?”
“Not a kid,” Harvard muttered.
Marcus was vaguely aware of a weird vibe coming off Harvard, but he was too sloshed, too scattered, to worry about it now.
Harvard set up his laptop and hunched behind it, working in silence. Yeah, definitely a vibe there. Pissed off, if Marcus had to guess.
“I’m in,” Harvard finally said after agonizing minutes passed. “Which of the cameras you want to see?”
Lanie looked to Marcus. He leaned forward and rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh…we got here around three or four this afternoon.”
Harvard got back to work, then turned his computer around to show them the screen. “Three forty-seven p.m. to be exact.” He played the video on fast-forward. It showed Marcus, Jean-Luc, and Claire entering the building, conversing with the woman behind the front desk. Then to the elevator. While they waited for it, several people crossed the camera view.
“Hey.” Marcus stood up and moved closer to the computer. He pointed at the dark-haired woman sitting in a chair near the restaurant entrance. “I recognize that woman. With the dark hair and red scarf. She’s with Defion.”
“Well, now,” Jesse said on a whistle. “That’s certainly a good reason for Jean-Luc to take Claire away from here. Maybe he recognized her too and—” He stopped short and also studied the screen. “Wait. Wait. Wait. Back up the feed.” He leaned forward and watched intently. Then he jabbed a finger toward the screen. “There. The guy your Defion girl is meetin’ with. Do any of you recognize him?”
They all crowded in around the computer. Marcus tried to focus, but no spark of recognition came, and he shook his head. Seth also gave a negative response.
Lanie chewed on her lower lip. “He looks familiar, but…I can’t place him.”
“Yeah, I recognize him.” Ian’s lips thinned into a frown as he straightened. “We evac-ed him from the hotel in Martinique.”
“Exactly. I spoke to him. He said he’s a virologist.” Jesse tapped the man’s scarred face with his knuckle. The motion was met by a quiet grumble from Harvard.
“There were a lot of virologists in that hotel, cowboy,” Lanie said, giving her husband a sidelong look. “There was supposed to be an infectious diseases conference that weekend.”
“Yeah, but if that guy’s a virologist—” Jesse started to jab the screen again, but at Harvard’s hard stare, he held up his hands and stepped back. “Sorry. If he is what he said he is, it follows he’s here because of the outbreak. So I wanna know what he’s doin’ sippin’ cocktails in a hotel bar in Port Harcourt when the virus is killin’ people a full day’s boat ride southeast of here.”
“Pretty big coincidence,” Marcus said, desperately trying to keep focused on the here and now and not go back to that island. No wonder he didn’t recognize the guy. He’d been doing his best to drink that entire night from his memory. “I mean, we run into him there, where half our team was held hostage and Danny was—” His voice cracked, and he took a second to regroup. Tried again. “And Danny was killed. And now here, after one of our guys up and vanishes from his bed. What are the chances that’s not all connected?”
“Pretty fucking slim.” Harvard turned back to his computer. “Gentlemen, do we have a name?”
Everyone looked to Jesse.
“Oh, dayum. Give me a sec,” he said and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So much happened that night and I… I can’t remember exactly. Somethin’… German or Austrian, I think. He had a slight accent. He’d sustained a dislocated shoulder during the hotel evac. Gray hair, pock scars all over his face, thin, slight build, mid-fifties. Can you get an ID with that?”
“Can I…?” Harvard scoffed and cracked his knuckles. “I’m insulted you even had to ask.”
“Okay,” Lanie said on a drawn-out sigh and grabbed her phone from the table. “While Harvard does that, I’ll update the big bosses.” She looked exhausted and who could blame her? Her first mission as their new field commander, and the straightforward rescue had morphed into…what? A hostage sitch? They didn’t have enough intel to know for sure what happened to Jean-Luc and Claire, and now Lanie had to report that big fat goose egg back to HQ. It couldn’t be easy.
Marcus got up and paced the length of the suite. It was like so many others they’d been in at the start of missions. Another hotel, another mission. Usually Marcus loved all of it, but losing Danny had drained the joy out of everything for him. Now he was just…restless. And so very angry. He knew he shouldn’t, but he resented Jean-Luc for nearly dying and now for this disappearing act. If it turned out the Cajun had simply taken off somewhere for more sexy alone time with the doctor…
No. He shut down that line of thought. Jean-Luc could be impulsive and reckless but he wouldn’t risk Claire’s life by taking her away from the hotel. Not when they were mere hours away from safety.
Damn, he should’ve insisted they all share a room, but he’d wanted to give them some time together. Jean-Luc had been depressed since his grandmother died. He’d wanted the guy to have a little bit of happiness, and Claire seemed to do the trick.
He still thought she was going to end up with a broken heart in the end, but they were both adults. Whatever happened between them was their business. And, besides, who was he to stand in the way of lust?
“Bingo,” Harvard said and everyone crowded back in around the computer.
“Hang on. We may have something. I’ll get back to you,” Lanie told whoever was on the other end of her phone call and hung up. “You have a name?”
Harvard brought up an ID photo of the man from the bar. In the corner of the card, across from the man’s picture, were the words Führerschein Republik Österreich. Jean-Luc would know exactly what that meant. Marcus had never been great with foreign languages—managed some rusty Italian now and again, but that was about it—so he could only guess it meant something along the lines of “driver’s license.”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Jesse confirmed.
“Steffan Ostermann,” Harvard said. “Born in Vienna, Austria, in nineteen sixty. He goes by the title ‘doctor’, only… I can’t find a medical degree in his history. Or even a Ph.D. Looks like he attended med school in the mid-eighties, but he never finished.”
“What’s he do for a livin’ if he’s not a doctor?” Jesse asked.
“Far as I can tell, he’s independently wealthy. He’s never had a job.”
“So…” Lanie drew the word out, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why was he at the hotel in Martinique? Why attend a virology conference?”
“And,” Marcus added as a pit of dread opened up in the bottom of his stomach, “why is he here?”
“Fuck,” Harvard breathed and hit a key. A website popped up. “Ostermann has bought a lot of businesses, including Bioteric Pharmaceuticals.”
Marcus froze and looked at each of his teammates, cold down to his marrow with fear. “Bioteric has Jean-Luc and Claire.”