“There’s no other way,” Blade whispered. “We’ll have to take them out.”
Lying beside him, looking through the night-vision scope from the Assassin X, Jack had to agree.
They’d continued their silly game down the gully, hopping from rock to rock, trying to outdo each other. Jack, happily, could jump the farthest. Blade, however, could make the tricky jumps with greater ease. After ten or so minutes of this, Jack had realised he was having a good time. His squad mates had laughed at him for running obstacle courses for fun. He preferred the courses that presented him with problem-solving tasks as well as physical challenges, and chasing Blade across the tops of scattered boulders had combined both aspects.
Then Blade had come to a stop, going still like an animal sensing a predator. Years working with a team had taught Jack to trust his fellows’ skills and instincts. He’d immediately come alert, sliding into the deeper shadows on the walls of the gully. The Desert Eagle had settled into his hand with reassuring weightiness.
Slowly, Blade had moved forwards, forgoing the joyful bounds for a stealthy slink, disappearing into darkness just as Jack had. Jack waited, concentrating. The breeze had flurried, curling through the gully, bringing with it the scent of smoke. Lifting his head, he’d drawn in more of the smell. Not just smoke. His stomach had rumbled so loud he was certain it had given them away. There was definitely meat in there. Meat and potatoes. His mouth had watered desperately.
The most obvious conclusion was it came from some of Valadian’s men.
Jack had crept forwards, noting Blade pacing him on the far side of the gully. After an eternity of excruciatingly slow movement, they’d come to the end of the gully. Before them was more flat land, a mirror image of what they’d left behind on the western side of the ridge. Except that here there was a small fire, dug into a pit in the ground. Four men lay around it, sleeping. Another two paced on sentry duty at a fifty-yard line. A darker shadow hulked behind the fire. It wasn’t until Blade had passed over the NV scope that Jack had recognised it as a dune buggy, covered in a canvas to provide shelter for the men.
They’d been watching the camp for half an hour, tracking the sentries, detailing the landscape, and judging distances. It was impossible to sneak around them.
“We could wait here,” Jack whispered, so close to Blade he barely had to give the words sound. “Going on yesterday’s standards, they’ll pack up at dawn and leave without searching the area.”
“Maybe. We shouldn’t trust to general stupidity, though.”
“Probably not. We wait, see what they do. If they come in here, then we take care of them.”
Blade studied the camp for several more minutes, then nodded. Wordlessly, they began to back up into deeper cover. They retreated past the point at which they’d first become aware of the search patrol, to make sure they were out of easy detection range.
Settling in to wait under an overhang, Jack watched as Blade began assembling the sniper rifle again, muffling the distinctive clicks in the folds of his coat. Smiling, Jack had to admit the poncy thing was coming in handy.
“Don’t laugh at my rifle,” Blade said.
“I’m not. At least, not anymore. It performed better than I thought it would last night.”
“Of course it did. You’re just a weaponist, Jack.”
Jack stifled a snicker. “A weaponist?”
“Like a racist, but against certain weapons.”
“And you never met a weapon you didn’t like.”
“A couple, actually, but that was more personality differences.”
“Hah! No. You’re just a weapon slut. There’s a difference. I’m a weapon monogamist.” He considered that, then added, “Well, maybe a very limited polygamist.”
“You haven’t returned my Desert Eagle,” Blade noted dryly.
“It’s lonely out here and I’m a man with needs.”
Blade scrunched his face against a laugh. His hands kept snapping parts together, though, working through muscle memory and long familiarity. When he was in control again, the assassin sat back, Assassin X resting across his knees. Hand out, he said, “Scope. And you’re not comfortable with the Eagle. You think it’s too big for our purposes.”
Jack jerked in shock at having his private thoughts spoken aloud by this man. He didn’t miss the “our,” either. A progression on that “we,” or an insinuation Blade thought they were on the same career path?
“Yeah?” Jack’s attempt at blasé came off as slightly challenging. “If you know everything, tell me what pistol I prefer.”
Blade regarded him with half-lidded eyes, as if assessing the real reason behind the question. “Show me your hands. Left hand, at least.”
Cautious but curious, Jack held his hand out for inspection. Blade looked it over, turning it this way and that, curling his fingers, flexing his wrist. It was odd, having someone else touch him like this. Jack was not a touchy-feely person. Not because he was wary of people in his personal space—which he was—but more because, to him, hands were something intimate.
A lot of people paid no attention to what or how they touched, or just how expressive hands could be. A tender touch often said more than an entire speech. A slap expressed a deeper emotion than yelling. Reaching out to help or offer comfort or to give pleasure. Holding hands, a powerful image of solidarity. Flipping the finger, immediately satisfactory and insulting. A salute to show respect. Hands pressed together in prayer. Holding the scalpel that cuts out the tumour. A pat to reassure an upset animal. A final wave at the airfield to the soldiers departing on deployment. A silent signal for your squad mates to scatter, to find cover, to save lives.
On the other side of the coin, hands could kill, with or without a weapon, intentionally or carelessly. Jack had learned that very quickly in basic training.
Right now, Blade opened Jack’s hand and pressed it to his, palm to palm, fingers aligned. The assassin’s hand was slightly smaller, his skin paler. Jack contemplated the contrasts, fascinated as he always was by the different shades, by the definite line between his skin and Blade’s. If he closed his eyes, those differences would be gone.
“Mm,” Blade mused. “I would say . . . a Heckler and Koch. USP.”
Jack took a moment to gather his thoughts. Hand still pressed to Blade’s, he considered the similarities this time. Different colours, but sharing the same callouses, earned in the same way. Soldier, assassin. Both killed at the behest of another. Both were paid for doing so. Did Jack’s belief he was doing it to protect his family and friends make it any more right? His sister didn’t think so. From the moment he’d joined the army, Meera had been opposed. He’d believed she’d come around, that she’d just been reacting from grief. Dad had said she needed time to accept and understand. When Jack had been deployed for the first time, to East Timor, Meera had agreed to come see him off at the airport—only to be arrested for protesting their involvement in a foreign power’s conflict. She hadn’t called him an assassin, but “murderer” had rung in his ears throughout the entire deployment.
“Jack? Am I right?”
Pulling his hand back, Jack held out the scope. “Yeah. HK USP. How did you work it out?”
Blade smiled and clicked the scope into place. “Weapon slut, remember. I know them all intimately. It’s easy to guess what a person would feel most comfortable with when you see their hands.”
“Neat trick,” Jack whispered.
“It rocks at parties.”
Jack laughed silently.
There was nothing for it but to wait. Blade slithered out every now and then to check on the camp. Sentries changed, but little else did. The scent of cooked food kept drifting past, and Jack had the satisfaction of hearing Blade’s stomach complain as well.
“I miss food.” Jack moaned. “Like the thick, juicy steak I had last night. So good.”
“For the right price, I can make it your last meal.”
Jack frowned at him.
“Too soon for jokes? All right. I miss . . . wine. A sparkling Moscato. Or a rich, thick Muscat.”
“Sweet wine? Never would have pegged you for one of those sort.”
“I like a good cab sav, but it has to be good. Mostly, I have a sweet tooth.”
“Honestly, me too. There’s this patisserie I like, makes the smoothest, most delicious fudges you’ve ever tasted. Their salted caramel is divine. Perfect blend of sweet and salty.”
Blade groaned. “I miss it too.”
“You’ve never even had any.”
Blade arched a dark brow at him. “How do you know that?”
“Well? Have you?”
After a moment, the assassin sighed. “No, I haven’t. But,” he added before Jack could smirk in triumph, “it is entirely possible to miss something you’ve never had.”
It was said lightly, in keeping with the moment, so perhaps it was hunger causing Jack to imagine the hint of bitter undertone.
Real or fanciful, it vanished as Blade scrubbed his tongue across his front teeth. “Actually, I miss my toothbrush.”
“With your tastes, I could understand that.”
“Ha ha. But what I’d really like now is that buggy.”
“Oh yeah, that would be nice.”
“No, it would be convenient. Nice would be Raquel.”
Jack goggled. “Raquel?” A girlfriend? Another assassin?
Blade smirked. “Yes, Raquel. A 1999 BMW Z8 Roadster. It took me a long time to restore her to her former glory. Most of that was tracking down the correct shade of blue paint. Interlagos blue. But she’s a beautiful ride now. Races like a dream.”
The only response Jack’s addled brain came up with was, “You named your car.”
“I’ve named them all, actually. Raquel is the newest, though, so currently my favourite.”
“All?”
Which was an opening Blade had apparently been waiting a long time for. He launched into an obsessive recitation of his many cars, ranging from those Jack had a clue about—Camaro, yellow; Porsche, silver; Ferrari, red—to those he barely caught the model name of—Lamborghini Huracán, white; Maserati Quattroporte GTS, blue. Then he outlined various issues with restoring the older ones to pristine condition, admitting along the way he did all the work himself.
Most of it went right over Jack’s head, and not just because he knew as much about cars as he knew about horses—how to steer them and what fuelled them, basically. It was more that as Blade spoke about his vehicular harem, he became animated. He smiled unconsciously, his hands gesticulated broadly, and his voice, already a pleasant husky timbre, got warmer. The man himself was simply more alive. More . . . human.
And that was where Jack’s credibility dislocated.
Ethan Blade the assassin had been active for sixteen years, involved in work not suited for someone with a healthy conscience. Not at the beginning and certainly not after so long in a bloody, deadly game. It most definitely shouldn’t leave a person so passionate about a topic that they talked excitedly about it for fifteen minutes straight. It shouldn’t allow him to light up from the inside as if a fire had been unleashed in his chest. It shouldn’t make him look young and innocent and completely honest. It shouldn’t, but it did, and it made Jack reassess this odd creature with his lethal hands and small neuroses. It made him want to know more.
Finally, the assassin seemed to register the shocked expression on Jack’s face. Sheepishly, he trailed off. “Sorry. I do tend to get carried away. It is very rare anyone shows an interest in my hobby.”
Which Jack hadn’t, really.
As if realising that, Blade laughed. In a more subdued tone, he said, “Of course, none of my cars would cope with the terrain out here. The buggy is the ideal transport for the desert.” It carried the distinct tone of covering a lapse and being a distraction.
Disconcerted by the expression of humanity and his own wish to see more of it, Jack agreed. “Yeah.”
What followed was a half-hearted attempt at making a plan to steal the buggy. They both knew it was hopeless, but it took them past the moment.
They fell silent. Somewhere on the flats a dingo howled. It was answered by the undulating chorus of its pack. They called back and forth for the better part of half an hour and eventually faded into the distance. Jack shivered, relieved. He didn’t want to have to face a pack of hungry, wild dogs.
Blade went to check the camp again, and Jack considered the dark form disappearing into the shadows. He went over the conversation as he sat alone, looking for any hint it had been something other than two men talking shit. Not that he could see, or didn’t want to see, perhaps. It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected Blade to be smart or have a sense of humour of some sort. It was that he’d never thought the man would be likable.
Crack!
Jack jerked to his feet, drawing the Desert Eagle.
Two more shots came in quick succession, followed by a frantic yell and then more shouts. Blade had been discovered. Even as he raced towards the camp, Jack had to wonder. Blade hadn’t made one misstep so far. It seemed unlikely he would do so simply scouting.
Jack sidled around a large boulder and ducked into the cover of a smaller rock. Cautiously, he peered out. Three men crouched in the cover of the buggy, another lying under it, probably wounded, if not dead. Two bodies were sprawled at the sentry line. From his higher advantage, Jack saw no sign of Blade.
Damn it. Had Blade really bungled it? Or had this been his intention from the start? Six men, nothing for him to deal with. But they’d agreed to wait and see what the search party did.
And there was his problem. Trusting Blade.
No matter how open Blade seemed with his objectives, Jack couldn’t know how much of it—if any—was true. Believing anything he said was a trap Jack couldn’t fall into. Which made him question everything the man had said from that first word in the torture shack to right this moment, up to and including his prattle about the cars. Screw it. If Jack was that easy to fool, maybe he shouldn’t be made a field leader when he got home. Probably shouldn’t even have a job with an intelligence agency in the first place.
God. When had he become so stupid?
“Jack.”
Twisting, Jack brought the Eagle up. Blade was pressed flat against a boulder just behind his position. He handed Jack the Assassin X and took off his overcoat.
“I need you to cover the camp,” Blade whispered.
“We agreed to wait till morning.” Jack couldn’t keep the anger from his tone.
Blade stalled half in, half out of his coat. “They saw me. I had to act.”
“Really? They saw you?”
“They fired first.”
“Of that I have no doubt. You let them see you. You wanted to take them out right at the start.”
“Yes, I did. We’re on something of a tight schedule. A night’s delay wasn’t in our best interest.”
Blade’s calm words worked on Jack’s doubts like the teeth of a saw grating over concrete.
“Neither is getting killed in some foolish fight that could have been avoided,” Jack hissed. “Nor is alerting Valadian to our movements by leaving dead bodies behind. Isn’t that why you didn’t kill the search team yesterday? Or was that a lie? Did you kill them?”
Blade went still. Didn’t blink, didn’t twitch, possibly didn’t even breathe. Those eerie white eyes pinned Jack to the spot and seemed to see right through him all at once.
Oh, God. This was it. He’d pushed too far, too hard. Jack just hoped that when they found his body, the implant was still intact.
Then Blade looked away and pulled in a deep breath. “I didn’t kill the other team.”
With absolutely no reason to, Jack found he wanted to believe him. He pushed that impulse down and, caution be damned, ground out, “Then why kill these men?”
It was a tense ten seconds before Blade managed, “The buggy—”
“Fuck the buggy. We agreed to wait.”
“No.” Finally, there was heat in Blade’s voice, as if at long last he was actually expressing something real. “You wanted to wait. I allowed it because I thought it would make you happy.” He snapped his arms free of his coat and balled it up. “And that was a mistake. As was being seen by the men down there.”
“A mistake?”
“Yes, a mistake. I do make them, Jack.” Blade’s tone was both patronising and reproachful, as if he were angry with Jack and himself.
It had taken a while, and some heated provocation from Jack, but it was the recrimination he’d been expecting back at the torture shack. The “you screwed up by not blowing the chopper when I asked” in not so many words. And perhaps an admission Blade had revealed too much about himself to a potential target?
Blade checked on the camp. “Now they’re getting in the buggy. If they get away and tell Valadian where we are, then this will all have been for nothing. I need that buggy.”
I. Not We. An unconscious adjustment of his already perfectly settled webbing. A nervous tick, or something more? The implacable determination in his words implied a need beyond fast transport. Blade had fixated on getting the buggy, and anything in his path, Jack included, wasn’t going to survive.
The deep chill of the night rushed into Jack’s bones, banishing the warmth of his anger.
“Fine,” Jack whispered. “I’ll cover you, but that’s it.”
Blade barely acknowledged him with a terse nod before he faded back into the darker shadows, sublimating into the night.
Jack eased up to a rocky perch on top of a boulder. He didn’t want to kill these men. Five minutes ago, he hadn’t had to and he’d been good with that. If it had been a mistake Blade was seen, fair enough. If he’d revealed himself on purpose . . .
Jack wriggled into position, putting the rifle to his left shoulder. The circle of green-highlighted world came into focus as he breathed out slowly. One man was in the buggy already, one was dismantling their shelter, and the last one was scanning the space around them, looking for their enemy.
He could take them now. Three in close proximity, better odds than last night. His finger moved over the trigger. His doubts about just why this was happening stopped him, however. Blade had made the mess; he could get them out of it.
In the scope, the man finished pulling the canvas free of the buggy. He left it on the ground and jumped onto the running board of the vehicle.
“Come on,” he yelled, waving to the sentry.
The sentry turned to look at him. A dark shape reared up from a patch of spinifex. A swift jerk of his arm and Blade slit the sentry’s throat. To the sounds of stunned shouts, the assassin flipped the knife and tossed it. The blade sank to the handle in the driver’s side. He grunted and slumped over, still moving, struggling to haul himself out of the far side of the buggy.
The last man shouted and opened fire on the assassin. Blade dove to the ground and rolled under the barrage. He came up in a fluid move, leaping and spinning, and kicked the gun from the man’s hands.
Valadian’s man had some training in hand to hand, but not enough. Not one of his punches landed on Blade, his kicks swinging through empty air as Blade danced around him. It felt like the fight went on forever, but it was over quickly. Blade’s hand darted through a gap in the man’s defences, and he jammed his stiff fingers into the man’s throat.
Jack watched through the scope as the man crumpled to his knees, neck convulsing around his crushed windpipe, mouth working silently as he struggled for air. Sick, Jack aimed and was about to fire when Blade broke his neck.
Blade walked away from him. It took all of Jack’s control to take his finger off the trigger as he followed the assassin with the scope.
The driver hadn’t made it far. He was already dead, so Blade pulled his knife free, wiped it off on the body’s clothes, and tucked it into an ankle sheath. Leaving the dead man with as little regard as he had the other, Blade returned to the buggy and dragged an appreciative hand across the roll bars. Turning towards Jack, he smiled, content now he had what he wanted.