Page 18 of The Hijack

I hung up the phone, considering all that I had just learned. Linc watched me warily, obviously not sure whether to accept my not guilty plea at face value. I kept my mouth shut. There was no way I could convince him that I was innocent. Either he trusted me or he didn’t, and the quickest way to that destination was through experience in the field. He had to see me in action and accept that I was a friend; no amount of verbal protestations would change anything.

“If you’re still on board, I’m going to change our bearing. We can be in the Marshall Islands by tomorrow morning.”

“Aye, aye Captain,” Linc said, giving me half a smile.

I relaxed considerably without even realizing I had been so tense. He was growing on me. Though I still had my suspicions, I appreciated him extending an olive branch of trust. Maybe together we could pull it off and return home to discover who was behind the plot to destroy us all.

Chapter 9

Theo

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I DIDN’T WANT TO SLEEP, but Lukas made a good argument.

“You have to catch some sleep now while you can.” The Dark Sparrow founder parroted the common sense approach that most spies adhered to. “You don’t know when you’ll have another chance.”

“I know you’re right,” I replied. “I just don’t think I’ll be able to shut off my brain.”

“I could give you some pills,” Lukas offered.

“No thanks,” I scoffed. That was the last thing I needed, to take an unknown substance from someone I only peripherally trusted. In the best-case scenario that they were only sleeping pills, I didn’t need to be knocked out for hours. I’d rather sleep fitfully and wake up ready to move if the situation called for it.

Z showed me to a bedroom that I could use. It was one of at least twelve or thirteen on the second floor. An entire hallway of empty rooms stretched out into the distance. The room I had been given consisted of two twin mattresses on basic iron frames. It was a dormitory of sorts, designed to pack young men and women into the house rather than to make anyone feel at home.

I didn’t care.

I tumbled onto one of the cots, not bothering to pull up the sheets. I didn’t even remove my shoes. All I needed was a few hours of down time and I would be good to go. Like so many other spies, I had adapted to less than five hours of sleep per night. Three at a minimum would suffice and give me the energy I needed to plow through another day.

I drifted off quicker than I’d anticipated. Maybe it was the stress of not knowing where Clark was, or the uncertainty of dealing with people I didn’t know. I felt like I was hanging out over a cliff, and the only thing to hold on to was a rope of unknown strength. It might hold, but it might not. I might find myself falling, and that possibility ate up a lot of mental energy.

I dreamed of Clark. In my dream, we were back at the chalet in the Alps. We were in bed, enjoying a lazy morning. I watched dusty bars of sunlight creep up her glorious body from her toes to her breasts before she finally opened her eyes. I was the luckiest man in the world, holding her in my arms. It was a perfect vision of love and harmony. I had been considering retirement and actually dared to hope that she and I could disappear somewhere together. We would leave behind all the killing and running for our lives. We might even start a family.

But just as I allowed myself to sink into the fantasy, it was ripped from my fingers. As we lay there in the late morning, Clark dissolved. One minute she was solid beside me, and the next a shimmering outline of the woman I knew so well. A moment later, there was nothing, and I was alone in the mountain cabin. I searched for her desperately, tossing the pillows aside and crawling under the bed.

I checked the bathroom and the living room, circling the kitchen island as if playing a traumatic game of hide and seek. But she was nowhere to be found. I came up empty with every attempt.

I shocked myself awake, my unconscious brain deciding it had had enough of that futile exercise. There was no way I would find her in my sleep. I needed to be awake to do it. I checked the bedside clock and saw that I’d managed to get only two and a half hours of rest. Still, it was something.

I rose reluctantly, feeling the beginnings of a headache. Checking the hallway bathroom, I found a bottle of Tylenol. The paranoid half of my brain told me that just because the bottle was marked Tylenol didn’t make it so. But the practical side argued that sometimes Tylenol was just Tylenol. I took two and chased them with a handful of water.

Going downstairs, I found Z and Lukas huddled around a laptop. Z looked up, giving me a tired smile. I wondered when the last time they had slept was. Surely they were both as tired as I was, although I doubted any of them had been shot recently.

“Hey,” Lukas said.

“Hey,” I responded. “Found anything?”

“Maybe,” Lukas allowed. “I have an operative who disappeared in Russia two days ago. His tracking beacon just showed up in the Pacific Ocean off of Papua New Guinea.”

“How does that help us?” I wondered.

Lukas pushed a coffee mug toward me, and I was sorely tempted to take a sip. Only my ingrained suspicions kept me from satisfying that urge. Lukas frowned, clearly picking up on the vibe. He raised the mug to his lips and took a drink before setting it back in front of me. It was a challenge and a friendly gesture all at the same time. I gave him a tight smile before partaking. The coffee was good, lukewarm but strong.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“No problem,” he responded. “Clark may be with my guy.”

“Why do you think so?” I asked.