AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Then the man he was with spoke, his Arabic English stilted. “Oh, two more Aussies came this afternoon also.” He held up two fingers. “Fly in here and drove out straight away.”
“Really?” Fritz said. “Two more of us? We’ll be taking over soon,” he joked. Clearly his vacation time had kept him out of the loop. “Didn’t catch any names?” he asked his friend.
The man shrugged. “No. Sorry.”
It was fine... Asher didn’t need names. He had a pretty good idea who those two men were. The same two Australian men who had been chasing them for days. Harry met Asher’s gaze, ever so briefly, and Asher knew Harry thought the same.
They needed to move. Now.
Asher tapped his watch and, with a very fake French accent, asked, “How long must we wait?”
Bashar and a man in a pilot’s uniform appeared with the two mechanics, and Harry side-stepped in front of Asher. In a split second, on instinct, he put himself between Asher and any threat.
Bashar put his hand up. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Fitz laughed. “Believe me, that’s not something you wanna do to this guy. I’ve seen him...” His words trailed off and his smile faded as he watched what was happening.
One mechanic took the wheel chock out, the other opened the plane door and lowered the step. The pilot climbed in, and Bashar ushered Harry and Asher to the stairs on the plane. “We have just heard,” he whispered in French. “The police are on their way. You need to leave.”
Fuck.
They were all but pushed onto the plane. The door was closed and the plane moving before they’d even taken their seats. The waiting to take off was excruciating. What was only moments felt like hours. But soon they were hurtling down the runway and Asher only exhaled when the plane lifted off the ground.
Harry sagged with relief.
“Look,” Asher said, pointing out his window.
Harry stood up and leaned over him to see. Down below, getting smaller and further way, was a line of blue and red flashing lights on their way to the hangar.
“That was far too close,” he mumbled and fell back in his seat.
“And your friend?” Asher asked. “Nowthatwas close.”
“In a Solaris shirt, for fuck’s sake. What are the odds of seeing two ex-military guys here? From my division. They’ve gotta be working for my handler, right? The same guy who had the professor killed. It’s the same company. Solaris ishiscompany.”
Asher shook his head. “And the two Australian men who flew in today.”
“It’s gotta be Gibson and Hull. How the hell did they know we were here?”
“I don’t know. But I’d bet good money that it’s them who turned up with the entire police force.”
“Why, though?” Harry asked. “Why not just come back alone and try to shoot us without all the cops around?”
“Public airport,” Asher suggested. “They can’t open fire in a public airport without it being a whole international incident. If they got caught, not even their government could get them out of that.”
“But the police can,” Harry finished. “Open fire in an airport.”
“Exactly. They’d have known if the police swarmed in on you and me, it’d be a blood bath and we’d be flown out in body bags.”
“They’d have completed their mission.”
“Yes, but now,” Asher added, “they’ll know where we’re headed, and they won’t be far behind us. We’ll have to hit the ground running, so we might want to use this flying time to rest, maybe get some sleep.”
He doubted Harry would be resting much. The way his jaw was clenched, his eyes narrowed out the window.
Asher sighed and settled into his seat. The plane was older and by no means large inside, but it was still one of the nicest planes Asher had been on. There were just two seats across, one either side of the narrow aisle, but each seat was like a leather recliner and, considering where they’d spent the last few days, it was the most comfortable chair he could remember ever sitting in.
“How does your handler organise all this?” Harry asked.
