The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (68 page)

Swallowing hard, Aunush turned her back on the sniper, making her way to the rooftop door. Each step she expected to hear the snap of the gun into his hands. The short pause as he set his sights and then the loud crack of the shot just before the bullet rent through her tissue. At this close distance? With that rifle? Even a belly shot would result in a closed-casket funeral.

Yet each step was followed by another’s step.

Finally she reached the door, but a hand was there first. The sniper’s hand, opening the door for her.

Breathing a very temporary sigh of relief, Aunush entered the stairwell.

Now to find their wayward researcher.

* * *

Rebecca stepped onto the subway car just as the doors closed behind her. The Brits were very serious about their Underground punctuality. Brandt pulled her closer, placing her hand on the bar, making sure she got settled before the tram pulled away from the station. Even then it jerked her sore shoulder, sending a shard of pain deep into the joint. She’d somehow managed to land on her shoulder, and what had it gotten her? Hitting the ground at thirty miles an hour hurt no matter what part of your body landed first.

Her eyes scanned the subway car. Given that this was the fourth transfer, Rebecca had lost track of where they were or where they were headed. Using Oyster cards, they had namelessly paid from one junction to the next. Some of the stations had been all glass and steel. A tribute to modern architecture. Others like this last one had been somewhat…”old fashioned” was probably the kindest term she could use.

And this particular tram was an old-school style subway car, which was showing its age. It reminded Rebecca of New York. She guessed stale urine smelled about the same no matter what continent you were on.

Davidson brushed against her as he pulled his hoodie tight over his face. Lopez and he had rejoined the team a station ago. Although Rebecca didn’t think her assistant hid his features in shame this time but instead to avoid detection. She could see by the set of his shoulders and strength in his posture that danger had strangely rallied him. For so many months the young man had been a shadow of himself. Withdrawn, indecisive, sluggish.

Fire a few sniper shots at the guy though and he was back in Rambo mode. Okay, perhaps not Rambo, but way more alive than she’d seen him since that dark cavern under the Vatican.

“We get off here,” Brandt whispered as he nodded to Lopez, who was stationed down the tram. Lopez relayed the nod to Harvish and Talli, who were one car down.

The car tugged to a stop and the doors whooshed open. Only then did Rebecca realize that this station was open-aired. They had come out from the London Underground and into the British equivalent of the suburbs.

Rebecca read their location. The Gunnersbury station. The crowd swept them down the platform, and they spilled out into the sidewalk. From there the train-goers spread off in all different directions as the sun hovered low to the west.

“Come on,” Brandt urged. “It’s not far.”

“What’s not far?” she asked, hurrying to keep up with Brandt’s long-legged pace.

“You’ll see,” was his only answer.

Rebecca didn’t bother to press the sergeant. She was well aware of Brandt’s annoyingly well-enforced “need to know” policy. Sure, she could berate him the entire way in a futile effort to feel in control, or she could appreciate the walk along the distinctly English streets. Rebecca chose the latter.

Shaking off the adrenaline, she noticed that the homes they passed were an eclectic mixture of turn-of-the-century cottages to World War II–style apartment buildings to a distinctly modern office building in the distance. As they traveled south a large park opened up to the west. She could only assume it to be Gunnersbury Park. With its two pristine mansions, eighteenth-century temple, and stone boathouse, the park had been on Rebecca’s “must see” locations during her stay in England.

Of course she had assumed that would have been to have a leisurely stay at the historic landmark, the Osbourne Hotel. Not hurrying down the street to some unknown location, worrying about a sniper every step of the way.

Streetlights flickered on as the sun dipped lower beyond the horizon. Brandt picked up the pace even more.

Rebecca gulped with each click of her heel. By now they had gotten far enough from the tube station that there were very few pedestrians. Rain threatened and most other sensible folk had retreated to their homes or pubs.

Finally Brandt urged them up the steps of an ordinary looking terrace-style home. Once on the stoop he pulled out a small case filled with lock-picking equipment.

“Cover me,” he instructed.

Davidson immediately stepped in front of him, drawing Rebecca with him. “Just act like everything is okay,” Davidson whispered.

Rebecca arched an eyebrow at him.

“Like I said,” Davidson answered, “
act
.”

She couldn’t help but grin at her assistant despite their awful predicament.

* * *

Brandt felt the lock give and turned the brass doorknob. A loud beeping filled the entryway. He followed the blinking light to the keypad and entered a six-digit code. The red light went to yellow. He followed with an eight-digit code pulled from memory. No electronic files, not even a handwritten note. Nope. This location was so secure that only his unhackable brain held the necessary pass code.

The light blinked green and then held steady. They were in. Rebecca and Davidson followed close on his heels. Talli and Harvish brought up the rear, sweeping past them to check the rest of the house, making sure they were as alone as it seemed. Lopez, of course, was still out, securing an escape vehicle in case it came to that.

Rebecca did a slow spin in the center of the living room. “What is this place?”

Her mouth hung slightly open as she took in the small chandelier that hung from the ceiling bordered by ornate moldings. A large fireplace with a wide mantel stood to her right and French doors, which opened out to the garden, on her left.

This was the wonder Brandt had hoped would be on Rebecca’s face when he guided her to the home he’d meant to buy in North Carolina. He’d had his eye on a distressed but beautiful Southern-style beach home.

Now all he could give her was a British safe house. One that he wasn’t even sure was safe.

“We don’t have much time,” he said, far more gruffly than he meant to.

“For what?” she asked, still soaking in the nearly
Better Homes and Gardens
setting.

“To figure out what the hell is going on,” Brandt answered, again harsher than he meant.

Rebecca’s eyes refocused as she slung her laptop case from her shoulder and set up on the small rolltop desk. “Yeah right. Priorities.”

Talli came down the stairs. “All clear.”

“You swept for all listening devices?” Brandt asked, hating to have to ask.

“Yep. There aren’t any audio or video signals emanating from the house.”

Brandt nodded. He would have to take his teammate at his word.

Harvish entered from the kitchen. “We’re alone.”

“Alright, you two set up in defensive positions.”

The other men gave a curt nod and moved off, giving them some privacy.

“Where do you want me?” Davidson asked.

“Front and center,” Brandt said, not sorry about his harsh tone. Davidson might have helped them get out a tight spot back at the lab and again in the car, but that did not mean Brandt trusted the private any more than he might a viper that just happened to slither out of a trap.

Rebecca cleared her throat. “Back to that ‘what the hell is happening’ thing?”

“Yeah,
that
,” Brandt said before turning back to her. “Have you noticed anyone tailing you? Scoping out the lab?”

“No,” Rebecca said, shaking her head. “And I’m not all that certain I was the only target.”

Brandt clenched his jaw. That thought had occurred to him as well. They could have taken Rebecca out at any time. Clearly they had the means. Perhaps not the best intelligence gathering in the world, but the firepower? That they had in spades.

Since he didn’t believe in coincidences, Brandt felt that Rebecca was correct. The attack had been triggered by Brandt’s arrival. Which chewed at his belly. He had let Rebecca down in so many ways and now to be the source of the danger? His gut would have to wait on punishing them though. He had to first get them
out
of danger.

“So what were you coming to me for?” Rebecca asked.

Brandt’s eyes flashed to Davidson. As much as he wanted to keep the traitor close, did he want him overhearing this conversation?

Rebecca sighed. “Brandt, he might be able to help. For everything that happened…” She stopped, clearly not wanting to detail what that “everything” meant. “Davidson is as fluent in ancient religions as I. And I am assuming that is why you came all the way to London? Certainly this wasn’t a social call.”

Her tone turned a little bitter at the last. Could he blame her though?

“No,” Brandt answered. “I came because a well-known Islamic extremist went all Jewish on me.”

* * *

Okay,
that
she wasn’t expecting. She cocked her head, trying to understand exactly what Brandt was saying. “You mean a jihadist used Jewish terminology? Not in derision?”

“Not in the least.”

Brandt then relayed the exact conversation of Amed, the dying extremist. She sat down at her computer, typing in the phrases the man used. Unfortunately the phrase “the Word” popped up about a gazillion different search entries.

“We need to find out where he stashed the bioweapons like yesterday,” Brandt urged.

But the sergeant, of all people, should know solving religious mysteries wasn’t a quick process.

“Did you say the weapons were stolen from Russia?” Davidson asked.

Rebecca could feel Brandt’s hackles go up. She couldn’t find fault with the sergeant though. That’s how she felt the first few weeks after she brought Davidson back to London. Everything he said she turned over in her head. Testing, probing, waiting to see if anything Davidson uttered was false or untrue. To date though his pledge had held. The Knot’s influence seemed gone.

“Yeah,” Brandt finally answered. “On the outskirts of Moscow to be specific.”

She met Davidson’s eyes. If there was one man who could turn an Islamic extremist into someone who would say “Shalom” as his last word on earth, it was Osip Gershon. But the man, an extremist in his own way, hadn’t been heard of in over a decade.

“Want to clue me in?” Brandt asked as the silence stretched on.

“Sorry,” Rebecca murmured, pulling up the website for the International Jewish Community of Moscow. The glass-faced building stood tall amongst the Russian capital’s skyline. To think within a communist country such a large Jewish complex could exist. It truly was a testament to the fortitude of the Jewish culture. “One of the men instrumental in breaking ground on this center was Osip Gershon, a Jewish scholar.”

“So?” Brandt asked, seeming not in the mood for a long hierarchy lesson.

Rebecca switched the screen over to a page regarding a maligned sect of Judaism. “Well, once it was revealed that Osip was a Karaite,
he pretty much was scrubbed from any record of the Moscow Jewish community.”

Brandt sat down next to her. “You lost me. What is a Karaite Jew?”

“Davidson, do you want to handle that one?” she asked. Brandt seemed none too happy about it, but she had to show Brandt that his old private still had value. That sending Davidson back to America to face trial and then execution for treason wasn’t just cruel, it was stupid.

Timidity crept back into Davidson’s features. His shoulders slumped and he listed to one side. The verve the man had acquired under stress faded, leaving only the broken, scarred private.

“Well, Sam?” she pressed.

At first he stumbled, his words slurred to the point it was hard to understand them. “Karaites are Jewish scholars who embraced…Wait,” he said, clearing his throat. When he didn’t follow up, Rebecca went to fill in the silence, but the private held up his hand.

* * *

Davidson gulped, trying to push down the thick saliva that threatened to choke out his words. “We need to go back to biblical times.” Swallowing, he restarted. “Until the Second Temple was destroyed by Romans, largely the Jewish faith was an oral one. One told through rabbis through the ages with very little to no written word beyond the Torah itself.”

He had to take a breath not just to let his punished lungs gather oxygen but for him to regroup. For months Rebecca had tried to convince him not to squander the knowledge the Knot had given him. Instead, she insisted he could somehow right the many wrongs of his past by putting that knowledge to good use. He had not believed it. How could he?

But now standing in front of Brandt? Knowing that Lopez was out scouring the streets for the fastest set of wheels he could get his hands on, Davidson felt a flicker of hope. If there was ever a time for Rebecca’s theorem to be put to the test, it was now.

“Once the Second Temple was destroyed, the rabbis had to admit they needed some form of written document to be sent out to the Jewish communities that had been forced from Judea.”

Rebecca nodded encouragingly as his voice cracked. He hadn’t used it so much since…well, since he was truly a private in the United States Army.

“Let’s fast-forward to the eighth century when Islam spread across the Holy Land,” she prompted.

“Yes,” Davidson answered, “many Jews at the time took to the Arabic philosophy and incorporated it into their own faith.”

Brandt frowned though. “Are you saying there are Jewish Islamists?”

“Yes and no,” Rebecca answered, typing away at her laptop. Davidson was glad for the distraction. He had all the knowledge in his head, but he was so used to walling it off that his words, already slurred by his disfiguration, just wouldn’t come out right.

So much for salvation through oration.

* * *

Rebecca could tell Davidson was flagging. No wonder with Brandt’s patent-pending death glare boring into him. Luckily she knew exactly where Davidson was taking this.