Central Park, Manhattan, New York. February 3, 2021, 7:12 a.m.
The sky was just beginning to lighten as I passed beneath a stone archway near West 77th Street. It was the third time I'd jogged beneath it but this time, as I appeared on the other side, another body fell into step beside me.
Dressed similar to me in a sweatshirt with the hood drawn up over the head, obscuring the facial features beneath, dark pants, sturdy shoes, and gloves.
"Thank you," Daniel said. He matched my stride exactly. "For getting Ivy."
We could have been any two people meeting up for an early morning run before heading to work for the day. It was easy to blend in here, even without the thick crowds of people to hide us. There were other joggers out, people clad in the same hoodies and exercise pants that we were.
Just in case, I'd tucked my hair up and out of sight beneath a toque and applied some of the makeup that I'd been wearing when we'd met with the CIA agents four days earlier. Fake freckles, pronounced cheekbones, high arching brows. Not unrecognizable but in the time it took for someone to do a double-take, I'd be long gone.
"Are you okay?" I asked. This was the first we'd been able to meet since Max and I had broken into their hotel room, grabbed Ivy and the laptop, and ran.
Four days of scheming and planning. Four days of gleaning all of the information we could from Ivy Deering. Four days of watching Lia, waiting for her to realize that Tasha had spilled her secrets.
If I was being honest, it wasn't just Lia I was watching. But Max. Ivy. Tasha.
The only one I trusted was Cedric and even that trust only went so far. I found myself questioning him, too. Especially with our operation so close. I had half a mind to go in alone, to rely on myself and no one else.
But Carmichael had arrived back in the city. He'd taken to camping out around the Shadow Lawn Mansion. Scouting, he'd told me, on the brief phone call we'd shared. Paranoia in his voice. He reported anything that seemed suspicious to me. He'd even managed to sneak inside the house once. He'd confirmed the information on the floorplans we'd found on the laptop Ivy had taken from Emilio and Pietro Esposito.
The laptop had been a valuable resource. More than valuable. Not only did it contain the floorplans to the entire mansion but maps of the grounds, strike teams who were to be watching the entrances and exits.
All of it sent to Helena who promised that a backup team was on their way. Ready to be debriefed and prepared for hell to break loose.
There was still information we needed. Intel so critical that Daniel and I had risked meeting again, in spite of the threat to both of us. His team was on high alert. With Carmichael leaving and Ivy escaping, they were growing cautious. Lucky for us, they still needed food so Daniel had been sent on a trip to restock.
I hadn't even lied when I'd informed Cedric where I was going. Though I didn't tell him the location, he knew that Daniel and I were to be meeting for intel. If any of the others asked, it was Carmichael – not Daniel – that I had gone to see.
"So?" I asked again when he didn't answer. A glance at his face was good for showing only the tension lining his eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Define okay."
"Safe," I amended.
Daniel exhaled, a puff of air passing through his lips. "We're lying low. Moved locations again. Emilio thinks that Hawke came back for Ivy. He's pretty confident that there's no other way she could have escaped. I didn't see any reason to contradict him."
"That's almost the lie I fed to Lia, Max, and Tasha. I told them that Hawke asked me to get her out."
Daniel grinned, a flash of white teeth beneath his hood. "Still in sync, even after all these years."
The trail began to curve slightly but we kept on, not faltering even as we had to side-step patches of ice and snow.
"She's doing alright, by the way. A bit nervous still, worried about her mom. And you. We had to take the phone you gave her. Just in case."
"I figured as much," Daniel said. "But when we got back to the motel that day and I saw that she was gone, I knew you'd gotten her someplace safe."
"Well," I said, "I'm not so sure about that."
Daniel cut me a hard look and the words tumbled out. Everything that Tasha had told me about Lia, the surveillance I'd been trying to do over the past few days. The fears I had about who to trust.
The walls were closing in. With each passing hour, it felt as if we were getting closer to the endgame of it all. Sometimes I would catch Lia looking at me and wonder if she was planning on smothering me in my sleep. Other times, it was Max I watched. But neither of them were acting out of the ordinary.
When I finished, Daniel whistled through his teeth. "Lia? Really?"
"According to Tasha."
"You don't sound sure."
"The circle of people I trust wholeheartedly right now is very small, Daniel."
We both fell silent as a large jogging group made to race past us. In unison, we turned our faces down. Two shadows passing in the early morning light.
Daniel asked, "Do you trust me?"
"Yes," I said. "But even between us I know that there are things you're not telling me. And I've got secrets of my own that you'll never know. It's a part of the world we live in. Yet I believe that you're not going to betray me. Not when we've both been going to such lengths to have these meetings.
"When we met at the hotel in Times Square – you could have killed me if that was your end goal. Or arranged to take me to Izzy but you didn't. That, plus the intel you gave me about Cedric and what Ivy has told me about you...I trust you not to stab me in the back, Daniel."
He offered me a grim smile. "And Cedric? You trust him. Even after what I told you?"
"I know it sounds insane, but yes. He and I have a complicated relationship, it's true, but I know that he's not working against me. Then there's Carmichael. He owed me a life debt which is part of the reason he's helping us still. I wouldn't trust him not to flip or straight-up abandon us if things go south on Saturday, though. Saving my ass is not his top priority."
Killing Izzy Savalas was though and once that job was over, I didn't doubt that Carmichael would slip out of the Mansion like a thief in the night. I'd probably never hear from him again.
Daniel released a puff of air that came out like a white cloud of smoke in the cold winter air. "Tasha? Do you think she's feeding you lies about Lia and Max? To what end?"
"Cover her own tracks, maybe? Or maybe it is Lia and Max and Tasha has just been looking out for me."
We ran for another few steps. I risked a glance at my watch. Daniel and I had been running together for almost fifteen minutes. Our time was almost up.
"What I know," I added, "is that all roads lead to Izzy. She's the key."
"She's arriving in New York tonight."
I whipped my head to Daniel. "What?"
Daniel's face was dark. "I know. It's part of the reason why we needed to meet now. We won't get another chance until this goes live. I brought the information you asked for."
He reached into his pocket, not breaking stride, and slipped a thin USB into my hand. It disappeared into my jacket in the span it took to blink. "Blueprints of the mansion, ground layouts, all of the information about the house and property is there. I managed to figure out who is going to be on perimeter guard duty. They'll be patrolling around to make sure no one unwanted gets in but I got you the name of the catering company as well."
"Good. And the attendee lists?"
Daniel nodded. "The most recent copy I had access to. Izzy sent it to us last night when she called to inform us of her flight schedule. She's getting paranoid, especially with Ivy's disappearance and Hawke going MIA. Originally, my team was supposed to be robbing a bank Saturday night to make sure that the police and other authorities are kept well away from Scorpion but Izzy wants us there as her own personal team of bodyguards instead."
"What about your team? How will I know who to trust once we're inside?"
He slipped a key into my hand, the motion so minute it barely looked as if our hands had touched. "It's for a P.O. box. On that flash drive is an encrypted file. Read it carefully. The address for the box is on the drive. You'll find Scorpion membership pins in the box. They're slightly different from the ones that the actual members will be wearing on Saturday. Different enough to mark us as friendlies. I didn't want to risk Emilio and Pietro finding them in the motel so I stored them there for you."
"How will I know the difference between your pins and the ones Scorpion will be wearing?"
"The file. I've explained everything there. My guys are listed there too. Make sure your higher ups get a hold of that. For the pardons."
From his quickening pace, the words spoken with urgency, I knew our time was up.
"Don't risk the phone again unless it's an emergency," Daniel said and already he was pulling away from me, speeding up as we neared an exit to the park. "Not with Izzy hanging around."
"Be safe," I said but I was talking to the wind.
Daniel was already gone.
*~*
The Roosevelt Hotel, Manhattan, New York. February 3, 2021, 8:47 a.m.
"This is great intel," Cedric said. Perched on the edge of a chair, his fingers dancing across the keyboard to his laptop, images and lists scrolling endlessly by. "I'm forwarding it all off to Helena now. She called while you were gone. The strike team is arriving in the morning."
We were sitting in the main hotel room. Just the two of us. I was grateful for the privacy. Tasha was still sleeping in her room across the hall and Max and Lia had left a few minutes after we'd accessed the drive. They'd gone to investigate the catering company, trying to figure out the best way for us to slip in with them unnoticed. Ivy had taken the spare bed in Tasha's room.
Cedric had taken the time to carefully debrief Ivy while I'd been dealing with the bombshell that had been Tasha's intel on Lia. Ivy hadn't been able to tell us much new information and none of what she did add was revolutionary. Not compared to the intel Carmichael and Daniel had been providing us with. Ivy's information was more like confirmation – solidifying that which we already knew.
As a political prisoner used for her mother's cooperation, Ivy hadn't been privy to the important conversations. All that she knew came from what she'd managed to overhear and scrounge up. She was resourceful, though. That much was clear. It seemed that Ivy had a natural ability to go unnoticed, to blend into a group to the point that she was forgotten about.
This was where her only valuable information had come from. Names – all of the names of those involved with Project Redfire. The failed science experiment that Cedric's father worked on. The same one that Daniel had been indoctrinated into. She had given us all she knew of those running it and those who had been study subjects. Some had been coerced into it, like Daniel.
But others, Ivy claimed, had volunteered. Cruel men, those who liked pain and punishment. They were the ones that Izzy surrounded herself with – the meatheads. Jacked up, steroid-pumping, lethal killing machines.
That intel had been sent to Helena. We wanted more information. Past crimes, big jobs, anything that would give us an edge going into this mission. We wanted to know what it was that we were going to be up against.
Now, as Cedric and I sat in the silence of the hotel room, I found myself wishing for more time. In three days, we were going to be walking into the Scorpion's nest.
I wondered if all of us would make it out alive.
Worse, wondered if I wanted all of us to make it out alive. Wondered if it would be better if Lia died inside that hellhole for what she had done to me. For the betrayal and web of lies she'd spun.
Wondered if it would be easier if I died there – to escape this insanity. To have no more enemies breathing down my neck, threatening the people I loved. Forcing me into hiding. It would be easier, so much easier, to go in and have it all be over.
But that had never been my style. And though it would be easier, I wasn't ready to throw in the towel quite yet.
Instead, Cedric and I processed what Daniel had told me. Without fear of being overheard. Just to be safe, Cedric had swept the hotel room for bugs the moment he was alone in the room. Looking for any kind of listening device or cameras that Lia could have planted – proof that she was indeed playing the role of a double agent. Preparing, possibly, to flip on us.
But Cedric hadn't found anything and he'd been thorough. Finding bugs was one of his specialties. He'd scoured every inch of the hotel room.
"Do we know who Helena sent?" I asked, leaning over his shoulder to inspect a floorplan of the mansion.
"No. Helena wanted to keep it under wraps until they arrived. Just in case." He pitched his voice low. "Only you and I are supposed to know the full extent of who is coming. I'm meeting them in the morning. I'll give you the rundown in the afternoon."
"Okay."
"Do you think we should try and make a move on Izzy tonight?" Cedric asked, turning towards me. "We could try and take her out at the airport or in the car as she's being transported. The flight information is here. We know when and where she's arriving."
"I wish it were that easy," I said. "But she's bound to know that something is coming. That's why she recalled her bodyguards tight to her. We'd never get close enough. And if Lia...There'd be no way for us to have the element of surprise."
Cedric dropped his head into his hands. "Isn't that the issue with this overall? Lia knows all of the same information that we do. She's probably been feeding Izzy and Scorpion our plans all along. This could be a suicide mission."
I nodded. This had occurred to me too. "Yes. But we've got a few tricks up our sleeve."
"What are you talking about?"
"She doesn't know the numbers of Helena's strike team. We keep that quiet. And we told them that Carmichael has a few guys on the side but not how many to expect."
"We don't know that either," Cedric said.
"We will. Daniel gave me the information. We can monitor the flow of information there so we've got a few cards up our sleeve. And," I said as I reached to shift the laptop away from Cedric, "we've got one other thing."
"What's that?" Cedric watched as I navigated through the USB, through the files that I'd watched him peruse through with that intense concentration on his face.
I grinned. "A present."
Cedric stared at me warily. "I usually hate it when you make that face because it means trouble. But I'd say we need all the trouble we can get right now."
He was silent as I clicked on the encrypted document that Daniel had titled 'The_Original_Torture_Device'. It was password protected but I smiled because I knew what Daniel had set it to.
Something only for me – a secret shared not between two co-conspirators, but between two childhood friends. I typed one word.
"Asparagus?" Cedric asked with a raised brow.
I hit enter and the document opened for me. "He hates it. When we were kids, he used to complain to his mom that it was the worst kind of torture to make him eat it. The problem was that asparagus is one of my favourite vegetables, which meant that she made it for me every time I went to his house for dinner."
Cedric leaned back to stare at me.
"What?" I asked, unable to read his face.
He shrugged. His dark blue eyes were closed to me, for once. I couldn't decipher any of the unspoken words in his gaze. "You told me that the two of you were close and even that he was in love with you. It just didn't hit me until right now how deep that connection went. I had assumed that all of the time apart – when you went away for training and then these past few years...I thought it would have affected the bond the two of you share. Made it weaker, somehow. But it hasn't. The way you speak about him and this look you get on your face – it's almost as if no time has passed."
"Don't tell me that you're jealous of Daniel. I already told you that there's nothing there. That he and I – "
Cedric was already shaking his head. "No, that's not what I'm getting at. I know you, Mel. You wouldn't string me along if you were actually in love with Daniel. You'd just call it quits with me straight up. What I'm saying is that I hope we get there one day. To a bond that transcends time and space.
"I know that I've given you reasons to doubt me," Cedric continued, rubbing his hands together in a sign of nerves. "And with all of this shit going on, you must be feeling really alone and scared because the people that you thought you could trust might be the ones that you have to fear most of all. I'm glad that Daniel is alive and that you have this deep bond with him. If only so you can have complete certainty in at least one person. Even if that person isn't me."
Reaching out, my fingers grazed lightly across the panes of his face. Across his cheekbones and tangling in his copper hair. Gently, I kissed him. Not a hard, blazing kiss like we'd exchanged in the past but something softer, more vulnerable.
"I trust you," I murmured against his lips. "If I didn't, I wouldn't have you here with me right now. I am glad that you are with me and fighting with me through this. I'm also terrified that Lia knows how much you mean to me. If she, or anyone else, tries to take you from me – I don't know what I'd do, Cedric."
Cedric brushed a few strands of dark hair from my face. "You won't have to worry about it. I'm not going anywhere. Not willingly, at least."
"Good."
I kissed him again, harder, his lips firm against my own. Kissed him until I felt my pulse start to jump and my palms begin to sweat. Kissed him like I never had to stop.
When we separated, his hand moved from my hair to my shoulder, rubbing gently soothing circles as we stared at the private information Daniel had given us.
Three times we read it, top to bottom, not skipping a single word. Three times to make sure we had it all understood – every instruction and piece of intel that Daniel wanted me to know. And then I deleted it so that no trace remained on the drive or the computer. Gone, as if it had never been there at all.
"I'm going to that P.O. Box," I said. "Right now."
Cedric nodded but his face was distant, calculating. Running scenarios in his head. "Okay."
"If the others show up and ask where I've gone, tell them that I'm still with Carmichael. I'll pick up some more food on the way back to it seems like my prolonged absence is excusable."
"I'll send all of what Daniel gave us to Helena. Once you have the list of his inside guys from the P.O. Box, forward it to me and I'll pass it along to her. The faster she can get those pardons, the better for us."
He gripped my hand tight for one second, long enough for me to pause to kiss him quickly but firmly, before I was out the door again.
It took me thirty-four minutes to reach the post office where Daniel had purchased the P.O. Box. Two minutes to enter the office and find the box itself. Using the key Daniel had given me, I opened the box and found four things.
The first, a black rectangular box; like something a necklace would be stored in but doubly as wide. Flipping the top open revealed a series of pins. The surface of each was smooth and the colour of gold. Engraved into the centre of each was a black scorpion.
The second item was a short letter. It described the pins he'd left for me and compared them against the ones the actual members of Scorpion would be wearing. Those were the reverse in colouring – black with a gold scorpion design. A small detail, one that would hardly attract notice.
Daniel had also provided me with his list of names in the letter. More than I had anticipated, considering the circumstances. Seven, plus Daniel. And Carmichael. Nine men who knew Scorpion like the back of their hand, ready to turn to the tide.
But it was the final line of the letter that caught my attention. Five words that made me pause. I stared at them, replaying conversations in my head until I was sure that it was more than a coincidence.
My world shifted again.
Helena had been right. She always had been but this confirmed it.
A small part of me wanted to keep the letter, to bring it back to the hotel and show Cedric, but that would be too risky. I couldn't risk anyone else seeing it. This was for me only. So I would know what to do when the time came.
Daniel knew that. It was why he'd left me a lighter in the box.
The last thing he'd left for me was perhaps the most valuable of all. I folded it up, shoved it into my pocket and slammed the door shut to the P.O. Box before exiting the office.
I'd been inside all of six minutes.
The first thing I did was email Cedric the names of Daniel's guys. It was encrypted so no one but him would be able to see it.
The second thing I did was duck into an empty alleyway. In the blistering cold, my scarf pulled over my mouth and hood drawn up, no one paused to look at me as they walked by. Not even as I took the lighter and set Daniel's letter aflame. Hiding the contents from all but the two of us forever.
Then, I went to the supermarket and stocked up on food so that when I returned to the hotel at a little after eleven-thirty, the alibi I'd had Cedric spin was confirmed. Yet when I reached the hotel, I paused. Because standing outside, their faces drawn in tight, angry lines, were Lia and Max.
I watched as they conversed. Lia had a habit of throwing her hands up in exasperation when she was trying to make a point and she was doing it now. Max was always more stoic in arguments, standing with his arms crossed and his face unyielding. Clearly, neither of them were happy. Both seemed quite mad but whether that anger was directed at each other, I couldn't tell.
But it was enough for Max to turn on his heel and stride away. Enough for Lia not to call after him, instead opting to return to the interior of the hotel. Not event watching as Max disappeared down the street.
Perhaps I should have gone after him. To try and get him to open up to me and learn what he knew – to see if it matched the same intel I had about Lia.
I let him go instead, knowing that when he got into that stoic impassiveness, it was better to let him cool down first before attempting any kind of civil conversation. The best I'd get from him now was stony silence.
So I went back to the hotel room where everyone had congregated. Tasha and Ivy had joined Cedric in the hours I'd been away but he managed to give me a quick, firm nod to tell me that he'd been in contact with Helena. Things were well underway.
We spent the day plotting and planning. Running scenarios, assembling our strike teams, points of entry. How we ourselves were getting in. Until we could recite it perfectly – necessary for the debriefs that would be happening in the morning with our GCCO contacts.
And still, Max did not return.
Not even as Lia filled us in on her own advancements. MI6 was sending backup. The CIA was to be on hand, keeping people from fleeing once the curtain began to fall. Lia had spoken to them at length while I'd been with Daniel. They were maintaining jurisdiction on the mission but had agreed to extradition with cooperating agencies where required. We'd put Helena into contact with their point person as they assembled the charges to be laid.
And still, Max did not return.
Nor did he answer his phone when Lia called. Or when any of us called, for that matter. Straight to voicemail. Even Max, when angry, would not resort to this cold shoulder. As the hours stretched on and he still did not return, I felt a pit begin to form in my stomach.
Made worse by Lia's pacing. Her incessant peering out the window as she drew the blinds back to stare at the street below. The barely-disguised panic in her blue eyes.
"We'll go look for him," I said to her as the sky began to darken towards twilight.
Lia nodded - a terse little motion. There was a tense set to her jaw. "Okay."
"I've been monitoring the internet," Cedric said from his spot on the couch. "No major accidents have been covered. Tasha was going to run an analysis on all of the hospitals in the city just to be sure. I'm going to look into arrests that have been made tonight."
"Thanks," I said to him as I reached for my coat.
All of this could be one elaborate trick. Designed to get me alone – isolated and distracted. But that fear in Lia's eyes was real. And whatever else might be going on between her and I, this was one area where I was completely certain that she had no hand in.
We were halfway to the door when Lia's phone buzzed. Her eyes met mine for less than a second and then she yanked her phone free from her pocket. It was not a phone call but rather a text. With a photo.
The phone slipped from Lia's hands as she beheld that photo. It clattered to the ground, landing on the rug. She left it there as sobs began to wrack her frame.
"Oh god," she moaned. "Oh god."
I knelt and picked up the phone. My stomach dropped.
Because the photo that had stunned her was of Max. Had been sent from his phone to hers.
Max had been bound to a chair – his wrists and ankles secured to the wooden frame. His face was a bloodied, bruising mess. Lacerations had been drawn across the skin of his arms and small needles had been shoved into the tips of his fingers.
He was staring at the camera balefully, his lip curled in a sneer geared towards whoever had taken the photo. Max's eyes were filled with pain but even that was overshadowed by absolute fury.
"No," Lia said. "No, no, no, no, no."
The phone dinged with an incoming message. And below the photo came the words I had expected but dreaded nonetheless.
Melanie Briar. Come alone to the gala or his blood is on your hands. Xoxo Izzy.