Page 109 of The Lazarus Protocol

Finally unable to stand the waiting, he grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. As he turned to the door, it eased open.

Ash palmed his gun and pointed it at the intruder. “Go away,” he said in German, making sure his accent made him sound like a West African native who’d moved here and recently learned the language.

“Why would I do that, Asher?” The blond guy who entered decided to act all smug about it.

“I should shoot you for taking so long to get here.”

Kyle smirked, closing the door behind him. Ash put the gun away and gave the guy a back-slapping bro-hug.

“Sorry about that.” Kyle flicked his hair back off his head in a move that was so familiar to Ash it was practically a “tell.” He smelled like he needed a shower, which would help people avoid him on the busy streets of Berlin. “It took me longer than anticipated to get back from the States.”

“What were you doing?”

“Plugging a leak.”

Ash tossed his backpack on the closest bed. “Start talking. Because I wanna leave. But before I go, I need the answers I came for.”

“You have something for me?”

Ash said, “Noah wants to meet his parents.”

“I’ll pass it along.” Kyle rolled his shoulders, then moved to lean against the wall beside the small pedestal sink in the corner.

“Talk, then you can rest.”

Kyle nodded. “The Phoenix Network embedded me in Earthnet Industries months ago, with the cover story that I was a consultant. Mr. Johannsen specialized in productivity and dispute management. I was supposed to find out what their endgame is.”

Usually, Ash’s jobs with the Phoenix Network were over in a couple of days, not a deep undercover assignment that had gone on months.

That wasn’t something designed to safeguard a person’s new identity, or eliminate a threat. This was save-the-world stuff. Or there was a major beef between Elaina and Mitch Rourke and the CEO of Earthnet. Was this personal, or professional?

Ash said, “What gave us the idea Earthnet was up to anything?”

“Bunch of things the algorithm connected as being the potential for a threat. One that has Earthnet in control of global communications networks. They dug up an old paper Elias Bradleigh wrote years ago talking about this journal he found from the nineteen forties about creating a global network.”

“He has the book?” Ash lifted his brows, shifting his weight and feeling the pull of the injury in his calf. “Vesper was after it, but if Bradleigh already has it, then the damage is done.”

“It sounded like he lost it and he’s been looking for it since.”

Ash shook his head. “So you were sent in?”

“I copied as many files as I could, and when I discovered the existence of the data center, I called you guys and ‘hired’ you to breach it as a test of their security.”

“For the Phoenix Network?”

Kyle nodded.

“So this whole thing has been the team working for us, not for Earthnet?”

“It wasn’t like I could tell you, even if you knew who I was. We all had to pretend we were someone else.”

“I wouldn’t exactly pass as a guy named ‘Johannsen,’” Ash pointed out.

He could play a few roles well. Most were fundamentalist religious types from West Africa or the Middle East, but it wasn’t as if he could change his skin color. Guys like Kyle and Adam got stuck with the Anglo roles. As a team they could get the job done. Ash wasn’t the guy who went out on his own, a solo spy. He was the guy who backed up his friends, and they all watched each other’s backs.

Kyle chuckled. “I think you’d pull it off.”

“What about Stephanie-Jo…” Ash couldn’t remember her last name, if he’d even heard it.