Page 119 of The Lazarus Protocol

“I’m trying to find one,” she said. “He can’t have just disappeared. There has to be a door.”

Ash stared at Kyle.

“She sounds scared,” Kyle said. “We should help her rather than doing whatever this is.”

“If you were behind any of this, I’ll kill you myself.”

“So much for Phoenix Network loyalty.”

“Maybe the Phoenix Network is all you have, so you doubt anyone who isn’t as sold out to it as you are.” Ash pulled him closer. “But I have my team as well as PN, and right now the team needs my help.”

“Let go of me and let me help you.”

As if that was the whole reason Kyle had come here. Maybe it was, but Ash would wait for proof. His grip on the guy loosened.

A split second later, Kyle grabbed him and tackled him to the ground. Ash fought him until he realized gunshots had snapped over their heads.

“Stay down,” Kyle ordered.

Ash shoved the guy off him and rolled over so he could crawl to cover in the bushes that flanked the sides of the building. Bullets snapped into the open door and hit the blast door with the distinctive ping of metal hitting metal. Ash rolled and pointed his gun at the source, but saw nothing to shoot at.

“What’s happening?” Steph yelled. “Is that gunshots?”

Kyle ducked into cover beside Ash and got on the radio. “We’re under attack. Keep looking for a way out.”

Ash scanned the tree line across the old runway, all cracked asphalt and bushy weeds. He saw a few mercenaries in black emerge from the woods around this base and cross the fence. One sank to his hips in the water. No one helped him out.

The team kept going, and the wet guy hurried to catch up and get back into formation.

“Why take potshots at us?”

Kyle glanced at him. “You want them to introduce themselves first?”

“They could at least buy me dinner.” Ash checked his gun. “One pistol against those guys isn’t going to go down well.”

“Two pistols.”

“If we knew where Adam was, I’d be more optimistic.”

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just completely dismiss me,” Kyle said. “Paranoid much?” He touched the back of his hand to Ash’s forehead. “That signal messed with your head.”

Ash watched the mercenaries, not the guy beside him.

“Still doubting my loyalty?” Kyle asked. “The Phoenix Network gave me a way out, but it was Adam who saved my life.”

Ash frowned. “How’s that?”

“I was there. At the facility.” Kyle let out a quick breath, as if needing to relieve some tension. “Feels like a lifetime ago now, but I got out when he did. The Phoenix Network approached me for information about Montrose, and in exchange I got a new life.”

“The guy who killed himself.”

“It had to look definitive.”

Ash didn’t know what that meant, but it probably involved Kyle playing dead for a while.

“They used that drug that mimics death and almost stops your heart entirely. It took a lot of trust to let them do that to me after everything I’d been through. But the Rourkes were true to their word and always have been. And no,” Kyle said, “I don’t have anything else.”

Ash shot him a look. “How does this story get us out of a gunfight with an overwhelming force?” And he didn’t have Kai by his side, backing him up and annoying him with things he thought were amusing.