Page 142 of The Lazarus Protocol

“How am I supposed to explain this?”

“You aren’t.” He came over and held out a hand. “You don’t talk about it. You have no idea what happened to Kraus, or why he won’t show up for work tomorrow. You were never here.”

She took his hand, and he hauled her up so fast she yelped.

“After you take care of the worm in the CIA system, you’re gonna call Noah Rourke and ask him for assistance tackling the issue of Earthnet and what they’re up to. Because we all have a serious problem when it comes to them.”

She frowned. “You know about Division Zero?”

He pressed his lips together.

She’d never been so hungry for someone to be straightforward and honest in her life. Working for the CIA had her tangled up in knots until she wanted to scream. “I’m so tired of the lies. The subterfuge.”

“You picked the wrong line of work, lady.”

“I’m a psychologist.”

“I think you got this one wrong.” He motioned to Kraus. “You gonna take my advice, or are you going to be a problem to me like he was?”

So she could end up with two bullets in her chest? Problem was, if she agreed to do what this man said, she would end up owing him.

He continued, “You wanna know what I want?”

Emanuela nodded.

“You might make a decent division chief after all.”

Emanuela liked the sound of that so much she squared her shoulders. “Well? What do you want?”

He almost smiled. “US Army Colonel Alan Montrose. Everything you can get me on him. Everyone he’s connected to, by blood or otherwise, and his current location. And I want it in an hour.”

“That’s all?”

“For starters at least.” He brought over her keys. “And you can call me Ice.”

FORTY-EIGHT

Somewhere in the Philippine Sea

The engine of the boat rumbled under him. Sweat ran down Noah’s chest, and with every inhale he tried not to breathe through his nose. But the smell in this cramped room was the least of his problems right now.

The others sat around the room as he did, leaning against the hot metal side of the ship, against the wall of the storage room, or against each other. Jay had gone with Dan, so neither was in here. But Ash and Adam, Steph, a number of the workers they’d been imprisoned with on the island, and that guy Adam knew were here. Kai lay in the center, staring up at the ceiling with his ankles crossed and his fingers laced over his abdomen.

They’d been stripped to their underwear and relieved of anything they’d gathered on their way off the island, which hadn’t been much.

Marina shifted beside him, and he looked at her painted toenails, tipping his head toward her. “You okay?” He kept his voice to a whisper.

She shook her head.

“We’ll get out of here.”

“Yeah?” Kai turned only his head. “When? How?”

“Bro, you were imprisoned longer than all of us. I know you want out.”

Noah wasn’t the only one who had been in a situation like this before. Little had he known that when he and Marina went to confront Earthnet about the team being targeted, they would wind up on an island near the Philippines, conscripted into mining rare earth minerals for the company to use in electronics manufacturing.

This whole conspiracy was a lot bigger than they’d thought. Earthnet had already launched more than one satellite into space. They had an intelligent program, Polaris. It would take time to unpack everything that had been the AI’s doing, and figure out how to neutralize the potential threat.