Page 79 of The Lazarus Protocol

“Sound like personal experience.”

She watched as they passed a red Fiat, going slow. “It doesn’t matter how I know.”

“What does matter?” Ice shrugged. “Like this Lazarus Protocol thing.”

“You think I know about that?”

“I think you know a lot, but what you’ll actually tell me is different.”

Steph eyed him. “And?”

He didn’t respond to that.

“I’m not part of your team, and I never agreed to full disclosure.”

“And yet you’re in this car with me, helping me go after my friend.”

“The others needed to focus on helping Adam. Besides, I’m no good with medical stuff.”

“Or it’s too real to see someone you might care about hurt, or incapacitated.”

“Sounds like personal experience,” she shot back.

Ice almost smiled.

“So we agree.”

“Fine,” he said. “We’re here because we’re better at this than feeling helpless when someone’s hurt.”

“Works for me.”

He glanced over at her. “What do you know about the Lazarus Protocol?”

“Not much,” she said. “Most people in the intelligence community think it’s a myth. Like some old-school spy craft kind of…” Huh. Not the first time she’d thought that today. Before it had been about poisons. “Nothing about this adds up to anything that makes sense.”

“Yet,” he said. “Do you plan to let it go and walk away?”

“Not if I want to get my life back.”

“Then we’ll figure it out. So start with what you do know,” Ice said. “It’s a myth?”

Steph nodded. “A way forward for someone who has been compromised to such an extent they have to fake their death. Special Forces, tier one type guys. Intelligence assets. Traitors. The rumor is, you don’t contact them, they contact you. Like they just know that you need to fake your death and get a new ID.”

“Wouldn’t work for you, right?”

“Not really. Though, I haven’t been contacted.” She bounced one knee up and down. “Someone like Adam? I don’t know what he was into before he was declared dead, but there’s got to be a reason he seems to know what it is.”

“That old guy in the lab was probably going to question him about why he was there, but then he realized the whole team was on board.”

“And Vesper,” she said. “But where did he go?”

“I don’t like not going after the guy who cut Adam any more than you do, but our team is the priority.” Ice changed lanes again, right behind the van now. “Hold up the tablet.”

“You guys really have trackers?”

“Assuming he has his comms earbud on him, we should be able to determine if he’s in there,” Ice said. “And if it’s functional, we can switch it on remotely and listen to what’s going on inside the van.” He glanced over. “Isn’t that how your necklace works?”

“Nope. It only activates from my end. They can’t use it to track me unless I turn it on.” She lifted the tablet like she was about to take a picture with the device’s camera. “That’s impressive tech the CIA would probably be interested in.”