Page 81 of The Lazarus Protocol

“We can’t find him unless we’re in range.”

“Right now, we need to get out of range of these cops coming up fast behind us, or we’ll end up going to prison in a foreign country and starting an international incident.”

“Nah, we’ll be shivved before that. Both of us have enough enemies.”

“So let’s not get caught!”

Ice hit the gas again, and they sped up to the van—both vehicles already going at blistering speeds. He rammed the van.

“What are you doing?!”

The van swerved, and Ice fought to keep the car straight and not lose control. Vesper shook her head, but she didn’t kill Kai. Thankfully.

“That was reckless. She won’t hesitate to kill him.” Steph was careful not to move her lips enough and give away what she was saying.

Ice did the same. “She wants him alive. Now we know for sure. She isn’t going to kill him.” Then louder he said, “Hold on.”

Ice swerved across three lanes, cut off a small SUV pulling a camping trailer, and just made it to the off ramp. Leaving a spread of honking horns behind them, he hit the brakes and eased to the end, where they had to wait for the light to turn green.

She glanced over. “Live to fight another day?”

“I don’t like that option any more than you do. But we have no choice. The question is, why did she take him?”

“Because she knows you’ll do whatever she demands in order to get him back.” Steph blew out a breath. “And after that, she knows exactly how far you’re willing to go.”

Ice turned into the flow of traffic heading for a town with a tall redbrick church in the center. “What I want to know is why she looks like you. Not a lot, but there’s a noticeable similarity in your features.”

Twisting around to look out the back window, Steph saw local first responders stream by on the motorway. She waited until she could be certain they hadn’t been followed before she faced front again.

“Steph?”

“Vesper is my half-sister.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Raleigh, North Carolina

“I’m gonna have to purge my whole system and reboot.” Marina sat back in the passenger seat, running her hands through her hair, and stared at the laptop on her knees.

Noah looked over at her. The traffic around them wasn’t going anywhere at this time of the morning. “Anything I can do to help?”

She shook her head. “I’d rather be back in Idaho. My setup there is more robust, but if this program had gotten into that system?” She blew out a breath. “That whole setup would have been toast.”

“You work on separate networks?”

“Want me to explain it?”

He half smiled. “I’m good.”

“I compartmentalize what I use to connect with the team, and we have our data spread across multiple servers that don’t talk to each other. That way no one gets all of it. They’d have to hack each separate server. It’s a longwinded way for me to work, but it’s more secure.”

“Good to know.”

She slammed the laptop down and lifted her phone out of the cupholder. “Dan has Adam back at the castle. He’s gonna get him stitched up. Ice and Steph went after Kai, but they haven’t checked in yet.”

Noah glanced at the GPS map on the dash screen. Forty minutes, and they’d be at the house—the last known residence of Matthew Haserford. He’d studied the file Division Chief Kraus gave him cover to cover, and there wasn’t much there beyond a basic dossier. The guy was a CIA psychologist for years. Since Noah didn’t even know if his parents really had been agents, he wasn’t even sure they’d known each other professionally.

They could’ve been neighbors, or Matthew Haserford could’ve been his father’s college roommate. Noah intended to find out which it was.