Page 1 of The Hijack

Chapter 1

Theo

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THE FIRST THING I WAS aware of was pain. I floated my way back into consciousness after being attacked by my former friend. It seemed like just seconds ago that Regg was holding a gun to my head, bragging about how he was going to singlehandedly bring down MI6.

I’d spent the last few weeks chasing shadows, running all across the globe looking for a terrorist organization called Dark Sparrow. And when I finally caught up to them, they’d revealed that it was someone inside the agency who was pulling the strings.

I kept my body relaxed, not wanting anyone who might be watching to know that I was awake. It was like coming out of the ocean after being hit by a great wave. I remembered my mom telling me, “Take a deep breath first thing when you reach the surface, just in case there’s another wave.”

Just because I was coming around and obviously still alive didn’t mean I was out of the water. I needed to take stock of what was happening so that I could figure out what my choices were.

Doing an inventory of my body, I focused on the duct tape wrapped around my wrists. It wasn’t particularly tight, and some of the glue had dissolved already. From that, I understood that it had been at least several hours since the binding was administered.

My torso rocked, sending a jolt of pain racing up my chest and into my jaw. There was some kind of wound there, and I couldn’t tell how bad it was. The movement didn’t cause me to lose consciousness, so it wasn’t life-threatening.

I felt dizzy, possibly from loss of blood, but also possibly from a minor concussion. I tried to remember exactly what Regg had done to me before I passed out. Then I gasped, unable to stop the sound before it breached my lips.

Clark.

The American spy I’d fallen in love with had been there when Regg infiltrated our safehouse. I saw her standing at the bottom of the stairs, wearing only an oversized shirt. Surely she had fought tooth and nail for her freedom, but if she’d managed to kill any of the assailants, what was I doing tied up?

Concern for her safety ate up the last of my reserves. I knew I had given myself away, so I wrenched my shoulders in an attempt to free my hands. The movement only bought me more pain, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

There was a bag over my head, blocking out the light. Yet I could see through the fibers enough to realize we were in a car. There was one man to my left and one to my right, and a person in the driver’s seat. It wasn’t a big car, but it wasn’t a tiny European model, either.

Our safehouse was in the Swiss Alps, locked in a blanket of snow with a beautiful view. From the way the car was moving, I could tell we were on our way down, which meant that I wasn’t too far from ground zero.

Wherever Clark was, I had to get back to her as quickly as possible. That meant dispatching my captors and taking control of the vehicle. If only I could get my arms free, I would make short work of the three of them.

“Look who’s awake,” one man said in an American accent.

I didn’t like the sound of that. I didn’t have any clue how wide or how deep Regg’s criminal network ran. But if MI6 had been compromised, it wasn’t that big a stretch to imagine that the CIA had its own rats. I would much rather have been at the mercy of Eastern European thugs or the Italian mafia. Anyone who didn’t have a direct line to my personal life would have been preferable to a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“You can take the blindfold off,” I said, masking the pain in my voice. I wasn’t going to let on that I was in anything less than fighting condition. As far as they knew, I could still kick their asses, even without the use of my eyes or my hands. Better to let them think that and help me out in the process by giving in to their fear.

“I don’t think so, mate,” another captor said in an Australian accent.

“We’ve got a real United Nations in here,” I joked, digging my middle finger up underneath the duct tape.

If I could just work one finger out of bondage, the rest would follow. It would take me no time then to unravel the tape and punch one guy in the eye. I visualized my entire plan before it happened, right down to the curses the three criminals were likely to shout.

“Don’t talk to him!” the driver yelled. His accent was pure East London, Whitechapel if I had to pick a specific neighborhood.

Whatever was going on, it was at a high enough level that citizens of multiple English-speaking countries were drawn in. I stuck my ring finger down beneath the tape and my skin, forcing the glue to release its hold. Before any of the men could stop me, I yanked the binding off my right hand and lashed out with my elbow.

Just as I pictured, the guy on my left reached for his gun. I hit him with a palm to the nose, hearing a satisfying crunch as the cartilage splintered. The American screamed, dropping his weapon momentarily to press his hand to the bloody surface.

I turned away from him and smashed the Aussie’s head into the window, causing the glass to spiderweb out from the point of impact. A few more pounds of force and I would have been able to shove him out of the moving vehicle. But the assault was sufficient to blind the man, giving me plenty of room to go after the driver.

I ripped the bag from my head and flipped it up over the driver’s head. He slammed on the brakes, causing the car to skid and tilt to the right. The moment that vision was restored to me, I could see that hadn’t been the wisest move.

We were on a tiny mountain pass, a sheer cliff to our left and a rock face to our right. There was no room for fancy maneuvers and barely enough room for the car to drive in a straight line.

The front wheels slid off the road, and the car pitched forward over the void. The squeal of the brakes was all I could hear, but soon came the rush of the wind and the creak of metal as the car struggled to remain upright.

I had precious few seconds to react before we all plummeted to our deaths. I didn’t care about any of the bastards who had me in custody. It would have been nice to interrogate one of them, to have some questions answered about Regg’s activities. But that didn’t look like it was likely to happen, and if I didn’t bail soon, I was going to be roadkill several hundred feet below.