Raiders

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Jed Mason pulled the shutter on the Citation’s window and banished the chaos in his mind. Lined the problems up and thought about them one by one. Heading up the Raiders was challenging enough, but Ezra Haven had introduced a new level of stress into his life. They had the ankh and Napoleon’s note, and thanks to Ambrose Lloyd they had a translation. That translation was pointing to Napoleon’s final resting place in Paris.

As the Citation soared above a thin layer of cirrus and hit its cruising altitude, Eva Starling wandered over to him and smiled. “Mind if I join you?”

Mason moved his bag off the leather seat. “Please.”

“Ezra tells me your little group is called the Pirates, or something.”

“Raiders,” Mason corrected her. “Rapid and Incognito Deployment, Extraction and Rescue Service. Milo thought of it.”

“And after your incognito deployment, what do you extract and rescue exactly?”

Mason gave a humble shrug. “This and that.”

“Oh, come on, Jed,” she said. “Don’t be coy.”

“We operate in a grubby world, Eva. It’s a world full of thieves, smugglers, and kidnappers, but we try and throw some light on it and clean it up if we can.”

“Sounds pretty nasty.”

“It is, but there’s satisfaction when we get a job right.”

“What was your last job?”

“Retrieving some proprietary software. It was stolen by a team of Ukrainian thieves from the offices of a world-famous tech company based in California.”

“Is that who I think it is?”

Mason gave her an apologetic smile. “We never talk about clients.”

“Still, sounds very satisfying.”

Mason was quiet.

“No?”

“Sometimes, sure. Other times we’re hired to get people back, and when you succeed it’s the best feeling in the world, but when you fail it’s…” he stopped talking and closed his eyes for a second. “Like I said, we work in a grubby world.”

“But you make a real difference,” she said. “I can’t say that.”

“I thought being an archaeologist was roughly comparative to the Indiana Jones movies, no?”

She laughed. “Not at all, unless they made one about a woman sitting in an office reading lots of journals.”

“They did not,” he said. “But even if they had, that would still have been better than Crystal Skull.”

“Hey!” Milo called out. “I loved that movie.”

“I want to thank you again for saving my life back in Frankfurt.”

“Like I said, think nothing of it,” he said quietly. “We were hired to do the job we do and we did it.”

“Seems to me like you’re a force for good.”

“We’re not a bunch of holier than thou Robin Hoods, Eva,” he said. “We all have things in our pasts we’re not proud of, but we work together better than any family. We’re stronger than a family. Closer, you know?”

“I’m starting to see that.”

“And you’re the Big Daddy, right, Jed?”

They both turned to see Zara standing beside them.

“Hey, how’s it hangin’, Dietrich?” Mason said with a smile. “Got ‘em by the shirt tails?”

“Always, Jed. Always — you know that.”

“Ezra’s on line one.”

Ezra looked less relaxed than the last time they’d seen him. He was sitting in an office with a bank of plasma screens behind him, and they could just about make out a window but the shades were drawn down.

“I just spent the last hour dealing with a long line of VIPs.”

“Very Important People?” Eva asked. “Sounds interesting.”

“No,” Ezra said bluntly. “Very Incredibly Pissed People.”

“Drunks?” Milo asked.

“He means angry,” Zara said.

“Surely that would be VIPPs?”

Ezra gave a long, deep sigh. “The people in question include the Mayor of Frankfurt who wants to know why there was a terrorist incident in his city today, the British Home Secretary who is asking some seriously tough questions about the incident at the British Museum and just now the head of the Oxford Police who’s talking about car chases and gun fights in his city.”

“Did they get the Hidden Hand thugs?”

“No,” Ezra said. “They did not. They escaped on a chopper that swooped them up and flew them away into the night.”

“Great.”

“I told you they have a long reach.”

“In our defense,” Milo said. “These OM guys are like a cross between ninjas and Spetsnaz on speed.”

“Let me spell out very clearly that I do not want the Mayor of Paris on my phone under any circumstances.”

“Got it, chief,” Zara said.

“You are to get into the Musée de l’Armée, get what you need and get right back out again without incident, understand?”

Mason nodded. “No problem.”

“Come on, Ez,” Caleb said. “We go way back, man. We’re good — the best — but these Hidden Hand psychos are like nothing we’ve ever seen before. It’s like they’re possessed by some ancient spirit or something and they don’t care what it takes to get what they want. Throw in Linus Finn’s crew and we’re up against it here.”

“Yeah, chief,” Zara said. “Maybe a little back-up?”

“You know why I can’t provide back-up,” he said firmly. “I’m not in the agency any more. If I try and get more people on board, especially anyone with connections to any of the alphabet agencies it’s going to raise concerns in the wrong places.”

“It’s raising some concerns right here,” Caleb said. “And I have a nasty feeling this is going to end very badly.”

With her eyes shut, Zara skipped over her thoughts like stepping stones until she saw her father’s face smiling at her warmly. He was sitting inside their old Airstream Cruiser and lighting a Marlboro while an old Howlin’ Wolf song played on the stereo. His famous 1959 Fender Strat was on the couch, the sun glinting on the frets, and the smell of fried bacon was still hanging in the air from breakfast over an hour ago.

It was a real memory — her twelfth birthday. Her dad had played in Phoenix the previous night and now they were parked up in the badlands south of the Painted Desert. They were headed to Denver. Another night, another gig. More noise, more smoke and probably more fights. It was her life.

Her childhood was a million motels, endless headlights on the highway and watching her father keeping one step ahead of the drug dealers and debt collectors… seeing him right in front of her now brought a sad smile to her lips.

She reached out to touch him, and he smiled again as he blew out some smoke.

“How you doin’, Zara?”

“I’m fine, Dad…”

“I’m not your Dad, Zara,” Caleb said.

She turned to see the former Ranger sitting beside her on the plane. He had two coffees in his hands. “I’m sorry, Caleb.”

“Forget about it. We all know what happened to Jimmy and it was a shitty thing to happen to a kid of your age.”

“Thanks.”

“And you have a new life now,” he said, giving her shoulder a fatherly squeeze. “And a new family.”

True.

And she had no desire to go back to her old life. She hated most of it. Thanks to her dad’s career she’d attended six high schools before she was fifteen. The friends she made were in and out of her life so fast she felt like a revolving door.

People pick on the new girl, and she’d been the new girl so many times she’d met every kind of asshole under the sun. They bullied her until she broke down and cried but she never told her dad. Instead, she enrolled in karate classes after school. Karate turned into Kung Fu, and then she found Silat. After that, it was a big mistake to give Zara Dietrich any trouble because she gave it straight back, with change.

Mason emerged from the cockpit. “Heads up, everyone. We’re landing in Paris in fifteen minutes, and then it’s straight to the Musée de l’Armée and Napoleon’s mausoleum.”

“Sounds great to me,” Zara said. “Let’s get this show in the road.”