In one instant, everything went quiet. The fans turned off. The constant hum of the electronics went silent. The remaining smoke fell through the hushed air, spiralling around their feet.
“Nehemias!” Laird’s mother called again. “The breaker!”
“I know!” Laird yelled back, slowly standing up from the chair; the scars on his chest and neck illuminated by the sunbeam from the open door. He crawled over the back of the chair, squeezing himself between it and the stairs, and heading into the living room, disappearing from view. It wouldn’t be difficult for them to step over the tripwire, put a gun to Laird’s head and force him to do what they needed. But it wasn’t necessary because Laird yelled through the soiled quiet, “Send me the info!”
There was a click, and the fans, the electronics, and a TV upstairs all sprang back to life.
Chapter 8
Diana Weick
Dawson City, Yukon
Through the scope of the sniper rifle, it was obvious how far out in the middle of nowhere they truly were. They had taken another flight—the three of them. After Taras had slightly convinced Amber to take him on, the next few hours had proceeded with awkward stilted conversation and discussion regarding what information Taras actually had on Zabójca. The two of them trying to determine if Taras was not reformed but at least sane enough to work alongside them. Diana did believe that Taras had information. But he was being protective of it because it was the last remaining bit of power that he had. It may have been one of the only things keeping him alive. But Diana understood that her chances of success were higher with Amber and higher with Taras. Working alone wasn’t practical in the eyes of the military, and Diana couldn’t shake what had been engrained.
Dawson City was beautiful. Low mountains covered in pine trees, mist weaving its way between them and over the rust-colored Yukon River. Isolated from civilization—once the site of the Klondike Gold Rush. Close to the Alaskan border. A great spot for a United States military safe house.
But they weren’t looking for the safe house, not yet. Right now, they were looking for the Readers. They had to be here. If the MI6 had this information, it meant Zabójca and David had it too.
Amber was on the phone with the local hotels, pretending he was a family member of Zabójca’s, innocently asking about recent sightings. Taras was splayed out over the mountainside that they were set up on, a vantage point to look out over the whole city. He was still sweating from the climb up.
“I thought Canada would be much colder than this,” he said, staring up into the painted blue sky.
“It’s the middle of June,” Diana scoffed. “Even Canadians get summertime.”
Scanning through the main street of the town with the scope, Diana scrutinized the pastel-colored businesses on either side of the road, reeking of tourism because what else was there to make money off of up here?
“Found them,” Amber said as he crouched down next to Diana, putting his monocular to his eye and looking down at the city. “Gold Road Motel.”
“I guess there are only so many places to stay in a town like this,” Diana muttered.
“More than I thought, actually,” Amber replied. “I only got one of the last names they’re using for aliases—Cooper.”
Looking over his shoulder toward Taras, Amber whispered in Diana’s ear, “Is he okay?”
Taras had closed his eyes and was just lying there on the mountainside, the wind lightly running through his hair and beard.
“No,” Diana replied. “Never.”
She shook her head and asked, “So where?”
“Down,” Amber said, moving his hands to hers to help guide the scope. “There.”
It was a gray and navy building designed to look like a Western-style saloon with a porch out front and fake tumbleweeds on either side of the steps. Almost all the curtains were drawn on the second floor. On the first floor, Diana could see straight through to the lobby—a chubby woman with blonde and pink hair leaning on the counter and talking on her cell phone.
“I don’t see them,” Diana said.
“I’m sure they’re laying low until they’re ready to make a move to the safe house,” Amber stated.
“We can go kill them now,” Diana replied.
“We don’t know their room.”
“Can’t you charm your way through the hotel staff? This place has only got like thirty rooms max.”
“I already tried.”
“Okay, so what then?”
“We wait.”
Diana let out a frustrated growl.
“What if we flash them the MI6 badge?”
“We’re working off the grid, Weick.”
“There is a restaurant,” Taras said from Diana’s other side, and they both jumped. Staring through his own set of binoculars, Taras was pointing to a neon sign that said: Molson.
“So?” Diana said, taking her eye off the scope to look at him.
“Well, they must eat,” Taras replied. “So we wait at the restaurant.”
Diana looked back to Amber, whose expression had dropped into contemplative approval—his lips turned down, nodding.
“If we miss them at the restaurant,” Amber said, “we’ll have to wait for the safe house.”
Ignoring Amber, Taras said, “I must eat too.”
Of all the people and places Diana had envisioned herself in her adult life, she never expected to be eating hamburgers and drinking beer in a diner in Dawson City, Yukon with Idris Amber and Taras Kushkin. At one point, Kushkin’s only goal had been to kill her and take her down. Though she wanted to believe he had changed, she wasn’t opposed to the idea of using the information he had to kill Zabójca and then turning the barrel back straight to him.
Taras had tried to traffic her daughter, held her ex-husband hostage, and tried to kill her on more than one occasion. His father had been responsible for the deaths of dozens of American soldiers, including some of her closest friends and colleagues.
But watching him munch on a burger with no beef patty from
