“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly. “I know that what they’re doing to that poor mermaid is disgusting, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Almost.” He looked around as if scanning the room for threats, then whispered, “Boc is Yegor Shevchenko, the Ukrainian terrorist I put away four years ago. The one who’s supposed to be in a Turkish prison.”
Chapter 11
Sawyer’s head spun. How the hell could Yegor Shevchenko be standing here in a room full of morally bankrupt bastards auctioning off supernatural creatures? The man had been sentenced to twenty years in Diyarbakir, the worst hellhole of a prison on the planet. The thought of him surviving long enough to even attempt an escape was laughable. The fact that he’d obviously done it—without MI6 ever knowing—was terrifying.
Or did his bosses at MI6 know and simply never bothered to tell him?
A few feet away, Harley did a double take. “Are you sure?”
“He’s right,” Erin’s voice came over the radio before he could say anything. “I’ve been standing here telling myself it couldn’t possibly be that son of a bitch, but Sawyer’s right. It’s Yegor.”
Harley locked eyes with Sawyer’s, the look in them reminding him of their conversation the other night in the villa. The realization that she’d been right about the murders of his former teammates being tied to the traffickers was like another kick to the bollocks. Yegor was tracking down and killing everyone he blamed for his imprisonment and the death of his brother.
Was kidnapping supernaturals and auctioning them off to the highest bidder a complex scheme to lure Sawyer and his team here, so Yegor could kill them all in one place? It seemed impossible to fathom, but how else could Sawyer explain nearly all of the remaining members of that original MI6 team being hand delivered to the man who wanted them dead?
Shouts of excitement from the front of the room snapped Sawyer out of his musings. Damn, he must have zoned out for a while. The mermaid and her water-filled tank were gone from the dais to be replaced by a despondent young man in his twenties. Naked from the waist up, he had a pair of feathered wings hanging down his back all the way to the floor.
Bloody frigging wings!
The winged supernatural fetched even more than the mermaid and was quickly led away even as another captive took his place. This one was an older man who looked so completely ordinary in comparison to the previous supernaturals, it defied logic to think he was one. Within seconds, ice began to form on the palms of the man’s hands, filling his palms. A minute later, the bidding on the old man was over, happening so fast it made Sawyer wonder how many other bids he’d missed while he’d been trying to figure out how the hell Yegor was free.
“I have to get back and make it look like I’m interested in bidding,” Harley said softly.
He gave her a nod, watching as she slipped into the crowd of people gathered around the dais.
Sawyer stayed where he was, watching as one supernatural after another was auctioned off. He didn’t catch what most of their abilities were because he was listening to Jake and Caleb on the radio saying the supernaturals already purchased were being taken back to the dorms instead of to the tram. Jes chimed in, saying she and Rory were topside now as well, letting them know Rory had slipped away to check on the monks. At the same time, he heard Harley trying to get into contact with Misty, who hadn’t responded to a radio check since she’d walked out of the room fifteen minutes ago.
Okay, that was serious reason for concern. Especially when Forrest said something about Misty getting lost in the networks when she melded with them. He wasn’t surprised when Jake and Forrest said they’d go find her. With Jake’s nose, it shouldn’t take too long.
Sawyer looked at the dais, expecting them to drag out another supernatural for bidding, but instead servers appeared carrying trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres, moving through the crowd of guests. At the same time, several men walked around with iPads, providing money transfer confirmation to the buyers. This crap was so efficient it make him sick.
On the dais, Yegor was talking to several of his goons, including the big guy Harley thought might be the scaly green shifter. Looking at the size of the guy, Sawyer couldn’t say she was wrong. As the conversation continued, he strained to hear what was being said, but between the distance, the murmuring of the crowd, and how quietly Yegor spoke, he could only make out about every fifth word or so. Something about changing the order of the auction and making sure everyone was in place for the surprise.
He didn’t like the sound of that, even if he had no idea what they were talking about. He caught Harley’s eye, then Erin’s. Yeah, they realized something was off, too.
Sawyer checked in with everyone else over the radio, but no one knew what was going on. Jake and Forrest were still tracking Misty, following her scent all the way across the monastery and were on their way back. Unfortunately, they hadn’t found her yet. Jake hadn’t heard anything suspicious over the radio he’d taken from that guard, so there was nothing to make him think Yegor was onto their presence.
Caleb was still keeping an eye on the captives in the dormitories, both those awaiting their turn on the auction block and those already sold. Elliot, Adriana, and Jes, along with most of the muscle brought in from Athens, had all been told to take a break in the monastery’s kitchen until the auction started again. Jes was a little concerned about being so far away from the rest of the team but hadn’t gotten the feeling there was anything to worry about. Though she was antsy about Rory being out of contact for so long.
But as normal as everything seemed—if you could call anything about this normal—Sawyer couldn’t ignore the instincts telling him something was off. He threw another look Harley’s way, those same instincts urging him to move closer to her, insisting he put his body between her and some unknown threat. Of course, that was kind of hard to do when he had no idea where the danger was coming from. Not to mention the fact that it might look a little odd for a guard like him to take a sudden interest in any one particular buyer.
“I apologize for the delay,” Yegor said, turning to face the crowd, a broad smile on his face as the guy they thought was the scaly shifter rolled out another large, fabric-covered crate. “But I think you will all agree the next creature up for bid is certainly something worth waiting for. This one is truly unique.”
Sawyer tensed as Seamus and several other men he recognized from Paris, including the guy in the leather jacket joined Yegor on the dais. When half a dozen more guards strode into the room, he knew things were about to get ugly.
“Things are about to go sideways,” Sawyer murmured into his mic. “I don’t know how, but I think we’ve been made.”
“This particular creature possesses an unparalleled talent.” Yegor casually rested a hand on the fabric draped over the crate. “She can meld her consciousness with any complex electronic device. This allows her to bypass any existing security features, then extract and memorize megabytes of information. In fact, I found her a few minutes ago in the process of stealing secrets from my own network.”