“Sounds like a you problem,” Oz murmured, and took another sip of coffee while not holding his gaze but not missing the roll of his eyes. The problem being he needed to get them out. He had the beginnings of an idea.
“Fuck. You.” Hatch enunciated each word.
“Enough.” Dirk snapped the one word like he needed to silence Hatch. Then he focused on Oz. “Whatever you plan to do. It’s not going to work.” In other words, what? He didn’t want Oz to try? Well, it was a little fucking late for that.
“Then there’s no harm in trying,” Oz told him as he stood. He drained the rest of the coffee like he’d just been waiting to finish it. “Since you both sound well enough and your vitals are in order, there’s no reason we shouldn’t start right now.”
“Doc,” Dirk warned. “This is a bad idea.”
He almost laughed. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he told him as he opened another cabinet and pulled out the sedatives. He drew up enough for four doses.
One of the guards moved to him. “What are we doing?”
“I’m getting them ready for transport,” Oz told him. “Sedatives,” he continued, holding up the auto injectors as he loaded them. They were a fast-acting brand. “You all seemed a bit concerned about moving them while they were conscious.” The snide note in his voice hit remarkably well. One of his instructors had enjoyed tearing them apart. He felt failure taught the best lessons. But humiliation, he once insisted, was the best motivator and would make sure his students didn’t forget.
The guard scowled.
“You two should probably join us. I’ll need you to hold them still.”
“They haven’t given you an ounce of trouble,” one of the other two guards said as Oz headed straight toward Dirk. Now came the truest test of their friendship. Did the trust between them hold, or had they been through too much here?
The guard he’d already tweaked, however, stayed right with him. Oz motioned him forward. “Brace him.”
He gripped Dirk’s shoulders, which forced him to lean over him. Dirk slammed his head forward with a crack of his skull to the guard’s. The crunch of bone and the thwack of noise actually made Oz flinch.
The guard went down with a strangled gasp. The pain probably barely registered before unconsciousness took him.
Hatch smirked as the two at the door rushed forward. “I give that a seven for execution, but a total ten for delivery. Nice.”
They both chuckled, and as soon as the guards had their backs to him, Oz moved between them and hit them both with injectors. It took some managing, but it was so much easier with the third guard already out of the way.
The sedative worked fast, which was good because one of the guards went down swiftly, but he missed with the other and hit his shirt. The man whirled and locked his grip on Oz’s neck. Fumbling with the third injector, he got it into the guy as they both collapsed onto Hatch.
Blowing out a breath, he stared upward for a moment. His neck ached and his heart hammered, but they were alive.
“Not that it isn’t great to see you, Doc,” Hatch said idly. “But we’re not this close, and I’m definitely not into your topper there.”
A laugh worked its way out of him as he gave the guy a shove off of him. Rubbing his neck, he searched the first guard, then the second before he found the security card he needed. With one swipe, he freed Dirk’s chair, then Hatch’s.
Dirk was faster to his feet, and he still staggered a little on his way to the third. He gripped the guard’s head and twisted once, snapping his neck. He proceeded to clean up the last two, and Oz grimaced. Hatch weaved a little, and Oz got an arm around him.
“We need to go,” he told them.
With a look that said ‘no shit,’ Dirk collected weapons, then spat on the floor. “Tell me you have a plan.”
“I have a plan,” Oz confirmed.
“Is it a good plan?” Hatch asked as Oz nodded toward the door. They didn’t have time to discuss it here. They had to move. “It really needs to be a good plan.”
“We’ll know in a minute,” Oz promised him.
“Well, let’s not cock that up shall we?”
Chapter 8
Retrouvailles [French] The happiness of meeting together again after a long time.
VALDA
I hadn’t been on a plane in years. It wasn’t that they weren’t in use, but I didn’t travel. The flight we’d booked brought us in at Heathrow. Of the two London-based airports, only Heathrow was still active. The trains continued to run on time. Andreas held my hand loosely in his as we made our way through customs.
The electronic identification Campbell provided us cleared customs without any effort. Campbell and his men were with us. More watchers would pick us up once we left the airport. The details of our security had been the subject of three, grueling hours after I persuaded Andreas to the plan.
He was still not a fan, but Campbell’s strategizing had offered him a small measure of comfort. I trusted the security people to do their job. The science? The negotiation? That I could handle. The security measures were all for them. As it was, I had my hair pulled back into a single plait hidden under a scarf and a pair of glasses that offered me a Clark Kent-esque disguise. It would hardly fool anyone who knew me.
But one bonus to the life I’d led? There was little out there pointing fingers to my identity. I’d lived as a hermit and later as a recluse. I didn’t address the public. I’d taken meetings with some heads of state, but those had always been done in utmost secrecy, more to protect the politicians than myself.
Fingers interlaced with Andreas’, I let him take lead as we carried our ‘luggage’ out and headed directly for the taxi stands. I would have preferred the train, but Campbell wanted us to avoid isolated locations where ambush would be easier.
We were not alone in the queue waiting for a taxi. It surprised me how many people were here. The compound hadn’t been far from Auckland, but I’d rarely gone into the city. I didn’t do well amongst large crowds of people. Perhaps because of my isolated upbringing. Or maybe I just didn’t trust people in large groups. The world had become a distinctly unfriendly place with tales of woe so common, that they were rarely reported or even remarked on for more than a news cycle.
Yet, there was an eclectic mix of passengers here. Travelers, some foreign and some domestic. Businessmen and women. Military. A couple of families. A mother with a teenager that she kept hugging to her.
Children were also a scarcity.
My heart squeezed as we moved up. Andreas rubbed his thumb against the pair of rings I sported on my left hand. We were traveling as a married couple. Another element of hiding who we were. Andreas was even less known to the world than I was, though I’d had cause to question Campbell when he detailed that moving us in groups of no more than two at a time. Neither Andreas nor I were all that handy with weapons.
I had some lessons, once upon a time, at Dirk’s insistence, but I wasn’t going to discuss that with any of them. Andreas, however, had surprised me when he indicated that he’d also received lessons, and he’d given me a faint, almost sad smile as he explained, “We had the time, and he always planned for what happened if we were separated. He made Oz learn, too.”