were that old Rick wouldn’t remember him, the poor slob.
But there was no sense in pushing his luck.
“Come on,” he said, moving Scout forward, his hand still around her arm. They needed to get out of the alley and away from Steele Street as quickly as possible. Even with all those cars leaving, there were still people in the building who would want Scout back and his head on a pike. The unexpected, unprecedented addition of Lancaster and his goons to the party made it even more imperative that he and Scout exfiltrate
inmediatamente
.
Geezus
. Lancaster out in the open. Jack could see his and Con’s original plan of getting on a plane to Paraguay going up in smoke. This was a rare and golden opportunity for some major mayhem, for final justice. Con’s personal hit list of some of the worst scum on the planet had been whittled down over the last few years. Tony Royce, an ex-CIA spook Con remembered showing up at Dr. Souk’s Bangkok lab and spending way too much time staring at him and Garrett Leesom like they were rats in a cage, was dead. Erich Warner, the obscenely wealthy, psycho German underworld drug dealer who’d bankrolled Dr. Souk’s experiments, and his bitch-girl bodyguard, Shoko, were dead. The demented Dr. Souk was deader than a doornail, his brains blown out by someone in Washington, D.C., which left Randolph Lancaster as the last loose end. The whole twisted, evil enterprise named LeedTech would disintegrate without Lancaster at its head.
And then maybe Con could rest. He needed it, especially if Scout’s intel turned out to be true. Everything would change then. Jack knew Scout had been on the boss’s case to slow down, to back off the mission a bit, maybe even take on an extra operator. But she was wrong. An extra operator wasn’t going to turn this trick,and Con wasn’t about to slow down or back off while Randolph Lancaster was doing his dirty deeds. No matter what he needed, the boss knew what he had to do: Step up and move fast before everything unraveled.
Because, baby, things
were
unraveling, and nothing faster than Con.
Geezus
. Jack saw it, had been seeing it for a while, and maybe that was another reason he’d been on the run.
Maybe he didn’t want to be there when the end came.
Maybe he didn’t want to watch it happen and know there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it—no grand heroics, no last-minute coming to the rescue.
No way to watch Scout’s heart break.
So he’d been steering clear, keeping busy, and staying as far away as he could get—until these Steele Street boys had taken her.
Hell
. He was back in now, deeper than he’d ever been, because there was no walking away after seeing Lancaster on the street. Even with Dr. Souk dead, the bastard was still running his LeedTech enterprise, using a knockoff lab in Bangkok and, from what Jack and Con had been hearing these last few months, coming up with some pretty weird stuff, altered warriors who made Karola’s life look like a cakewalk.
He needed to be stopped.
The minute he and Scout were out of the cage, she moved away from him, which was to be expected, but it still demoralized him, like he needed more of that. He turned away from Karola, keeping a steady walking pace—until a man stepped into the other end of the alley.
He and Scout both ambled to a stop, and he reached down and took a pack of cigarettes out of a cargo pocket on his pants. After knocking one a little ways out of the pack, he offered it to her and produced a lighter out of his other pocket.
“Sam Walls,” she said, wiping the tears off her face before taking the cigarette and bending over his hand for a light.
She was right.
Sam Walls, lowest of the low, another lab reject Lancaster had taken into his personal stable of wetwork wonders. This guy had been around for a long time. Despite his muscular build, the man had a squirrelly look about him, his dark hair a little long, a little greasy, his nose too thin, his jaw too weak.
But there was no sense in pushing his luck.
“Come on,” he said, moving Scout forward, his hand still around her arm. They needed to get out of the alley and away from Steele Street as quickly as possible. Even with all those cars leaving, there were still people in the building who would want Scout back and his head on a pike. The unexpected, unprecedented addition of Lancaster and his goons to the party made it even more imperative that he and Scout exfiltrate
inmediatamente
.
Geezus
. Lancaster out in the open. Jack could see his and Con’s original plan of getting on a plane to Paraguay going up in smoke. This was a rare and golden opportunity for some major mayhem, for final justice. Con’s personal hit list of some of the worst scum on the planet had been whittled down over the last few years. Tony Royce, an ex-CIA spook Con remembered showing up at Dr. Souk’s Bangkok lab and spending way too much time staring at him and Garrett Leesom like they were rats in a cage, was dead. Erich Warner, the obscenely wealthy, psycho German underworld drug dealer who’d bankrolled Dr. Souk’s experiments, and his bitch-girl bodyguard, Shoko, were dead. The demented Dr. Souk was deader than a doornail, his brains blown out by someone in Washington, D.C., which left Randolph Lancaster as the last loose end. The whole twisted, evil enterprise named LeedTech would disintegrate without Lancaster at its head.
And then maybe Con could rest. He needed it, especially if Scout’s intel turned out to be true. Everything would change then. Jack knew Scout had been on the boss’s case to slow down, to back off the mission a bit, maybe even take on an extra operator. But she was wrong. An extra operator wasn’t going to turn this trick,and Con wasn’t about to slow down or back off while Randolph Lancaster was doing his dirty deeds. No matter what he needed, the boss knew what he had to do: Step up and move fast before everything unraveled.
Because, baby, things
were
unraveling, and nothing faster than Con.
Geezus
. Jack saw it, had been seeing it for a while, and maybe that was another reason he’d been on the run.
Maybe he didn’t want to be there when the end came.
Maybe he didn’t want to watch it happen and know there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it—no grand heroics, no last-minute coming to the rescue.
No way to watch Scout’s heart break.
So he’d been steering clear, keeping busy, and staying as far away as he could get—until these Steele Street boys had taken her.
Hell
. He was back in now, deeper than he’d ever been, because there was no walking away after seeing Lancaster on the street. Even with Dr. Souk dead, the bastard was still running his LeedTech enterprise, using a knockoff lab in Bangkok and, from what Jack and Con had been hearing these last few months, coming up with some pretty weird stuff, altered warriors who made Karola’s life look like a cakewalk.
He needed to be stopped.
The minute he and Scout were out of the cage, she moved away from him, which was to be expected, but it still demoralized him, like he needed more of that. He turned away from Karola, keeping a steady walking pace—until a man stepped into the other end of the alley.
He and Scout both ambled to a stop, and he reached down and took a pack of cigarettes out of a cargo pocket on his pants. After knocking one a little ways out of the pack, he offered it to her and produced a lighter out of his other pocket.
“Sam Walls,” she said, wiping the tears off her face before taking the cigarette and bending over his hand for a light.
She was right.
Sam Walls, lowest of the low, another lab reject Lancaster had taken into his personal stable of wetwork wonders. This guy had been around for a long time. Despite his muscular build, the man had a squirrelly look about him, his dark hair a little long, a little greasy, his nose too thin, his jaw too weak.
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