Page 6 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)

CHARLOTTE

I ris shrieked and flung the smoking briefcase away. It landed on the floor and skidded in my direction. Smoke continued to spew out of the booby-trapped case, but the green clouds were harmless, so I bent down and slammed the lid shut. Then I scooped up the briefcase and swung it at Iris’s gun.

Smack!

The briefcase banged into the gun, knocking it out of her hand. It too clattered to the floor. Iris lunged toward the weapon, but I drew the briefcase back, then swung it forward again, this time aiming for her right arm.

Crack!

Iris’s arm broke with a loud, sickening sound. She shrieked again and staggered back, her arm now hanging limply by her side. Not only was the briefcase booby-trapped, but it was also lined with lead, which made it an excellent battering ram. A handy little toy from the Section 47 armory.

Iris lunged to her left, trying to spin past me, but I swept my leg out, tripping her, and she tumbled down onto her knees. The other agent cursed, then lunged forward. Her left hand closed around the gun, and she spun around on her knees and raised the weapon.

I wrapped both hands around the briefcase, stepped up, and slammed it into her face. Iris’s head snapped back, and she crumpled to the floor without another sound. I loomed over her, breathing hard and still clutching the case.

“Update,” a male voice demanded, startling me. “Everyone, check in.”

I whirled around, thinking someone had entered this level, but the corridor was empty.

“Status update.” The male voice sounded again, more demanding and annoyed than before.

During our fight, Iris’s phone had slid out of her pocket and landed on the floor. I picked it up. The screen was unlocked and open to a comms channel with a single name at the top of the screen: Bryce .

Who was that? One of the male thieves I’d spotted in the lobby? Or someone else?

“Status update,” the male voice—Bryce—asked for a third time.

I remained silent, and no other voices joined the conversation. Several clickety-clack-clacks sounded, along with a steady hissing sound. What were those noises?

A few more seconds passed, then Bryce muttered a curse. “If you can hear this, I’m almost done with the primary objective. Get to the rendezvous point or get left behind.”

He cut the connection, and the phone went silent.

Iris had said stealing the Grunglass Necklace was a secondary objective, something Bryce had confirmed by referring to whatever he was doing as the primary objective. My stomach clenched with worry. The thieves had something else in mind than just swiping the necklace.

I needed to find the mysterious Bryce, but how? He could be anywhere in the building, as could the other thieves—and Desmond too.

A knot of dread lodged in my throat, but I swallowed it.

Desmond Percy was one of the best cleaners in Section 47, and he could eliminate any threat that crossed his path.

I believed in Desmond’s skills as much as I believed in my own, and right now I needed to stop worrying about him and figure out where Bryce was.

I stared at the phone, and I thought of the background noises that had echoed out of the device while Bryce had been demanding updates. Those clickety-clack-clacks had sounded like . . . typing on a keyboard, while the hisses reminded me of . . . the espresso machines in the café.

Bryce was in the lobby, and so was his primary objective, whatever it was.

I crouched down beside Iris, who was still unconscious.

I rifled through her pockets, but the only thing she was carrying was a white keycard.

I grabbed it, along with her gun, then picked up the briefcase.

I swiped the keycard across the elevator reader, opening the door.

Then I shoved the keycard into my pocket, stepped inside, and punched the lobby button.

The elevator door closed, and I once again found myself staring at my reflection in the mirrored surface. My shoulder-length auburn hair was a tangled mess, my blue suit was wrinkled, and my hands were stained a sickly pea-green from the smoke bomb that had been hidden inside the briefcase.

I grimaced. As a spy, I was used to things going wrong, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was going exactly the way Henrika Hyde wanted—and that I was already too late to stop her master plan.

T he elevator floated down to the ground level. I was still clutching Iris’s gun in my right hand, and I dropped the weapon to my side, hiding it from sight as best I could, even as I tightened my grip on the briefcase in my left hand.

The door slid back, and I cautiously stuck my head outside. The corridor was empty, so I stepped out of the elevator and headed toward the lobby.

“Desmond?” I said in a low voice. “Desmond, do you copy?”

More static crackled through my earbud. Our comms were still being jammed, which meant I couldn’t warn Desmond about what was going on. I growled with frustration and walked on.

I stopped at the end of the corridor and peered out into the lobby. It was after ten o’clock, so the rush of people going to work and appointments had vanished, and the area was largely empty, except for some folks working on laptops at the café.

I walked slowly, approaching first one person and then another and sneaking glances at their screens. I concentrated on the men, but I studied all the women as well, since I had no idea who might be working for Bryce.

No one gave me a second glance, and everyone remained focused on their screens, which featured everything from work documents to spreadsheets to word games. I even spotted some super-cute photos of a cat named Kitty Boodle.

The longer I looked at the laptops, the more my synesthesia surged, and the more colors bloomed like flowers on the screens.

Grays mostly, indicating typos and other small mistakes, although a few pinks flickered on some of the spreadsheets, indicating more serious mathematical errors.

One college-age guy’s screen was a veritable sea of red, which indicated knowing, outright, deliberate fraud. Someone was plagiarizing a paper.

I finished my winding route and stopped at the café exit. Frustration bubbled in my chest. Bryce was here somewhere , and the steady hiss from the espresso machines sounded like a chiding chorus, chastising me for not spotting him yet.

I examined everyone again, from the folks in the café to a woman reading a comic book in the middle of the lobby to the people walking past the glass wall that fronted the building. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but I had the nagging feeling I was missing something . . .

Or, rather, not missing something.

My gaze zoomed over to the reception desk.

Instead of it being empty, since Iris Berriston was unconscious on the fifth floor, a man was sitting in her chair, typing on her laptop.

He looked to be in his mid-thirties, the same age as Desmond and me, and was quite handsome, with thick, wavy dark brown hair, tan skin, and a strong, square jaw.

A scar slashed a jagged white line through his bushy left eyebrow and zigzagged down into his cheek.

My gaze snagged on his suit. The man’s jacket, tie, and shirt were all the exact same charcoal-gray. Nothing terribly unusual—except for the fact that dark, monochromatic suits were practically the uniform of Section cleaners.

You could always tell the assassins by their suits.

The man must have sensed my stare because he looked up. His gaze locked with mine, and his dark brown eyes narrowed. He clearly recognized me, which meant he was the mysterious Bryce. Everything about him, from his tall posture to his calm demeanor to his snazzy suit, screamed alpha leader.

In the distance, footsteps pounded out a fast, furious rhythm, drawing my attention.

Desmond sprinted out of the corridor on the right side of the lobby and skidded to a stop.

His gaze flicked to me, and I jerked my head to the side.

Desmond spun in that direction and spotted Bryce behind the reception desk.

The two men stared at each other for a long, tense moment. Bryce’s eyes narrowed a bit more, while anger sparked in Desmond’s gaze. They definitely knew each other, and no love was lost on either side.

“Bryce!” Desmond yelled. “Stop right there!”

Bryce stabbed a final key on the laptop, then plucked a silver flash drive out of the device. He tucked the flash drive into his jacket pocket, then stood up. His gaze zipped over to me before zooming back to Desmond. Another long, tense moment passed.

Then both men started moving at once.

Desmond charged at Bryce, who grabbed a clear glass vase filled with white orchids off the corner of the reception desk. Bryce threw the vase at Desmond, who stopped and crossed his arms in front of his chest, forming a crude shield.

Smack!

The vase bounced off Desmond’s arms and dropped to the floor. The vase shattered, spewing glass, water, and flowers everywhere. The blow knocked Desmond back. One of his boots slipped on the floor, and he lurched to the side, landing awkwardly on his right knee.

Bryce smirked at Desmond, then braced a hand on the reception desk and vaulted over the top. He landed on his feet as nimbly as a cat, then cut diagonally across the lobby, running toward the garden. He was fast —supernaturally fast—indicating he was an enduro.

I snapped up the gun still in my right hand, but Bryce stepped behind a tree before I could shoot. I lowered the gun and sprinted in that direction.

“Charlotte! Charlotte, wait!” Desmond’s voice rang out. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!”

I had a pretty good idea, but Bryce being an enduro and a possible assassin wasn’t going to stop me from trying to stop him.

I sucked in a breath and picked up my pace.

Over the past few months, Desmond and I had been training together, sharpening our skills and pushing our bodies—and our respective magics—to their limits.

I despised running, but all the cardio Desmond and I had done together was paying off now.

I sprinted across the lobby with ease and plunged into the garden.

I stepped onto a red-brick path that wound past several trees, along with evergreen hedges and flower beds filled with bright blossoms. I forced myself to stop and peer through the thick screens of leaves.

The revolving doors at the front of the lobby were still, which meant Bryce hadn’t left the building and was in the garden . . . somewhere.

I looked and listened, but I didn’t spot Bryce, and the only sound was my raspy breathing, along with the gurgling stream flowing under the wooden bridge. I raised the gun in my right hand and crept forward. The briefcase was still dangling from my left hand.

I followed the winding path past one clump of greenery after another, but I didn’t spy Bryce anywhere.

Crack!

A branch snapped off to my left, and I spun in that direction.

Bryce stepped out from behind a tree. He raised his hand and waggled a long, skinny silver object.

I tensed, thinking it was a gun, but Bryce smirked and lifted it a little higher.

My eyes widened in horror, even as my synesthesia outlined the device in a bright, bloody red.

Not a gun—a grenade.

Bryce pulled out the pin on the side and tossed the grenade toward me.

It hit the brick path with a loud tink and skittered in my direction.

I dropped the gun in my hand and snapped up the briefcase, holding it out in front of me with both hands like a shield, even as I backpedaled, trying to get out of the blast radius—

BANG!

The grenade exploded, the sound as loud as a shotgun blaring in my ears, but instead of a scorching fireball, acrid gray smoke spewed out.

The smoke blasted over me, stinging my eyes and making me cough.

I stumbled around. My synesthesia painted the thick, billowing clouds a brilliant red, and I couldn’t figure out how to escape from the smoke and the haze of scarlet flooding my vision . . .

“Charlotte! It’s okay! I’ve got you!” Desmond’s voice rang out, and a hand clamped around my right wrist.

I followed his lead, letting him pull me out of the stinging, choking clouds and back into the open lobby. Above our heads, lights flashed, and a loud, distinctive clanging rang out. Someone had pulled a fire alarm.

I sucked in one breath after another, trying to clear the acrid smoke out of my lungs. Desmond’s concerned face swam into view, and he gently wiped away the tears streaming down my cheeks.

“Charlotte! Are you okay?” he asked, worry rippling through his voice and making his Australian accent more pronounced.

“Fine . . .” I wheezed. “Just . . . inhaled . . . some . . . smoke.”

Some of Desmond’s concern melted away, replaced by an angry glower. “Let’s get him.”

I wiped away a few more tears. Together, we plunged back into the garden. I grabbed the gun from where I had dropped it, then Desmond and I spread out, keeping each other in sight through the curling clouds of smoke while we searched for Bryce.

A few seconds later, Desmond muttered a vicious curse.

I hurried over to his position. A manhole cover was lying on the ground next to a round black hole at one end of the wooden bridge.

The rusty metal cover was at least three inches thick, and only someone with paramortal strength could have removed it without help.

“Bryce must have gone down into the sewer system.” Desmond pulled a phone out of his pocket, turned on the flashlight, and angled it into the hole, revealing a metal ladder.

He started to go down into the hole, but I grabbed his arm, stopping him. “No, Bryce might have booby-trapped the passageway. We can’t follow him. It’s too risky.”

Frustration filled Desmond’s face, but he nodded. Together, we stood there staring down into the hole.

Bryce was gone, along with whatever he’d stolen.