Page 73 of The Lazarus Protocol

Adam never responded.

Steph wanted to know what had happened in the lab, but she’d agreed to Dan’s plan of him going down and her going up.

Being belowdecks did feel a little like being trapped, and she wanted air.

Steph raced up the set of stairs to the main deck, where night had fallen outside. The clouds in the sky reflected the city lights back, reassuring her with the close proximity of aid if they needed it. But how would they explain their presence here?

“Jay, how do I get to the bridge?” Steph heard something behind her and turned.

A dark figure rushed at her, and the tackle sent her to the deck. Hard. Pain eclipsed everything and the weight of the other person settled on her. Fingers grasped her neck. The papers scattered, and the gun slipped from her grip.

“You got away once,” a woman said. “That won’t happen again.”

Steph brought her hands up between her assailant’s arms and shoved them out, dislodging the hold on her neck. She rolled, pinning the person with her legs.

An elbow swung out and hit her in the side of the head, and then she was flat on her back again. The woman’s face swam in front of her.

Vesper.

Steph heard a crackling sound, then everything flipped like a switch. Lightning ignited her body, and she felt her head loll to the side. Her arms and legs tingled.

Stun gun. A second later she was facedown on the deck. Then she was moving, being dragged. She tried to get control of her limbs, but nothing would cooperate. Whatever kind of stun gun that was, she’d never felt like this before. Her head banged something hard. She cried out, but it was only a gurgle. She reached with her fingers and tried to grasp hold of something, anything that would halt her movements.

Her body rolled up and over and then she was falling through the air.

Steph hit the water with a splash.

TWENTY-FIVE

Adam stared the old man in the face for a long second before the guy turned and hurried out of the room. He knew that face. Had seen it somewhere, but he just couldn’t put together where he’d seen the guy before.

Not when…

Adam stumbled back and sat hard on the white tile. He looked down at his hands, covered in blood. Looked at the knife discarded on the floor where it had fallen after the old man swiped out and cut him.

The door had slid closed. He’d thought the old man was another captive, until the first slash of the knife. Turned out he was the captor. Now he was gone.

This whole space was wider than the boat upstairs. A single-story lab under the surface of the water, with rows of counters across the room, cabinets on the far wall, TVs above them with constellation maps on the screens. Data and lines of code he couldn’t read from this distance. Windows to the right that let him see the dark waters that surrounded this structure.

Adam’s whole body shuddered, and he looked at the horizontal slashes across his torso. Hissed out a breath between clenched teeth. Get up. But he didn’t. Not just yet.

They’d come aboard this boat to look around and find the person controlling those drones. Instead, a man was dead by his own hand and Adam was bleeding all over his shirt.

Adam slid across the floor, leaving a trail of blood where he set his hand down to brace himself, but made it to his earbud. He stuck it back in. “Who copies?”

“Dan. I’m almost to you.”

A second later someone slammed on the sliding door behind him. He twisted around, which hurt, and spied Dan. His buddy tried the door. Hammered on the thick glass with the butt of his pistol, then fired at the locking mechanism. “This thing won’t open!”

Adam said, “What’s going on upstairs? Someone give me a sit rep. I’ll see what I can get from this lab.”

“Your girl tussled with Vesper,” Jay said. “At least, I think it was her. She went overboard into the water. Vesper has a rigid inflatable boat, and her guys are fishing Steph out of the water, but I don’t think she wants to go. I’m rendering aid.”

“As am I,” Ice said, his tone deadly and determined.

Dan hammered on the door. “Adam is hurt.”

He wanted to argue with that assessment, and he would. Just as soon as the shock wore off.