Lexi Blake - Dungeon Royale

“What coverage do you have?” Penelope asked, not wanting to debate the long history of abuse of power that had plagued Germans from World War II until the Berlin Wall had come down.

“Well, it’s shit. It’s mostly from private shop owners but I can get some coverage. Satan, I have you in my sights. I can see Jesse. I’ve lost Damon and the big guy. No. I have them. And they’re gone.” Chelsea groaned her frustration.

Simon put the headphones on, chuckling lightly. “Thank you so much for leaving me here, Tag. I’ll pay you back somehow. No. We’re not going to be able to see the meet. There’s no camera there. We can’t see anything but the area around the memorial.”

Chelsea stiffened suddenly. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” Penny asked.

Chelsea shook her head. “Probably nothing.”

Simon frowned her way, pulling his headphones off. “What is it, Chelsea?”

She bit her bottom lip, her hands flying across the keys of her laptop. “I couldn’t monitor all the sites I would normally monitor while I was on the boat. I was stuck with their crappy Internet and downloading the proper browser onto their systems would have outed me.”

“They don’t use Google?” Penny asked.

Chelsea snorted slightly. “Google is a search engine, hon. I’m talking about a browser and not the kind a normal person uses.”

“I thought you gave up brokering information.” Simon stood up, looking perfectly ready to discipline her.

Charlotte held a hand up. “Whoa, boy. Ian asked her to monitor some of the old sites. He wants to have an ear to the ground.”

“But it’s not the ground she’s monitoring,” Simon argued. “She’s on the Deep Web. He’s got her out there with terrorists and traffickers.”

“And intelligence agencies,” Chelsea pointed out. “I can handle myself, Weston. But unfortunately Walter Bennett can’t. Mother flying fucker. Someone’s been talking.” She closed her eyes briefly before touching the button that connected her to the team. “Damon, you might have a problem. I can’t promise anything, but the Agency and MI6 aren’t the only interested parties anymore. And there have been hits on your information and Tag’s. Sixteen in the last twenty-four hours. And I’m finding chatter about the boat and Berlin.”

Penny’s stomach dropped. If the word was out, there would likely be several governments and organizations who would love to have the information Walter Bennett was offering.

There was a knock on the door. Candice seemed lost in her computer. Charlotte was staring at the monitors. It looked like she got to play hostess. Simon and Chelsea were talking about all the ramifications of trying to get Bennett out of the country if other agencies were after him as well.

She clenched her fists. It was hard to be the only one without a task. Well, she was British and they damn well knew how to handle a crisis. Tea. There was nothing she could do except make sure everyone remained calm, and tea would help.

Penny stepped out of the main room of the suite and answered the door. She ushered in the room service men.

They pushed a cart along. A cart they needed to push into the suite, and then there might be questions about why they had an army of computers set up. No one had thought of that. Yes, thank you, Super Spies. She gave the two men her best smile.

“I’ll handle it. Sorry, I’m afraid my husband isn’t completely dressed, if you know what I mean.” Better to let them think she was having an orgy than spying. She initialed the bill and left them a decent tip, hoping they wouldn’t walk away talking about the crazy Brits and their sex party. The last thing she needed now was a curious staff.

“Of course, Miss Cash,” the larger of the two men said in heavily accented German as he turned and left. She locked the door behind them.

She pushed the cart through the marbled foyer and into the main room. Everything smelled delightful but she doubted she could eat a thing.

Candice looked up, closing the top of her computer. “I’ll help you.”

“Who do we think is interested?” Simon was asking. He had his headset on so she couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. She imagined Damon was using a lot of curse words.

“Definitely the Germans. God, I can’t even pronounce that,” Chelsea complained.

“Bundesnachrichtendienst,” Penny said, looking at the screen. Chelsea had pulled up what looked like a series of messages written in German.

Chelsea sighed. “Oh, I forgot. Penny, please come work with us. It would take me forever to run that through damn translation software, and half the time it comes out as gobbledygook. I’ll print it out so you can see it more easily.”

Thank god, something she could do. “All right.” She could already hear the small printer starting to spit out paper. “I speak most of the Northern European languages. I’m starting to learn Mandarin and Pashtun. I’m not excellent at either but I can likely pull enough information out.”

Candice set a cup of tea in front of Simon, who immediately took a long sip. She passed out the rest, pouring it with the expert hand of a woman who had served more than a few times.

Charlotte shook her head. “I’d rather have the coffee. I know. I’m a horrible American. I’ll get it.”

Candice shook her head. “I don’t mind. I can’t do much else. Cream and sugar?”

Penny pulled the printout into her hands and immediately started working. She walked out toward the balcony. The rest of the group was talking and she needed some silence.

Warm sun stroked her skin as she looked down at the words, her mind making sense of the puzzle.

What Chelsea had found was the discussion between two operatives about something they had heard from informants. One of Walter’s colleagues had been talking. A woman. She sighed. Walter had kept in contact with a German woman from his lab, and she’d reached out to the authorities with what he’d told her.

Damn it. She also knew he would be in Berlin today. She was going to have to call Nigel and likely get more than just SIS involved. This could become an international incident.

She looked out over the Platz, wishing she could catch sight of Damon. He was in such danger. He was an intelligence operative working on foreign soil. If the Germans caught him, he would at least be in for a long, possibly uncomfortable interview. If Nigel wasn’t willing to negotiate for him, Damon might disappear. It wouldn’t matter that England and Germany weren’t enemies. No one would want to admit they had the information on the bioweapon.

How had the waiter known her name?

The question flipped through her brain, stopping all other thought. The suite was under an assumed name. Damon had paid for it with a safe card, one set up with SIS. Her name hadn’t been involved in any way.

Yet he’d thanked her as Miss Cash.

Bugger, the Germans were already here.

She pushed through the door and then her stomach threatened to roll.

Simon was slumped over the desk, his tea dripping onto the carpet below. Chelsea’s head was thrown back. Charlotte had slipped to the floor.

Not a one of them was conscious. Please don’t let them be dead.

“You really should have some tea,” Candice said. She stood in the middle of the room, a gun in her hand. Though her voice shook slightly, she held the gun like she knew what she was doing.

“Did you kill them?” Tears filled her eyes, but she was determined to remain calm. She had to figure a way out of this. She could handle Candice. She had to.

“No. They’re just asleep and you should be, too. I don’t want to do this, but do you understand how hard it is to move up in my world? If you aren’t gorgeous and don’t have great connections, you end up on some bloody town paper reporting nonsense about local gentry. That’s not going to happen to me.”

“Miss Jones is getting a promotion. You see, my employers run several of the world’s largest news agencies,” a familiar voice said.

Terror threatened to take over. She wasn’t dealing with German intelligence. Oh, it was so much worse.

Basil Champion stepped into the room.

“Hello, Damon’s whore. It’s so good to see you again.”

Damon tapped the communications device in his ear. “Chelsea? Are you there?”

“Hey, I hate to pull you away from all your talk, but Walt’s going to be here any minute, and he might run if he hears you talking to your bloody self,” Carter said.

Technology could be so frustrating. He forced himself to focus. Chelsea would get it back on line. She seemed very competent. And he had to hope they weren’t supremely fucked. “We have a slight change of plans.”

He needed to keep the Aussie calm.

Carter couldn’t help but draw some notice. The man was at least six foot seven. Germans weren’t small people, but everyone looked a bit tiny compared to the Aussie. Damon wasn’t used to being forced to look up at anyone. “What’s gone wrong? Damn it. He should be here any minute.”

“We’re going to need to get him to the embassy.” Both the British and the American Embassies were in the plaza behind the Brandenburg Gate. The American was closest and Taggart had informed him that Tennessee Smith was inside, awaiting the outcome. Or more than likely waiting to see if he could get his hands on the package. Apparently he wasn’t the only one.

Damon had to hope their plan went down properly. The addition of the American operative put a kink in everything, but Ian assured him that Ten was in. Tag and Tennessee had spoken during the train ride to Berlin. Jesse and Jake were ready to do what needed to be done. They’d been forced to think on their feet. Not even the women knew what he and Ian had decided to do.

Which was good, because some people might consider what they were about to do treason.

Brody Carter wouldn’t. He’d been the one to come up with the plan in the first place. Too often soldiers only followed orders and not their consciences. This was not going to be one of those times.

“The Germans are looking for Walter. And they very likely aren’t the only ones. Before our system went out, Chelsea said she found some communications between Walter and some German woman.”

Carter cursed, pulling on his ball cap as he shook his head. “Horny bugger. I told him he couldn’t contact anyone. Damn it. She worked in his department.”

“The good news is she didn’t knowingly work for The Collective. The bad news? She decided to inform on him to her government. I can’t imagine this hasn’t gotten out. We have to get Walter to the embassy. We could all find ourselves in a German holding tank talking to their intelligence, and they will get him to hand over the goods.”

What Walter Bennett had in his hands was a weapon of mass destruction. Every government in the world would want it. Every single one of them would kill to get it or keep it out of every other country’s hands.

Carter nodded. “All right. We have to find him first. I don’t know what the fuck this is.”

Damon stared out over the Holocaust Memorial, understanding a bit of Carter’s confusion. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, as its designer had named it, consisted of over 2700 concrete slabs in a grid pattern. From the outside everything looked uniform, as though the slabs were all of the same height. It was very different when Damon walked through to get to the other side. The ground was uneven, sloping in places. One moment he could easily see the tops, and the next he’d been staring up as though he’d gone underground. He’d walked a straight line to the other side but if he’d gone even once off the line, he would have found himself lost.

That massive maze stood between him and the embassy. He wondered what else would be in the way.

Jake Dean walked by, his eyes on a map of the city. “Comm’s down.”

“Yes, I got that.”

“Jesse’s going back to the hotel. Ian doesn’t like it. He can’t get Simon to answer his cell.”

A cold tendril of fear laced through him. “Penelope?”

“Not answering hers either.” Jake put his phone to his ear, looking for all the world like he was talking to someone on the other end. “You handle this. We’re going to figure out the rest. Tag’s on the other side of the…whatever it is. I’ve got to move to the embassy in case we actually get the package. I have to be in place or this could all go to hell.”

“Do you have what you need?” Jake was very important to the plan. He had to be in place.