Page 69 of Murder Island

“I don’t get this,” said Kira, back on her feet. “I thought you were Cal Savage’s right hand.”

“Don’t call me that,” said Lial, eyes flashing. “I work the game, same as you.” She took a step closer. “We went to the same school.”

Kira took in a sharp breath. “Kamchatka? You were there? When? I didn’t…”

“We never met,” said Lial. “Different cohorts. I was only twelve when you left. Everything went crazy after that. Guards were executed. Teachers were tortured. They wanted to figure out how you got out, who helped you.”

For a second, Kira flashed back to that night. The pounding terror of leaving the only home she had everknown. The searing pain of the acid melting the bars on the dormitory window. The long drop to the ground. Then… the harrowing months and lonely years that followed.

“Nobody helped me,” said Kira. “I had only myself.” Her heart was thudding, and not just from the fight. She felt a sudden need to fill in the picture on Lial, this mystery woman with an Algerian name and an unplaceable face. “Do you know where…?”

“Where I was born?” Lial had anticipated the question. “No idea.”

Not a surprise. That’s how the school operated. Students were recruited as infants, kidnapped without a trace. All were children of unusual promise, lost to their families forever, then trained and launched into the world as political operatives, rogue scientists, and assassins. Now Kira understood where Lial got her skills. They’d had the same instructors.

“Where did they send you?” asked Kira. “Where have you been?”

“Poland first. Then Cambodia. Haiti. Afghanistan…”

“Cal sent you to find me?”

Lial shook her head. “I was on another mission, but I had your location. Cal has no idea where I am. With any luck, he thinks I’m dead. I’m done with being his bait and his executioner. I don’t want any part of his grand scheme. I came for you because I want to be free, like you. You’re the only example I have.”

Kira wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. “You think I’m some role model? You think I’m free?” She almost laughed. “I tried. I really did. I tried to leave the dark stuff behind. But it kept finding me. It’s taken everything and everyone I ever loved. Now look at me. Look at where I am. Until they caught me, I was picking off pigheaded mercenaries for a living. Maybe killing is what we were meant to do, you and me. Maybe there’s nothing else for us.”

Suddenly, a loud Klaxon sounded from the compound.

“Shit!” Lial ducked down into the foliage.

In the next instant, Kira saw flashlight beams converging at the edge of the bulldozed no-man’s-land. More lights than she’d ever seen before.

Kira could feel Lial staring at her, as if she was trying to bore inside her head. It was an intensity she hadn’t felt in a long time. “You know the jungle?” Lial asked. “All these trails?”

Kira nodded. This was her territory. She knew every inch of it.

Lial cocked her pistol, then handed Kira her knife. Kira wrapped her hand tight around the grip.

A nod sealed the alliance. They both understood the code. It had been pounded into them since they were little girls.

As of this moment, they were going to survive together. Or die that way.

CHAPTER 88

VANDA SAT BOLT upright at the edge of her cot, wakened by the Klaxon and shouts from the compound on the bluff above. She was packed into a small, sweltering tent with five other women, shoulder to shoulder. She was the youngest. The others were sleeping and snoring through the commotion, exhausted from the long day’s work.

Vanda slipped off her cot and stepped out through the front of the tent. The cooking fires were still smoking. Through the haze, she could see the beams from the search party’s flashlights above. More shouts. Pounding boots. Rattling weapons.

“Two columns!” “Move out!” “Find her, damnit!”

Her?

It had to be Kira! She was the only female up there—theonly worker dangerous enough to be locked in chains every night.

Vanda felt a piercing fear. She knew instantly what all the lights and the shouting meant. Somehow, some way, her only friend had escaped. And if they caught her again, they’d kill her for sure.

CHAPTER 89

KIRA LED LIAL down the left-hand path, the one with the crazy turns. It wasn’t easy to navigate in the dark. Surface roots and drooping vines appeared out of nowhere, knocking them off balance as they ran. When Kira looked back, she saw light beams slicing through the jungle behind them. It looked like every man in the unit was out on the search.