Page 31 of One Last Stand
They didn’t have time for the whole explanation, but London had to give themsomething.
Moose stood at the end of the counter, Flynn and Axel also still standing, and she glanced at her watch. Darkness outside said that she had maybe an hour before Tomas expected her.
She’d already given Axel and Flynn the short version—A man from my past has kidnapped Shep, and I need to get him back.Then she’d checked her phone and forwarded Ziggy’s pin to Axel, who was looking at the map when Moose came down the stairs.
She looked at Moose, repeated herself, and ended with, “I never intended for Shep to get hurt.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Moose said.
Of course she didn’t.
She didn’t know why his words reached in like a steadying hand. Still. “But I feared it. Which is why I stuck around.” She sank down on the stool. “I don’t think Tomas will actually kill him—he wasn’t that guy when I knew him.”
“Your former fiancé? The one who is supposed to be dead?” Moose said. He was unrolling a topo map onto the island. “Axel, you got a location for that pin?”
Axel looked at the map, then his phone.
“Yes,” London said to Moose’s question. “But actually, he wasn’t really my fiancé—that was our cover story. He really started out as a mark—and that part is a longer story, but let’s just say that before I got my gig at Air One, I had a much different job.”
Silence.
“More of an international gig?—”
“Cut the lies, London. Just say it. You were a spy.” Axel narrowed his eyes.
Ah,Dark and Angry Axel from the basement was back.
She turned to him. “Not a spy. A highly trained agent in a group called the Black Swans.”
“The Black what?” said Flynn, who was texting on her phone.
“Swans. It’s a covert organization of women for hire in certain sensitive operations. Like infiltrating terrorist organizations to dismantle them from the inside out. In this case, the Russian mob. And please don’t call the police, Flynn.”
More silence. Flynn put down her phone. Then, “You speak Russian?”
“Da.And French and Italian. A little Mandarin. I can understand more, even if I can’t speak them. My mom was a diplomat—I lived in eight different countries growing up. And I attended a European boarding school in my later years, so I was exposed to many different languages. My accent is a crazy mix of American, from my parents, and the influences around me.”
“Where’d you learn to fly planes and helicopters?” Moose had tacked down the map with salt and pepper shakers, a coffee mug, and a butter dish.
“Got my pilot’s license when I was seventeen one summer in America. Added the chopper cert during my sophomore year in college. Listen, I’ll give you the entire story after I meet with Tomas.”
“What does he want from you?” This from Flynn, who turned her phone over when it buzzed. London eyed her.
“It’s just Dawson. I only asked where he was.”
Dawson, Moose’s cousin and Flynn’s partner. Maybe wouldn’t hurt to have backup. But not the AK police.
Too many questions, starting with, well, her non-death.
“Tomas and I stole money from the Russian Bratva—the mob. I hid the money in a crypto wallet to protect it from any terror organizations or even the CIA—just to be sure. Then I went to meet my handler—and discovered that he’d been killed by a rogue agent named Alan Martin. We tried to get away, got separated, and then the avalanche happened?—”
“The one that you and Shep were in,” Axel said as he looked up from where he studied the map.
“Yes. And that’s another story, but I thought Tomas had died, so I ran. I didn’t know who to trust. So I went to Nigeria and hid. And that’s where I met Colt Kingston.”
“Colt?” Axel said. “You know Colt Kingston?”
“Yes. Sort of. He was on base with a security team from Jones, Inc., doing personal security for a doctor. I worked for a missionary outfit, flying.”