The Paris Betrayal by James Hannibal (beach read .TXT) 📕

How had their relationship gone so wrong? Ben wanted to say so much. He wanted to declare his loyalty to his country, his agency, to her. She needed help, not a bullet. But he could only manage one word. “No.”

“Too bad. If you won’t see reason, then I suppose you should go ahead and die.”

She hit him again with the crackling prongs.

57

Ben’s eyes popped open, and he gasped for breath. He tried to sit up. Failed. Tried again. Barely made it. An object fell from his chest to the floor with a thump, but he didn’t have the energy to look. Heat seared his stomach. A soreness like he’d never felt wracked his body.

Giselle.

Traitor.

He’d been tased before. All the Company’s agents went through the experience at least twice in the schoolhouse—more if they made a fuss. But this hurt more, or maybe not all the hurt came from the physical wound.

A fog clouded Ben’s vision and took longer to clear than expected. The bright light of a rising sun pouring into the room didn’t help. How long had he been out? He rolled to his knees and crawled to a gray mass he thought was the desk, waited for the vertigo to stop, and pulled himself to his feet. A greasy wetness clung to his fingers. Ben squinted at his hand. Black? No. Dark red. Blood.

Blurry shapes took form. The desk. The broken DNA sculpture. Kidan’s body. Ben grimaced and wiped his fingers on the scientist’s lab coat. “Sorry,” he said to the dead man. “That’s twice. I know.” The fresh stains looked so much brighter than the dried blood where he’d wiped off the laptop.

The laptop.

He looked around. Gone. What else had she taken? He checked his waistband and his front pockets. Giselle had made off with the evidence, but also his Glock, his wallet, and Kidan’s keys. She’d taken the Jag, where Ben had left his go-bag with his protein bars and cash. He punched the balcony doorframe. “Oh, we are so broken up.”

What about the voices he’d heard?

Outside, the rising sun glistened off the pristine infinity pool beneath an empty, picture-perfect balcony, so different from the mess inside. Ben drew closer and shielded his eyes against the sunlight. As best he could tell, the neighbor’s balcony was empty too. Giselle or Jupiter must have called off any cops or security.

The more time passed, the more clarity Ben gained, until he noticed something off with the desk. Giselle, despite her earlier protest about the laptop, had dipped a finger in Kidan’s blood and scrawled on the desk.

While pulling himself from the floor, Ben had smeared the first letter, but he could still make out a C. “Call me,” he said, reading the bloody message, then shook his head. “That’s messed up.” Why and how would she think he’d even try?

Then it dawned on him—the thing that had fallen from his chest when he sat up.

A compact satellite phone lay on Kidan’s floor—black against the white shag carpet.

The pain in Ben’s abdomen returned when he bent to pick it up, bringing with it a soreness in his limbs and a slight vertigo. Giselle’s confiscated cattle prod had done a number on him. Holding the phone in his palm, he flipped up a short, thick antenna and pressed the power button to bring it out of sleep mode. The screen came to life with a waiting message in glowing blue letters.

My love,

You must be angry with me.I must apologize for the little prick,but one day you will thank me.

Ben touched his abs and winced. “Little prick? Is that what you call it.” He scrolled on.

Jupiter is a patient man.He is still willing to meet.Go to him. He is your cure.

Ben closed the message and found a single speed-dial number saved on the home page. Instead of her name, Giselle had assigned the contact to Mamour, the French shorthand for My love. He shifted his gaze to the bloody Call me scrawled on the desk and snorted. “Yeah, right.”

Ben had to regroup. He could deal with Giselle’s insanity later—or never. Right now, the priority was stopping Leviathan’s attack. He drew in a breath. “The Behemoth. Three hours.”

Three hours had passed long ago.

The rising sun no longer blocked out the Mediterranean beyond the beach. Ben opened the balcony door and scanned the many piers at Valencia’s port. The Behemoth had left.

“Okay,” Ben said, holding his aching gut and trying to reassure himself. “Not good, but not the end of the world.” A cargo ship like the Behemoth took days to cross the Atlantic, and with the marine tracking apps available online, any civilian could find it. The US Navy should have no problem hunting it down.

He nodded. He’d find an internet café and send a message home, a worthy risk. If only Giselle had left him some proof.

The thought brought his time in the dock office to mind. The sealed envelope. The thumb drive.

Ben’s hand went to his back pocket, and he smiled. He’d never told Giselle about the drive, and when she cleaned him out, she’d missed it.

As he drew the thumb drive out, wondering what might be on it, he saw a spot of dried blood on his forearm. Splatter from picking up the laptop? He scratched it off, and found a needle mark underneath. The blood was his, not Kidan’s.

I must apologize for the little prick . . . Go to him. He is your cure.

“No . . . She wouldn’t.”

All that pain in his stomach—he’d assumed it came from shock burns. Ben pulled up his shirt to get a look at his abdomen. The two burns were there, raised marks left by the prongs. But not far away, closer to his navel, he saw a gray blotch with three lines spidering outward.

Giselle had injected him with the plague.

58

Ben walked the beach behind Kidan’s place, shoes tied together and slung over his shoulder, sat phone held loose, ready to fall from his fingers.

The gentle wash