Kilbourne pointed to a sofa on her way out of the room.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
Someone crashing through the door of the apartment woke him up from where he slept on the sofa. He reached for the weapon he already guessed wasn’t there, right before someone hit him over the head—again.
Teetering in and out of consciousness as they dragged him through the battered door, he heard someone speaking in Arabic say there wasn’t anyone else in the apartment.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself as blackness engulfed him again. Had pretty little Special Agent Kilbourne betrayed him?
Chapter 26
Mantis and Alegria
Striker was in what appeared to be an intense conversation with Onyx when Mantis arrived at the airfield. He hung back until Striker motioned him over.
“How’s Alegria?” he asked.
“Doing better. She’s getting feeling back in her legs.”
“She didn’t have feeling in her legs?” Onyx asked.
“She did, but she was experiencing some neuropathy,” he said when both men looked as though they expected him to elaborate.
“Wasn’t there another accident?” Striker asked.
“Yeah. Snowstorm,” Mantis said as though that was the end of the explanation. “Is this our transport?” He pointed to one of K19’s larger planes.
“Can you fly?” Onyx asked when Mantis followed him on board.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“I’ll take the first leg,” he offered. “We’ll go from here to JFK, and then on to Kabul.”
“Kabul? I thought Dutch was in Germany?”
“About that,” said Striker, sitting down in the jump seat. “We got a report that he was seen with one of the agency’s operatives. When they couldn’t reach her, they sent someone in. Found her place ransacked, no sign of her or Dutch.”
“Who?”
“Malin Kilbourne. You know her?”
Mantis nodded.
“Don’t make me ask,” warned Striker.
“She and Dutch were…uh…connected for a while.”
“What happened?”
“I disappeared.”
“Yeah? What’s that got to do with it?”
Was Striker serious right now? “Alegria, asshole.”
“Got it. Sorry.”
Mantis watched as Striker thought through the missing agent’s connection to Dutch. He could almost predict his next question.