“We don’t have hours,” Maxence said, his chest tight.
Micah leaned over to stare at Arthur, who had stepped behind Casimir. “Arthur? How about you?”
He’d been looking down at his phone. “What-what?”
“No, I’m serious. Why areyou threerescuing somebody? Arthur, don’t you know someone in Britain’s State department or something?”
Arthur chuckled. “Earls and dukes don’truleBritain anymore. The government frowns on private armies. We’re just window dressing these days.”
“Don’t youknowsomeone, though?”
Arthur shook his head, looking for all the world like he was just another clueless rich guy. “No one to speak of.”
Maxence almost choked. Yeah, Arthur couldn’tspeak ofanyone he knew.
It was probably also true that Arthurshouldn’tcall anyone to do something for him, either, so the UK government maintained plausible deniability for his actions.
Casimir said, “So it’s us, and it’s now or never.”
Arthur asked, “When are you going to have the exact location?”
“I’ve already got the address,” Twist said, pointing to a screen showing a satellite image of a white rectangle surrounded by circular bushes or trees. “It’s a warehouse just outside of the town, rented to a Russian financial services company, the Red Flag Financial Group.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “The subtlety of those Russian bratvas knows no bounds.” He turned Maxence away to leave the yacht. “Text me the coordinates.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Twist said, grinning. “How’s about I come along? You guys look like you could use an extra hand or two.”
“Yes,two,”Micah added. “And if you need more hands than that, we’ve got a few friends two yachts over who might be interested in coming along.”
Arthur frowned. “It might get dangerous.”
Twist didn’t stop grinning, and one of his dark eyebrows twitched up. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Chapter Twelve
THE SLOWEST ESCAPE EVER
Dree
Dree Clark was still trussed up like a caterpillar that was trying to turn into a butterfly, and she was still fuming mad.
Writhing her hands to loosen the rope hadn’t worked. Rubbing the rope on the floor had only given her a carpet burn on her arm. She’d tried to wiggle her legs to see if she could get a loop off over her feet, but she’d only succeeded in dropping several coils lower on her legs and binding her ankles more tightly.
She was still lying on the floor of the closet, but she couldn’t see Matryona and Kir Sokolov anymore. They had walked off somewhere else, probably to inspect some of their disgusting illegal drugs.
The hard floor was pressing on her hip and making it begin to hurt, so she wiggled around until she was lying on her back and staring up into the darkness of the closet. Nothing was going on over at the computer anyway.
The top of the closet was dark, and the air had the sickly sweet smell of dead mice.
She couldn’t hear them talking at all anymore.
Dree flipped her legs over like a snake whipping around and nudged the closet door a little bit, expecting someone to yell at her to stop it.
But no one did.
So she did it again.
And still, no one yelled at her.
