She had barely stepped outside, blinking against the afternoon sun, when a voice barked sharply, “Hey! You can’t be in there!”
Elise stopped and turned to look at the person who stopped her. A man in stained overalls strode toward her. His hard hat was under his arm, and irritation was etched into every line of his face.
She fumbled at her neckline and pulled out her press credentials, holding them up with what she hoped was casual authority. “Elise Serra, freelance journalist. I’m here to research an article on the harbor’s historical infrastructure. I didn’t realize the access points were restricted.”
The man snatched the card from her hand, pulling her forward a bit before he realized it was attached to a lanyard around her neck. “Sorry.” He moved forward and squinted at it. Then his jaw flexed, and he pointed at her. “You can’t just wander around a treatment facility like it’s a museum tour. Christ, you could’ve gotten yourself killed if you’d gone down the wrong tunnel.”
His glare softened only slightly as he dropped her ID, which flopped against her chest. He thrust a battered yellow hard hat into her arms.
“You want to play reporter in a place like this? Fine. Wear this. Next time, wait for an escort before wandering through the service tunnels. You could get lost, or one of those things could collapse. It would be your tomb because no one is going digging down there.”
Elise ducked her head in apology, clutching the helmet to her chest. “Thank you. I’ll be more careful.”
“See that you are.” He stalked off, muttering about journalists with no common sense.
Elise exhaled, her pulse still elevated, then adjusted the strap of her bag, tightened her grip on the hard hat, and walked toward the street.
Her hotel roomin the Cathedral quarter felt like a cage. She'd drawn the curtains against the Gothic spires of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, but shadows seemed to press in from every corner. The heating pipes clanged with an ominous rhythm, and every footstep in the hallway made her freeze. A dark, smelly tunnel and her overactive imagination weren’t the reason for her nerves this time.
She’d pulled up the local news on her phone when she’d awakened. A local private investigator was found attacked at the harbor. The police were calling it a robbery gone bad. Karel Hendricks was dead. The same fate as Étienne, wrapped in the official indifference. The local reporter had said there was evidence of a struggle at the shed, and there were three dead, not one. Karel hadn't died alone. There was no information on the others. The reporter cited pending notification of the families.
She spread Étienne's notes across the narrow bed, trying to piece together the final days of his investigation. On her laptop, she tried to put his notes into some semblance of order, and the act of typing his words kept her mind busy. She needed the distraction because she would go insane if she didn’t do something. She’d do this and then use Antwerp’s city library’s online portal to do her research.
Her laptop chimed with a new email. The sender's address was a string of random characters, but the subject line made her blood freeze:From Étienne.
She bit her lip and let the mouse hover over the email. Did she trust it? She looked at the handwritten notes strewn across the bed. If her computer became infected with some kind of virus, she still had his original notes. Curiosity won, and she clicked the email.
My dear Elise,
If you are reading this, then the worst has happened. I set this message to send automatically if I fail to check in for three weeks. By now, you've found some of my research, but there is more. Much more.
The man behind this network is untouchable through legal means. He has judges in his pocket, politicians on his payroll, and police who look the other way. But he has one weakness—arrogance. He believes himself safe in his residence outside Budapest, surrounded by his security team.
If you insist on continuing, know that you are not alone. There are others working to stop him. They operate in shadows darker than any you or I have walked through. Trust Guardian. They may be your only chance at survival.
But I beg you, don’t do this. Don’t follow in my footsteps. Elise, my dear protégé, this is not your fight. You are a journalist, not a soldier. I have left my estate to you. Go to Paris, meet with my solicitor, whom you have met before. Take what I've given you and disappear. Change your name, leave Europe, forget this story exists. Some truths are too dangerous to tell. This is my dying wish. Leave this alone.
Étienne
P.S.If you don’t listen to me (which we both know you won’t), the key to everything is in M-47-BUD.
Elise staredat the screen until the words blurred. What Guardian? She pulled out the letter that Karel had given her. There it was again. Guardian. What did that mean? Was that Karel? He couldn’t protect her anymore.
Outside her window, the bells of the cathedral began their evening toll, each chime counting down the hours until she would have to make a choice—flee into obscurity or follow her mentor's trail into the darkness that had consumed both him and Karel.
The key glowed on the screen: M-47-BUD. BUD … what was that? Everything she found suggested the BUD could be Budapest. It surely wasn’t training of American Seals, which was the other meaning of BUD, basic underwater demolition training. She eliminated one website after another. No, it had to be Budapest. But why?
Budapest was where she would either find the truth or join Étienne and Karel in their afterlife. The fear that coursed through her veins turned into something stronger. Determination. They had paid too high a price for her not to try. She’d expose the reason they’d been killed, or she would also die trying.
CHAPTER 4
Blake killed the engine a good two kilometers from the estate and eased the van off a dirt track where an abandoned vineyard wall offered some cover. Still, he let the air out of the front right tire. He’d use the air pump he had stowed in the back to reinflate it later.
The Hungarian night was quiet except for the whine of insects and the occasional dog barking from some farmstead down the valley. He slung his pack and walked through fields, his boots soundless in the damp fields.
He slowed as he approached and lowered to blend in with the tall grass of the field. He worked through a small valley and up the next hill. The slope gave him the elevation he needed. Dropping to one knee, he raised his night-vision goggles. The world glowed green. What had been a country villa on paper was now something altogether different. The perimeter walls were taller than the blueprints Guardian had on file. By at least six feet, if he had to guess. He chewed the inside of his cheek as he continued his initial observation. The walls were capped with coils of concertina wire that gleamed faintly. Security lamps cut broad paths across the yard, their housings shielded so they didn’t bleed light onto the road. Cameras were mounted onthe corners of the exterior wall. As Blake zoomed in, he swore under his breath. He’d seen this model in the briefing Merlin had sent out with an urgent marker attached to it. The camera had sweeping coverage with exceptional clarity even in the far margins of its field. A guard shack stood at the drive, manned and lit. He focused on the guard. The man was watching the road, not on his cell phone, not reading, attentive.
Lowering the goggles, he tapped his ear to key his comms. “Well, this sucks.”
