“Looks like it,” the woman replied.
“You said he’d be out of it.”
“He should’ve been! Get the bloody drug kit!”
The woman slid off the bench, one of her knees landing on his chest. She moved to unholster her gun when Liam jammed his thumb against the EMP button, then let it go.
The effects of the EMP couldn’t be heard, but they were definitely felt, at least by Liam. His cuffs popped open at the same time the Faraday cage went dark.
The familiar rush ofconnectionrealigned itself in every nerve of Liam’s body. He bent his arm so he could touch the woman’s thigh, pushed through the lingering discomfort from disrupted synapses, and tapped into his electrokinesis.
Liam electrocuted her quick and brutally, the smell of cooked flesh wafting across his nose. The dead woman fell back against the bench before falling to the floor of the van.
“Ye goddamned—” the man yelled, fumbling for his weapon.
Liam raised his other hand and forced his electrokinesis outward in a furious burst, aiming for both images of the man in his vision. Liam nearly blacked out, the rush of blood in his ears like the roar of a jet engine. The man slumped against the metal shelves, dead like his partner.
No time for a lie-in. Get the fuck up, Liam told himself.
Every movement hurt, but Liam forced himself to his knees through sheer will alone. Swaying with the motion of the van, the world still spinning while every last nerve felt as if it were burning, Liam took a breath. Then another.
Keep calm and carry on, as the saying went.
It felt as if his head was going to fall off, but Liam got moving, despite the way his leg made him want to scream. He breathed through the pain and grabbed the assault rifle the dead man had been reaching for. It wasn’t biolocked, which worked in his favor.
Liam scooted toward the door, dragging his left leg. A few of the staples were sticking out after all the moving he’d done. Once he was sitting by the doors and had his back against the side with his legs stretched out in front of him, Liam pushed the staples back in. As much as everything fucking hurt, he’d rather the wound stay closed right now.
Liam switched the safety off and hiked the butt of the gun to his shoulder, bracing it as well as he could. He leaned forward and pressed his left index finger against the inside release panel. The door swung open, revealing a suburban city street that had seen better days. The electronic street signs on the intersection they passed through were written in English, and the council estate towers looming on either side of the street were run down, but they were honestly the best sight Liam had seen since leaving UMG headquarters however long ago.
Still on English soil.
The thought left Liam feeling momentarily lightheaded. The relief lasted as long as it took for the driver of the car following the van to realize what was going on. Despite his double vision, Liam took aim and fired, spraying the car with bullets. The vehicle swerved with no driver to control it, slamming into a parked car.
The van Liam was in braked to a hard halt, and Liam pitched himself out of it rather than remain inside, electricity crackling at his fingertips.
If the Reborn IRA thought he’d go quietly, they were fucking wrong.
16
Luck Is a Debt Unpaid
Kyle steppedinto the scan room of the UMG, the one its metahumans with mental powers used when sifting through the millions of minds that existed in the United Kingdom. Three reclined chairs were surrounded by holoscreens flashing through thousands of CCTV security feeds. Only two of the chairs were taken, the pair of telepaths working together under Katie’s watchful eye and mind while she took a break.
From what Kyle could understand about merging mental powers together, it gave them all a bigger boost and a wider reach. Desperation regarding his own predicament last spring had pushed Katie to try anything to find him. She’d stumbled into merging her telepathy with Mercedes Gaouette’s power to locate him. That trick of the mind was being shared only with select allies, and Kyle had a feeling the United States government wouldn’t have even agreed to helping like this if Jamie hadn’t pushed the issue with his father.
“Anything yet?” Kyle asked as he handed Katie the protein drink he’d gone to the mess to retrieve for her.
Katie frowned. “Nothing. The number of minds in London is impeding us, but I also think Liam is unconscious and has been kept that way. We haven’t picked up his wavelength in our scan, and metahuman minds stick out.”
Neither of them voiced the terrible thought that Liam could be dead.
“It’s been forty-eight hours. No ransom, no hacked stream to gloat about what they’ve done,” Kyle said.
“They wouldn’t if they want the buy to go down.”
“I know. What about Bennett? Any sign of him in London yet?”
“We haven’t been searching for him.”
