“That’ll never happen,” Kyle replied.
Lambeth Bridge was coming up, and Liam unconsciously held his breath when they crossed it, refusing to flinch when they drove past the crash area from before. They approached UMG headquarters moments later, driving through the secured entrance to the underground car park. They pitched themselves out of the car after Jamie parked, and weren’t the only ones racing for the lift.
“Colonel Wessex, Chief Chapman has requested your team gear up before joining the briefing,” the building’s AI said once they were ensconced in the lift.
“Understood,” Liam said.
Jamie and Kyle were still on secondment with the Royal Legion, but Oliver’s position as an MI6 agent meant he probably wouldn’t be in the thick of things. Liam glanced at Oliver, the other man staring back at him.
“I’m your team’s liaison. Bailey refuses to sever the partnership with the UMG right now,” Oliver said calmly. “I’ll meet you on the command level for the briefing.”
“Good.”
Liam had made it clear while in medical, and Samaira had backed him up on it, that they knew and approved of Oliver as their liaison over the agents MI6 Chief Bailey had sent over to replace Oliver. It was a power play the UMG had won, not that Bailey had fought that hard against it. She still got an agent embedded in the UMG, after all.
The lift stopped on the ready level. Liam, Jamie, and Kyle got off, double-timing it to his team’s ready room to gear up. Samaira, Tariq, Abigail, and Glenn were already there, in uniform and sorting through weaponry.
“Did any of you lot even go home?” Liam asked, already stripping out of his clothes.
“After those wankers took you? We’ve been champing at the bit to find Bennett and Murphy,” Abigail retorted. “There was a massive sale at my favorite shop this weekend, and I missed all of it because I wanted a piece of them.”
“That’s love,” Samaira said with a smirk.
Abigail snapped her hard helmet to her belt for later use. “You owe me a dress, Liam.”
“Whatever you like. I owe all of you much more than that,” Liam said.
They didn’t trade on saving each other’s lives, but Liam knew he owed them many times over. They were practically his family, and even if after this he never led them into the field again, he’d still welcome them into his home.
It took mere minutes for everyone to finish gearing up. Liam and Samaira were the last to leave the ready room. She kept pace with him, glancing at him with a thoughtful look in her dark gaze.
“I heard there was a family summit,” Samaira finally said in a low voice.
Liam nodded, chewing on the inside of his lip. “Last night. I’ve been told the inevitable is happening once we bring Bennett and Murphy in.”
“I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you wanted.”
He thought about waking up cuffed to a chair in that warehouse, with rebar being driven through his leg. How, in his absence, his family had been locked behind shields. “It’s for the best.”
She bumped her shoulder against his, smiling sadly. “One last go?”
Liam wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a quick hug. “One last go.”
The team would be in great hands with Samaira. That had never been in doubt. Liam just wished he’d been able to remain with them.
Once they made it up to the command level, they were directed to a larger conference room for the briefing. It was packed already with fellow UMG field team leaders, Katie and the UMG’s telepaths, as well as holoscreens lining the room showcasing other officials.
Oliver was there, seated between Katie and another MI6 agent. Liam, Samaira, and Jamie took the last couple of empty seats at the table while the rest of his team and Kyle stood behind them with some of the others who didn’t fit. A couple of other stragglers arrived in the next minute, and at that point, Chapman started the briefing.
“We’re looking at a pre-dawn raid in the outer zone of the warehouse district of the Port of Southampton. Information pulled from the minds of some of the Reborn IRA members we apprehended and confirmed with CCTV shows Murphy and those closest to him have left London,” Chapman said.
Ellie Kinsley, the UMG’s top telepath, flicked her fingers against the computer embedded in the conference table. Data streaked away from her terminal to merge with the center holoscreen display.
Layers of CCTV images popped up in the center and was repeated in everyone’s personal terminal. Liam sorted them by name, pulling Murphy’s to the forefront. Part of his face was obscured by stolen nanotech, but the rest must have been dislodged during his escape from central London. The chrono stamp in the corner was the same day Liam had been rescued.
“With the merging techniques that Staff Sergeant Ovechkina has shared with us, we managed to isolate Murphy’s brainwave patterns and track him south. In doing so, we were able to coordinate with UMG hackers to isolate his location through CCTV,” Ellie said.
“The MDF shared intelligence regarding Bennett’s possible affiliated shell companies.” Katie threw a data window from her terminal to the center. The information opened on Liam’s terminal, and he stared at the satellite image that came up. “This cargo ship arrived in Southampton a week ago. One of the bills of lading was flagged because of the company name. We believe Bennett offloaded the components of the Splice lab onto English soil last week.”
