Page 296 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Danya fixes Holtz with a look of dark fury. ‘Charlie Foxtrot cannot drive.’

‘He said he’d learn on the way.’

‘On the way where?’

‘To have fun.’

‘Did he have his phone?’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Good. Control, initiate triangulation for—’

‘But I disabled the tracker,’ Holtz goes on. ‘I stripped the management profile and disabled the cellular modem.’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Because he asked me to.’

‘He’s cognitively compromised,’ Lachlan tells Danya, heading swiftly for a go-bag in a locker nearby. ‘Jules must have given him something.’

‘Given him what?’ Danya asks, eyeing Holtz doubtfully.

‘Doesn’t matter right now. Lock him down in holding, then tell Rook to open a restricted channel for you, me, Zaitsev, Belova and Rook only. No one can know Jules is gone. At least for now.’

‘On it.’

‘We need to trace his route through traffic cameras and plate readers. Have Rook verify what Holtz said about the phone and keep me updated.’

‘I should come too. We can cover twice the ground.’

‘Fine. You take car six, I’ll take five. Check the frat houses around Varrow State. Look for the bigger parties. Get Zaitsev to cover our exits and have him work with Rook to keep all this quiet.’

Danya doesn’t ask questions; he just goes to work.

He understands what’s at stake.

He always fucking has.

‘When did he leave?’ Lachlan asks Holtz before Danya takes him.

‘An hour ago.’

The bottom drops out of Lachlan’s stomach. ‘An hour?’

Julian has an hour’s head start.

‘He was very excited.’

Lachlan looks at Danya, who seems to share his dread.

‘Find me that fucking car.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

It’s two-thirty AM, and Jules is nowhere to be found.

At his usual places, no one’s seen him. Several outrageously wild frat parties are emptied by false fire alarms Danya sets off, but there’s no trace of Jules having been at any of them. Lachlan goes to the small club where he tracked Jules down on his eighteenth birthday and pulls the same trick, but he’s not there and hasn’t been all night.