Chapter 1
Chapter One
Vilnius, Lithuania
Jay woke suddenly.
One of the soldiers who’d guarded him was slumped against the wall in a pool of blood; the other was face-down on the floor. The doctors tasked with operating on him lay at the far end of the room, their bodies still.
Dead, all of them.
The sedative—whatever amount they’d managed to inject—had left the roof of his mouth dry and stuffed his skull with cotton wool, dulling the fire alarm that bellowed through the university building. His vision wasn’t great either; the walls around him looked soft and fuzzy.
How long have I been out cold?
He stood, unsteadily at first, then widened his stance to stabilize himself. He was still dressed only in his jeans and sneakers, all now stained with the soldiers’ blood. He took a pistol from one of the soldiers. The chamber was empty, so he fed a round in before searching the bodies. He took a second magazine from another soldier, but decided not to bother stealing a uniform—they were all soaked in blood.
Wait, that could work … an injured Purity Guard stumbling out...
Something twinged at the back of his neck. The bandage was still in place, but was damp to the touch, and when he checked his back he felt half-dried blood. Maybe that’s why he felt weak; it wasn’t the sedative at all but blood loss.
He opened the door to reveal a large, wide hall, lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and artifacts in glass displays. It reminded Jay of a fancy museum. There was a staircase that ascended to the second floor—the hall was clear of Purity personnel, at least for now, but he hoped upstairs would have less chance of foot traffic.
Gunfire rang out, loud even over the clanging alarm. Somewhere, Purity Guard were shouting at each other in Lithuanian, followed by more distant shooting. Jay looked down at his half-naked body and the pistol he’d stolen from the soldiers. For once, he wished he had something a bit larger.
On the wall next to him was a framed map of the university. By the looks of it, he wasn’t far inside the maze of campus buildings; all of them were connected to a central hub like the blades of a throwing star. If he wanted to get back to Ark and the others, he’d have to go through the gunfight he could hear ahead. Plus he couldn’t stay here anyway; he had to move.
The room in front of him, with its fancy high ceiling and marble floor, was called the Rector’s Hall.
That name rings a bell.
The High Crackpot had said something about it...
Jay remembered the metal briefcase and the High Crackpot asking one of his red-goggled Preservers to take it to the … Rectal Orifice? He peered closer at the map. The Rector’s Office, right above him, on the third floor.
Pistol in hand, he climbed the stairs. More gunfire rang out below, and the fire alarm was giving him a bad headache. He swept the second floor with his pistol. No one.
He moved up to the next flight of stairs. Clear again.
By now the gunfire had stopped altogether. He didn’t know whether that was a good or a bad thing.
Ahead of him, the hall on the third floor was lined with two rows of square pillars large enough to mount oil paintings of weird, old people wearing beards and blouses. Jay walked between them until he found himself under a fancy white archway. On either side of it, wooden and glass display cases showed off some really old, yellowed handwritten papers. Overhead, golden chandeliers dangled like frozen spiders. The sedative and blood loss were really messing with his head.
He checked a window, with an old telescope beside it. Outside was a neat courtyard of trimmed grass and cobblestones. No one in sight.
Where are all the Purity dudes at?
He kept moving to the end of the hall, where he found a large, polished wooden desk; it looked like someone had cut down an entire hundred-year-old tree just to carve out furniture for their king. As he approached, it became clear the lavish desk had been used recently. Cables were strewn across it, and he counted three laptops, a tablet and a half-eaten takeout lunch, its cardboard packaging proudly declaring VEGANAS! in bold yellow print. Beside it, papers had been stacked in orderly piles and a map of Europe had been spread out on the top-left quarter of the desk’s surface.
But what really drew Jay’s attention was the black metal briefcase. He walked around the desk, checking behind the last pillars with his pistol before giving the case his full attention. It was sealed with a small tumbler lock, not too difficult to defeat, so he laid his pistol down within easy reach, and felt around the back of his jeans, locating an incision he’d made in the denim. He slid out a small lockpick and tension wrench and slipped the pick into the lock, taking a brief moment to steady his hands.
Reflected in the glossy surface of the case, he noticed movement.
Someone behind him.
‘Slowly raise your hands and take three steps back.’
Southern accent, late forties. Jay didn’t know this guy, but this guy certainly seemed to know him.
Raising his hands slowly, Jay stepped away from the briefcase and his pistol.
‘Go on, turn around now,’ the man said.
Jay turned to see a suited man with a pistol, although he wasn’t even bothering to point it at Jay, keeping it aimed down instead. He had half-squinting eyes and a narrow face to match, with a crinkled forehead and a slightly off-center nose.
He seemed happy with himself for finding Jay.
Accompanying him were two operatives dressed in plain clothes and long, dark coats. The one on the right seemed familiar.
Guessing my cover’s long past blown now.
‘If you don’t mind my saying,’ the suited man said, ‘you’re looking a little lost there. How about you go ahead and get rid of those do-hickeys.’
Jay dropped his tiny lockpick and wrench. They bounced on the marble.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked.
‘My name’s Hal. You almost run me over in Las Vegas. You don’t remember?’ He frowned. ‘You must be Jay.’
The young operative smirked. And Jay remembered.
The attack on the old mansion.
This operative had killed Sophia’s new recruit and almost killed Sophia too. Jay clenched his fist; he wouldn’t mind returning that favor. Problem was, his pistol was three paces away and both operatives were aiming at him.
‘You don’t have to worry about those Purity fruitcakes no more,’ Hal said. ‘You’re with us now.’
