Dark Control (DARC Ops Book 4) Page 20

  After he cut the engine, Matthias heard the hoots and hollers coming through the plastic and foam of his helmet. He let Laurel disembark first. She slid off the bike like a pro on just her second day. She’d done a damn good job hanging on the whole way from Atlanta. She was a fighter for sure.

  “Hey, Matthias!”

  “Matty!”

  And then his buddy Tucker, after a big bear hug. “You never said anything about a hot brunette.”

  “She’s more than a hot brunette,” Matthias said. “She’s—”

  “Trouble,” Laurel finished for him, holding out her hand to Tucker. “Nice to meet you.”

  “That’s Laurel, and yes, she’s trouble.” He watched her greet his boys, admiring how great she looked holding a helmet at her side. Overnight, she’d become a hot biker chick. “And she’s also one hell of a hacker,” he said. “Puts me to shame.”

  “Uh-oh,” Tucker said. “So that’s how you met.”

  “Something like that.”

  Big Billy walked up with a plastic plate of food held against his chest, and with rib sauce smeared over his mouth. “We heard you guys were on the run,” he said, picking up another piece of rib and aiming it lazily toward his mouth.

  “Something like that,” Matthias said again. “But it’s okay, we’re good.”

  Tucker was grinning. “Well shit, we’re all on the run.”

  Some of the boys nearest started laughing.

  “Come on,” Billy said. “Come grab some grub. We’re leaving in half an hour.”

  “New Orleans?” Laurel asked.

  “Yep,” Billy said.

  “Well, hey, Matthias, you got yourself a Southern girl.” Tucker was nodding appreciatively at her like he was appraising a work of fine art.

  “How could you tell?” Matthias asked.

  Laurel smiled. “Probably in the way I said New Orleans.”

  “Say it again,” Tucker said, chuckling.

  “N’awwlins.”

  They laughed again. Matthias loved the way she joked and played around so easily with his friends. Just a few days ago she’d warned him about being shy, but he was yet to see it. He only knew Laurel as a smart and confident woman who was comfortable in her own skin. Her own beautiful skin, something that he’d like to see more of.

  “Think we’ll have time for the beach after?” Matthias asked, grinning at Laurel.

  “After we just ate?” Billy said, with even more sauce on his face.

  * * *

  “But tell me,” Tucker said, walking with Matthias down a row of over-stock firearms in the backroom of the store. “For real. What kind of trouble are you guys in?”

  “We’re not in it, so much as we’re trying to keep ahead of it.”

  Tucker shot him a strange look.

  “We’re basically fleeing,” Matthias said. “To buy some time.”

  “For what?”

  “Oh, you know . . . Just for some people back in Atlanta to get arrested.” Matthias stopped walking, his hand reaching idly to the rack where he played around with a few boxes of ammo, shuffling and stacking them. “You know, no one much. Just some owners of a cybersecurity business, and the Attorney General.”

  “The Attorney fucking General?”

  “Of Georgia, though. Not the . . . Not the main one.”

  “Still, that’s no small-time arrest. There’s gonna be bloodshed after this.”

  “There’s already been some.” Matthias looked past the ammo boxes to the gleaming barrel of a rifle. God, Ernesto.

  “I can imagine,” Tucker said, shaking his head. His expression turned serious. “How are you doing?”

  “In one piece still.”

  “But how about, you know, upstairs?”

  “I honestly haven’t thought about it. I’ve been through some interesting situations in these last few days. But nothing, no flashbacks. Nothing at night.”

  Tucker was nodding. He knew all about flashbacks. Matthias wasn’t the only one in their crew who’d been changed from his experiences.

  “I don’t know why for sure,” Matthias said. “But I feel good. No pills, either. I’m just letting it all hang out.”

  “I can see that.” Tucker smiled. “That’s some girl.”

  “She is.”

  “Would you consider that a homeopathic solution?”

  “Huh?”

  “Laurel. Is she your antidote?”

  “Nah. And I’m not even looking at it that way.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I just don’t think I need any more crutches. And Laurel, well . . . Well, Laurel’s just a bonus.”

  “Well, you seem happy. And healthy. You look good.” Tucker laughed. “You look like you got laid last night.”

  Matthias laughed, too, but declined to elaborate.

  The room finally went quiet, and so Tucker said, “Well, New Orleans should be fun.”

  “I’m thinking it’ll be a good distraction for Laurel. She’s been through some shit.”

  “Are you still hiding out there?”

  Matthias wasn’t sure. Several very big events had to play out first before that could be determined, including how the state would handle the FBI’s investigation, and possible charges, and depending on what last-minute favors anyone would try pulling from Washington. Thank God Jackson was local to handle that side of it. Just one end of the crooked snake.

  “You know,” Tucker said, “New Orleans might not be the best place to stay off the radar.”

  “During Bike Week? It might be the best place.” Bike Week, a huge convention for motorcycle enthusiasts, would be a great place to blend in with the masses. Even Laurel looked the part now. Given the case’s connection to another biker group, it was also somewhere they wouldn’t anticipate Matthias going near.

  “And you have us.” He patted Matthias solidly on the shoulder.

  “I know.” Matthias reached for his hand and shook it firmly. “Thanks, Brother.”

  “And you have your pick here,” Tucker said, pointing to the rows of weapons. “Anything catch your eye?”

  Matthias laughed. “How much time do we have?”

  About twenty minutes later, Matthias returned outside to the parking lot festivities carrying a small box. He found Laurel sitting at a picnic table with Big Billy, plates in front of them, Billy’s full of bare rib bones and hers a lot fewer ribs, along with something else foreign to Billy: a salad.

  “Hey!” She waved Matthias over, a half-eaten rib in her hand.

  “Having fun out here?” he asked her.

  “Having fun in there?” She nodded her head toward the gun store. “Pick up any cool new toys?”

  “Yeah, maybe. Is Billy here impressing you with his total rib annihilation?”

  “Not yet,” Billy said, getting up. “Go head, take a seat. I need a refill.”

  Matthias joined Laurel at the green paint-peeled table. It was covered in a mess of etchings, names, and symbols, most likely from patrons of the store testing out their latest knives on the poor old table.

  “I like your friends,” Laurel said, sliding over her plate to Matthias.

  “They like you, too.”

  “Go ahead and eat. You need your energy.” She smiled.

  “You’re right,” he said, chuckling quietly. “I do. My arms actually felt a little weak today on the bike. Like it was hard to hold up my own weight. You sure did a number on me.”

  “I did a number on you?” She dropped her hand below the table, to her legs, rubbing her thighs. “I’ve got bruises all over. I won’t be able to wear shorts for a week.”

  “You’ve got shorts that short?”

  She looked almost embarrassed at the question.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “You wouldn’t be able to keep those on around me, anyways.”

  30

  Laurel

  Three more hours on the back of Matthias’ bike and they were there, New Orleans—or N’awwlins, as Matthias’ buddies wan
ted repeated so often. Although she didn’t mind the snuggle time with her guy, life on the road—especially on the back of a bike—was beginning to take its toll on her body. Even her mind, the boredom of highway after highway. Miles of blacktop. Boring, at least until arriving to and weaving through the crowded streets of New Orleans.

  Matthias had taken her straight through to the French Quarter, through the weekend crowds of day-drunk tourists, the streetcars and horse carriages, curbside jazz buskers, through the delicious aroma of shrimp gumbo and rendered duck fat, and past a startling amount of other bikers. It was truly Bike Week, with their hotel lined with two-wheeled beasts of every variety.

  The atmosphere was wonderful, as was their nineteenth-century balcony hotel just one block from infamous Bourbon Street. Night and day from their motel. Matthias looked as untroubled and happy as ever, as were his boys, who were eager to celebrate his latest hacking success. Indeed, everything had seemed too good to be true. Until Laurel received a call from her uncle back in Atlanta.

  She’d been trying to avoid such calls, for a long list of reasons. But never did she expect this, the news as worrisome as her uncle’s voice. For awhile after the call, she sat alone on the plush hotel bed, not making a sound. Not crying. Not anything. She’d been too tired for any external manifestation of the misery she’d felt.

  Mama was sick.

  Those were the first words she’d uttered since the call, muttering them to Matthias when he returned to their room with a bucket of ice, some snacks, and an excited grin that melted away instantaneously. He’d crept to the bed slowly, cautiously, as if approaching some wounded animal.

  “Damn . . . Laurel . . .”

  Knowing exactly what to say was not required of him. In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure what she required, if anything at all—other than to see and help her Mama.

  “There’s got to be something,” Matthias said. “There’s gotta be . . . like . . . something . . .”

  “Yeah,” she said, trying not to cry. “There is. But the insurance won’t cover it.”

  “It” was cancer surgery. Fucking expensive cancer surgery to treat the rare condition growing in Mama’s spine.

  “But . . . What is it? What’s it called?” Matthias, sounding as broken as she, was doing something on his phone. “What’s it called?”

  “Are you Googling it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s called ana . . .. anaplastic . . . astrocytoma.”

  “Anaplastic astrocytoma?”

  “Why?”

  “I know people. We have a medic on our team with great contacts.”

  “Where’s your team?”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Not this second, no. We’re spread all through the country. But we mobilize quickly. Like how I got to Atlanta.”

  “On a fucking motorcycle?” Laurel said it a little louder and little more spitefully than she’d meant. She put her hand to her forehead, rubbing it as if trying to break through to the brain. “Sorry. You’re trying to help.”

  “I think I can, Laurel.”

  Out the corner of her eye she watched him moving closer, the large frame of his body. She needed the comforts of it. But a knock on the door reversed his progress. “Probably just one of the guys,” he said, striding toward the door.

  She heard the voice of Tucker, an upbeat greeting mellowed by Matthias’ murmur of a response. Both voices went quiet before picking up again in the hall behind her closed door.

  She looked at her phone, checking for the thousandth time for any texts of news, good or bad. Sitting there at the edge of the bed, she felt as if she were waiting at a precipice. Life or death. It was explained to her that way. It was a message delivered through her uncle’s words, and proved by the tone of his voice when he finally brought himself to say it.

  When Matthias returned, he was wearing that same sad expression. But there was something else now, something like guilt through an awkwardly clenched jaw. A symptom of something preposterous like him using the word “celebrate” to describe what his friends were intending to do that evening. “But I can totally stay here, with you.”

  But not even Matthias’ presence could help. Nothing but seeing her in person, Mama, holding her hand, and somehow coming up with the money for a surgery that may not even work.

  “Laurel? We can just . . . we can just lie in bed . . .”

  “No.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.” Matthias sat next to her and pulled her into him, her shoulders falling back against his chest.

  “It’s okay,” she said, still motionless. A sad, dead weight in his arms.

  “And I don’t really feel like celebrating.”

  “I know, but . . . I think I should just take a nap. I haven’t really been sleeping all that much.”

  He drew his fingers through her hair. “I’m so sorry, Laurel.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You sure?”

  She finally leaned away from him. She needed some time alone. She nodded her head. “Have fun, okay?”

  31

  Matthias

  Tucker looked him in the eye. “I will.”

  “You promise?”

  “Come on, Matt.”

  He’d asked Tucker to watch over Laurel, to keep her safe while he was gone. Walk her floor. Post at a chair by her door if he’d have to. Whatever it took to keep her safe. He still didn’t want to go, but he owed it to the guys. They’d helped them both so much, the least he could do was go for one drink and thank them. Besides, he had someone he had to meet.

  “You do realize this is overkill, right?”

  Matthias dropped the remote on Tucker’s bed and stood up. “It’s necessary.”

  “Then why don’t you stay and do it?”

  “I’ve got to meet Sam.” He checked his watch again, and then checked back to Tucker who’d been scrunching his brow. Tucker, despite being a longtime friend of Mathias, wasn’t a part of DARC Ops officially, and hadn’t met all the assets. Sam, especially, was a very well kept secret. Jackson liked to keep him a little detached and on the periphery. So much so that Matthias hadn’t seen Sam since his work in the hospital.

  “He’s the reader,” Matthias said. “The super recognizer.”

  Tucker’s expression remained.

  “He reads body language. Like yours right now. I’m reading—”

  “Confused.”

  Matthias nodded. “Right.”

  “This Sam, he’s the professor from D.C.?”

  “Yes. Well currently he’s in Texas. Or was. I guess he just got done working something for Jackson over there.”

  “Jesus . . . he keeps you more compartmentalized than the CIA.”

  “No, that’s just you. Jack doesn’t fully trust anyone not in the inner circle.”

  Tucker was full-on scowling now.

  “Nah, I’m just kidding,” Matthias said. “You’ve helped us out a couple of times. I appreciate it, and I know that Jackson does, but you’re the new guy. We’ve all been new guy.”

  “You’ve all had to wait back at a hotel instead of grabbing drinks at a New Orleans bar?”

  “Exactly. Think of it as a rite of passage. An honor.”

  “Sure,” Tucker said. “An honor and a privilege.”

  “Just keep her safe while you’re at it.” He gave Tucker a hefty pat on the shoulder as he walked out of the room.

  32

  Laurel

  She gave it a try at least, tossing from side to side for half an hour. But there was no relief, no sweet escape of sleep. Instead she felt reality’s pain even more, the sting of the news sharpening to an almost unbearable point.

  Fuck.

  She couldn’t just stay there in bed, writhing around in misery.

  And she couldn’t stay in New Orleans. She’d have to find a way to get back, to convince Matthias that it was safe to return to Atlanta. Right now, she needed to escape her room. It ha
d been closing in on her since he’d left. The small, historically significant room, its ghosts layered in the wall paint. The dead silence of it all.

  Laurel rushed off the bed and into a pair of jeans. And then she was out, wandering the halls like a trapped mouse, following the walls around a full square until she was back at 304. She did another lap, this time stopping halfway to take an elevator down to the lobby. There had been no plan, no destination. Nowhere to hide from the unfortunate reality that she might not have time to say goodbye to Mama—at least, time enough for her to hear it.

  Like a zombie, she trudged over the shiny marble floor tiles of the lobby, a plan beginning to materialize in her brain. Taxi, airport . . . Tickets. She’d have to get tickets first. She should start looking now, on her phone. She flashed on the screen and loaded up a discount travel site. The search was conducted on the worn wooden bar top of the hotel lounge, the phone next to an extra dry and stiff martini. Laurel hadn’t touched it once since narrowing down on a somewhat acceptable airfare. But the first time she went for the cool glass stem, she almost downed it all, wincing at the burn of gin, and at the increase of an already present and smoldering nausea. Just swallow it down. Push forward. Move. Get home.

  She finished her drink and then bought a single one-way ticket for 2 p.m. the next day.

  “I’ll have one more of those,” she said to the bartender. She might need a few more after that, at least enough to be able to get through the night. To ideally sleep in a warm comfy alcoholic haze.

  But Matthias . . .

  There was Matthias to be considered. Loyal, loving Matthias.

  She didn’t want to call and bother him. But he’d have to be told soon. He’d have to be warned.

  Should she have bought two tickets?

  What about his bike?

  And why hadn’t her uncle responded to her texts? Where was the afternoon update?