The Illuminati Sanctum (The Relic Hunters 6) David Leadbeater (new reading .txt) 📖

down and kill them, but she couldn’t. Pang had been ripped a new one by Nolan, as had Heidi. Demotion wasn’t out of the question. The one thing that could save them was finding their quarry and making them pay for their betrayal.

“I cobbled together a little greatest hits video for ya,” the agent said as he gingerly removed his hot plastic tray from the microwave. “Already set up on the laptop.”

Heidi watched as Pang started the video. For the next ten minutes they watched Guy Bodie evade the police through the streets of Amsterdam, saw some slick moves and quick steps, and wondered if perhaps Bodie allowed the cops to get a little too close. Heidi didn’t say anything, waiting for Pang, but the ex-SEAL said nothing. Heidi assumed him to be imagining how he’d skin and mount the relic hunters when he found them.

“Is that it?” Pang said when the recording ended.

“Hey, the guy vanished faster than disco. He’s good.”

Heidi watched the clip again, feeling a strange mix of emotions on seeing Guy Bodie darting along through the streets of Amsterdam? Why was he alone? Did the team split up for safety? Where were the others?

Why didn’t he take me with him?

Their relationship had been knotty from the beginning. Day by day, they’d grown closer. Heidi had felt a deepening sensitivity toward Bodie and had known the feeling was reciprocated. Toward the end, as they searched across the rocks of Albion, she’d assumed they might get even closer—about as close as you could get.

Yes, she’d been pretty sure the team had been looking to escape the CIA, but had they really been plotting this entire last year? Maybe not, maybe just since Pang was added to the team. Pang was the catalyst to their abscondence, she decided. Added officially as muscle, the ex-SEAL not only brought combat skills to the team, but an entirely new, wholly underhand agenda.

Still, Heidi couldn’t understand why she’d been left behind.

“We’re nowhere,” Pang muttered. “Nowhere at all. The problem is relying on others to do their job properly. They could keep doing this all day long.”

“You mean Bodie? It’s risky. Even Bodie would eventually get caught.”

“Even Bodie?” Pang eyed her. “You still got the hots for him?”

“Fuck you, Pang.” Heidi left the room to cool off and headed back down to the street. Amsterdam was bitingly cold, but the air didn’t bother her—it cut some of her angst away, took her emotions down to a raw core. Pang’s biggest imperfection in her eyes was that he was right. Heidi contented herself with glaring at passersby until the asshole made his way down.

Pang was talking into his cellphone. “Are you sure it’s her?”

A silence, then Pang nodded. “Tell them we’re on our way.”

Heidi waited for him to explain. Pang hailed a cab before turning to her. “They got Cassidy Coleman in Moscow.”

“Wait, they got her? As in captured her?”

The cab pulled up. Pang jumped in and let her walk around the far side. “No,” he said as she climbed in. “A sighting. Just now.”

“It’s a four-hour flight,” Heidi guessed. “Like you just said—we let the locals handle it.”

“But they’re just locals,” Pang spat, making the driver raise his eyes in surprise. “They’re not me. I’ll chase Bodie to the ends of the earth. He’s...”

Heidi turned away, letting him vent. Although Pang would never admit it, she thought he’d been warming to the relic hunters during their recent adventures. Understanding their motives helped when you faced the same issues that they did, something she imagined most upper-class, silver-spooned politicians might be better off trying harder to get to grips with. She turned back when Pang ordered the cab driver to head for the airport.

“Moscow? Really?”

“Listen, Agent Moneymaker. Catching Bodie and co. is now our life. We fail, we can kiss our careers goodbye. Now, you might be okay with that. For all I know, you’re still working with that asshole and spying on me. But I will catch him, dead or alive.”

“Jesus, Pang, you’re a paranoid son of a bitch. They left me behind. With you. What does that say about their feelings toward me?”

Pang glared. “My career, my job, is all I have.”

“Oh, I know. That’s what makes you such a dickhead.”

Pang turned away. They rode in silence for the rest of the way, arriving outside Schiphol Airport about thirty minutes later. As Pang climbed out of the cab and paid the driver, his cellphone chirped up.

“Speaker,” Heidi said. “Put it on speaker.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“I trust you to fuck me over. Now use the damn speaker or I’ll punch you.”

Pang rolled his eyes but jabbed the button. “Yeah?”

“Another sighting,” someone back at Langley told him. “Yasmine... um, whatever. Yasmine. She’s in Montenegro.”

Heidi sighed. “Well, that’s not far away. Jesus, we’re being played.”

“I suspect you’re right,” the tinny voice said. “Because there’s also another sighting. Jemma Blunt and Lucie Boom are in Rome. I’ll leave that with you.”

Pang lowered the phone, refusing to meet Heidi’s steady gaze. The relic hunters were playing them all right, leaving false trails around the world. It infuriated her and pissed off Pang too.

“You wanna jet off to Vatican City too?” She couldn’t resist needling him.

“Damn them. Damn him. They’re always a step ahead. We have to change that.”

Heidi was impressed at his thought process, despite having his judgment clouded with anger. “You’re right. We need to get into a position where we’re acting instead of reacting. Make them come to us.”

“And how do you propose we make that happen?”

She’d already assessed and answered that question in her mind. “We need to dig into their past,” she said. “Especially Bodie’s. He’s the leader, the one pulling the strings. If we can nudge him into action, the rest will follow.”