Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
The Jester was an international arms dealer with fingers in all kinds of weaponized pies. It had been The Jester Huisman was looking for when he’d kidnapped and tortured Kala and Carys Taggart.
“My question is how did Huisman know.” Tris sat back, playing with the pen in his hand, cycling it back and forth around his fingers. “About Zach. It was Zach he was serious about. I think I was nothing more than a fun diversion for him. Oh, he wanted to know if I knew anything, but it was Zach he was planning on spending real time with.”
Drake opened the folder in front of him. “Let me see if I have everything straight in my head. Sorry. I know you’ve gone over this a hundred times. So what we know now is that Huisman is interested in the man who built several bombs used in attacks in Jakarta we’ve connected to the Disrupt shadow groups that we now believe are run by Dr. Emmanuel Huisman.”
“And London,” Tasha added. “A few years ago there was an attempted assassination on British royal family members. The bombs didn’t work the way they were supposed to, but according to the experts there were signatures on the bombs that connect them to the weapons used in the Jakarta attacks. Lou could explain it better.”
Lou sat up straighter. “It’s actually very interesting…”
Charlotte held up a hand. “Sweetie, I know you could spend an hour explaining, but I trust you. Can we all agree if Lou believes they were made by the same person, we believe her?”
“Yes,” they all said at roughly the same time. And heartily because Lou would talk for an hour, and he would understand very little because she mostly spoke science.
Lou huffed. “Fine. But you know one day I’m going to give incredibly important information and you all are going to be sleeping or doodling and you’ll miss it. To put it in simple terms, it’s like art in a way. The London bombs were part of his early works. They show promise, but he hadn’t figured out how to smooth over the rough edges. Move on to Jakarta and you see he’s maturing. The detonators have a beautiful and terrifying simplicity. The materials he’s using… Well, it’s obvious he’s moving into small nuclear arms. I’d love to see something he’s recently worked on. I think these bombs could be used to deliver biological weapons as well. I can extrapolate where he’s going from the materials he’s using, but getting my hands on it, being able to reverse engineer it would tell me so much.”
“We have two different definitions of the word simple, Lou,” Big Tag said. “And I haven’t been able to ID any other bombs. I’ve been talking to intelligence agencies around the world, but we haven’t found anything like the signature we found on the Jakarta bombs. Of course if we did, it would likely mean Huisman had, too. The fucker seems to always be one step ahead.”
“Because he’s been planning things for decades,” Kenzie pointed out. “He knows who we are because he’s been following us since long before we joined the Agency and had our pasts erased. Stop kicking yourself, Dad. You couldn’t have foreseen this.”
“He couldn’t have foreseen that some asshole from his past would come back to haunt us?” Kala’s brows rose in a near perfect imitation of the very father she was talking about.
“Come on,” Tasha argued. “How could he know?”
He did not get in the middle of Taggart sister fights. Every man who knew them knew to take a step back. He would stand behind Kala, and Dare would do the same for Tasha, and they would stay out of the line of fire.
“Well, he was Agency for years, and even after he left he fucked over like a million bad guys,” Kala pointed out. “Do I need to go into all the Russian mobsters Mom screwed over?”
“Hey, I always killed them so they couldn’t come back to haunt me,” Charlotte explained. “And your dad tried to as well.”
“The ones left remember,” Kala said quietly, and Coop could sense her mood shift. She’d been joking before, but this part was serious.
Kala was like flying sometimes. He had to get a feel for the air around her, find the good streams that swept them along, and know when turbulence was going to batter them.
“Well, Big Tag didn’t even kill Huisman’s dad.” There were times to protect himself and times to give her cover. Her mom was looking at her like she wanted to ask some questions, and he saw the tightness to Kala’s shoulders. It was time to deflect. “So in addition to wanting to find a bombmaker, he used the Montreal op to begin his revenge on Ian. Who again wasn’t even there when his dad died.”