Page 90 of The Bait

Harry was too damned old for this.

And why were the team across from him all sixteen years old?

Okay, maybe not sixteen. But Christ almighty, did they have to all be so young?

They were you twenty years ago, Harry.

Harry grumbled at himself as he put on the helmet and buckled in, ignoring the way the men opposite him were staring at him, at his chest, at his legs.

Harry looked down at himself to see what they were looking at. He was covered in blood. Mostly from incisions and shallow stab wounds, dark red circles staining the cut fabric marking each one. His side, under his arm, was particularly red, the dark blood stain leaking down to his pants. He’d thought it was his ribs—lord knows they hurt—but he could see the slice through his shirt now.

“Still wanna cauterise it?” the medic asked.

Harry glared at him. “Yes. Give me a knife and a lighter.” The fucker laughed, so Harry turned to the captain. “Can I hurt him?”

Captain grinned. “Absolutely fucking not.”

The team across from him all smiled. Harry hated these helmets with mics and audio.

He slumped back in his seat, exhaustion trying to settle in, take over. It hurt to breathe; his breaths were a lot shorter, and his lung hurt, and his ribs. His kidneys hurt too. His jaw, his teeth, his eye, his cheek... Hell, his whole body hurt.

But he needed to focus. He was going to get Asher, and he needed to be single-minded. He could push the pain back, for now.

He’d sleep for a week, once Asher was safe.

He needed intel.

He turned back to the captain. “Where are we headed?”

“There’s an old military base over the Croatian border.”

“How do you know he’s there?”

“Location key was activated.”

Harry resisted sighing, barely. This was like pulling teeth. He had neither the patience nor the time for this bullshit. There was a very good reason why he’d worked alone for a decade.

“You called yourself the Milvus Division,” Harry said. He couldn’t believe that.

Milvus. The Milvus Division?

That had been what the Australian government had referred to him as. The Milvus files. And now there was a whole division?

“What the fuck?” Harry asked. “Milvus?”

Captain gave a nod. “You were the first, kind of. The beta test.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Captain almost smiled as he raised one hand in a pacifying manner. “The Parrish case exposed a bunch of overseas operatives. Not just Australian. Classified documents revealed MI6, CIA, India’s IB, and France’s DSGE’s solo agents.”

Harry looked again at the men across from him. So damn young.

Jesus Christ.

“Kites,” Harry said flatly. “Like me.”

Captain nodded. “A lot of agents like you.” He shrugged. “So, to protect them, the governments aligned a program. To bring them under one umbrella.”

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