Page 10 of Belgian Betrayal

He raised a hand, shaking his head.

She frowned, pushing the camera toward him. In a split second, she dropped the camera, grabbed his hand and twisted his arm up and behind his back while the man rushed forward and threw a punch toward Fearghas’s face.

Fearghas ducked but not soon enough to avoid contact.

The blow glanced off his left temple, hitting hard enough that he saw stars.

The woman pushed his arm up behind him and pressed it between his shoulder blades with one hand, pressing a knife against his throat with the other. “Move, and I’ll slit your throat.”

She spoke English with a Yorkshire accent.

Fearghas could kick himself. What kind of bodyguard wouldn’t see that coming? Damn, he was rusty. Now, he was a hostage, and he was sure they’d use him to get to Catya. He couldn’t let that happen.

The man who had been sitting with his back to the wall under the red light joined the couple and grabbed one of Fearghas’s arms. The other man gripped the other arm. Though he fought to get free, between the three of his attackers, they managed to secure his wrists behind his back with duct tape.

The busy bridge of a few moments ago, now strangely deserted, made Fearghas wonder where all the tourists had gone so quickly.

He couldn’t see his watch, but he knew it had to be eight already. Catya would be looking for him on this bridge. The assassin was smart enough not to walk into a trap.

Once they had his wrists secure, the woman patted his jacket, locating the handgun in the shoulder holster.

Before they could pull back the jacket and divest him of his weapon, Fearghas jerked out of their grip and lunged forward.

One of the men snagged his elbow and spun him around.

Fearghas kept backing up, dragging the man who held his elbow toward the bridge rail.

The other man rushed forward, reaching for Fearghas’s other arm. A loud horn honked, coming from the canal below him.

Banking on the momentum of the man rushing toward him, Fearghas let him grab his arm and then shoved his feet hard against the ground and threw himself backward.

Over the rail, he went. At the last moment, the two men released their holds on his arms to keep from falling with him.

Fearghas dropped into the canal. Without his hands free to swim, he sank below the surface.

Chapter 3

Catya had called in a favor to secure a driver and a small water taxi commonly used to privately ferry wealthy guests to their lodgings along the canals in Amsterdam.

She’d briefed her driver, Sergey, on the danger and the need to move quickly. A former Ukrainian mercenary, he didn’t balk at the danger. In fact, he rubbed his hands together, eager to step back into the world of high-stakes and risky pursuits.

Catya had spent the day in her secret room behind a staircase in the basement of a church, combing through the internet, searching for any sign of Atkins.

She’d put out feelers to her contacts throughout Europe. Each contact promised to be on the lookout for the rogue MI6 agent. Though some had heard of the botched operation in Rome, they didn’t have any idea where Atkins would have gone or who he might be working for.

Every one of her contacts knew about the disk. And everyone warned her that people were willing to kill for the information contained on it. No one knew what the disk contained.

Desperate to find Atkins, Catya checked in with one of the more elusive and somewhat sinister contacts she’d used before on the dark web. He’d been surprised when she’d sent him a message, asking her how she was still this side of the dirt. He'd told her a lot of people wanted that disk and would kill to get it.

And yet, no one seemed to know what was so important they’d sent two assassins to retrieve it from a preschool teacher. He did understand that more than just a bunch of thugs wanted to get their hands on it. The disk had information on it that had people in high places sweating, both in the commercial realm and government.

Catya left her hidden room twenty minutes before eight o’clock, careful not to reveal her little apartment beneath the church. With a handgun tucked beneath her leather jacket and an extra loaded magazine in her pocket, she weaved her way through the streets of Amsterdam. She’d had this particular location for nearly a year, longer than any other place she’d occupied since becoming an assassin.

Part of her hoped that when she arrived at the MX3D bridge, Fearghas wouldn’t be there—that he’d thought better of getting involved and found someplace to hide until this insanity blew over.

She knew him well enough to know he’d be there. The man was one of the good guys. Catya didn’t know what he saw in her. If she could erase her past and guarantee none of the family members of her hits would come after her, she would stay with Fearghas as long as he would have her.

But she couldn’t undo the past, and he deserved a better future than always looking over his shoulder because of her.

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