Page 84 of Surge

“Of course. Why?”

Garrett grinned. “To catch a bullet train, we’re going to need a helo.”

“I think it’s too high profile and high risk, but . . . we can’t afford to let the chems get out of country.” The spook grabbed his phone and punched speed dial.

Garrett turned forward.

Zim glanced back at Caldwell, who had reached Chapel, and shifted in the driver’s seat. “You trust him, Boss?”

Garrett pinched his lips together, then gazed out the window as they passed the Merdeka Palace, lights starting to come on as the sun fell. It hurt to be in a position to rely on the spook. “Caldwell attacks a mission in his own way,” he finally said in a low voice. “Holding the silicone evidence until he knew for sure what it was? That’s not a team way of doing things.”

“I see why you brought him with us. Keep your eye on him.”

Garrett nodded, lowered his voice even more. “Trust is hard, but he is effective?—”

“A helo will meet us at a nearby Navy base,” Caldwell said from the back seat. “I’ll send the directions to your phone, Zim.”

Garrett started when it appeared on the screen of Zim’s phone, propped up on the console. “That’s Indonesia Navy.”

Caldwell chuckled, shrugged. “This is the kind of thing Chapel does. I don’t ask how. We meet the helo there in twenty mikes. Let’s move.”

Zim scrolled through the directions to the airport, then headed the car out, hit the gas. Nearly hit a car and steered crazily onto the shoulder of the road.

Garrett grasped the grab handle to keep from sliding as the SUV swerved back onto the road just as a motorcycle shifted into the same lane. Zim swerved back onto the shoulder, then sped past the motorcycle and finally got back onto the road.

“Sorry,” Zim said. “We’re almost out of downtown.”

The red color of the road on the phone’s GPS map did turn yellow, then green just ahead. At the moment, he hated red. “But will we make it to the base in time?”

Tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration, Zim nodded.

Silence reigned. For a second.

“By the way, the support team is bringing explosives,” Caldwell said. “You’re SEALs—you’ll know what to do when we get to the bullet train. And that stuff will be off the planet.”

Explosives?Garrett exchanged a look with Zim. “That’s not the plan.” He held his ground when Caldwell gave him a long look. “Not with Delaney and Surge aboard the train!”

* * *

Delaney had never planned on being in a freight car with containers full of potassium cyanide and sulfamic acid vials. In the dark. Only moonlight pushed past the black veil of night, slanting through the narrow window of the loading door.

How had she even ended up here, sitting between two stacks of Sachaai containers, her hands buried in Surge’s fur? “I didn’t freeze like at the store shooting,” she muttered to him.

He reached up and licked her smack across her face.

She chuckled, wiped off his slobber with her sleeve. “Okay, okay. I admit it. I froze.”

He snorted.

“But I didn’tstayfrozen. And I won’t. I promise.”Please, God.

He nudged her cheek and downed, his head on her knee as usual when she needed it.

Delaney ruffled the fur of his jet-black head that seemed to meld into the darkness and tried to call Garrett. Didn’t work. Not in a speeding train, she guessed. Comms had stopped ages ago. He’d tracked her once via Surge’s implant, and she hoped he could do it again.

God, keep Surge’s tracker working. Please. Please.She rubbed the spot between Surge’s shoulders where the tracker had been injected.

What would she do when the train stopped?

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