Page 7 of Thorn

She wondered if anyone would care.

Her dad? He was far away in America, right now.

He’d moved them when he took a job with DARPA. Something odd was making the U.S. diplomats sick, and he’d been brought home, so he could investigate and come up with a treatment plan.

Her dad was, after all, the foremost researcher in the world when it came to brain trauma. If it wasn’t for him, if she’d been just any young woman who’d been in an accident, she wouldn’t be able to function this well. She’d be in an institution somewhere. Juliette owed him everything for saving her from that.

Juliette remembered her father introducing himself to her. “Your name is Juliette DuBois. And I am David DuBois. Do you recognize me?” He was sitting by her bed when she came out of surgery. She had one of those flat memory-photos of him that she was able to pull up, but she’d been grateful when he’d labelled himself.

He’d had a photo of a woman. “And this is your mother. She died in the accident. Do you remember her?”

She’d reached for the photo and held it in her fingers. Her hand had moved up to the bandaged dome of her head, her fingers crawling along the seams of tape. She understood the concept of mother. And she wanted one there. Someone who would fold Juliette into her arms and rock her and croon that everything was going to be all right. That she was loved. That she’d get through this.

But when Juliette looked down at the photo, she’d felt nothing. It was like looking at a stranger. She’d learned very little about her mother from talking to her dad, that her mom liked wine and books, and walking at night. But the kinds of things her dad would think to tell Juliette weren’t the kinds of things that Juliette had desperately wanted to know.

Was her mother gentle and encouraging?

Did her mom cuddle in bed with her when a thunderstorm blew out the electricity, and would she read to Juliette by flashlight to calm her? That was the kind of picture that Juliette had tried to paint for herself.

But the truth was, Juliette simply didn’t know. She’d felt like a usurper. A puppet. A paid actor lying there in her hospital gown, staring at her mother’s photo.

She’d thought that she should probably be filled with grief at her mother’s passing. She had thought she should probably cry.

Her father.

He knew she was in France. At what point would he wonder why she wasn’t in touch with him? They talked at least twice a day and, surely, he’d want to talk to her about seeing her grandmother for the first time, post-accident. Juliette’s last-minute decision to come, after a price deal popped up in her email, meant she’d only had time to make a hurried call on the way to the airport. When her dad’s answering machine picked up, Juliette left him a message that she was on her way to France where she’d start tracing through her past to try to regain some memories. Juliette asked if there was anything he’d like her to say to her grandmother or to send home to him. “Wish me luck! I think this is going to make the difference. I think this trip will changeeverything!”

He hadn’t called her back.

Juliette was pulled away from those thoughts when she felt the car start to slow.

Bringing her head up, slightly, she peeked through her hair to see what was going on. Brake lights glowed red up and down the highway, and their car came to a crawl as the traffic slowed. She snaked her hand over her lap to unsnap her belt buckle, thinking she could just let it slowly retract, then maybe she could jump from the car. Surely, they wouldn’t shoot at her in front of all these eyes.

The man beside her chuckled as he reached out and grabbed her hand, bending her fingers backwards. “This idiot thinks I’m going to let her jump out of the car.”

The other man laughed in big guffaws.

Juliette pursed her lips, then turned to see what her guard was pulling from his pocket. When she saw it was a syringe, she fought. She kicked and bit, and flung her fists, but quickly the vertigo made her world spin too fast.

The stab of a punitive needle.

The tight grip of his fingers...

Chapter Five

Thorn

Brussels, Belgium

Saturday, Twelve Forty-three Hours

“Thorn, check.” He directed his voice toward his phone, but that was for show, a reason to be speaking out loud in the airport corridor. He had dropped his magnetic communications devices into his ear canals and could hear both ambient noise and the soft communications from the team members. Thorn’s voice carried back over a microphone that wrapped his neck and pressed in on either side of his windpipe. The apparatus was hidden by his turtleneck shirt. He hid the bulk of his muscles under a leather jacket.

“Affirmative, Thorn, I’ve got you loud and clear.” Nutsbe was their mission support leader back in the Panther Force war room at Iniquus Headquarters in Washington D.C. where he had access to the surveillance magic. “I’ve got the airport schematics up and layered with the team’s GPS trackers. I’ll be able to watch each of you move through the building. I have Thorn and Honey on CCTV cameras. Gage, you’re in a dead zone. Either move or realize I haven’t got a way to watch your back.”

“Roger. I have a good vantage point from up here,” Gage said. “I’m going to sit tight. I’ll watch my six.”

Thorn swung his head looking for a spot where he’d have a good line of sight but wouldn’t look like he was trying out for a job as a potted plant. He sought out a natural place to lean and play with his phone.

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