Page 62 of Enthraller

“We hope.” Bailey sounded tired and strained, and she and Hatch shared a look, as if they’d been talking among themselves and he’d missed it. They probably had, while he was out walking the line to grab Wren.

The door opened, and they handed the three maintenance crew over, walking them across the landing pad to where the Protection and SF units were waiting in front of a large hover.

Ed stepped up to the Protection unit officer and tilted his head at the prisoners. “They claim they’re in danger of being killed in custody, and that’s not completely out of the realm of possibility, so if I were you, I’d watch them, and whoever comes in to see them, very closely. Even if those visitors have been cleared. Even if they work in your unit.”

The woman gave him a look he couldn’t quite interpret. She straightened her uniform, mouth pursed. “Noted.”

“Just so you’re aware, my team and I are recording this hand-over for our files.” He wondered if that was a tightening of the skin in the corner of her eyes. “There will be no denying I didn’t warn you later.” He had a bad feeling about things, now that Banks, Juller and Trish were being settled into the hover. Like they were spot on in their assessment of their chances of living.

He studied the PU officer carefully, and she hunched a shoulder and glared at him. “Understood.”

“We’ll be escorting the hover to the Department of Defense,” the SF teams leader said, his voice cheerful in the face of the clear tension between Ed and the Protection Unit officer. “Hatch has filled me in, we know they’re targets.”

The SF team stepped away from the hover for a moment, leaving the prisoners under the watchful eye of the Protection team, to have a quiet talk with Bailey and Hatch.

Ed started back to the runner, headed toward Wren, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs watching the proceedings with interest. He needed to get his scanner and his and Wren’s bags, and then they could finally catch up with Ethan Hyt.

Just before he reached her, a strange sizzling sound filled the air. Ed was watching Wren as the air seemed to boil overhead, and shemoved, reaching out to grab him with a strength hehadn’t realized she had, and taking him with her as she dived beneath the runner.

The world exploded around them.

He felt a wave of secondhand heat, but there was a barrier between him, Wren and the wall of laz fire. He looked back at a distorted image of himself, as a thin, mirror-like shield wrapped around them.

The Protection Unit hover exploded, and the debris flew up and came crashing all around, burning as it fell.

A moment of silence came and went and then the shield was gone and it was just him and Wren, tight up against each other, lying in the shelter of the runner.

Ed raised his head to look at the chaos, and saw one of the Protection team looking at them, eyes wide.

“Bailey and Hatch,” Wren murmured into his neck, and he could feel the racing of her heart.

He pulled her up with him and then levered into a crouch, trying to find the Protection Unit member again.

“They’re down.” Wren had also risen to a crouch, and she ran, bent double, out into the open, heading for where their friends lay, surrounded by burning debris.

Ed followed behind her, looking upward for any sign of the ship that had hit them from above, and then sweeping his gaze around the wreckage.

The Protection Unit officer who’d been watching them was tending to a colleague lying on the ground. Had he seen the silver shield? Ed had a horrible suspicion that he had.

Ed headed toward him, sidestepping a piece of the hover, and came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Banks, lying face down and dead.

The maintenance chief had called his own death correctly.

But the manner it had been accomplished . . . Ed couldn’t help but see this attack as an act of desperation.

Only people with a massive secret to hide would take the chances these people took.

And he was as determined as ever to find out what that secret was, or he and Wren would never be safe.

24

Wren lookedthrough the back doors into the medical hover where Bailey and Hatch lay, watching them being strapped down onto stretchers.

“Look after them,” she said to the SF officer standing beside her.

The officer gave a jerky nod, his eyes full of worry and questions. “Captain Hyt will want to see you.” He glanced over at Ed, and Wren wondered if he was thinking of how Ed had fought Hyt, just like Hatch had, the first time they’d met. “He’s on his way back from Nanganya right now. He should be landing in a few hours.”

“We know. We’ll find him.” Ed sounded sincere, but Wren wondered if he was lying.

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