Page 40 of The Hitman's Omega Priest
“Panic room?”
“I checked. He’s not in it. He’s not on the island.”
Bishop squeezed the pendant until his knuckles ached, refusing to allow grief or fear to control him. Refusing to be swamped with guilt for not protecting Kensley. For allowing him to be taken. No, he held on tight to his anger and sense of betrayal, and he glared at King. “How? How did they know who Ziggy found for a doctor? How did they know we even needed one?” An infuriating thought hit him. “Walsh?”
King shook his head. “Walsh is dead. We found him down by the airstrip. Shot in the chest like you were.”
“Fuck. Why are we still here?”
“Because we haven’t left yet.” He gave Bishop an exasperated stare. “You got a solid knock upside the head when you hit the floor, so I needed you to wake up and prove you aren’t comatose or seriously concussed. Congratulations, you’re not.”
Bishop rolled his eyes then began testing his extremities. None felt broken or damaged; it was just his head and chest that hurt. “Surveillance video?”
“Being downloaded. We’re looking for everything we can find to figure out who organized this, and I’m leaving a cleanup crew behind. You, me and Garvey are leaving in the next twenty minutes.”
“Where?”
“The States. Home.”
“What if Kensley’s on another island? The archipelago is fucking huge.”
“Unlikely, and before you ask, I’ve got people on the island where Dr. Fatima lived, looking in to what happened there. We obviously have to be careful with the local police.”
All things Bishop knew too well, and everything in him wanted to be involved. “Help me sit up, boss, I feel like an idiot laying down like this.”
King clasped his forearm and helped him sit, turn, and plant both feet on the floor. Bishop’s head swam for a few seconds, and he felt like he’d had a stake driven right through his breast bone, but he was upright.
“I’m so sorry,” Bishop said. “I failed.”
“You had no way to anticipate an ambush, and we found you with your gun on the ground, not the holster, so it wasn’t as if you didn’t show caution. I know you, Bishop. You don’t take un-calculated risks when it comes to the job.”
Kensley isn’t a job for me anymore. He’s my whole life.
And his life had been taken away from him. Again.
“He’s sick,” Bishop growled. “He’s scared. Fuck knows what they’ll do to him.” If one single hair was out of place on Kensley’s head, he’d personally start snapping off fingers. If someone touched him any other way…other body parts would get snapped off. Bishop would take joy in exacting his revenge.
They just had to find Kensley first.
“How long has it been?” Bishop asked.
“About four hours. The people who took Kensley didn’t turn off the perimeter alarm when they opened the gate, so we got the notification immediately and headed straight here.”
Bishop wanted to throttle someone. A four-hour head start to gods knew where, to do gods knew what to Kensley, before they ransomed him back to King. Someone now had a fuck-ton of leverage on King and his hold over the northeastern territory. But if King was worried, he didn’t show it. Hecouldn’tshow it, not with so many of his people in the house. King had been careful not to say Bishop’s real name too loudly when anyone else was nearby.
“So we’re going back to the city to just wait for the ransom call?” Bishop snapped, angry and exhausted, and badly in need of an oxy or something.
“Yes. If there’s a traitor or a spy down here amongst my allies, we’ll weed them out, but that is not our primary focus, you and me. We have other things to do.”
“Fine.” His need to do as King ordered was at war with his need to go feral and hunt down Kensley. But he couldn’t do it alone, even if he was physically at his best, which he wasn’t. He pocketed the pendant as he stood on annoyingly shaky legs. “I just need to grab a few things.”
“Three minutes.”
He resisted the impulse to flip King off, then went into the bedroom to throw a handful of personal items into his duffel. He also took what he could of Kensley’s personals, like the woven sandals he loved so much. He wanted to take a minute and remember all the amazing days and nights he’d spent here with Kensley, but there was no time. No time to reflect on the past, only to spend on the future.
Something in the rumpled sheets caught his eye. Bishop picked up Kensley’s necklace with the shaved shells and two blue beads. Kensley hadn’t taken it off since the day he bought it. Bishop’s heart twisted with anger, and he vowed to give it back to his charus one day. As soon as humanly possible.
Garvey drove them to the airstrip and the small waiting plane. Garvey went up front to sit with the pilot, leaving King and Bishop alone in the small cabin. Before Bishop could choose a seat, King swung and punched him solidly in the jaw. Bishop lost his balance and tumbled sideways into a nearby seat, his chest and ribs screeching in protest.
