“You don’t really have much say in it,” Shawn said pointedly as he
unhooked his shoulder holster and laid it carefully on the little built-in seat in the corner of the room.
“You son of a–”
“Remy,” Shawn said sternly as he turned quickly, gripping Remy’s arms and
shaking him slightly. “I’m the only one who can do this, and you know it,” he said as he held Remy at arm’s length.
“Bullshit! You’re looking for an easy fucking way out, and you know it.
What are you running from, Shawn? Is it me?” Remy asked with a worried expression that broke Shawn’s heart. “If it is, then I swear you don’t have to. After this is done, I’ll disappear and you won’t have to deal with me ever again, just don’t… don’t go back to them, Shawn. Please,” Remy begged as Shawn gaped at him.
“I would never run from you,” Shawn insisted as his fingers dug into Remy’s
arms possessively. “I’ve done you wrong at every possible fucking turn, lad. You
have to know that I hate meself for it. But you have to let me do this.”
Remy frowned and looked at him intently. “You’ve never done me wrong,
Shawn. Not in my mind you haven’t,” he said with certainty. Shawn stared at him in disbelief.
“Remy, how can you say that?” he asked in a breathless whisper as he
dropped his hands to his sides and took a slightly stunned step backwards. “I’ve been nothing but horrible to you. I’ve lied and–”
“You don’t need to list your offences, bebette, I remember most of them. My ass says to say hello,” Remy said in a flat, almost amused voice.
The corners of Shawn’s mouth twitched in amusement at the pet name Remy
had used. Obviously Remy had forgotten the thrashing he got for calling Sean a ‘little monster’ the last time.
“Bebette?” Shawn repeated in amusement.
Remy shrugged and smirked. “We’re both too tired to kick the shit out of
each other again. I figure I can use it if I want.” His smile disappeared as he looked at Shawn solemnly. “You’re the only friend I’ve ever had, podna,” he asserted in a soft, serious voice. “That’s all I know right now, and that’s what I’ll take with me when I go.”
The Archer 513
Abigail Roux
“Remy,” Shawn protested in a stunned voice that he wasn’t sure belonged to
him.
Go? Remy couldn’t go anywhere.
“I won’t let you do it,” Remy said as he stepped closer to Shawn and held
out his hand with his palm up as if asking for Shawn to take something from him.
“You’re burnt out and you’re half-deaf and you’ve proven to them that you’re no
longer loyal. I know it hurts you, Shawn, but they can no longer trust you, and you know it. They would never let you back in. I have a much better chance of getting back than any of the rest of you do, and I have the only chance of staying alive once I’m in.”
“Fuck,” Shawn groaned as he ran his hands through his hair in agitation.
Remy was right. Their only hope was to reinsert a member of their group
back into the Organization; someone who could then muck up the investigations
enough to allow the other six to go to ground without exposing himself as a mole.
Nikolaus, with his computer skills and the access they afforded him, was the most likely of the seven of them to be able to divert the attention they would receive, but he was far too vulnerable. He didn’t have the devious quality that would be necessary, regardless of how easily he’d fooled all of them. He’d proven he was far too gullible and trusting, despite his experience as an agent.
Shawn didn’t want to risk any of the others on this, anyway. That was why
he had volunteered himself, though he probably didn’t have the ability to evade
detection that Remy did. He could at least take care of himself if he was found out.
Even so, Shawn hated to admit it to himself, but Remy was right.
The younger man was the only one with both the know-how and the
charisma to pull it off. Shawn just didn’t want to see the other man heading back into the lion’s den alone. Never alone.
LIX.
“I don’t get it,” Nikolaus whispered as he slid down the wall of the compartment to sit on his haunches and look up at Gray, who had yet to move since Carl left them almost an hour before.
“What part of what just happened didn’t you follow?” Gray asked flatly.
Nikolaus found himself actually missing the smart-ass smirk that was seemingly
forever evident in Gray’s voice.
“I’ve never seen Thiago crack like that,” Nikolaus said in a soft voice. “He’s
always the one breaking up fights and sitting on Brandt when he tries to blow
something up. He just didn’t strike me as the type to… to just… ”
“The type to what?” Gray asked in a tired, almost challenging voice as he
finally raised his head and looked at Nikolaus. “Be angry when he’s betrayed and lied
514 The
Archer
Abigail Roux
to? Lose it when he finds out his lover and partner of five years has been running around with another man and liking it? He didn’t just crack, Faust, he figured me out.
He knew I was lying to him and he fucking lost it. Any one of us would’ve done the same.”
“I don’t think I would have. Not like that. That was vicious.”
“He kills people for a living, he was nowhere near vicious,” Gray spat
heatedly.
Nikolaus frowned and shook his head.
“Open your fucking eyes!” Gray shouted. Nikolaus looked at the door
nervously and made a gesture with his hands for Gray to quiet down. Gray huffed in annoyance. “You’re a secret agent,” he whispered intently. “A fucking commando.
Shit goes down every day that would break a normal person; we live with it and we move on because we aren’t fucking normal, Nikolaus. We don’t play by life’s rules, and–”
“It may go down, but it’s never your lover that does it, is it?” Nikolaus asked
angrily. “Thiago fucked Remy, too, Gray. And Shawn and Carl,” he informed Gray as the man stood up and began to pace restlessly in the confined space. “Why would he take exception to you doing the same? I mean, it’s obvious that you and Remy–”
Nikolaus gasped and his words cut off short as Gray darted toward him and
grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him roughly to his feet. He was
slammed against the wall with Gray’s forearms at his throat. Gray held him on his toes just like Remy had pinned Evan Washburn back in Prague.
“There’s a difference between fucking and fucking and then lying about it,”
Gray snarled. “Especially when it meant more than just getting information,” he
whispered feelingly as his breath ghosted across Nikolaus’s face. “At least it did on my side of it,” Gray amended as he let go of Nikolaus’s collar and rested his hands instead on Nikolaus’s shoulders as he straightened out Nikolaus’s shirt in a
disturbingly tender gesture.
“You’re saying you’re in love with Remy?” Nikolaus asked in confusion.
Gray’s grip tightened on Nikolaus’s shoulders briefly before he pushed away
from the other man to resume his pacing.
“Kincaid?” Nikolaus prodded as he looked out at Gray incredulously. Gray
closed his eyes and sighed. “But I thought you and Thi were… I mean… what?”
“This is getting too fucking complicated,” Gray murmured. Nikolaus
watched him sympathetically as he flopped back down onto the lower bunk with a
frustrated sigh.
“Do you think him about him every waking minute, Gray?” Nikolaus asked
/> in a businesslike tone.
Gray’s head shot up and they locked eyes for several long seconds. “What?”
The Archer 515
Abigail Roux
he asked incredulously.
“You heard me. Do you think about him all the time and worry about his
safety when he’s gone? Are you barely restraining yourself from jumping up right
now and stalking out there to find him?”
“Not really,” Gray answered in a hesitant, confused voice.
“I’d wager that, right now, Shawn has him in the other compartment on his
knees, fucking him senseless. Are you thinking about that? Picturing it in your mind and letting the jealousy take over your other emotions?”
“I… no. I hadn’t really thought of it,” Gray said softly as he looked around
uncomfortably and finally forced his eyes back to Nikolaus.
“Your mind’s on Thiago right now,” Nikolaus stated assuredly. “Even after
what he did to you, you’re still worrying about him, aren’t you? Wondering where he is? What he’s doing? Whether he’s okay? Whether he’s gone mad and leapt from the
train or called in the Feds to take us all away.”
Gray blinked and swallowed with difficulty. “Yes,” he whispered in a voice
so soft that Nikolaus barely heard it.
“Well then, that’s not complicated at all,” Nikolaus said with a smile.
“Yes it is,” Gray argued in a hoarse voice. “Thiago doesn’t… he’s not the
type to understand this sort of… fuck,” he murmured as he rubbed his eyes and let his head fall back into his hands. “I do better with guns than feelings.”
Nikolaus frowned sympathetically and tried to remember if Gray had slept at
all since he and Remy had reappeared. Nikolaus didn’t think he had. He was pretty sure the two of them had endured a long road to get to them, especially considering that Remy had been injured– and decidedly altered– when they arrived. Gray had
probably been playing nursemaid for quite a while.
“When was the last time you slept?” Nikolaus asked the other man gently.
“The plane from Sydney,” Gray answered without raising his head.
“You should sleep, then.”
Gray nodded and rubbed his face, scratching his fingers through the course
beard he had managed to grow.
“How long were you under before you showed up in Sydney?” Nikolaus
asked as he forced his body to relax.
“Not fucking long enough,” Gray mumbled. “Not deep enough, either. I was
still hearing all kinds of talk coming through the underground. About you six and–”
“Through the underground?” Nikolaus asked as his interest was piqued and a
memory was rekindled.
“Yeah?” Gray said as he looked up at Nikolaus curiously, sensing the change
516 The
Archer
Abigail Roux
in Nikolaus’s interest. “It’s a sort of… I don’t know, gossip that goes through the Archer’s people. It–”
“The underground?” Nikolaus repeated incredulously
“Not the Big Bad Underground of the Organization,” Gray said quickly.
“That’s a coincidence.”
“Evan Washburn said something about that in Prague; about hearing
something through the underground,” Nikolaus said thoughtfully.
“Prague?” Gray asked in alarm. “Evan Washburn was in Prague?”
“Yeah. He–”
“When?”
“About two months ago when Remy and–”
“Fucking hell,” Gray cursed as he stood abruptly, barely missing whacking
his head on the upper bunk. “I have to find Thiago.”
LX.
BRANDT watched the scenery fly by as the train hurried them toward Washington,
D.C. He narrowed his eyes at the opaque reflection of himself in the window and
cocked his head to the side.
Something was wrong. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and his
every sense told him to move, to get to the others and protect them.
But he simply stood there and shivered, trying to convince himself that the
others were safe. They’d checked the train. They’d covered their trail. Carl was on watch and everything was fine.
Carl came in about an hour ago and told him about what happened between
Thiago and Gray. That worried Brandt more than he cared to admit. Thiago was a
ruthless bastard, to the point that Brandt found his mild, caring behavior around the six of them the past six months quite odd. So odd, in fact, that he’d at first questioned his identification of the other man.
He saw Thiago exhibit some cruel and unusual behavior during their brief
mission together five years ago, and the rumors of punishments handed out to the
Archer’s men who didn’t do what they were supposed to do were truly horrific. What he had done to Gray, that was more like the Thiago Brandt knew. But what caused the sudden shift from cruel to unassuming and back to cruel again?
Brandt was so engrossed in his thoughts that when the door to the sleeping
compartment opened, he spun around and pulled his gun on Thiago as the other man
entered. Thiago stopped short and raised his hands slowly, and he stood staring at Brandt until the gun was lowered.
The Archer 517
Abigail Roux
“You a little tense?” Thiago asked in his calm, gruff voice.
“Could be,” Brandt said defensively as he re-holstered his weapon. “Have
you seen Trigger?”
“I passed him on the way here,” Thiago said softly with a flick of his thumb
over his shoulder. “He was in the dining car, doing his rounds. What’s wrong?”
“We have to talk, mate,” Brandt said as he took off his shoulder holster and
flung it onto the upper bunk. Thiago watched Brandt unerringly, the motion of the slinging gun not even causing his eyes to flicker. He was on high alert, and Brandt licked his lips nervously. Why would Thiago be on high alert?
“Okay,” Thiago finally said with a little nod. “What about?”
“You have to let me know what’s going on. Something’s changed, I can feel
it.”
“Brandt–”
“Don’t make me threaten you, mate, I’m too bloody tired to come up with
something clever so I may just stick a grenade up your ass and watch you go boom.”
“Nothing’s changed,” Thiago insisted as he walked over to the bunk and sat
down heavily. “Just… you know, enjoy the ride. We’re safe, for now.”
“Uh huh. That why you’re so bloody alert? I heard what you did to Kincaid,”
Brandt hissed accusingly. Thiago didn’t look up at him, but he flinched almost
imperceptibly and Brandt frowned at him. “Why’d you do it? What happened?”
“I snapped,” Thiago admitted in a businesslike tone that Brandt found quite
disturbing. “He’s hiding something from me. I can feel it.”
“Doesn’t give you the right to do what you did,” Brandt maintained with a
frown. “Beat the shit out of a prisoner, sure. Hell, set them on fire, even. But never that to a friend.”
“The right?” Thiago asked in a soft, dangerous voice as he looked up at
Brandt from under lowered brows. He stood suddenly and looked at Brandt as if he
was about to devour him, and Brandt took an involuntary step back. “You forget
who’s in charge of this thing, my friend,” he said in a deliberate, threatening growl.
Brandt thought briefly about reminding Thiago of the extensive fuck up the
whole operation had become while under his control, but the look
in Thiago’s eyes made him think twice about it. This didn’t look like someone who would have lost
control of any operation, no matter how large or complicated. Was this even the same fucking person?
“You’ve gone round the bend, mate,” Brandt whispered as he took another
step back and hit the wall with the heel of his foot. Thiago narrowed his eyes and cocked his head, and then to Brandt’s immense surprise, the other man threw his head back and laughed.
518 The
Archer
Abigail Roux
Actually fucking laughed.
“Oh, that’s fucking rich, coming from you!” Thiago howled as he laughed
joyously and flopped back onto the bunk.
Brandt huffed defensively and relaxed a little. “Hey, I know fucking insane
when I see it.”
LXI.
REMY had briefly fallen into a restless sleep, but now he lay awake and plotting.
How would they go about reinserting him into the Organization? It would
have to be a pretty extensive masquerade; a betrayal of some sort. They would have to make it seem that he had turned on the other men, that he had been working for the Organization all along, trying to be subversive, and that he was now getting out and skittering back home like a good little puppy.
The real kicker was that it would have to be done in front of trusted O.R.G.
agents, to ensure that the charade was accepted, and it would have to be believable.
Bloody, in other words.
Bloodshed was inevitable, it seemed.
Remy jumped when Shawn’s feet thumped the ground. He turned his head
on the thin pillow and looked at him in surprise as the other man knelt beside him in the position in which he had landed.
“What are you doing?” Remy asked in his normal voice, ever mindful of
Shawn’s lack of hearing.
“Even I can hear you down here sighing,” Shawn responded with a little
smile. “Scoot your skinny ass over.”
“No. I just got my spot warm. Bastard,” Remy protested as Shawn lifted the
blanket off him and sat on the edge of the bunk expectantly.
“I’ll keep you warm,” Shawn assured him with a wink. “Now scoot.”