The Sixth Day (A Brit in the FBI #5)(24)

Mike felt the base of her skull. Her fingers came away wet. “No, don’t worry, not much blood. I think it’s a cut from the window glass when it exploded.” She grabbed his hand. “I’m all right, Nicholas. Now, how about you? That was some driving, by the way.” And she whispered a prayer.

“What?”

“I’m thanking my dad. He taught me how to hit a moving target. Now, answer me, are you okay?”

“I’m mad as hell, is what I am, but my body’s intact.”

She saw the rage in his eyes, a killing rage. Calm down, calm down. She said, her voice matter-of-fact, “Let’s go get a look at that drone.”

Several cars were pulling over now, a few people getting out to see what was going on, but Nicholas waved them off. He shouted, “Thanks, we’re fine. I’ve called the police.”

Once alone, they walked through the tall grass until they found the crash site.

Nicholas put a hand on her arm. “Stay here. I want to make sure the thing isn’t still capable of shooting or blowing up on us.”

“Nicholas, forget it. I’m the one with the Glock although how a gun would save us might be in question.”

He wanted to argue but gave it up. They slowly circled the drone. The twin engines were still smoking from Mike’s bullets. The drone was slightly tipped, and they saw a bullet hole through the small camera mounted inside the base of the fuselage.

Nicholas said, “Whoever was driving the drone can’t see anything now, not with a bullet in the camera. Great shot, Mike.”

“Great piece of luck. Think maybe it has a self-destruct mechanism?”

“It could, and wouldn’t that be diabolical?” He poked about a bit, then straightened. “Okay, it looks pretty dead to me. We need to take this thing apart.”

“I hope it’ll lead us to whoever tried to kill us.” Saying the words aloud spiked his rage. She saw it, grabbed him around his neck and squeezed him tight. He buried his face in her hair, felt a small shard of glass and felt more rage pound through him. Then her voice, light, nearly laughing, “Now, Nicholas, don’t forget, it’s been more than a week since our last adventure, so don’t go all mushy on me.”

He drew a deep, calming breath and pressed his forehead to hers. “Yes, you’re right. Now, I have no intention of putting this thing in the boot and driving it down to London. I’m calling Penderley. He can handle it.”

Mike listened with half an ear as he explained what had happened to Penderley. She knew the fallow field they stood in would soon be overrun by a Scotland Yard forensic team, or a drone team. Was there any such thing yet?

Who was trying to kill them? How did they know where they’d be? How did they even know she and Nicholas had poked the hornet’s nest?

We’re being watched.

She pulled out her phone. Her last call was two days ago; she’d spoken to her parents, telling them she and Nicholas had arrived at Old Farrow Hall. That was it.

Nicholas punched off. “Penderley is sending a special group to deal with the drone.” He stared off into space a moment and said slowly, as if reading her mind, something he did entirely too often, “Whoever sent this drone has access to us, our phones, the computers. How else would they know to send something after us when we were only assigned the case this morning?”

“I haven’t made any calls since we arrived. But you have, Nicholas, to Savich, then to your dad, an hour ago.”

“Bloody hell, you’re right. Someone could have tapped the phones at the Home Office, no other way to find us.”

He took the battery out of his mobile, tossed it toward the car. Mike followed suit. They walked a good distance from the smoking drone. Twenty steps later, he said quietly, “Mike, we have to assume whoever is behind these attacks can only hear when we’re directly communicating, so we’ll accept everything electronic is compromised. Not only keystrokes, they might very well have audio, as well.”

“We’re talking someone with a lot of money, probably a lot of power, as well, Nicholas. That drone—how much do you think it cost to build?” She felt her neck again, no more blood. She pulled another small shard of glass from her hair.

He raised his hand, worked another piece out of her ponytail. “We’re going to make sure we can’t be overheard discussing this from now on.”

She leaned up, whispered, “Let’s have meetings in the park like spies.”

He pictured Hyde Park, the two of them huddled on a bench on the banks of the Serpentine. “Good idea. Now, as I see it, the problem is, if they’ve penetrated the Security Services’ firewalls, they can certainly access the CCTV and watch where we go. Your glasses are crooked.”

“But why are they so scared of us? I mean, they came after us within two hours.” She took off her glasses, blew on the lenses, wiped them off on her shirt, straightened each temple, set them back on her nose. “Okay, good?”

He cupped her chin in his palm, studied her face, her ratty ponytail. “Yes, glasses straight, perfect. Do you think our reputation has preceded us?”

She snorted, then frowned. “Well, you did save the president’s life—that was pretty big news—and we know it leaked out that you saved Washington, D.C., from a Godzilla-size tsunami. You think maybe someone’s trying to get even, for whatever reason?”