Slow Agony (Assassins, #2)(78)

“You know who I am?” said Griffin. We’d wiped French’s memory. She shouldn’t remember Griffin. She should have complete amnesia.

French laughed. “Oh, you thought you erased my memory, didn’t you? Is that Leigh in the background? Your father will be happy to know you’re all right. He’s been giving me fits about your safety.”

“My father?” I got up, walking across the room to get closer to the laptop. “But I injected my father with—”

“Yes, well, honestly, did you really think that we’d work in a facility where we’d discovered a serum that made people invincible and not use it on ourselves? How stupid do you think we are?” French pursed her lips.

“You and my father both had the serum,” I said. “It healed your memory wipe?”

“A pleasant surprise,” said French. “Even Thorn didn’t know it would protect us.”

“So, you and my father are working together?” I said. “Why?”

“I suppose Marcel’s dead,” said French, looking vaguely disappointed. “Did you by any chance video tape yourself killing him, Griffin? I think watching that would be extraordinarily intriguing. Insight into your damaged psyche and all of that.”

“You sent Marcel after me,” said Griffin. “Why?”

French tapped her lip with one finger. “Let’s think about that, shall we, Griffin? I used to be a woman who was part of a very lucrative organization. I provided bullet-proof assassins to people who paid me a lot of money. But now all my assassins have been scattered far and wide. You ever think that might have annoyed me just a little bit?”

Griffin gritted his teeth. “Revenge? Really? What about Knox? He’s the one who actually took you down.”

French smiled. “Oh, I have plans for Knox.”

“No, you don’t,” said Griffin. “You don’t, because I’m going to find you, and I’m going to kill you.”

French’s laughter floated out of the computer. “Oh, Griffin, you’re so adorable when you’re angry.”

Griffin slammed the laptop shut. “Motherf*cker,” he muttered.

I swallowed. “I guess that’s what Wolfman meant when he said that Op Wraith moved.”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Griffin said. “French knew where Marcel was. She knows where we are. I don’t know what kind of resources she’s got these days, but there could be a team headed here now.”

That was fine with me. I had no desire to stay in this place for one second longer.

*

Griffin handed the laptop across the table in the booth to Sloane. “We haven’t opened it yet, but I was hoping you could work some magic there, maybe figure out where French is. I managed to get a screen capture of the video.”

We were all in a diner. Griffin and I had been driving for hours to rendezvous with the twins. After talking to French, contacting them was the first thing that he did. He and I talked about bringing Knox in on it, but we decided against it. French wanted to hurt Knox, so maybe it was better that he stay in hiding with his daughter.

“Yeah, Sloane will get it,” said Silas. “She’s a computer whiz.”

Sloane opened the computer. “I’ll do my best.”

“You’ll be happy to know that your mother is home from the hospital,” said Silas. “We’ve been keeping our eyes on your family.”

“Thanks for that,” said Griffin. “I figured that once Marcel had me, he’d leave them alone.”

Sloane tapped away at the keyboard. “I’m disabling the wireless so that French can’t track the computer.” She stared at the screen for a second, clicked with her mouse, and then turned the picture toward us. “This the screen capture?”

French’s face was filling the screen again. She was frozen in mid laugh, and she looked demented.

Griffin nodded. “That’s it, all right. I know you can’t see much behind her, but it looks familiar to me.”

Silas cocked his head. “Yeah, you’re right. Those walls. I’ve seen that color paint before.”

I raised my eyebrows. “It’s gray, right? There something special about it?” It looked nondescript to me.

Sloane turned the computer back to face her. “It’s the AXU.”

Griffin’s eyes lit up. “You’re right, it is.”

“AXU?” I said. “That some kind of weird university?”

“Auxiliary Unit,” said Silas. “It was a backup station for Op Wraith. A place to evacuate to if stuff went wrong in the main facility.”

“Guess we’re heading north, then,” said Sloane.

“Is it outside of Boston too?” I asked.

“Nah, it’s out in the middle of nowhere in New York state,” said Griffin. “All the assassins had to memorize the latitude and longitude coordinates in case something bad happened.”

“Why do you think she’d go somewhere so completely obvious?” said Silas.

“She probably wants us to come,” said Sloane. “She’s so arrogant, I bet she thinks she can reprogram all of us into being good little assassins again.”

Griffin smiled tightly. “She’s got a surprise coming.”