Matt Drake 14 - The Treasures of Saint Germain Read Online Free Page A

know exactly what I mean. Dancing around it only makes it harder.”
    “I don’t dance around anything, Smyth. Like you said—I’m from New York.”
    “What do you see in him?”
    There it was. Laid out on the line, grated, drawn from Smyth’s raw throat like a length of taut barbed wire.
    Lauren toned down her quick, caustic attitude when it came to Smyth, he knew. She’d had a tough upbringing, a hard life, and had once told him she found it hard to engage fully with the opposite sex because she’d seen it in all its forms of degradation. He saw the struggle to stay civil on her face.
    “He’s trying to help us.”
    “No. He’s a freakin’ terrorist, caught red-handed. And now he’s trying every trick in the book to stay out of super-max.”
    “He was coerced. In any case, he’s changed.”
    “Nicholas Bell is a Pythian,” Smyth threw at her. “Nothing’s changed.”
    “You don’t know how he’s been helping.”
    “I don’t want to know. I don’t care.”
    Lauren threw her hands up in exasperation. “And there you have it. It’s just you. Anger before reservation. Guilt before question. Stop being such a negative asshole all the time.”
    Smyth flinched. “So now I’m the asshole, huh?”
    “Don’t expect an apology.”
    Smyth didn’t. Lauren found it almost impossible to say sorry even when she was blatantly wrong.
    “You spent time with this guy before. Only one night, but yeah, you managed to get close. That didn’t stop him colluding with the enemy, Lauren.”
    “Once you’re in it’s hard to get out.” She alluded to her own past.
    “What’s this? You trying to identify with him?”
    “Of course not. But I see what he’s doing. Smyth,” she licked her lips. “He’s helping us track Webb through their network of old contacts. Thanks to him we know Webb visited Romania recently. His giving us every name, every number. This is information you can’t find anywhere, because it only exists in someone’s head and doesn’t have to be given up!”
    Smyth watched her face as she broke off, trying to rein it all in. Saw the emotions there, the deeper feelings, and grew scared.
    More than scared. Lauren was being manipulated and didn’t know it. Bell was using her, and Smyth hated the terrorist all the more for it. How could he stop Nicholas Bell now?
    Lauren indicated the time. “We’re gonna be late.”
    He didn’t care, but picked up his jacket and followed her out of the room. Usually, through years of training he was easily able to compartmentalize.
    Not this time. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that Nicholas Bell had to be stopped. Permanently.
     
    *
     
    Torsten Dahl made the journey to work swiftly and alone, still smarting from his recent ‘discussion’ with Johanna. Since the very recent reality checks in their lives they had been trying to make a better go of it, to work something out. At first, after the Barbados hell appeared to change them forever, the rocky road had smoothed out, given them an easy passage, safe havens opening up all around. But even in the short time since, pitfalls had started to reopen, past problems rearing their obnoxious heads. On the positive side his kids seemed to have shrugged the horrors of that day off, with only an occasional reference bringing back the nightmares. Oh, and Julia never wanted to see a beach again. At least for the next three weeks.
    Dahl flicked his ID through a couple of card readers and then stopped abruptly as his name was called. Well, shouted actually. No— screeched.
    “Torsten! Torsten! Hold up!”
    He sighed. He was the only person assigned to look out for her and without him, she wouldn’t be able to gain admittance to the building.
    Not the worst possible outcome, he thought.
    Kenzie slipped through the gates, the only comforting sight in his opinion the lack of the customary katana. Offensive and dangerous, the ex-Mossad antiquities smuggler had developed a soft spot for him, and never failed to