“He’s a Fixer?” asked Buck.

“Nah, just a scout. He’s exactly who we needed to find, though, and my guess is he’s taking you to either a meeting with someone higher up the food chain, or maybe to a camp. I’ve got buzzard drones in the air tracking you. Just ease back and enjoy the ride.”

“Copy that.” The blond young man flipped his sunglasses down and cruised along fifty feet behind the SUV.

“Bug,” asked Bunny, “we have any word on Outlaw?”

There was a lag before Bug answered, “He’s still out there. We’re still looking.”

That was all he’d say, but it was enough.

“Copy that,” said Top.

They settled back as the miles burned away under their tires.

CHAPTER 38

FLORENCE, ITALY

The man came awake while walking.

That’s how it felt. He had been lost in a nightmare of flight and pursuit, and in that dream, he had been both predator and prey. Now he was awake. Walking down a street.

He looked around, completely unsure of where he was.

The street signs and store names were in Italian.

But … how?

He fought for memories, found a few swimming away from him in the darkness of his thoughts, grabbed at them. Caught one or two.

His last clear memory was of the burning building in Johannesburg.

Was that a real memory? Were the things he remembered true?

“God help me,” he whispered, choking on the words. Praying that none of those memories belonged to him.

Knowing, though, that they did.

There were too many details for it to be something borrowed from a movie or book, and too vivid—with all five senses horribly engaged—for them to be residue from a dream.

Dr. Gerald Engelbrecht.

The guards and the staff.

The fires.

He looked down at his hands, surprised to realize that they were gripping suitcases. Heavy ones. Cases he did not recognize.

Saw his dog looking up at him. Ghost looked strange. Wrong. Older, thinner. Hungrier in bad ways. The emotional support animal vest he wore was like a bad joke. How could any animal support him emotionally? He was miles past being a train wreck on any emotional level. And … as for his soul …

He looked around, saw a bench across the street, and carried the cases over, laid them on the seat, opened each. Both were crammed with file folders, flash drives, cell phones, and hard drives. Some of the papers were singed. Some were spattered with blood.

How the hell did he ever get them through customs?

He fished for that knowledge, but there was nothing there. Just a vast black wall without window or door. Impenetrable. Immutable.

“Please…,” he said. But to whom? And for what?

Beside him, the dog whined.