Negative.
Using the high-powered night-vision goggles she’d picked up, Zaira considered the pair. Breathing masks, she ordered, after weighing up all possibilities. No one is to stop them.
This couldn’t be coincidence. Either Aden’s and Zaira’s rumored abductions had given someone else the courage to attack the Arrows or these saboteurs were connected to those who’d taken them. Zaira wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to discover more.
Understood.
Zaira grabbed a mask for herself from a nearby storage locker as Mica initiated the telepathic tree that meant the order would hit every Arrow mind within the compound in fifteen seconds flat, then settled down to wait. It didn’t take long. The saboteurs lobbed gas grenades into the compound before turning to make their escape.
Quickly ordering most of her team to remain behind to handle the gas, using countermeasures that’d ensure it wouldn’t spread beyond the compound, Zaira and three others set off in shadow pursuit of the saboteurs. When the two—a male and a female, both in sleek black wetsuits—slipped into different canals, Zaira and Alejandro took the male, while the other team took the female.
Their target didn’t come up out of the water.
Having long before prepared for such a threat to the compound, Zaira used the heat sensor built into her phone to track him, guessing either he’d had breathing equipment stored in an easily accessible part of the canal or he’d taken a short-acting tablet that boosted the oxygen in his blood, allowing a longer period of immersion.
Alejandro kept stealthy pace with her. While he wasn’t cleared for solo missions any longer, his reflexes were flawless and she trusted him to watch her back. And, no matter what anyone else said, she thought part of the real Alejandro still remained, still had pride.
She would not crush that pride by consigning him to inconsequential tasks.
“Zaira.” A whisper less than sound as their target disappeared from the sensors. “He must have an entrance below the waterline.”
Zaira nodded, making note of the only possible building into which the target could’ve gone. Lapped by water and serviced by an overbridge, it was in neat but not elegant condition. A light came on in a room on the third floor above the waterline less than two minutes later, just as Zaira received a telepathic report from the other team.
Our target appears to have arrived at her personal living quarters. Entry was not observed, as it occurred below the waterline, but the silhouette seen in a room soon afterward matches the subject’s shape and size.
Zaira told the second team to stay in position and go with the target if she made a move. I’ll organize for another team to relieve you at 0700 hours.
Yes, sir.
Zaira and Alejandro stayed on watch until the same time, but their target seemed to have bedded down for the night. In the meantime, she’d already sent details of both locations to Aden, along with a request for more support. With the majority of the Venice contingent having relocated to the valley, she was running on a skeleton crew.
He was waiting for her when she handed over the watch to the relief team, and returned to her quarters.
“What did you find?” she asked, sitting on her bed to take off her boots after waving him into her room and going across to open the doors to her small and well-alarmed balcony.
“Both rented their apartments under false names, but we were able to use the photos on their IDs to trace their true identities.” He leaned against her closed door. “They’re not human or Psy but water changelings.”
Zaira looked up. “Water breathers? That, I didn’t predict.” The water-based changelings tended to keep to themselves. Even other changelings claimed not to know much about the reclusive group. They certainly didn’t pick fights—or hadn’t.
Boots and socks off, she rose to get rid of her jacket while Aden remained against the other wall. He was once again wearing his ankle-length leather coat over a suit. The suit was black, the shirt the same color. She wanted him to take it all off so she could warm herself up against his skin.
“A number of the sea changelings do call Venice home,” she said, forcing her mind back onto the right path. “I’ll factor that into my new threat assessments.”
“I’ve alerted our people in other water-edged or otherwise water-accessible areas to do the same.”
Throwing aside her uniform jacket, she removed her weapons and set them carefully under her bed, right below where she slept. Access would take her less than two heartbeats. Roll off the bed, grab a weapon in the same move, shoot. Should the attack come via the door, she could roll under the bed to the other side and use the bed as a shield. Should it come via the balcony, she’d already be shielded by the bed’s bulk.
“Any obvious red flags?”
Aden shook his head. “Both are living a vanilla life on the surface, working from home on building websites.”
“Easy cover.”
“We’re tracing their clients, but as yet, they appear to be legitimate small businesses, so someone is doing the work. No military or other suspicious contacts who could’ve supplied them with poison gas bombs, but the woman is a chemist, could have the expertise to have made them.”
“Even with that,” Zaira said, “I’m guessing they’re grunts. Low level and expendable. I’ll keep them under surveillance—they may lead us to people with more authority if we allow their overseers to believe they remained undetected.”
Aden nodded. “I’m working my contacts to arrange a meet with the alpha of water-based changelings and I’ve got people working on digging up more data about them. Either the entire group is in on it or they have two rogue members.” He slid his hands into his coat pockets as she undid her tight braid and threw the hair tie on the small table where she kept wildflowers in a painted porcelain vase.