So that was Snyder’s motive, to get him back to Tempest. If he pretended that was what he wanted, he could buy more time.
Max rubbed his temple. “It’s hell coming down off the stuff.”
Snyder’s voice turned silky smooth. “You don’t have to. The lab where Dr. Whitman worked, where we used to get our shots, has been destroyed. She destroyed it. She’s our enemy now.”
Was that the lie Tempest was spreading among its agents? It was designed to make Ava enemy number one, which would be laughable if it weren’t life-and-death.
Max cleared his throat. “Where are we getting our shots now?”
Snyder hesitated, his eyes flickering. Tempest agents didn’t do well when they had to make decisions like this on their own.
Straightening his spine, Snyder said, “Germany. We’re going to Germany now, where the other testing takes place.”
The other brainwashing, but Max was supposed to be a good little agent and not state the obvious.
“I don’t know, man. It’s hard.”
“Come back, Duvall. We need you. The cause needs you.”
Maybe if he went with Snyder, Tempest would forget about Ava, or he could convince them she knew nothing, was no threat.
“You’d take me to Germany now?”
“Yes. If I had orders to kill you, I would’ve done it before I walked into this bathroom.”
He believed that. “And Dr. Whitman? We just leave Dr. Whitman? She really doesn’t know anything. Hell, I don’t know anything.”
“Yes. We leave her here.” Snyder shifted his gaze to the wall and back.
He was lying.
Max’s muscles coiled. He’d take the shot and then die for it. Die for Ava. It would be the most human action he’d taken in a long time. He’d go out a man, not a machine.
His gaze focused on a point right between Snyder’s eyebrows.
Max sensed a whisper behind the divider and then Ava emerged from behind it. In a flash, she lunged at Snyder and plunged the pen into the side of his neck. He dropped like a brick, his automatic weapon slipping from his hands.
It all happened so fast, Max still had his weapon pointing at thin air.
Ava grabbed a paper towel, wiped off the pen and tossed it in the trash. “Let’s get out of here before the lunchtime bus service starts and someone actually comes into this bathroom.”
“We can’t leave him here with this weapon. The drug you just injected him with mimics a heart attack.”
“Do your thing. I’ll watch out for witnesses.”
While Ava hovered near the door, he crouched beside Snyder’s body and started breaking down his weapon. He threw some pieces into the trash can. The rest he’d toss into the Dumpster around the corner.
When he had the two longest pieces of Snyder’s gun in his hands and his own weapon tucked back into its holster, he joined Ava at the door.
“Let’s slip around the back. Do you see any cameras around here? I checked when I headed inside, but I didn’t have much time.”
They scanned the outside of the small dilapidated building and Max didn’t detect anything. He grabbed Ava’s hand and pulled her to the back of the bathroom. Then he leaned into the Dumpster and buried the two pieces of metal beneath a mountain of trash.
He wiped his hands on the thighs of his jeans. “Let’s do a little window-shopping on our way back to the car.” He took her hand again and they strolled down the sidewalk like a couple of tourists, except Ava’s skin had an unnatural pallor and her hand was shaking in his.
When they got to the car, she folded her frame in half and covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook and heaving sobs racked her body.
Although he wanted to take her in his arms, he wanted to get out of the area more, so he let her cry alone until he pulled the car into a turnout for a view point.
When he threw the car into Park and turned off the engine, he reached for her, running his hand along her back. “I’m sorry, Ava. I’m sorry you had to kill a man. You shouldn’t have followed me, but you saved my life.”
She rolled her head to the side, looking at him through wet lashes. “I don’t care about killing him, Max. He was evil. I was just so afraid I wouldn’t get there in time. And when I heard the last part of your conversation, when I heard him lie about letting me go, I knew you were going to shoot him. I knew you were going to die.”