near her charges.” They were labeled Edita and Filip.
Chry shifted as Kelly talked, then shifted again. 2-Stroke had memorized the layout of the house and compound from the brief Kelly had provided. He was up on the op, but something about Chry’s posture sent warning bells through him. What was going on with her?
“Good luck tonight,” Kelly said and left the room.
Chry went after her, and she didn’t look happy.
They had the day to train in the quickly erected simulation the government had set up for them in a warehouse outside the wire.
2-Stroke moved on autopilot, wondering how Dodger was faring with his “emergency leave.” In their downtime, Mad Max looked like he wanted to go off the reservation, but he kept his cool. 2-Stroke had to admit the guy had changed from that hothead they all knew to this balanced Max. Didn’t mean he didn’t like to mix it up, but he was different.
Again, 2-Stroke’s reluctance to tell the guys what had really happened in his past kicked in. He couldn’t take the chance they would look at him differently. The sketching, the death of his father, and the reasons for them were his business. Personal.
2-Stroke was a team player, and he convinced himself holding back on his personal life didn’t hurt the team.
Dodger reached out and pulled Anna into his arms. Her energy and her reserves were spent. They had been up almost twenty-four active hours without any rest. “Okay, so we missed something. They can’t use the iPad, even if they were smarter than us and got the last clue figured out. We have all of them minus one.”
“Right, they’re going to be looking for us hardcore,” Anna murmured into his neck.
“They’re not going to find us,” Mouse said. “This station is invisible. MI-6 doesn’t dick around with their people or the construction of their hidey-holes. They aren’t going to find us unless someone in MI-6 gives us up, and that’s not going to happen. They don’t even know you’re here.”
She nodded.
“We’re tired as hell, but we’ve got one more iPad to get our hands on,” Dodger said.
“I’ll make some more coffee,” Mouse said as Dodger pulled Anna from the computer room out into the living area. He pushed her down on the sofa and retrieved her laptop from the counter.
He sat down next to her. “Pull up the clue, and we’ll go over it word by word.” She accessed the file, and he read the words: The saintly King of Enlightenment centers his span of healing and prophecy on the foundation of his home with a key to the meaning of everything.
She took a breath as Mouse set a hot mug of coffee in her hands, then offered one to Dodger. He accepted the heated ceramic and took a sip. The caffeine buzzed into an already stretched and overworked body.
“All right,” she said after a moment of letting the caffeine kick in. “Saintly king refers to Wenceslas, span of healing and prophecy to the Charles Bridge and foundation of his home to the Kinsky Palace.”
“Yeah, that leaves enlightenment centers.”
She nodded. “I thought enlightenment referred to the king, but it must be a clue of its own.”
“It’s most decidedly a historic landmark.”
“Yes, agreed,” she said. She typed in “enlightenment” and “Prague” into the search engine. There was a lot of information about the enlightenment movement in the city, but it related solely to government and rule.
“Try adding in landmark as a keyword in your search.”
She did and an article about Prague landmarks popped up as the number one search result. They read through them until they got to number one on the list. Estates Theatre. It was mentioned that the theater had been constructed as a result of the Enlightenment period, an ideology of making art and culture available to everyone.
Anna leaned back and closed her eyes. “Okay, it’s got to be the theater. But again, is he talking about a spiritual center or a moral center or a location?”
“Right now,” Dodger said, “they’re featuring Mass in C Minor. Pope Francis is quoted as saying the aria from the Credo ‘lifts you to God.’” He touched her shoulder. “For Christians, God is the center of their world.”
She nodded, her eyes popping open. “Right, but, in this case, the clue is a spiritual clue—the music—not tangible like the statues of Saint Agnes and Saint Lutgardis and the Saint Hans painting. Mozart wasn’t a saint, but his music was considered heavenly. It’s got to be at center stage. That’s