Oracle's Diplomacy

by A. Claire Everward

  “I actually used the mess of the aftermath of the attack on the base to get to it pretty much unnoticed. We took a direct ride, military transport—please don’t ask me how I got those orders through—and on the way, they, Jason’s guys, told me everything they knew. I was, for them, family. They told me about the base, the region, the time they spent there. And everything they knew about what happened that night.” She was quiet for a beat. “Everything they thought I would need for closure, I think. Except with me, it worked differently. I just didn’t know it yet.

  “When we arrived, they showed me around the base. Showed me where Brian and Jason were killed. And on the way, they just happened to show me everything else that had to do with the attack. No one questioned my being there, none of the troops still there. I was an IDSD Intelligence analyst in an alliance military base under IDSD control, and I just happened to be the family of two of their peers, and Jason, he was their friend. Everybody knew I wasn’t really supposed to be there. But . . .” She shrugged. Donovan got it. “And the place was under lockdown, kept safe by then. But then the order came, so they had to detain me.”

  “Order?”

  “Yes. Everything I did unraveled, which was fine, I just wanted to get to the base. What would happen after I got there, that I didn’t care about. So shortly after I got there IDSD figured out what I’d done and already had agents on the way. In the meantime, I was to be detained by the military police on site.” She said that as a matter of fact, and Donovan realized that back then she really had thought she had nothing more to lose. “The base commander, he was a good guy. And you need to understand what it was like then. It was just days after the attack. They were still picking the place apart, the death and destruction were still too real around them, and they were constantly sending out units to try to get to those who did this, who injured and killed their friends. There was a lot of anger and frustration there. And now the base commander was being asked to arrest a family member of two men lost in the attack. So he didn’t. Officially. He just brought me to their secure command and control center, so that I wouldn’t just wander around and he could keep an eye on me himself.

  “And there we were, with all those screens, all those live views. Most views were of the base and the surrounding area, all the places that were now alive in my mind along with everything I knew about that night. But a series of screens right there before me were locked on the view from low-flying drones following the progress of soldiers looking for the attackers. And there was constant chatter around me, and someone was trying to explain to me what I was seeing, and I was focused on the screens and then I couldn’t hear him anymore and I could see it myself. As if I was there, myself.” She shrugged. “And then I knew where they needed to go.”

  Anyone else might have needed to know more to understand, but Donovan didn’t. He’d seen her at work.

  “At first no one listened when I talked, and then the mission coordinator who was communicating with the soldiers outside realized that I was saying things that no one could know. I couldn’t go forward then yet, see what was ahead of them, either in spatial or in temporal terms, but I could see them in the immediate context of their surroundings. And I could see some of the people who participated in the attack on the base. Their images, taken by security cameras on the night of the attack, were on the walls of the command and control center. And it clicked, I could see them in my mind.” She looked at him, her eyes focused. “See, they were there. The attackers.”

  “There where?”

  “Not far. Flanking locations. They had waited, hidden, and had returned, hoping to take advantage of an old trick. The base was still devastated. In shock. They’d watched, knew who was there. Were on a suicide mission this time. Double back and destroy, and kill anyone looking for them on the way, that was their aim.”

  “Except there was a new element in the base.” He frowned. “So that’s how Oracle came to be.”

  She nodded. “Although I wasn’t anywhere near today’s Oracle, it was just something that awakened there and then, so that suddenly everything I needed was there to show me how to help them. Help Sarah and everyone else who’d lost someone at that base. Them, and the soldiers themselves, those who would die if the attackers succeeded again.” Her brow furrowed. “I wasn’t able to do what I do now, and I didn’t have anywhere near the knowledge I’ve acquired since. But I was surrounded by people who knew everything there was to know, and they were guiding the search expertly. All I did was tell them the attackers were there, guide the soldiers to them, and make sure no one was hurt.”

  “Easy,” Donovan said with a smile.

  She laughed a little. “No, really. We all did it together. I told you, I wasn’t today’s Oracle yet.” She contemplated how to put it. “Oracle wasn’t something I could always do and didn’t. I couldn’t do any of it before . . . before then. I have no idea why. All I can say is that it is as if what happened to me, losing Brian and Jason that way, together with this situation where I knew that the soldiers on the screens were close to their attackers, in danger, and I knew . . . I could feel what their families, everyone who loved them would go through if anything happened to them, it’s as if all this led to dormant thought processes and capabilities awakening in my mind, becoming dominant. And I was open to it, there was nothing else there by then, nothing of who I had been was left.” She shrugged again.

  “I remember the silence. The soldiers got the attackers, killed most of them, captured several. There were more troops out there by then, more firepower. Elation at the capture. And then the quiet in the command and control center. Everyone was looking at me. That’s when I realized what I’d done. But I didn’t care. I did it. I could go back and tell Sarah that it was over. I could never tell her what I did, I didn’t even understand it myself, but I could tell her it was over.” She looked beyond him, her eyes distant again. “And it was over for me, too. There was nothing for me anymore.”

  She said nothing for a while, immersed in her thoughts. Finally, she looked at him, her eyes focusing again. “And then the quiet changed, and everyone was looking behind me.”

  “The agents.”

  “Yes. From IDSD Intelligence. And apparently they had seen enough. And they also knew who I was, that I was family to two of the fallen, I guess this factored into their treatment of me. The agent in charge, he approached me. Told me that his agents would take me to the transport they came on, where I was to wait until it was prepared for its return trip. I did as he said, without arguing.” She shook her head with wonder. “He didn’t even handcuff me or anything like that, just clarified that I was being arrested. He was very kind about it. His agents, too. One of the women on his team even volunteered to look after me, make sure I had everything I needed.

  “The agent in charge, he stayed in the command and control center to talk to the base commander. Then he joined us for the flight back. He interrogated me at the beginning of the flight, and I didn’t hide anything. Except for the role anyone else might have had in what I did. But he knew. Eventually—it was funny, I only thought about it later—he told me not to worry, that I’d covered everyone else’s tracks well, that it was possible to ensure no one would be held accountable but me, that considering who else was involved, everyone understood. And then he asked me how I did it. Just like that, how I did it, what he saw in the command and control center. I told him the truth, that I didn’t know. And that was that. He went to call someone, and for the rest of the flight I was left alone. I was exhausted, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered.” She was quiet for a moment.

  “When it was time, when we landed, he came to me. Told me he had to put handcuffs on now. I was officially under arrest, after all. We landed here, at the IDSD airfield, and disembarked inside a hangar, because what I’d done and the circumstances of my arrest could not come out. I was a security risk. A civilian who was a security risk.” This made her smile a little. She shrugged impishly. “Can’t blame them, if you think about
it. Anyway, they put me in a room at the hangar for an hour or so, and then the agent in charge came alone and took me to Donna’s.”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Exactly. Well, it was all very formal, really. He told her he was releasing me to her custody. She was ready, he’d called her, told her the bare minimum. It was the middle of the night, I remember, but once the agent left, I called Tom. Asked him to wake up Sarah. He didn’t ask me where I’d been or what I’d done. He just put her on and stayed on the line with her and I told her. I said, ‘Sarah, they didn’t get away with it.’ And she was quiet, and then she just said, ‘Thank you, Aunt Lara.’ Just that. And I heard Tom crying.”

  She was silent for a long time. “She was better after that, you know. She began recuperating. Smiling again. Tom, too, and Milly and the kids. They’re a good family, a real family, now.”

  “And you?” Donovan asked softly. He remembered what Donna had said, about Lara not having really come back from the place where living had stopped for her, which he now knew was Camp Vrede. He understood better now. Understood both her and Oracle.

  “I don’t remember much of the two months after that. Donna and Patty were there. They were amazing. They didn’t let me out of their sight, one of them was always with me in their apartment. I never went out. They said Tom came by, and Sarah. Milly. My parents. But I don’t remember. I was done. Gone. For a while I expected, waited even, for someone to come and make the official arrest, take me in. Get it over and done with. But no one ever did. No one even came to talk to me about what I’d done.

  “Then one morning there was someone at the door, and Donna and Patty argued with them, but eventually let them in. It was Frank, and another man I didn’t know then. IDSD US Intelligence, he was then, now he’s in Brussels. They came to talk to me. They wanted Donna to leave, but she planted herself at the living room doorway and refused to budge. I remember all of this mostly because of Frank. When he came in, it connected in my mind, even in my haze I recognized him, remembered him from the day I was told Brian and Jason died. And they talked to me, but I didn’t listen, didn’t care. Frank told me later it was like walking in there and looking at a ghost of who I’d been when he first saw me. But he had to try. He said he knew that if he walked out of there without me, not only would the others die, but I would too.”

  Donovan frowned. “The others?”

  Lara nodded. “He came to sit before me, made me look at him, see him, and said that he needed my help. He had fourteen soldiers trapped in Mali, and no one could get them out. ‘I need you to do whatever it was you did in Kuwait,’ he said, and I heard him.” She smiled. “Donna wouldn’t let them take me without her. She didn’t trust them, didn’t trust anyone with me, the way I was. So they took her along. That’s how she knows today about what Oracle is. Or was, back then.

  “That’s the first day I actually remember, you know. They took me to IDSD, to the same place I work in today except it looked very different back then. We’ve since changed the war room and Mission Command, as Oracle became, well, Oracle, and as we became the main IDSD Missions for all our missions worldwide. I wasn’t anywhere near what I am now, and I wasn’t entirely there physically, and I had no idea what I could do, but Frank said he’d take a chance. I walked into what later became the Mission Command you know, and there were people there and they were trying to figure things out, and I saw what was happening on-screen, just helmet cams, that’s all they had, and I could see they had nowhere to go and I thought about Brian’s family, about Sarah and Tom and our parents and me. I knew how those like us, like me, would feel. I could feel what would happen to all those people, all those who loved them.” She was looking at Donovan intensely.

  “And then I could . . . I connected to them, somehow. To the soldiers on-screen. And I knew what to do. So I did. All I had was a short briefing in the car on the way, but I had enough experts around me. Now when you see me work you see five years of knowledge and experience, but none of it existed back then, I needed those who had the necessary knowledge to interpret for me what I was seeing and to relay my instructions accurately to those in the field. I couldn’t just step in and take over like I do now.”

  She took in a deep breath. “When it was over, I remember everybody was staring. Again. Mission Command was smaller then, and it was packed. I had no idea when they all came in. And then Frank took me out, didn’t let anyone talk to me. And when I came out of Mission Command that day, I was in focus again.”

  “You were Oracle.”

  She nodded. “Although that designation, the code name, came months later, and, seriously, it took a long time to get to what I am now. They crammed so much information into me, plus with every mission I pushed the boundaries, tested, improved. Still do.”

  Now Donovan knew how Oracle began. And he finally knew that it was true, amazingly so—Oracle was all her. Just Lara and that unique, brilliant mind of hers. But for him, Oracle wasn’t what mattered. “Yes, but you. What happened to you?”

  She knew what this man who loved her was asking. For him, Oracle came after the woman she was. “An officer took Donna and me back to her place, and I slept. First time I’d slept peacefully since Brian and Jason died. I was dead tired, but finally for the right reasons. The next day I sat in Donna and Patty’s living room again, but near the window this time. Looking out. First time in two months. I wasn’t sure what would happen now. The life I’d had was gone, along with everything I ever thought I wanted, and whatever it was I now did twice, seeing things this way, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I only knew I could do it again. This time, at IDSD, I sort of made it happen intentionally, and it was still there, I simply knew that I had this ability, whatever it was.

  “And that’s when it also occurred to me that I was never brought to justice for what I’d done. Now I know that they had no idea what to do with me. And that there had been discussions about what I did at Camp Vrede, finding the attackers that way and making sure the soldiers were safe. Which was how Frank knew to come to me.” She shrugged. “Anyway, that day Frank came back. Asked me to come work for him at IDSD Missions, said we would figure it out as we went along. Donna said yes. The rest is history.”

  “Donna said yes?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re surprised.” She smiled.

  He chuckled. “No, I really shouldn’t be, should I?”

  “The two of them brought me back. Donna kept me alive those first two months after I returned from Camp Vrede, and then Frank brought me into IDSD, and he watched out for me. He had IDSD’s medical center and physical trainers on my back until I was completely healed, at least physically—the rest came with time, and with what I did as Oracle. Patty negotiated the apartment next door, and she and Donna prepared it for me, and I moved in. Lived there for five years almost, until they had little Greg and I decided they should have it, expand their own apartment. The rest you know.”

  “You’ve been alone since?” he asked bluntly.

  She watched him. “I dated. Sort of. After a long time. Donna would set me up, she said I needed to stay alive.” She laughed a little. “She drove me crazy. I’d go to meet her and Patty, and she’d have a blind date there. And I got asked out. And yeah, sometimes, okay, rarely, I said yes. But just a date, I always cut it short, and I never . . .”

  He nodded. He understood what she wanted to say. “She isn’t planning to set you up anymore, is she? Donna, I mean.”

  Lara laughed, as he hoped she would. Then the laugh subsided, and she watched him for a while. Struggling, he saw. He waited. She needed to go that last stretch. From then, to now. To him.

  “I thought you were gone,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “When I heard what happened . . . I thought I lost you.”

  “I tried to call as soon as I sent away the guy we captured. You didn’t answer my calls. And then when I came back, you pushed me away.”

  She just looked at him.

  “Was it easier that way? Keeping me
away?”

  Her gaze was tired. “No. Too late.”

  He grinned. “See? You love me.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Go away.”

  “Like hell.” But then the grin disappeared, and his voice softened. “My Lara.”

  They were both half lying on the sofa now, comfortable against each other. She looked exhausted. And he was, too, he realized. He’d barely had any sleep, and this, finally knowing what had kept her from him, took away tension he hadn’t even realized had accumulated in him.

  She had leaned her head on the back of the sofa, and her eyes were heavy. He got up, and at his movement she opened her eyes, but didn’t resist when he picked her up.

  “You keep doing that,” she murmured, her head against his shoulder. It felt so good, being in his arms this way. He was here. He was safe and here, holding her.

  “I’m taking you to bed. You need to sleep.”

  “So do you, you haven’t slept yet, have you? Go, get some sleep, I’m fine.” Her voice was already blurry with sleep.

  “I will.” Reaching her bedroom, he put her down, lingering just enough to hold her to him, touch his lips to her forehead. Then he walked over to the bed, turned the covers down and waited while she slipped her robe off and lay down, then pulled the soft blanket on top of her.

  She turned on her side, to face him, tried hard to stay awake. “I’ll sleep if you will.”

  “I will,” he repeated. He touched the bedroom console to activate the fireplace set in the wall opposite the bed to a continuous low, to add to the comfort, the cozy warmth of the room, and ordered the lights off, then undressed to his underwear and got into bed with her. She didn’t stir when he slid over and wrapped himself around her, let him draw her close.

  “Donovan?” Her voice was drowsy.