by Dan Levinson
His arms had been so warm.
Irritably, she kicked at the curb, pushing away the memory. Screw Jackie, she thought. And Nyne and Tiberian too, she added for good measure. Why did all the men in her life perpetually disappoint her?
When the cab pulled up, Kay was relieved to see the driver was a woman—a rarity in that profession. She was older and heavyset, with an easy smile. The taxi license posted to the plastic divider identified her as Marjorie Sumpter. “Where to?” she asked after Kay got settled.
“The army compound, off Littman Plaza,” Kay said.
“You don’t look like a soldier,” Marjorie said.
“You don’t look like a cab driver,” Kay said.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend,” the woman said. “Me and my mouth, always running.” Despite the apology, Marjorie nattered on. “Got three kids, y’know. Younger two are twins, and now they’re going off to college at the same time . . . Don’t want my babies starting off knee-deep in debt, y’know? Not that I bring in all that much, my husband’s the breadwinner. But it’s enough.” She laughed.
Kay’s parents had possessed more than enough money to put her through college. And a good thing too, because Kay didn’t think her own mother would have gotten a job, not when it meant putting down the vodka. “Sounds like you’re great parents,” Kay said.
“We try,” Marjorie said. “Course, everybody makes mistakes. But the best thing parents can do is make sure their children know they’re loved. No matter what.”
Kay’s throat tightened. She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms. She wasn’t about to break down in front of a complete stranger!
“You close with your folks, dear?” the woman asked.
“No,” Kay managed.
“Gosh, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to pry,” she said. “But that’s too bad.”
“Yeah,” Kay said.
How different would her life have been if her parents had cared? She’d finished high school for two reasons: a threat from her father to cut her off if she dropped out, and the promise of finally escaping for college.
After Tibe had been shot, Kay’s childhood had been a misery. She’d been left to her own devices amid parental shouting matches, her mother and father’s dislike for one another matched only by their apathy toward her. She remembered early on how she’d been convinced of an impending divorce. She’d lived in terror of that announcement for years, had gone to the library and read books on how to cope. It was only when she was older that she’d understood her dad would never sacrifice half his assets in a settlement, and her mom was too drunk to put in the effort.
Marjorie said something, and Kay realized she hadn’t been listening. “I’m sorry, what was that?” Kay asked.
“I asked if you were all right, dear,” Marjorie said. “My goodness, are you . . . are you crying? Was it something I said? Oh, my Lord . . .”
Kay scrubbed at her cheeks. Her hands came away wet. She tried to keep her voice from quavering. “I’m fine,” she said.
“Nonsense,” said Marjorie. She flipped on the right signal and pulled over the car.
“Please, just . . . keep going,” Kay said. “I’m okay. I need you to keep going.”
Marjorie threw the car in park and piled out of the driver’s seat. The woman waddled to the back and got in next to Kay. “Come here,” she said.
“This is ridiculous,” Kay said. She shied away from the large woman.
Wordlessly, Marjorie pulled Kay into an embrace.
A sob wracked Kay. Then another. And another. She bawled into the woman’s shoulder. Her body shook with the force of her grief.
“It’s okay,” Marjorie said. “Hush, dear, it’s okay.”
Kay wept.
She wept for all that had gone wrong.
All that was missing.
All she had lost.
She wept until she had no tears left to shed.
27
AGENT
Agent peered down at the Barrett girl from his vantage on the roof overlooking the alley. Her attempt to tail him had been clumsy at best, but she had sharp instincts. That did not bode well for Cole’s seduction. Agent would have pulled the plug on it a week ago, had Cole not been so stubbornly insistent he could succeed.
But Agent knew one could not count on emotions.
Greed, conversely, was something that could always be depended on. Deregski had accepted Agent’s terms. They had a third meet scheduled for this afternoon. Agent would pass off an innocuous USB drive, and the captain would plug it in at a secure terminal with access to the Orion mainframe. Moreau’s worm would insinuate itself into the computer system, granting her full control.
Convincing Deregski to take money had been easy. Convincing the Barrett girl by trading on something so nebulous as “romantic feelings” was infinitely more difficult. The paltry thing called “love” was but a cocktail of hormones and endorphins that made the neurons in the brain fire just so. If this Barrett girl had a fraction of her brother’s sense, Agent did not think she would be fooled. It would prove a good lesson for Cole, having to terminate the girl on account of his failure.
Agent waited while the Barrett girl searched the alley. She did not notice his silhouette above her. Agent had learned to make his powers near-undetectable when he so required. He drew in exactly as much power as he needed and not a drop more, then kept it tightly contained within his body, allowing no seepage into the surrounding environment. It was a dangerous proposition that required consummate discipline. A psion two feet away might detect him, but the Barrett girl had not sensed a thing.
When she finally finished her vain search of the cul-de-sac, Agent followed her for a time. He teleported from building to building, making each jump only after he was certain no one was watching. He watched Barrett enter a wine shop, then later followed her all the way back to Cole’s apartment. The real owner of the place had taken an “extended vacation.” Greased palms had made the doorman and superintendent amenable to the place’s new resident.
Agent still did not believe he was mistaken about Cole’s chances for success with the Barrett girl. It was one thing to use seduction as a means to steal or subvert. It was entirely another to convince someone to do something inherently suspicious, against their moral code, especially when the currency involved was . . . love. When Agent had told Cole to see if the girl could be turned, he had not intended for Cole to go about it in so roundabout a fashion.
No matter. What was done, was done.
Agent made his way back to the Occasio Grand and returned to the suite that was his base of operations. He found Moreau in front of the laptop. He had attempted to discipline her into tearing herself away from the machine for any length of time, but his efforts, short of breaking her entirely, had proved futile. One had to understand which implements would bend under pressure and which would shatter. Moreau’s skill with computers was useful enough as-is.
“Do you have the drive ready?” he asked Moreau.
She picked up a small device the size of her thumb and handed it to Agent. “All Deregski needs to do is plug it in,” she said, “and I’ll have full access.”
Agent slipped the drive into his pocket. “Hague?”
“Stepped out for some air,” Moreau said. She went back to fiddling with her computer, playing some childish game.
Agent frowned. There had been little for Hague to do since their arrival; the man’s only real job was to assist in the eventual infiltration. He had become increasingly moody and had turned to drink, even going so far as to engage in a barroom scuffle that had miraculously avoided attracting the authorities. Afterward, Agent had made it clear that, if Hague did anything more to jeopardize their presence in Grisham, Agent would turn him to ash on the spot. Agent did not believe in a “three strike rule.” Two errors were sufficient proof of incompetence, and in Hague’s case, even that was unnecessary. Agent decided that when the mission was complete, Hague would not be returning to Calchis except
as a bag of cinders.
The meeting with Deregski was set for 1400. Agent had forty minutes. He had requested Deregski meet him in Nelson Park in central Grisham. Now that Deregski had accepted the proposition, Agent was the one in charge. Setting the location was a means for Agent to subtly impose control, establish a hierarchy.
Agent arrived more than fifteen minutes early and took up a spot on a park bench, by the granite fountain he had cited to Deregski as a landmark. The fountain held the statue of a woman holding a vase, from which water poured into the circular pool below. The park was a pleasant enough place, Agent supposed, though he could not identify with this human need to create nature amid urbanity.
He had grown up in nature, in the jungle, and he did not miss it.
As for Captain Deregski, Agent still had not decided what to do with the man once he accomplished his task. Agent could have Hague dispose of him, but that might cause undue scrutiny toward Deregski’s recent activities. If the captain were foolish enough to have the funds transferred into his own bank account, they would certainly be discovered. Not only would that draw attention, but it might make it difficult for Moreau to recover the money later on. The better solution was to allow Deregski to go on his merry way. For a time. Agent did not expect the captain would desert his post, not until he was certain he could get away with it. Hopefully by then, Deregski would be wiped out with the rest of the personnel in the Orion facility.
The captain showed up several minutes late, by Agent’s watch. “Sorry,” he said. “Got here as quick as I could.”
Agent passed him the USB drive. “Plug this into any computer within the facility. It won’t need more than five minutes,” he said. That was a lie. Ten seconds was more than enough, but even a fool like Deregski wouldn’t believe the “information” he was supposedly stealing could be downloaded in so short a time.
“And the . . . payment?” Deregski asked.
“A moment,” Agent said. He texted Moreau on his phone. Within thirty seconds, a deposit of 794,500 Orion marks—the equivalent of 500,000 Calchan crowns—was placed into an account Deregski had specified earlier. “Now, if you please . . .”
Deregski checked his phone. Then he looked sharply at Agent. “This is—”
“You’ll receive the rest upon my receipt of the drive,” he said. That was completely unnecessary, of course. Moreau would know the moment Deregski inserted the drive into Orion’s system. It was simply for the sake of appearances, a ploy to stoke Deregski’s motivation by creating a facsimile of cloak-and-dagger excitement.
Then, without giving Deregski a chance to respond, Agent left the park, further reinforcing where the power lay between them.
Before Agent returned to the Occasio Grand, he had one more errand to run. He thought of hailing a taxi but had little desire to spend time in an enclosed space with some unwashed stranger. Instead he walked for thirty minutes, silencing his mind, taking in everything around him: every pedestrian, every car, every breeze, and every blade of grass that swayed in it. Oneness filled him and for the moment he was satisfied. Things were proceeding as planned, more or less. Nothing could ever occur exactly as one projected, not with entropy at work in all things. One had to be satisfied with something less than perfection. Deregski would eventually have to die, and the Barrett girl, and Hague as well. Cole would have to be disciplined. These things were minor concerns. The mission itself would be completed as ordered, and that was the only thing Agent had ever allowed himself to expect.
He arrived at the address provided him by Cole—a personal storage facility. He sought out locker 12E, and used his power to unlock the door.
Inside, he found a single duffel bag that contained nine pounds of HXN—the latest military-grade explosive synthesized by Calchan researchers, with aid from their compatriots in Jiangma, in the Far East. It was odorless and colorless, easy to smuggle through customs, and kinetically insensitive, able to withstand hammer blows without detonation.
When Agent and his team infiltrated the Orion compound, they would set some charges near the gas line, and others close to key structural supports. A mere quarter pound of HXN could level a two-story building, but Agent wished to be as thorough as possible. Anyone not killed by the blast would die under the facility’s resulting collapse.
They would destroy much of Orion’s Psi Corps in one fell swoop.
Agent did take a taxi then, back to the hotel; tromping around with a bag of explosives was out of the question. The cab driver was an oaf who stank of alcohol-tinged sweat and spent the entire time babbling on a hands-free headset. When they arrived at the Occasio, Agent restrained himself from sending the man into psionically-induced cardiac arrest.
He dropped off the explosives in the suite, and then he returned to his private room.
An hour or two in meditation would be suitable, he decided. After, he would eat, check in with Virard, peruse status updates on the Waverly boy’s progress. Then, sleep.
Inner peace came easily, and over the course of his practice he heard everything around him, from the wheeling of a housekeeping cart, to other guests in the halls, to an argument happening two floors below. He did not let himself become attached to any of it; he noticed it, then allowed it to drift away.
When he was finished, he dressed again in his suit and went downstairs to the hotel restaurant. He had a meal of a fresh garden salad—romaine lettuce, shaved carrots, cucumbers, onions, and a light balsamic—followed by a filet mignon, medium rare, with a baked potato. It was not the best fare he’d ever had, but it sufficed. Food was for sustenance, gratification only a secondary benefit.
Agent also had a glass of red wine, an Arreto—the best they had because “John Black,” the defense contractor, would order the very finest. As for Agent’s own preferences, data had shown that alcohol, particularly red wine, was beneficial for longevity. For that reason alone, Agent made a nightly libation with dinner a tradition.
As he was signing the check, his phone beeped.
He found a text message from Moreau. Deregski had inserted the drive.
Agent returned to the suite, where he found that Hague had arrived as well. The man was seated on a couch, watching television as he disassembled and reassembled a pistol.
Hague was certainly not suited for patience. Much of his training appeared to have fallen by the wayside. Agent always read over the reports of his subordinates’ assignments, and while he had detected nothing amiss, he saw now that, without proper oversight, the man had degenerated. Yes, it was clear now that Hague would always be a rabid dog, and had to be dealt with as such.
It would also clear a spot for when Waverly was ready.
Putting Hague out of mind, Agent went to Moreau at her computer. Her monitor displayed a wealth of information: lists of contact numbers; blueprints; real-time security feeds; more. Agent was as good with computers as the next person. He knew how to check email, utilize search engines, and employ word processing programs. Beyond that, his technical savvy was limited. That was what he had Moreau for.
“Is this everything we need?” he asked.
“Definitely,” Moreau said. She clicked her tongue, an annoying habit she had taken up since being forced to remove her barbell piercing. “We’ve got the security codes, but I think I can control everything remotely. Full access. I’m working on a video loop to dupe the security cams. No one will ever know you’re inside.”
“Good,” Agent said. “I’ll notify the general. Be prepared to commence imminently.” He raised his voice for the last part, so Hague would hear.
In response, the large man gave a sickening grin.
Agent started for the door, then stopped and, as an afterthought, asked, “Cole?”
“Haven’t heard from him,” Moreau said.
Perhaps Cole had succeeded with the Barrett girl after all. Not that they needed her, after Deregski’s help. “Send me a copy of the Orion blueprints,” Agent said.
“Will do, sir.”
He re
turned to his own room and booted up his laptop. The copy of the floor plan awaited him in his inbox.
He opened it and began to memorize.
Once he had committed the layout to memory, he would mentally rehearse the operation so he could execute it as well as possible. For all his confidence, he knew that even he was not infallible.
He paused in his study of the blueprints to call Magister General Virard on his satellite phone, locked in a small black case, in turn locked inside the hotel room’s personal safe.
The general’s secretary answered on the second ring.
“John Black for the magister general,” Agent said.
“Hold, sir,” the woman replied.
A moment later Virard picked up. “Agent. Things are going swimmingly?”
“Yes, sir,” Agent said. “We’re ready to proceed.”
“Excellent,” the general said. “We’ll begin within days, I expect. I’ll contact you as soon as things are in motion here. Is there anything else?”
“No, General,” Agent said. He considered mentioning that he planned to terminate Hague, but there was no need to bother Virard with something so inconsequential.
“Thank you, Agent,” Virard said, “and good night.”
“Good night, General,” Agent said. Virard deserved the courtesy, even if Agent could not feel the sentiment behind it.
He ended the call and leaned back in his seat.
The general’s gratitude was unnecessary. Agent performed his tasks out of sheer sense of duty, not because he wished for something so trifling. But why, then, did he feel a sensation so remarkably akin to pride? No matter. He returned to his study of the blueprints.
There was a knock at the door.
Agent frowned. His subordinates had strict orders not to disturb him, to contact him by phone first if he was needed. If he allowed them to come to him in person, to visit him at his quarters, they might think that carte blanche to develop a rapport. That was something he would not permit.
Someone from the hotel staff, perhaps? He had left the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, and he would be discontented if someone had decided to ignore it.