by RJ Blain
“Madam President,” Simmons greeted, far too calm for someone trapped by an angry grizzly.
“Agent Simmons. Thank you for escorting Mr. Adams here. How’s your blood pressure?”
“Quite fine, thank you.”
“Good. Get off set and disable your radio. I have a job for you gentlemen.” The President turned her gaze to her detail. “Out.”
Simmons removed his ear piece and the pin on his chest, did something with both devices, and put them in the inside pocket of his jacket. Taking advantage of his distraction, I crept towards the door. I made it half a step before both grizzlies growled at me, freezing me in place.
The fleeing Secret Service agents closed the door behind them.
“I require you two to escort Runs Against Wind to the National Archive, where you will accompany her on a very important task.” The President’s gaze locked on me. “Return it.”
“With them?” I squeaked.
“Is there a problem?”
The promise of grizzly-based violence hung in the air, and my sense of self-preservation kicked in. I shook my head so hard my braid whipped, and the bald eagle feather slapped me in the face.
“You’ll also take it back in the way you took it out. When you’re finished, you’ll return here.”
“Randal said I had a meeting.”
“Your meeting is now cancelled.”
I gulped and eased away from the wall, stooping down to pick up the torque.
“Runs Against Wind?”
“Yes, Madam President?”
“You’ll take some string, a hook, and a bag with you. Am I understood?”
Bobbing my head, I retreated towards the door.
“I believe I said you’ll take it back the way you took it out, Runs Against Wind.”
With my face burning hot from embarrassment, I shoved the torque down my shirt. Simmons’s eyes widened.
“While I was aware she slipped her detail, I seem to be missing something,” Gentry said, releasing my Secret Service agent, who straightened, adjusted his tie, and smoothed his suit.
“Runs Against Wind decided to replicate the Hope Diamond’s theft on her own, and as she felt no one would believe her, she decided to steal a very valuable Native American artifact from the National Archive. I have decided she will return the torque to its rightful place—and determine if the method works on the false necklace.” Reaching into a drawer, the President pulled out a small pouch and tossed it in my direction. “This was made to demonstrate how a false stone could be used to replace the real one. Use it for your experiment.”
I caught the bag and peeked inside. Black tendrils of smoke spilled out, and I closed it, my skin crawling. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Gentry, deliver her to Anatoly when she’s finished with her task. Maybe he can keep her out of trouble.”
“You might give him certain ideas, Steph.”
“Maybe if he’s busy trying to get her to bite him, they won’t cause me any trouble. Agent Simmons, you’ll maintain radio silence for this expedition. I’ll notify Agent Randal of your whereabouts if you’re not back before the start of his shift. Gentry, report back to me once she’s in Anatoly’s custody. Now, get out!”
Gentry snagged me by the nape of my neck and marched me out of the Oval Office while Simmons fell into step beside me. He took me to a store room, slammed the door behind him, and snarled, “What exactly is going on?”
“With all due respect, Mr. Adams, unless the goal is to startle her into a shift, you may wish to at least release her before you begin snarling,” Simmons suggested, heading to a shelf and pulling down a box. He dug out a ball of twine. “What type of hook?”
Gentry released me, and I crossed the room to the farthest corner away from him. I opened my mouth and hissed at him.
He roared back, and I decided to shut my mouth and stay quiet.
“What type of hook?” Simmons repeated.
“I’m going to guess one large enough to hook the Hope Diamond’s necklace,” the grizzly hissed through clenched teeth.
It took Simmons less than five minutes to dig out the necessary supplies, and he slipped them into his pocket. “Ready.”
“If you try to escape, Runs Against Wind, I will enjoy every moment spent chasing you down.”
“Perhaps you should tone down the aggression, Mr. Adams. It would prevent us from executing our orders if Runs Against Wind is too focused on getting out of your reach to show us her magic trick.”
I scowled. “It’s not magic.”
“To us, it is magic.”
“It’s not magic.”
Simmons arched a brow and watched me. “Prove it.”
The walk of shame lasted from the mayoral palace to the library on the fifth floor of the National Archive. Gentry cleared the place with a bellowed roar every bit a match for any lion or tiger’s. The sound thundered, and a few of the books on the shelves nearest to us fell to the floor.
“Grizzly bears get grumpy this time of year. He’d rather still be in bed,” Simmons informed me, so calm I wondered if the mystics had hit him with a low dose of tranquilizer. “You have something to show us?”
Resigned to my fate, I went to work locating the entrance into the ducts. Thanks to Frankenlibrary’s unique design, I wasn’t certain where the entry lurked, only that it was somewhere in the massive room. It took me almost half an hour to find the spot where the floor sounded a little more hollow. Muttering curses, I knelt, pried the panel up, and dropped into the hole. “Come on, then.”
“I’m a little impressed,” Simmons admitted, waiting for me to get out of the way before joining me in the metal tunnel. “Will Mr. Adams fit?”
I twisted around to regard my new accomplice with a scowl. “I don’t think his ass is that big.”
“It’s quite large. He is a grizzly after all.”
If Simmons’s goal was to motivate Gentry, it worked. The grizzly growled and slid into the hole. “Can I close this?”
“Close it.”
“I hope you’re aware we’re on the fifth floor,” the grizzly stated, his tone so neutral I shivered.
Grizzly bears operated in one mode: terrifying.
Simmons laughed. “I’m more amazed this hasn’t collapsed under our combined weight.”
“This is bad for my blood pressure,” I complained, removing my sword belt from my hips and placing my katana ahead of me while I crawled. “The ducts aren’t going to collapse; they’re reinforced with magic. Carry your weapons or we’ll be telling everyone in this hell hole we’re here.”
“I don’t suppose you’re willing to tell me why the President sent my partner to the medical ward as though afraid he’d have a heart attack, would you?”
“I think she’s showing us rather than telling us,” Gentry replied before I could say a word.
Could my life get any worse? I thought about it and decided Todd and Anatoly could be in the ductwork with me, too. “Please don’t kill me,” I mumbled, crawling my way across Frankenlibrary in search of a way down. When I found it, I crammed my sword under my arm and eased down the hole, muttering curses each and every step.
Despite my best efforts to keep quiet, I banged my head on my way into the fourth-floor tunnel, misjudged the location of the entrance to the third floor, fell several feet into the shaft, banged my head again, and ended up crammed with one leg twisted above me, my knee pressed to my chest while my other foot jammed against a bar and kept me from tumbling the rest of the way down.
A thump announced Simmons had dropped into the tunnel above me before he peered into the shaft. “You okay?”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.” My lower lip trembled; I bit it to keep my embarrassment from spilling out as angry tears.
“I know,” he murmured, his gaze shifting to where my foot was stretched out over my head. “All right. Sit tight a moment. Don’t move or you might fall the rest of the way.” Simmons crawled over the opening and made room for Gentry, who poked
his head into the shaft, his eyebrows rising as he took in my situation.
At least he didn’t laugh at me.
He did sigh, shake his head, and grab hold of my foot. “All right. Get yourself situated.”
I sighed, secured my hold on one of the bars, and went to work extricating myself so I could climb down the shaft the correct way rather than in a head-first tumble.
Chapter Forty-Four
Between my tumble down a shaft and the pair of elephants tromping along behind me, someone should have noticed our presence in the tunnels. Instead of the chaos I expected, the National Archive remained quiet.
It a long time to work our way to the Native American exhibit, but when I peeked inside the room, disgust annoyed a growl out of me. Under normal circumstances, a theft should have increased security, but no one lingered in the room beneath me. I opened the ceiling tile enough to ease the torque through the gap, took the hook and string from Simmons, and replaced the necklace.
Someone would need to straighten it, but I didn’t care. It took several tries to free the hook. Muttering curses, I returned the ceiling tile to its proper place. Replacing the metal plate took a little longer, as I didn’t want the clang to alert anyone who might be lurking outside the room’s door.
“You can do this same trick in the Hope Diamond room?” Gentry whispered.
“We’re about to find out. Shh.” I crawled my way along the tunnel, aware of the two men following me, the insanity of what we were doing, and every single circumstance leading up to plundering priceless treasures from the National Archive.
Someone really needed to do something about Charlotte’s security problems; the President legitimizing my work didn’t change anything. An out-of-practice assassin armed with minimal equipment shouldn’t have been able to infiltrate the National Archive in the first place.
After my earlier experience in the tunnel, I located the Hope Diamond’s room without any further trouble.
“Time me,” I hissed to Simmons while I pried up the metal plate blocking entry to the room.
“Timing.”
I hooked the replica’s necklace, hauled it up, and on a whim, popped out the stone from its setting and replaced it with the new stone. It took a little work to position the necklace on the velvet below, but I managed. Anyone who knew the Hope Diamond well would be able to tell it had been moved, but I thought it’d pass basic scrutiny. I gathered the string and hook and restored the ceiling tile and metal plate to their proper places before packing everything in the bag. I twisted around to hand the package to Simmons. “Time?”
The Secret Service agent took the pouch. “Two minutes and ten seconds.”
“Stuff that in your pants.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Pardon?”
“Your pants. Stuff that in your pants.”
Gentry snorted, and a sound suspiciously like a giggle escaped the grizzly.
“Why am I stuffing this in my pants?”
“Because no one’s going to stick their hand down a Secret Service agent’s pants. Just do it so we can get out of here.”
“My job has somehow become very strange,” Simmons mumbled, and a moment later, I heard the tell-tale sound of a zipper. “Why did I let them talk me out of retirement?”
“You were told you’d have a temporary, easy assignment protecting a pretty woman,” Gentry replied.
“I think someone lied to me.”
“I think you’re right. I’m still trying to figure out why I’m in here, too.”
“The President hates us,” I snapped in a hiss. “Now shut up before someone hears.”
It took what felt like an eternity to reach the fifth floor. We escaped the tunnels without a hitch, and I took long, deep breaths to slow my heartbeat to something a little more reasonable. “This isn’t good for my blood pressure.”
“Now what?” Simmons asked.
“We walk out of here like nothing happened and we wasted valuable time searching through books without finding anything useful. Get grumpy about it, too. If a telepath decides to listen in, they need to believe you’re frustrated and edgy over a failed research run.” I grabbed a random book from the shelf, flipped it open, and skimmed half a page. “Since you’ll probably fuck up and think about the Hope Diamond anyway, think about how we were looking for information on who might want to steal it on the international scene. Japan.”
“Japan?” Gentry blurted.
I turned the book, which detailed Japan’s activities during World War II, prior to Starfall. “Military history books seem to be on this floor.”
“Why would Japan want the Hope Diamond?”
Returning the volume to the shelf, I shrugged and headed for the door. “I don’t know who would want a cursed stone. Smart people stay away from the damned thing if they value life and limb.”
“It’s powerful,” Gentry countered.
“Dangerous.”
“That’s part of what makes it powerful.”
Our argument over why any country would actively want a Starfall stone as volatile as the Hope Diamond lasted all the way out of the National Archive and back to the mayoral palace.
Randal met us at the front doors, his expression neutral. “Shift swap.”
“I recommend a collar and a leash.” Simmons nodded to his partner and made his escape, heading in the direction of the Oval Office.
Gentry seized the nape of my neck. “The President ordered me to deliver her to Anatoly. Do you happen to know where he is?”
“Main conference room; the Clan Council is having an emergency summit.” Randal checked his watch. “They’re on lockdown and won’t leave until they come to a decision.”
With a sigh, Gentry turned me around and shoved me in the direction of the front doors. “I’m not waiting until he’s done. Have someone tell him I stole his tigress. If he wants her back, he’ll need to come fetch her. Unlike everyone else in this place, I actually have work to do.”
I did, too, but without any idea how to escape the grizzly’s iron-tough grip, my work would have to wait.
Gentry marched me to Dawnfire’s headquarters, a walk I might’ve enjoyed if he hadn’t taken the collar and leash comment from Simmons seriously. While his grip didn’t hurt, I was aware of everyone on the streets staring at me, at the grizzly, and the Secret Service agent flanking me.
“This is humiliating,” I informed my pair of unwanted babysitters.
“I’m being considerate of your detail’s blood pressure.”
“What about mine?”
“You’re young and healthy enough. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“Doesn’t this classify as kidnapping?”
“No,” both men replied.
“I really was supposed to go to a meeting, and I was supposed to join some team.”
Gentry snorted. “You already figured out how the heist was done. You’re not needed in that regard anymore. This is for your protection. Anyway, if the team needs you, I’m sure they’ll come and get you. I have questions, questions you can answer. Knowing a probable method is only part of the puzzle, and I’m contracted to find the stone.”
The burden of knowing who might be behind the Hope Diamond’s disappearance slammed down on my shoulders again. The method supported the President’s suspicions, which meant it would take a lot of work to find evidence her brother—Gentry’s brother—was innocent. “All right. I’ll answer your questions.”
Gentry didn’t release me. I didn’t blame him; I wouldn’t release me, either.
It took a little over an hour to reach Dawnfire’s headquarters thanks to Gentry’s choice of alleys and side streets. Mercenaries loitering in the lobby took one look at their guild master and found something to do in a hurry. He beelined for the door leading deeper into the complex, and no one was brave enough to stop him.
Randal chuckled, held the door open, and played the courteous host while Gentry made a good showing of being the grumpy bodyguard. The role reversal would’ve
amused me if I wasn’t the one stuck playing the damsel-in-distress.
I needed to ditch my part, stat. Playing a damsel didn’t bother me, but the whole ‘in-distress’ bit made me want to stab someone. Having a security detail and an overprotective grizzly bear hovering only reinforced my feeling I couldn’t take care of myself.
Worse, it reminded me I lived a lie.
Maybe, if my luck changed and everything went well, I’d find the proof I needed to confirm Abraham Adams’s innocence. If I didn’t, I’d hope for the second best thing. If no one close to the President found out what she had learned, I could cut ties without doing more harm.
Life wouldn’t cooperate with me; it never did, but I kept hoping for the best anyway. Maybe something would change. Maybe I wouldn’t end up hitting rock bottom with nowhere to go. Maybe I’d land on my feet, true to my second nature, despite not being very good at playing a cat.
Gentry guided me to his office and pushed me in the direction of the conference table. “Make yourself comfortable while I get some work done.”
“I thought you were going to ask me questions.”
“I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually.”
I picked a seat and flopped onto it. “Did everyone forget I’m a courier? I have a job to get back to, and it’s a long ride home.”
“Take the train.”
“Do you have any idea how expensive it is to ship three horses across the country?”
“Yes.”
“I’m a courier. I don’t make a fortune, and I don’t ride trains for my job. I ride horses—and I travel to places the trains don’t reach.”
“You’ll be compensated for your lost time.”
In reality, it took so long for me to cross the United States I wouldn’t reach Wyoming until the tail end of winter even if I left immediately. If I hurried, I’d hit the worst of the winter weather, weather horses didn’t appreciate trudging through anymore than I did. “Maybe I’m not concerned about the compensation. I have places to go.”