“He’s still in a bad way,” Yvonne said, tearing into her own from her cot.
“He’s just grumpy because he’s used to getting his own way,” Grace said.
“And for someone who was treated so poorly, you’re not making it any better,” Elizabeth chided her.
Yvonne sighed at the crumbly bar from her pack. “This is only just better than our ration bars.”
“But at least they are feeding us,” Elizabeth said.
Davey nodded in agreement. Leave it to Elizabeth to be the optimist. He doubted many terrorists bothered to take care of their hostages, and yet Logan had prepared them their own little prison. He still had doubts about whether or not he would actually turn the ship back over to them without a fight, but it beat starving. “So any guesses as to why they need the Sparrow?”
“It’s a good ship,” Yvonne said, “But hardly anything special in and of itself.”
“Unless they want to pretend to be the Sparrow crew,” Elizabeth suggested.
“Hmm,” Davey said. “That’s not actually a bad thought, but the illusion is going to break the second they disembark.” He turned to Whitaker. “Anything to add?”
The man shook his head. “I know as little about this as you do.” He reached for his meal, wincing as he tried to tear into it with his injured wrist.
Elizabeth was right. He really had been through a beating. “Hold on,” Davey said. “I’ll get it.” He took it from him and opened it. Whitaker nodded in thanks and then went back to his silent brooding. So much for making an inroad there. He sat beside Grace on her bunk and opened up her package as well. Her hands cuffed behind her back made it impossible to feed herself. “How are you doing?”
“Not gonna lie,” she said. “My shoulders and arms are killing me, I hardly slept, and if I have to stay like this for multiple days, I’ll lose my mind.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “If there was anything I could do, I would. You ready to eat?”
Her face fell. He knew how embarrassed she was to be fed by hand. “Let’s just get this over with.”
After they finished, Davey dumped their trash outside the bars of their cage. Let their captors clean up the mess. Now it was just a matter of figuring out how to waste time until something changed. As it was right now, Davey saw no way out of their current confinement, and even if they could escape the cage, they were stuck on a ship somewhere between the planets with a couple dozen angry Abrogationists. That sounded like a good way to be ushered out the airlock for a quick and painful death.
“Maybe they’ll let us borrow our own checkerboard,” he said absently.
“Better settle in,” Yvonne said. “This is going to be a long trip.”
He frowned at her. “Did they say where we were going when you were in the cockpit yesterday?”
“No, but I might just know something they don’t. We’re going to—”
“Don’t say it!” Whitaker snapped. “Whatever it is, just don’t.” He pressed his good hand to the wall and lifted himself to his feet. “At least not until I’ve checked for bugs.” He began to run his good hand along every seam in the walls, methodically working his way around the room.
If you were going to go to the trouble of preparing a cell like this, it made sense to have a microphone listening to them. They probably didn’t have someone listening at all times, but if something happened, they could go back and check the recording. “Is there any way we can help?” Davey asked.
“Unless you have experience sweeping a room for covert electronic devices, then no. When I’m finished, we can talk.”
Davey sat back by Grace. She gave him a look like she was thinking something sarcastic, but he just shook his head. There was no use in poking the dragon if you’re stuck in the same room with it. A few minutes later, Whitaker gave a small grunt of triumph. “Found it. Built into the post of the bunks.” He pulled out a wire and bent it back and forth repeatedly until it broke. “Give me a few to make sure there aren’t any others.” When he was finally satisfied, he slumped back into his spot. “There’s no telling how long it will be until they realize. We may only have a few minutes, or they might not ever discover if they don’t think they have a reason to check in on us. Ms. Naude, you may continue, but keep your voice down in case someone approaches the door.”
“We’re going to have a burnout,” she said. “In the next day or two. And when we do, the frameshift lattices will be fried permanently. The whole system will need to be rebuilt, and we’ll be dead in space, probably waiting for a tow since it’ll take a full-service maintenance bay to replace, and that will gain us at least a couple of days, maybe more.”
Whitaker leaned his head back against the wall. “From your frame skipping stunt,” he mused. “This changes everything.”
“Care to enlighten the rest of us?” Yvonne asked.
“Remember how you accused me of smuggling a bomb aboard?”
She nodded.
“I told you it was nothing so barbaric. My ship, the Imperious Doubt, is autonomously following us, wherever we’re headed.”
She scowled. “I’ve never heard of such a system. It sounds pricey.”
“Earthtech. It was obscenely expensive, and even then, it’s extremely limited.” He looked between them. “But if we’re dropping out of frameshift and stationary, relatively speaking, it may provide a method of escape for one or more of us.”
“Supposing that you really can engineer an extraction,” Yvonne said, “someone will need to stay behind, or we lose a valuable inside perspective. I’m not abandoning the Sparrow to Logan.”
He shook his head. “As one of the only two pilots present, one of us will have to fly my ship. If an escape ends in a fight, I don’t fancy my survival chances, given my injuries. Logan won’t hesitate to slaughter me like an animal if given an excuse.”
“I can fly,” Davey said casually.
Whitaker cocked his head. “So the irascible teenager grows up. How many hours do you have behind the helm? I don’t know that I like trusting my ship to a greenhorn.”
Davey shrugged, trying to look unconcerned. Honestly, the last thing he wanted to do was fly an unfamiliar ship. That sounded about as much fun as dodging thumper fire while naked, but he was going to do what he had to either way. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
“No, I don’t suppose we do,” Whitaker agreed. “Grace, if your hands were freed, could you break out of this prison?”
“I doubt I could get through the walls,” she said, sitting up a little straighter. “I won’t know about the door until I try it. But its bars are a different story. Davey, go test them for me.”
He crossed to the door and gripped the bars in his hands, giving them a tug. “Feels pretty solid to me.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to bend the steel yourself, dummy,” she said, staring at him. “Are they part of the door? Separate but welded?”
He peered closely. “Light weld job. If I had to guess, they extend down into the door.”
“It’s possible I can work at the bars and bend them, but that would take time,” Grace said.
“Then we may have to stage a breakout when they open the door,” Whitaker said. “When we drop out of frameshift, they’ll probably come for Yvonne.”
“And we still need to, you know, actually get these cuffs off me,” Grace said. “If you haven’t forgotten that tiny detail.”
“Easily surmounted when the time comes,” he replied.
“How about now,” she said. “They’re killing me.”
He shook his head. “We can’t risk them discovering you’re free.”
Grace opened her mouth to protest, but Elizabeth laid a hand on her shoulder. “He’s right, Grace. I know you’re hurting, but—”
“Fine,” Grace growled. “I just hope the blood returns to my arms when they’re needed.”
“So Grace and Davey make an escape attempt,” Elizabeth said. “Supposing that’s successful, where do they go?”
Whitaker smiled one of his obnoxious smiles. “And I’m set up to track the Sparrow anyway, so if we make a stop and keep moving, you’ll be able to follow and update your friends.”
“You and Logan both, huh?” Yvonne said, shaking her head.
He held both his palms up, then winced and lowered his injured arm. “You didn’t think my ability to find Matthew whenever I wanted was just luck, did you?”
“Unbelievable,” Grace muttered.
“And utterly necessary,” he retorted, falling back into his smug self for the first time. “And it’s a good thing I thought so far ahead, otherwise where would we be?”
Davey rolled his eyes. No wonder this guy got under Matthew’s skin.
MATTHEW TIPPED HIS hat to Thompson’s secretary, Sheila, as he rounded the corner. Given how little regard he had for Barclay’s administration, she was probably his favorite person on the government payroll right now. “Is the minister available?” he asked.
“I wasn’t aware that we were asking for permission now,” Abigail said.
“He’ll appreciate that you are,” Sheila said with a wink. “But I’m afraid he’s still with the other ministers in the war room for the Phobos demonstration.”
Abigail stopped short and frowned. “That was over an hour ago.”
“Come now,” Matthew said. “I’m sure the testing of a new superweapon has the bureaucracy patting itself on the back.” He could imagine Thompson bored out of his mind in a room with politicians and military brass, and he was a little ashamed to admit that he found the image funny. He was trying to get along with the lawman, at least while they were working together, but they weren’t exactly on a first-name basis.
“Would you like to wait in his office?” Sheila offered.
“If you don’t think it will be too long, and you don’t think your boss will be too angry.”
“He’s always angry,” she said, stepping from behind the desk and opening the door for them. “But he and I both know you’re not going to do anything untoward, and if he throws a fit, I’ll remind him about the importance of keeping appointments.”
“I see who’s in charge here,” Abigail said, giving her a thumbs up.
The office was dark, the lights off and the shades pulled. Matthew flipped the overheads on and raised the blinds. The seventh story window gave a spectacular view of the northern side of the city. Miles away, outside the dome of the colony’s environmental shield, a massive column of red dust lingered in the sky from the weapons test. He and Abigail hadn’t been in position to see the actual demonstration, but they’d watched the public broadcast in stony silence.
“There’s nothing you can do about it,” Abigail said. He turned as she pulled back the steel ball of the Newton’s Cradle on Thompson’s desk. It fell with a clack and the ball on the opposite side lifted in perfect obedience to the law of conservation of momentum.
That was something there was too much of on Mars, Matthew thought sourly. Momentum. Too much that could only lead to one destination. “Stein is our quarry. If we take him down and convince him to betray Logan, then we’ll be done with it. At that point, it’ll just be a gun pointed at Mars, without someone that actively wants to pull the trigger.”
“Who’s pulling triggers?” Thompson asked. Matthew turned to see him entering the room. “I should say something about you two in my office, but frankly, that seems like too much to bother with.”
“At least we’re punctual,” Abigail sniped.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his tone indicating anything but apology. “You weren’t stuck with the Joint Chiefs of Staff caught in a feedback loop of self-congratulation.” He tugged at his tie, loosening it, and then laid his suit jacket on the corner of his desk. “You two turn over any stones?”
“We checked, but no one we know has ever even heard of Stein,” Matthew said. “I warned you most of our contacts were on the straight and narrow.”
“Never hurts to try.”
“What about the satellites?”
“I should have the report waiting on me,” he said, sitting down and pulling up his monitor. He frowned. “Or not. Let me check on that.”
Abigail caught Matthew’s eye. He shrugged. They were waiting on Thompson either way at this point, whether they wanted to work with him or not. May as well make the best of it.
“So how’s President Barclay taking this?” he asked.
Thompson looked up from his screen as he finished typing out his message. “Threatened to fire me for not involving the Office of Colonial Intelligence or the boys in Defense. Threatened to fire me for a hair-brained operation. Threatened to fire me for failing to apprehend Stein. For insinuating that half the Department of Defense might be crooked. For Stein’s involvement with the Phobos Platform. Have I missed anything?”
“Not one to see reason then, is he?”
He shook his head. “Not when the suspect is connected to so many state secrets.”
“How’s he taking my involvement?”
Thompson chuckled. “You’re kidding, right? If he knew I was working with you, my family would be on the street tomorrow. That interview caused a public backlash against Phobos. They’ve been trying to get a lid on the PR problem for weeks. And I don’t have a shred of sympathy for him there. My men are going to be working overtime because of the protests the demonstration will inevitably cause.”
Matthew smiled, pleased, that at the least, the populace wasn’t thrilled with the HiTO’s threats. He also filed away the details that Thompson had a family. Not what he had expected, but then he hadn’t ever thought about it either. “Glad I’m a popular man.”
“Well, if you ever think about running for office, you’ll be a shoo-in. The public eats up anything they can about you.” He curled his fist.
“I take it something is wrong?” Abigail asked.
“Intelligence has the satellite imagery but doesn’t want to give it to me because the skyhopper left Arizona. It’s outside my jurisdiction now.” His fingers raced across the keyboard.
“So is that it then?” Matthew asked. “Are we done?”
“Let me rephrase my request to my dear friend over in OIC.”
Matthew crossed his arms. “Do I even want to know?”
“Consider it the median point between a threat, a bribe, and calling in a favor. No, you don’t want to know.” He finished typing and leaned back in his seat. “You hear from your crew yet?”
“Nothing,” Abigail said. “Our broker is trying to get security footage from the hangar, but the client is already mad that the Sparrow disappeared before they’d been released.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Thompson said formally.
Matthew closed his eyes and tried to push back the wave of anxiety. They had plenty of enemies on Ceres, and elsewhere for that matter. And the timing couldn’t be worse. But his crew was competent, and he could only pray they’d make it through. It was his mother he was losing sleep over.
“Oh,” Thompson said. “Lookie here. I’ve got my satellite imagery.” He paused as he clicked through image after image. “The skyhopper went to ground in the industrial sector of Doch Rossiya.” He smirked at Abigail. “You know the last time you were there, I had trouble getting you out.”
“But can you get us back in?” Abigail asked.
He waved her off. “I’ll do better and take you myself in the morning.”
Abigail opened the door. “I’ll go call Milena to see if she’s still in on the hunt.”
Matthew crossed his arms and turned back to face the other man. “I thought this was outside your jurisdiction. Not worried about President Barclay?”
Thompson stood and fixed his tie and grabbed his coat. “You’re looking at the only person in the administration that I trust right now.
And much as I hate to admit it, you’re the only outsider I trust with the skill set to take Stein down. I may just hang for it, but Stein’s going to beat me to the gallows if it’s my last case as Minister of Law.”
Matthew nodded and then, on impulse, offered his hand. “We’ll get him, and hopefully Logan too.”
Thompson raised an eyebrow and sighed before taking the hand. “Either I’m getting idealistic in my old age, or you’re rubbing off on me.”
“I don’t recommend you make a habit of that. People try to kill me pretty much every other Tuesday.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Pack your bags and brush up on your Russian. We’ll be on the first train out in the morning.”
NEARLY A FULL DAY AFTER they made their plans, Grace felt the brief moment of disorientation that signaled they had dropped out of frameshift. If Yvonne was right, there was a piece of smoldering equipment in forward engineering, and they had no time to lose.
“It’s time,” Davey said. “Free my sister.”
Whitaker moved from his position on the ground to sit by Grace. “Now about that magic trick,” he said with a grin, as he peeled back the skin on his right forearm to reveal a smooth metal surface.
Davey’s mouth dropped open. “Has that always been fake?”
“I wasn’t born with it if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Very funny. More earthtech?”
“Top of the line. And part of the reason I stay out of fights. I’d rather not lose the other one. First time it hurt like the devil.” He opened a compartment in the arm and pulled out a small laser cutter.
Grace turned her back to him to let him get to work. She almost told him to watch what he was doing, but she really didn’t want him distracted when he had a laser pointed at her. Adding laser burns to arms that hadn’t gotten blood in two days wouldn’t make their escape any easier.
Yvonne and Elizabeth shifted to block the view from the door. “You seem to have a steady supply of earthtech,” Elizabeth said.
“It’s all in who you know,” he said. “Give me one more moment. Got it.”
After Moses: Wormwood Page 38