The Phoenix Law

by Cate Dermody

  “You,” Alisha said decisively. “Brandon and I will go on.” Brandon turned a pale face toward her in the dark and she shrugged. “You’re the brains, Brandon. You either stay with me or stay with Reichart, but I’m not letting you split off. We can’t lose you.”

  “I hate being the expendable one,” Reichart said with a quick grin. Alisha’s mouth curled wryly and she shrugged a second time, then forewent words and motioned them forward again. Reichart hesitated at her elbow, pointing upward. Alisha glanced up, then cracked another grin and nodded, making a stirrup out of her hands. Reichart nodded, knelt, and stirruped his own hands.

  An instant later Alisha felt herself lifted into the air as if she were weightless, and caught the lighting bar that ran down the center of the tunnel.

  Scrambling hand over hand along an overhead bar wasn’t the fastest method of getting somewhere. Muscle burned in Alisha’s arms, as if the mental effort put to the task somehow transferred itself to concentrate in her biceps. Still, it allowed her to hug the ceiling, moving smoothly until the tunnel branched to the left. There were no lights for dozens of feet on either side of the branch: sensible, Alisha thought. Lights would help Tube passengers see the unexplained opening at the tunnel’s side. Most of the time, that would go unnoticed, but there were always a few curious sorts who would explore.

  Like herself. Alisha grinned tightly at the ceiling, then bent her head back, letting green-infused night vision goggles tell her where security guards stood. There were two, enough to keep each other awake without being too much burden on a budget. The faintest whisper of sound told her Reichart and Brandon had moved up to the branch’s entrance. Still smiling, Alisha wrapped her legs around the bar more thoroughly and let go with her hands, dangling upside-down in the middle of the tunnel. “Hello, boys.”

  Both men whipped around, the second close enough that Alisha lashed out with a fist before he could bring his weapon up. He staggered back and she tucked herself up, catching the bar with her palms so she could rotate down from the ceiling and drop to the floor before he’d recovered his balance. She came up in a surge of power, slamming her shoulder into his groin and earning a retch for her troubles. Half a moment later she had her arm around his throat and had twisted toward his compatriot, using him as a shield.

  The second guard’s weapon was at the ready, indecision clear on his face in the green light provided by the goggles. Alisha clucked her tongue, the warning backed up by the sound of two guns cocking.

  “Put it down, mate.” Reichart’s quiet voice seemed terribly loud in the small tunnel. Anger contorted the guard’s face and he hefted his weapon a few inches. Reichart and Brandon came up on either side of Alisha, fingers slipping from the trigger guards to the triggers. “Don’t be an idiot. Put the gun down. Nobody has to get hurt here.”

  Anger gave way to frustrated despair and the guard turned his hands up, moving away from the trigger. Reichart nodded. “Smart lad. Put it down and kick it toward me.”

  Alisha felt the guard she held tense and tightened her arm around his throat. “Don’t you get stupid, either,” she advised. He growled, but relaxed again. “Good boy. If you’ll do the honors?” The last was directed to Brandon, who tugged cuffs from beneath his close-fitting black sweater and stripped weapons and keys from the man before clipping his wrists behind his back. Reichart tangled the second guard’s cuffs with the first and ushered them to the far wall.

  “Time?”

  “Fifty-four minutes until the hour,” Alisha replied. “Expect us in forty-five minutes or less.”

  Reichart nodded and cast a brief, telling glance her way, as intimate as a kiss. Alisha caught her breath and smiled, heart jumping for reasons wholly unrelated to the physical exertion of moments earlier, and returned the nod. “Forty-five minutes,” she repeated, then tipped her head toward Brandon. He fell into step behind her as she broke into a run, following the tunnel down toward their goal. The air warmed as they went deeper, sweat beading on Alisha’s forehead, and a glow of light warned early enough to pull the night goggles up and avoid being blinded. The tunnel ended at an abrupt corner, concrete bunker doors with electronic control pads barring the way. Alisha skidded to a halt with a soft curse that Brandon answered with a disparaging look as he slid his backpack off and knelt. “Back there, when you disabled that first guard before you even took a breath, I wondered why you’d bothered taking us along on this little venture.” He pulled an electronic code breaker with a generic card attached from his pack. “Now I know.”

  Chagrin flushed Alisha’s cheeks as Brandon reached up, fitting the code breaker over the keypad. “I brought lock picks,” she muttered.

  Brandon gave her another droll look and returned his attention to the scrolling numbers. “We all bring the tools of our trade,” he said. “What did you bring?”

  “Guns,” Alisha said flatly. It was partly true, though she’d brought other materials as well. Brandon shot her a startled look, then let out an exhalation that bordered on laughter.

  “Like I said. Seven-number security,” he added. “This would be a hell of a lot faster with—” The code beeped and he swiped the card, pushing to his feet. “—Lilith.”

  “Pretty fast without her. I’m sorry, Brandon. We’ll get her back somehow. Right now, though…”

  “I know. Focus on the job at hand.” They pressed to opposite sides of the bunker door as it rolled ponderously open, Alisha drawing a .45 from its holster beneath her backpack. She pointed at herself, then at the opening door, earning a nod from Brandon. Two quick breaths later she stepped inside, sweeping an airlock room for both enemies and surveillance. She didn’t expect the former, but the lack of the latter came as a surprise, the concrete walls bare and unadorned. Across from the door she’d entered through was another door, an enormous wheel dominating it. Alisha cupped her gun in both hands, barrel pointed toward the ceiling as she murmured an all-clear.

  “No cameras,” she said as he came in. “I don’t like that.”

  “I’d like it less if there were cameras,” Brandon said. “We don’t have a way to disable them.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith.” Alisha tilted her head, indicating her backpack. Brandon’s eyebrows furrowed, but he dug into the pack, coming up with two small cans of black spray paint.

  “Very high-tech. Very smooth. I’m impressed.”

  “Just keep one on you.” Alisha slid her can into a front pocket and her gun into her waistband so she could try the wheel on the second door. It refused to shift and she glanced at the open door behind them. “Close that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure this one won’t open as long as that one’s open.”

  “Your call,” Brandon said, skeptically. The first set of doors rumbled shut and Alisha tried the wheel again. It gave silently and smoothly, at odds with its ancient appearance. A smile of triumph curled her mouth and she reached up to pull her mask over her face, tugging the night goggles back into place. “Turn the light enhancer in your goggles down,” she suggested. “There might be lights on in there. We’ll go for the security cameras first, then move out from there.”

  “I know, Alisha.” Brandon’s mild tone hid obvious exasperation. Alisha shot him an apologetic glance that was completely hidden by her mask and goggles, then twisted the wheel until the door shifted in its casings and rolled open.

  They broke to the left and right, armed with spray paint, and Brandon’s frustrated laugh echoed Alisha’s own feeling. The cameras were there, but several feet overhead, the ceiling at least two yards above them. “Screw it,” Alisha said. “Let’s just go for it.” Even as she suggested carelessness, she hid herself in the corner beneath her camera, taking in the lay of the land. Carelessness was one thing. Going in utterly blind when she had a chance to at least establish herself in relation to the complex was something else.

  The room they were in had once been intended as a conference room, Alisha guessed. Tiered steps rose away from a stage area
, providing what would be head room to see over the rows in front of them in a packed house. Now file cabinets lined those steps. Brandon was already among them, searching for something. Alisha risked turning the enhancement on her goggles up again: only one light burned, over a set of double doors across the room.

  “Over here,” Brandon said in a low voice. Alisha kept to the walls, staying as much out of the cameras’ view as she could before cutting over to where Brandon rifled through a filing cabinet. She glanced at the letters on the cabinets around them, eyebrows lifting and changing the fit of her goggles.

  “C? Wouldn’t the States be filed under U?”

  “Not if you think of them as a lost colony,” Brandon said with a quick grin.

  Alisha laughed quietly, surprise taking her off-guard. The amusement faded, though, as she looked around again.

  “These cabinets have to be at least thirty years old, Brandon. Isn’t modern information going to be kept on a mainframe somewhere?”

  “No such thing as a computer that can’t be hacked, Alisha,” he murmured. “You want something safe, you memorize it and burn it. Failing that, you keep hard copies and never let it near a computer. Here!” He yanked a file out, opening it on top of the cabinet. Year, date, material—Alisha skimmed a finger over the papers, nodding.

  “This is it. Room 19, stack five, shelf four. Perfect.”

  “Except we don’t know where room 19 is,” Brandon said.

  Alisha stared at him, then whispered, “Dammit,” under her breath and turned to survey the room they stood in. After a moment, she darted for the double doors, checking the wall outside it.

  “Heh. This is Conference Room AA. That’s no help.”

  “Go look,” Brandon said. “I’ll see what I can find in here.”

  “Like hell.” Alisha came back in, shaking her head. “We either both go or both stay. I’m not leaving you alone.”

  “I didn’t know you cared,” Brandon said quietly. He turned away from her, studying the file cabinets before coming to a decision and walking away briskly to open another one. “We’re over, aren’t we, Ali? Before we even got started.”

  Alisha pulled her goggles off to gape at him across the dark room. “What is it with you guys and wanting to have meaningful conversations in the middle of missions? No wonder I haven’t picked up another partner since Cristina died.” She cringed in frustration at the word, remembering too late that Cristina was still alive, but ignored the recollection. “Heaven forbid they should partner me with a man. You get all sentimental at the weirdest times.”

  “You’re avoiding the question.” Brandon pulled out another handful of files, discarding several of them with little more than a glance.

  Alisha flung her hands up in exasperation, stifling the urge to turn around and shoot a security camera just for the temporary relief it would provide. Then she deliberately put her hands down again, fixing her gaze on the floor and breathing deeply until she was sure she trusted her voice and her answer. “Maybe you had no other choice, Brandon, but you led the Sicarii to my doorstep. To my family’s doorstep.” She shook her head, still staring at the floor. “That was too careless. I’m not sure I’m completely over being pissed at you, but even if I am…” She looked up, watching Brandon’s stiff movements in the harsh whiteness of the light above the door. “That was too selfish,” she said, as quietly as he’d spoken a moment earlier. “Risking me’s one thing. I chose this life, even if I tried to walk away from it. But my nephews…you should have thought about them, Brandon, and you should have found another way to contact me. Yeah,” she finally said. “It’s over, even if we never got a chance to start.”

  “How much does this have to do with Reichart?”

  “That,” Alisha said evenly, “is none of your business.”

  “That much, then.” Brandon straightened away from the file cabinet he’d been searching through, a blueprint in hand. “Bunker schematics. Room 19 is four halls to the left at the bottom of the stairs. We ready?”

  Alisha nodded, a tight motion, and took the lead, Brandon falling into step behind her. Now, the combat-trained part of Alisha’s mind predicted. Now would be the moment of final betrayal, when it would prove that Brandon Parker still had ties to the Sicarii. Now, with her back to him, a position of trust. Now was when she would make her play, if she weren’t to be trusted herself, now that hopes of romance had been dashed. Now that the die was cast and there was to be no redemption found in the loving arms of a woman. Every part of her waited for it, the blow or the gun or the words that would be her undoing.

  It never came. Alisha let out a low rush of air as they turned at the stairway, running as silently as they could. The door at the bottom had another electronic keypad and Brandon stepped forward to run his decoder through it. The door opened with a quiet click and Alisha dropped her shoulders, genuinely relaxing. The moment had passed, according to everything her training told her. It was an emotional response, not grounded in logic or intelligence, but Alisha was glad for it. She motioned Brandon ahead, feeling as if he’d passed a test. He nodded and brushed by, leaving her to prop the door open a few centimeters before following.

  Brandon counted off the stacks with an opening of folded fingers as he went past them: two, three, four, and stopped at five, his hand lifted. Alisha paused behind him, looking past him at the rest of the room. Four more stacks stretched in front of them, so the row was the fifth from either side. Brandon nodded once, as if following her thoughts, and stepped forward to turn down the aisle with Alisha on his tail.

  He stopped two steps in, so abruptly Alisha flinched to the side in order to avoid running into him. Even as she drew breath to ask what had stopped him, she saw.

  Two people. One, masked and wearing black, properly outfitted for midnight espionage work, stood half-hidden behind the other, a dark-haired woman halfway up the stacks. The woman on the stacks, excepting a pair of night goggles, wore casual attire that was completely inappropriate for the job she did. Blue jeans, Alisha knew, though her own goggles sucked the color from them. A black leather jacket that swung back to reveal a bared midriff. Solid boots. Familiar clothes, all.

  Every protocol in the world told Alisha not to whisper the name, not to betray her own presence there. Duty would have her step back, hide in the shadows again, and survey the situation. But her heart beat so hard she could feel it over every inch of her skin, confusion and cold dread pounding through her body.

  “Erika?”

  Erika jerked toward the sound of Alisha’s voice, shock coursing over her expression, even half-hidden by the goggles. “Alisha? Shit.”

  The second person moved, cutting away from the shadow to show a woman’s form. She took a fluid step backward, displaying body language that Alisha recognized without processing it. Her gun was suddenly in her hand, though she didn’t remember drawing it from her waistband. “One more step and you’re dead. You know I can pull the trigger.” Her voice was cold and dead with rage, hand so steady she felt she might be made of stone.

  The woman behind Erika hesitated, then reached up to pull her mask off, sending wheat-pale hair falling over her shoulders in tangles. “Alisha MacAleer,” Cristina Lamken said. “My, oh my, what a mess we have here.”

  Chapter 23

  “Erika?” Alisha’s voice rose and broke, a sound perilously close to tears. “Erika, what’s going on?”

  “Isn’t it clear?” Cristina asked, far too merrily. She took a step forward and Alisha’s voice cracked out, “Don’t. Move. Put your hands up, Cris, or I swear I’ll shoot you right now.”

  “That’ll bring us all sorts of attention we don’t want,” Cristina said smoothly. “Listen, Ali, I—”

  Alisha fired.

  Papers in the stacks exploded in a puff of dust and sound, the bullet slamming into metal with a violent spang. The ricochet echoed off the walls, deafening. Brandon and Erika flinched, though neither gave in to the obvious urge to fling themselves to the side. Cristina went sh
ockingly still. “Put. Your fucking. Hands. Up,” Alisha repeated. Cristina, sheer astonishment making her blue eyes round, did as she was told.

  “Erika?” Alisha asked again, no more steadily than a moment earlier. Compartmentalize, she told herself fiercely, but the order had no power. Her chest was tight as iron bands, breath coming hard. “Erika?”

  Her friend pulled her own goggles off, staring down the stacks at her. “Come on, Erika.” Alisha’s voice was too loud, too accusing, and she couldn’t modulate it. “You’re supposed to be the smart one, E. Where’s your clever story? What’s the explanation here?”

  “Alisha,” Erika whispered, and Alisha pulled the trigger again, noise and danger a too-thin salve for the ache in her heart. Even Cristina cringed, and Alisha uncurled her finger from the trigger, wrapping it around the guard instead, trying to keep herself from emptying the clip. She wasn’t sure how long she could keep shooting paperwork and shelves, if she let herself go even one iota further. Her stomach, her arms, her very vision, trembled with the rage of betrayal, but her gun hand remained so steady it felt cast in lead.

  “How long! How long, Erika? HOW LONG?” There were reasons, the combat part of her mind whispered, not to shout. Not to fire her weapon again. To regain rationality and analyze the incident in a calm and detached manner. Her finger squeezed and relaxed repeatedly, wish fulfillment spelled out against the trigger guard.

  The answer was readable in Erika’s eyes, more betrayal than Alisha could have imagined. Memory, agonizing, seared through her mind, putting the pieces together so easily it left her without air in her lungs.

  The memory of brief irrational uncertainty when Erika had sent her from the hotel room in Switzerland, more than two years ago now. Mistrusting her friend had been an ugly moment, put aside. Erika had promised the copy of the Attengee schematics were corrupt. They had been. Reichart had gotten no use of them. But there had been more than enough time to copy the schematics, and they’d turned up in Sicarii hands, after all.