The Phoenix Law

by Cate Dermody

  All the pieces. Alisha wanted to close her eyes, to rock with the pain, savoring it because there was no way to let it go. Reichart’s code that she’d broken and shared with Erika. An open door for Erika’s people to use in tracking the Infitialis. Forty people over the last ten months. Forty people since Boyer’s death. Even if the Infitialis had changed their codes, Erika must have already been into their network. Alisha could not afford to let herself close her eyes to the truth. Not now, when it was almost too late to see it.

  “You killed Director Boyer,” Alisha whispered. “You were the only one who knew where he’d be, besides me.” She wasn’t sure if the words even had sound, so lodged in her throat did they feel, but something regretful colored Erika’s eyes. Alisha squeezed the trigger guard again, desperate to wipe that expression from her one-time friend’s eyes. “My God. You turned Emma over when I talked to you. You…” It was too easy to stand there whispering the litany of sins. Alisha clenched her jaw and tightened her grip on her Glock. “Brandon.” His name came out hoarse and raw. He flinched at the sound of it.

  “Get the Firebird box,” Alisha grated. “Cuff them. Do it now. Before I kill somebody.”

  Cristina moved, barely more than a tensing of her muscles. Alisha’s finger slid from the guard to the trigger again, and she whispered, “Don’t,” in the same hoarse voice. “All I need is an excuse, Cris. Don’t hope I’m bluffing. I will shoot. Hands behind your head. Erika, you, too. Brandon, now,” she added as both women slowly complied.

  “Alisha,” Erika said again. Alisha twitched the gun’s muzzle to the right, squeezing off three shots that exploded more papers and dust into the air.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” she screamed over the sound of bullets clanging and shattering. “I don’t want to hear it,” she repeated as echoes faded. “I’ll hear it at Langley, you traitorous—” The last word choked her, bitch far too mild. Brandon, moving as if bullets weren’t flying around the narrow aisle between the stacks, stopped a solid three feet from Erika, keeping himself well out of Cristina’s possible reach, and grabbed the tech geek’s collar to pull her forward. The left side of her leather jacket hung heavily and he fished his hand into an inside pocket, coming out with the scarred black box from the Firebird. He dropped it on the floor, kicking it back toward Alisha without looking. She put her foot on it, unwilling to bend and pick it up until Cristina and Erika were both restrained.

  The door banging open sounded like a death toll, metal slamming against concrete. Alisha jerked at the sharp noise; everyone did, minute recoils that were the body’s natural response. Alisha saw each tiny flinch in the people around her, her thoughts dropping out of real time to superimpose an image over those small startled actions. The film footage of Kennedy’s assassination had just those same kinds of reactive jounces in it, three pulses where the camera lost steadiness when the man holding it heard gunshots being fired.

  As in those brief moments that changed everything, so too, did everything change now.

  Cristina surged forward, lashing out with a crippling blow aimed at Brandon’s knee. Little more than an inhalation seemed to save him, the kick hitting as he scooted back just enough to diminish its effectiveness. Erika twisted free from his grip as he moved, bolting down the aisle away from Alisha, rather than trying to take the fight to her. Cristina turned to follow her, evading Brandon’s snatch for her shirt.

  Gunfire sounded again, devastatingly loud, the flashes from the muzzle bright enough to hurt Alisha’s eyes. A woman screamed, high aborted sound, then fell, momentum driving her forward even as she collapsed to the floor.

  Cristina vaulted Erika’s fallen form and disappeared around the far end of the stacks.

  Alisha lowered her gun, numb slow action as she looked down the aisle. Blood already stained the floor, leaking out from beneath the black leather jacket that was Erika’s signature piece. The sight of it seemed to stop Alisha’s heart, breath lost between one beat and the next. The report of her weapon firing replayed endlessly, mixed with Erika’s shriek, the two sounds so wedded to one another they would never come undone.

  Reichart appeared at Alisha’s elbow, gun drawn. Somewhere in the distance the door he’d come through banged shut again, but there was nothing left in Alisha to react. This time she didn’t flinch, no small physical betrayal to send the world wrong. She only stood, staring down the aisle at blood seeping across the bunker floor.

  A second door slammed: Cristina’s escape. There was no air to breathe, no thought to drive Alisha forward. Reichart’s voice sounded from far away: “Leesh? Alisha, what—” The question was lost to his own cautious pacing toward Erika’s body. He met Brandon halfway down the aisle, asking, “What happened?” in a perfunctory low voice, though something in his tone suggested he was already putting the pieces together. A moment later he was at the end of the aisle, kneeling beside Erika. “She’s alive.”

  Alisha’s heart finally beat, one painful spasm that hung in her chest, fluttering dangerously. She drew in a breath, cold and aching with shock. Her feet carried her forward, stumbling steps that ended in crashing to her knees at Erika’s side. Reichart had moved, though she hadn’t seen when. Brandon followed her, standing at Erika’s feet. Alisha pulled her night goggles off, dark overwhelming and somehow more truthful than the false green light the goggles offered. Erika’s head was turned to the side, cheek pressed to floor, revealing a too-fast pulse in her throat. A hole torn through the left shoulder of her jacket showed the bullet’s trajectory. Alisha knotted her hand in the coat and rolled Erika over, earning a gurgled whimper of pain from the other woman.

  The hole went all the way through, just below Erika’s left collarbone. Alisha touched her own collarbone, leaving a bloody smear where the same shot had once pierced her own shoulder. Erika gritted her teeth, staring up at Alisha until Alisha stood, voice flat as she spoke to Reichart. “Get her out of here. Keep her alive.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Alisha stepped over Erika and looked back at Reichart’s concerned scowl, then at Brandon, who stripped his sweater off as he came forward, starting to shred it into bandages. Her heart hadn’t begun to beat properly yet, one thud seeming years separated from the next. All that hung between those beats was cold, a flat need to end the betrayal and come to some sort of answer she could bear to live with. Every plan she’d concocted seemed irrelevant in the face of Erika’s ultimate loyalties. Jon, Alisha thought, could simply kill her. She’d failed in turning Lilith over to him, and she didn’t care anymore. It was time, one way or another, to find an end.

  She turned away, letting her words follow her. “I’m going to find Cristina.”

  She didn’t know when she’d started running. Sometime out of Reichart and Brandon’s sight, out of their hearing, as though the sound of her hasty footsteps would tell them too much about her emotional state.

  As if there was anything hidden about her emotions. Alisha couldn’t remember feeling so raw, like her skin had been abraded and left out to toughen or slough off, whichever it had the will to do. Even the physical and emotional pain of Reichart shooting her felt flat and old compared to the shock of seeing Erika at Cristina’s side. Alisha had not seen Reichart’s face in that moment, and in its way, that relationship had been brief, compared to the years she’d been friends with Erika. This burned in a way distrusting Greg hadn’t, her handler’s position as a superior officer in the CIA ranks forbearing the intimacy of real friendship. Even Cristina’s position as a double agent seemed—now, at least, years removed from the fact—like a less painful hit than Erika’s whispered curse of discovery.

  Up. Alisha had no sense of the shelter’s layout, but the way out, the way to find Cristina, would be to go up. Doors to individual rooms were locked, but stairways stood open and Alisha took the steps two and three at a time, the ache of oxygen-deprived muscles nothing compared to the hurt in her heart. She ran blindly, trying doors, aware of a timer counting down at the back of her mind: it
was only a matter of time before security tapes were reviewed, before guards responded to gunshots, before she was discovered. She had to get out, or find Cristina, before then.

  Finding Cristina would do. Fighting to the death seemed a reasonable prospect. Anything to stop the chain of events that kept building, anything to break the endless story of friends turning against friends, betrayal upon betrayal. Every betrayal birthed a new one from its ashes, like the phoenix rising.

  A laugh of tears burst from Alisha’s chest, remembering a warning spoken by a dying man. From the ashes comes the phoenix to destroy you. Cristina, code-named Phoenix after her supposed death in the Andes mountains. A sob escaped Alisha as she raced up a set of stairs, stopping on the last step to wrap an arm around her ribs and try to breathe a cramp out. The grip she held on the railing felt like the only thing keeping her on her feet, nothing else anchoring her to the world. “Oh, Cris,” she whispered. “You did it. Are you happy? There’s nothing left to me.”

  “It’ll do.”

  The words were Alisha’s only warning. Too much warning. Cristina had always been too fond of getting the last word in, making riposte as she fought. Her roundhouse kick came around a corner, but Alisha wasn’t there anymore, letting herself fall back down the stairs. Her palm squealed against the railing as she closed her grip again, keeping herself from tumbling all the way down, though momentum twisted her until her shoulder protested and popped.

  Cristina appeared at the head of the stairs, all loose blond hair and a charming smile. She planted both hands on the railings and swung forward, a full-body kick that showed off her physique more than presented danger. Alisha reached up and caught Cristina’s toe and ankle as the kick extended to its farthest point, twisting with her full strength. Cristina made a startled sound of pain deep in her throat, rotating with the force of Alisha’s motion, and crashed ignominiously on the steps, face-down.

  Alisha pounced up, crouching over Cristina’s hips and seizing two handfuls of her shirt. Cristina shoved up with one hand, bringing the other elbow back and around toward Alisha’s face. She blocked it with a grunt, letting loose of Cristina’s shirt, and the blond woman scrambled forward, escaping Alisha’s grasp. Alisha clawed her fingers, snagging Cris’s shirt enough to slow the other woman, but not enough to stop her. Cristina lashed back with a kick, catching Alisha in the shoulder as she turned to avoid the blow, then ran up the stairs, bolting to the left. Alisha slapped her palms on the next step up and used the leverage to shove herself after her former partner.

  Cristina spun around a corner, footsteps changing to indicate another set of stairs ahead. Alisha barreled after her, cornering in time to see the door at the new stairway’s head slamming shut again.

  A trio of grim-faced security guards lost their determination as Alisha burst through the door seconds behind Cristina. For an instant the two women fought on the same side, moving together with the flowing precision of years of shared combat. Alisha went low, launching from a vertical to a horizontal and sliding on her hip across the floor to scissors the closest guard’s legs out from under him. He hit the ground and she rolled on top of him, slamming one merciless fist into his jaw. He collapsed, boneless, and Alisha swung around to watch Cristina bring both hands, knotted together, down on the base of the second guard’s neck. He dropped and both women sprang for the third man, Alisha’s elbow to his kidneys doubling him over to meet Cristina’s swift knee to his chin.

  They stood facing one another, enmity temporarily forgotten in the breathless high of battle. Crystal recollection formed in Alisha’s mind, brought home by the moment: they’d been good together. As if the same thought crossed Cristina’s mind, she inclined her head, a small motion of acknowledgment.

  Then she turned and ran, long legs carrying her away from Alisha at breakneck speed. Alisha gave chase, not to catch her, but to follow her out; the fight could wait until they were somewhere safer than the bowels of Parliament. Cristina cast one or two glances over her shoulder, but did nothing more to lose Alisha, finally careening through a small door, the lock on which had been crowbarred off recently. Darkness enveloped Alisha as she gave chase. She bounced off narrow tunnel walls, her stride slowing so she could listen for Cristina.

  The tunnel sloped downward, then turned to steps, Cristina’s footsteps warning Alisha in time to avoid falling. The darkness seemed endless, more steps and musty damp air before she heard a rumble overhead—one of the subway trains, she thought, somewhere above her. After an eternity there were steps up again, and finally a door slamming open as Cristina crashed through it. Alisha smashed out seconds behind her, shocked to discover they’d crossed below the Thames and were on the river’s far bank. Cristina stood yards away, leaning on a piece of broken wall and panting.

  “You’re either very trusting or very stupid to have followed me like that, Ali. Funny thing is, after all this time, I don’t know which it is.”

  “Neither do I.” It was the only thing Alisha could bring herself to say before she renewed her attack, moving into close quarters with Cristina. They circled, wary and interested, each assessing the changes in their former partner’s fighting style in the years they’d been apart. Cristina still had the advantage, Alisha thought, with her greater reach, though that asset diminished in close-quarters fighting, thanks to Alisha’s superior strength. Cristina threw a punch, almost a test, and Alisha blocked it easily. Cris nodded, as if a question had been answered, then came in with a barrage of fist and elbow blows. Alisha went on the defensive, blocking and throwing hits when she could. There was a gun in her belt, and Cristina almost certainly carried at least one firearm as well. The fight could be over in seconds, and yet neither woman chose that option. Too many old ghosts to lay to rest, Alisha thought. Too much to be proven.

  A path opened up unexpectedly, clear and bright in her mind. With so many debts to repay, so many betrayals to live with, there might be one last card she could play.

  One final betrayal might bring them to an end game.

  Chapter 24

  She faltered on a block, putting just enough strength behind it to make it feel like a genuine miss. Cristina’s fist broke through, smashing into her cheekbone and sending Alisha staggering back.

  The next blow sent her to her knees, startling Cristina so much the blonde hesitated instead of taking what could easily be the kill shot. Alisha turned her head, letting years of fighting and betrayal become exhaustion in her voice. “Screw it.” She sounded weak to her own ears, though her heart slammed in her chest until she felt sick with the risk she took.

  Cristina froze in uncertainty. Alisha looked up, shaking her head, and spread her hands wearily. “Screw it, Cris,” she whispered. “Is there anybody you didn’t get to? Greg. Brandon. Boyer. Erika. Screw it, just…to hell with it.” She slumped, hands limp at her sides. “I don’t care anymore. What do I have to do to get out of this, Cris? There’s nobody left to trust. I just want to go home.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” Cristina demanded incredulously.

  Alisha closed her eyes, hands dropping to her sides, chin dropping to her chest. Picture of defeat, she thought. Yes. Believe it. Believe me. You’ve known me too long to think I can lie to you, Cris. Believe me. She shook her head, as much defeat as denial. “You know, I really don’t care. If you don’t, fine. Just kill me. As long as it’s over.”

  “You’re trying to trick me,” Cristina grated.

  Alisha shrugged, a liquid motion of lassitude. No tension in her body, except that of a woman whose fate lay in someone else’s hands. Her stomach roiled and she couldn’t find a way to ease it without tipping Cristina to her hand.

  “I was never as good as you are, Cris.” Weak regret and bitter admiration laced the words. Play to her ego, Leesh. But gently, gently. “You lied to me for years and I never even suspected it. Even if I was trying to trick you, what would the point be? You read me better than I ever read you, and besides.” Alisha’s training had taught her to deliver
a line with conviction, but there was no need to act as loneliness ached through her. “Who’ve I got left, anyway? Not even Erika. I never even had Erika on my side. All I wanted was out,” she whispered. “I left the Agency almost a year ago, and all I wanted was out. It’s still all I want. If that means you have to kill me…then do it.” Famous last words, she thought distantly. A surprising percentage of shootings were brought on by the victim screaming, go on, do it! only to be desperately surprised when someone did. Critical last words, risking everything on whether she could lie to her former partner now, when she’d been fooled so many times herself.

  Eyes closed, she never saw what weapon drove her into peaceful black oblivion.

  “…completely clean. Ops even checked her teeth. If there’s a bug on her, we can’t find it.”

  “Is she awake?”

  “Not yet.” Cristina, voice sour and still laced with uncertainty. Alisha groaned and rolled onto her side, bringing her arms down to wrap around her head.

  Trying to. Chains clinked, cuffs pulling at her wrists. She groaned again and tugged herself higher to fold her head between her biceps. “I’m awake.”

  She heard Cristina’s breath catch and smirked against her arm. No spy in her right mind would confess to awakening the moment she came to. Listening for any pertinent data that could be garnered was the right procedure. Alisha was breaking all the rules, hoping to keep Cristina off-balance. She couldn’t see Cristina or the man she talked to, but she could imagine them exchanging glances. “I’m awake,” she said again, hoarsely. “What’d you hit me with, a Mack truck?”

  “My heel,” Cristina said without apology. She appeared at Alisha’s bedside, looking extraordinarily tall. “You could be a very useful double agent, Alisha.”