by JC Cassels
“I beg your pardon?” Her voice sounded thin to her own ears.
“Let’s dispense with the games, shall we? I know who you are. The sabotage had to be committed by someone who had close access to Devon and the hovercycle. You’re the only traitor who had that kind of access to him.”
“I don’t know what you think you know…”
“Commander Barron, you’d better hope that there’s a lot you don’t know about Agent Devon because if you do, I’m under orders not to let you leave this room alive.”
That was a tactical error on his part. With the parameters established, Bo knew she had nothing to fear. Blade had been careful to protect her from any part of his work that could place her in danger. For once, she was thankful for his enigmatic smile and his cryptic “State Secrets…”
She smiled. Time to take the offensive.
“Interesting,” she said. “Lord Marin’s orders, of course. Blade really does know things that could get me killed.” She leaned on the table once more, her eyes narrowed. “Does Blade know secrets that you’d kill him to keep?”
“We’re not talking about what he knows. We’re talking about what you know.”
“So this isn’t about whether you think I sabotaged his hovercycle or not. This is about pillow talk.”
“If you like.”
She smiled. “I’m just trying to figure out what the rules are.”
“There are no rules. The only rules are you tell me what I want to know and I decide whether or not to let you live.”
Bo shook her head. “My life isn’t yours to give or take, Agent Kendall.” Bo nodded to herself as the pieces fell into place. “Because I’m in protective custody, aren’t I? Devon outranks you. Marin’s orders or not, you can’t touch me. You’d have to answer to Blade for it…and he scares the hell out of you…what he knows…what he’s capable of. You don’t just walk away from the IC and join holofeatures. You don’t just take up with a traitor and have your superiors turn a blind eye. You don’t…he did. He’s that good. He’s that connected. He’s that dangerous. You can’t touch me. You can’t touch him.” Bo leaned on the table. “With that kind of protection, why would I want to kill him? You can’t buy that kind of protection.”
Bo pushed away from the table and smiled. “You need to keep looking for your saboteur. I don’t have any reason to hurt him, but I have every reason to keep him safe.”
“Tell me one thing, Commander.” Kendall lowered his arms to his sides and slowly resumed his circuit of the table. “Who is Blade Devon?”
What the hell kind of question was that?
Bo shook her head and stepped warily away from him. “I don’t understand the question.”
“It’s very simple. Who are you sleeping with? Who is he really? Do you know? He has a lot of names. Which one is the real one?”
She’d seen this tactic before. He was trying to make her doubt Blade. Hell, she had enough doubts of her own, but he didn’t need to know that. She didn’t have to know every detail of his life to know that he had always been there when she needed him. Her feelings and doubts aside, right now, that had to be enough.
“Dev Fossey,” she said with conviction. “He’s nobody from nowhere. Blade Devon is the man the IC made into a weapon. Dev Fossey is just a kid without a family, exactly the type the IC likes to recruit. No connections. Highly intelligent. Sliding morality scale. But this one had family. He was attached. It scares you that you can’t control him. There’s no telling what he might do. You don’t know him very well, do you?”
“Do you?”
“That’s the question that you say will get me killed, isn’t it? Do I know him better than you? Depends on how you measure it, doesn’t it?”
“It’s really very straightforward…”
“No, it’s not. You see, there’s one thing…one particular fact that you’re trying to find out whether he’s shared with me or not.”
“And that is?”
Bo shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to know. Dev is always saying he’s got these big secrets, State Secrets. I’m not interested in State Secrets. You’re welcome to keep them. I don’t care. You forget…my uncle Royce is a Predator. I’m used to hearing men tell me they can’t talk about things. I’m also The Barron. I appreciate the value of a well-kept State Secret. You keep mine, I’ll keep yours. It’s all very civilized.”
“And what secret of mine are you proposing to keep?”
“That you threatened my life. That Lord Marin ordered you to kill me. Because you know as well as I do that if Blade ever learned about it, there’s no telling what he’d do. You can’t risk taking that weapon and pointing it at Andre Marin.”
“I can always kill Devon.”
They both knew it was an empty threat.
Bo smiled. “You can try. But I’m not without resources either. I’ve had my people on him, too. Did you know that I had someone in the operating theater with you? If you’d made the slightest threatening move towards Blade, there was a hypospray filled with enough tranq to drop a full-grown gantor. You never would have seen it coming.” She sauntered around the table. “For that matter, our entire conversation has been recorded. When I go over to that door, it’s going to be unlocked.”
“Working on the decryption now, brat,” Edge’s voice came over her com-implant.
Good old Edge!
“Are you really that connected, Barron?”
“I am. And I am that good.”
“Well,” a slow leer curled his lips. His stare touched her curves in the most insulting manner possible. “You are a Kiara.”
She buried her revulsion.
“Only half,” she said. “The rest of me is my father’s daughter, and Royce Barron’s niece. I’ve been trained by the best.”
“For the sake of argument, let’s say I keep your secret,” he said. “I keep yours and you keep mine –then what?”
“Well, I walk out that door and you rescind your order keeping me from Blade.”
“And if I don’t rescind that order?”
“Are you really that stubborn? That foolish?”
“So they tell me.”
“This is what it comes down to, Agent Kendall? Threats?” She tsked. “Let’s be civilized and look at this rationally. What reason do you have to keep me from him? I don’t know his state secrets. I don’t want to know. And I had nothing to do with sabotaging his hovercycle. I have no reason to want him dead. Quite the contrary. What valid reason do you have to keep me from him? You don’t have one, do you? Nothing other than sheer cussedness, that is. You’ll rescind it.
“Why is that?”
“Because if I can get to you in an operating theater, I can get to you anywhere. If I can get to you anywhere, that means I can get to Blade anywhere. If I wanted him dead, I wouldn’t need you to grant me access to him, would I?”
“I guess not.”
“My reasons for wanting to be with him are personal.”
“Are you in love with him, Barron?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It’s more my business than you think.” He raised his hand. “But you win. I see your logic. I’ll rescind my order.”
Bo lifted her chin in victory.
“If you can open this door.”
Bo smiled. “Agent Kendall, you have yourself a deal.”
“Got it!”
The panel beside the door whirred and flashed then the door slid open. Bo covered her relief with a saucy smile.
Kendall eyed her with grudging admiration. He touched his fingertips to his brow in a mocking salute. “I think I see what Devon sees in you.”
Bo acknowledged the compliment with a slight nod. “I expect to find your order rescinded by the time I reach Blade. If not…I’ll be happy to go another round with you.”
“Nothing would delight me more,” he said. “But that won’t be necessary…Marissa.”
With one last meaningful look at him, s
he turned and left him staring after her.
***
“…so little bitty Marissa plunks herself down in front of this big, bad IC agent and tells him ‘You’d better take care, Mister Inner Circle agent…,” Chase perched on the edge of his chair. He braced his fists on his hips and assumed a posture reminiscent of angry females. He did a fair approximation of Bo’s angry tone. “…anything happens to my man and not even Lord Marin can save you from me. I’ll kill you and take my time about it.’ Hell, she even had me shaking in my boots!”
Blade chuckled over his brother’s performance. “She actually said that? She called me her man?”
“No.” Bo grinned, and a becoming blush spread across her cheeks. “I didn’t say that. I said ‘that man.’”
Chase dismissed her with a wave. “Same difference,” he said. “So I grab her by the arm to call her off. I swear she was like some attack dorn and I’m telling you, Dev, I believed her. So I tell her that she needs to calm down before she gets us kicked off the ship. You know I’m all for getting kicked out of places for misbehaving, but it’s a long way down to Catarrh from here and I don’t think I can hold my breath that long.”
Blade laughed, enjoying himself despite the fact it felt like someone had set off an explosive charge in his torso. He’d dodged a bullet and he was pragmatic enough to appreciate the fact that he’d come away from this year’s Catarrh with nothing more than a few new scars and a story he’d embellish in the interviews that were sure to come.
“Really, you know, Dev, this could’ve been a lot worse,” Chase said. “Another rider with less experience crashing might not have made it.”
“Yeah,” Blade said. “I always knew all those wrecks of mine would come in handy some day.”
Chase brightened. “Just think of all the endorsement offers you’ll get from safety gear companies.”
Nodding, Blade pretended to consider it. “I may retire from holofeatures.”
“Don’t you dare!” Chase looked aghast. “Then I’ll have to change careers and get a job as a dancing mascot for a sports team or something.”
Blade burst out laughing again at the absurdity of it. “You can’t dance!”
“What are you talking about? Can so!”
With that, Chase jumped up and started gyrating, flapping his arms about.
“See?” he said “Told you!”
Bo giggled over his antics and hugged Blade’s good arm to her.
Every square centimeter of his body felt like it had been pounded by a pneumatic hammer, but Holy Maker, it sure felt good to be alive.
The door opened with a hiss, interrupting Chase’s increasingly ridiculous performance. It took only a scant second for Blade to recognize the Inner Circle Agent standing there.
Ian Kendall. Kendall was the biggest asshole he’d gone through IC training with. He’d been a pain in Blade’s side since the first day they’d sized each other up. Of all the agents to be on his case…
“If you’ll excuse us, I need to have a word with Agent Devon in private,” Kendall said. The edge of authority to his tone left no room for argument.
Bo opened her mouth to protest, but Blade silenced her with a warning squeeze of her hand. At her questioning look, he nodded his reassurance and nudged her away. Blade looked to his brother with a small lift of his eyebrows. Chase nodded and took hold of Bo’s elbow.
“Come on, Marissa,” Chase said. “It’ll be alright.”
With one last glare at Kendall, she rose and followed Chase out of the room.
Kendall watched them go. When the door slid shut behind her, he pointed his IC scrambler at the lock and keyed it. He turned back to Blade with a leering grin.
“Nice piece of ass,” he said.
Blade refused to rise to the bait. “What are you doing here, Kendall?”
“The truth or the cover story?”
“Which will get rid of you faster?”
Kendall folded his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels. “The cover story is that my team and I were ordered here to follow up some intel about New Front activity. We just happened to be in the neighborhood to respond to your distress call.”
Plausible, but unlikely.
“Why are you really here?”
Kendall’s grin widened. “I’ve been promoted to a special detail.”
Oh shit.
“Lord Marin himself appointed me head of security for the Sovran Heir.”
Maybe he should have just gone ahead and died in that crash. With Kendall promoted to the Janizary, the Sovran’s personal guard, Blade’s life was going to be a living hell.
“Imagine my surprise when he told me I was going to be protecting you. I mean, how funny is that?”
“You can go right back to his lordship and tell him thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need a bodyguard. I’ve got one.”
“So I noticed.” Kendall pulled a chair around and straddled it, bracing his forearms across the back. “Have you read her file?”
His tone was too casual. Blade knew when he was being evaluated. He had to tread carefully. Kendall was on a fishing expedition for something specific. Despite the fact that he felt like a bag of bones that had been shaken hard and dragged around an asteroid by a load hauler, he retreated into the Inner Circle training that had served him so well.
“Read it?” Blade echoed. “I’ve been making entries in it for the past two years.”
“She’s just an asset? She acts like she’s in love with you.”
“Irrelevant.” Blade closed his eyes and tried to relax. “Since when do the asset’s feelings ever merit consideration?”
He silently prayed Bo never overheard him talk like that. He walked a fine enough line with her as it was.
“Damn, you’re still a cold bastard,” Kendall said with a hint of admiration. “I’d heard rumors you’d gone soft when you took up with her.”
“She’s an assignment. It takes time to earn the loyalty of someone like her.”
“Well, you’ve got it. You wouldn’t believe what she threatened me with. She was afraid I was here to off you.”
“Are you?”
“No, but somebody is. Your cycle didn’t just malfunction. It was tampered with…and by someone who knew what they were doing. The only thing that kept you from slamming into the pass at a new landspeed record was the fact that you waited so long to adjust your intakes. If you’d done it earlier when everybody else usually did…”
“What did they do?”
Kendall reached into the side pocket of his jacket and pulled out a tiny device. He handed it to Blade. Blade held it between his thumb and forefinger and studied it from every angle. It resembled nothing so much as a charred and bent little ring with tiny sensors and wires poking out at odd angles.
“Where was it?”
“The throttle.”
Ah yes…create a vapor lock on the throttle triggered by the barometric pressure of the pass. He would never have been able to control the cycle at those speeds over that terrain. But that didn’t account for the steering.
“And the stabilizers?”
“Rigged.” Kendall said holding out his hand for the device.
Blade handed it over.
“The vapor lock triggered a cascade in the electrical system,” Kendall said. “Once you hit the pass, it locked the throttle wide open, shorted out the engine kill switch and collapsed the forward stabilizers. They didn’t just want you dead. They wanted you to be a grease spot on the canyon wall.”
“And by not adjusting my intakes earlier, when the vapor lock kicked in it kept my speed down.”
Kendall nodded. “Saved your life.”
“So let me guess, I’m to be escorted back to Trisdos for my own safekeeping.”
“Give the man a prize.”
“I’m not going.”
“You don’t have a say in it…My Lord.”
“For how long?”
“You’re done. Blade Devon ceases to be. Your days playi
ng the holofeature hero are at an end. Your assignment with The Barron is over. Because of who she is, I can’t exactly liquidate her, but you’ve got to cut her loose…Lord Marin’s orders. Now, if she knows who you are, I’m authorized to do as I please with her…”
“She doesn’t,” Blade said sharply. “What about Chase?”
“Him, you can keep. I’m authorized to offer him protective custody and escort to Trisdos.”
“When?”
“As soon as the doc releases you to my custody. I’ve got a ship standing by to take us to Trisdos.”
“And if I refuse?”
Kendall shook his head. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to give up the life you’ve got as Blade Devon either. But you don’t have a choice any more. Lucky thing for me you’re so banged up. I doubt anyone could make you go anywhere you didn’t want to if you were up to specs. Makes my job a little easier. You’re not exactly in a position to tell me no…My Lord.”
Blade forced a smile. “It hurts you to call me that, doesn’t it?”
“Man, you ain’t kiddin’.” Kendall rubbed his hand along his jaw. “You’ve always been an arrogant prick. Had to be the best at everything…top of all the classes…just a little bit better than the rest of us – and you knew it, too. Now I find out you’re the damn Sovran Heir and I think to myself, ain’t this just the capper? I spent my career chasing your numbers…always just a little behind. Then the Overlord calls me in and tells me that’s why he wants me to head up your detail. All those years trying to keep up with you made me the only one who can keep up with you. You and me, we’re the best.”
Blade shook his head. “That’s not exactly true. I can name a half-dozen agents in the field better than you.”
“Maybe, but I ain’t impressed with you. You ain’t gonna sweet talk me into nothin’. Them other agents you’re talking about? They like you. I don’t.”
“Nice to see you haven’t changed, Ian,” Blade said. “Did you know that when you get emotional you slip back into your native vernacular?” He shook his head. “That’s why you’ll never be a good covert agent.”
“Yeah, well, we can’t all be Blade Devon, can we?” Kendall feigned a look of surprise. “Oh wait, you can’t be Blade Devon any more either. How sad for you.”