The Alecto Initiative was by far the greatest thing he’d ever been involved in. He’d played a key role, both in smuggling the explosives past all the security and in getting Mariwen Rathor invited to speak at the conference so she could detonate them. When Loralynn Kennakris, whom he had identified through the government surveillance video of the incident, spiked the operation by breaking the implant Admiral Heydrich’s people had so painstakingly impressed upon Mariwen’s psyche—a masterpiece of its kind, completely undetectable—he’d made it his mission to find out everything he could about her.
That was little enough. Unfortunately, she’d come under the protection of the Huron family, who had subsequently gotten her into the CEF Academy, and with Grand Senator Huron holding the Speakership, they had the means to keep information from even his various embedded eyes and ears.
Their protection also blocked the revenge that, at the time, he’d so dearly longed to exact: when approached, Admiral Heydrich’s chief of staff, Nikolai Arutyun, had declined even to discuss it. In hindsight, Lessing agreed: kidnapping an obscure CEF cadet from under the wing of the League’s most powerful family (or even just killing her) would have further endangered everything they’d worked for. Frustrating the League’s efforts to apprehend Nestor Mankho had been dangerous enough (his role there had been small, but still important), and exposing themselves further would’ve been a criminal blunder.
He could admit all that now, however much it galled him at the time. And back then, it had been nearly as infuriating to learn so little of value about the girl (she was no more) who was responsible for everything. Yet, the little he’d learned—that she was a colonial from Parson’s Acre; that her father, using an assumed identity, had immigrated there when she was no more than two or three; and that she had no known mother—now turned out to be valuable after all. Extremely so, for there could be no doubt that POW 6274936 was none other than Loralynn Kennakris.
That a colonial from a backwater planet would get a core-jack was patently absurd. That she had received it at such a young age meant it was the mate to an implant for a close relative who, given the implant was not activated then and she was never told of it (her father would have had to do both and his bogus ‘evaluation’ confirmed he hadn’t), had to be her missing mother. Further, her father’s descent into alcoholism and eventual suicide strongly suggested her mother was dead.
The number of women in the League who were exalted enough to merit such treatment and had died within the probable timeframe—between her uncertain birth date and her father’s emigration—was tolerably small. In fact, he’d bet everything he knew who she was.
But there was no need to bet. If she got back to the League and the proper people were notified, the core-jack would reveal exactly who her parents were, and a great deal else besides.
Getting back to the League . . . She was with Huron (he knew all about their relationship) and that was the key. The League would unquestionably make a deal for him, and that deal would include her.
And once he talked to her again, it would also include Taylor Lessing. He still knew things the League intelligence organs were (literally) dying to know and his tripwires were still intact, so they’d have to have him in a cooperative frame of mind for him to hand over that data. He still had friends (not all his bridges had been burnt), which gave him options should the League decide to go back on its word once he’d fulfilled his part of any bargain. In his way, he was as valuable as Huron. All he had to do was get word to them. To do that, all he had to do was talk to her again.
He would talk to her. Tomorrow. He had the perfect excuse. Indeed, the whole thing was perfect. So perfect that on the way back from the Caneris estate, he’d had to exert the most extraordinary mental discipline to not betray himself to his driver (who was also his minder) by acting in his habitually listless and despondent manner when he could have run on his hands.
It wasn’t until he was safely alone in his apartment that he even dared smile. Not much of a smile, even so—no smile could possibly express what he was feeling, anyway.
Yes, he would see her tomorrow. And she would agree. He’d lead with the carrot, of course, but a young woman who’d never known her mother might not give a damn who she was. In which case, he’d make her an offer that could not possibly be refused.
General’s Heydrich’s interest in a woman as beautiful as Loralynn Kennakris would be considerable in any case, but as he’d told her, looks weren’t everything. When that woman had ruined his brother’s most ambitious plot, the general’s interest would be correspondingly increased. When a brief search revealed she was also connected with Asylum, where his brother had died in circumstances that had never been satisfactorily explained, Lessing doubted there was anyone Heydrich would rather get his hands on.
Yes, the general had benefitted from his older brother’s death and Kennakris’s role in Asylum appeared to be minor. That wouldn’t matter to Heydrich. She was there. That mattered.
She also couldn’t fail to know Heydrich’s reputation. In nothing else, Huron would’ve filled her in. She would certainly know.
Pushing himself back from his console, he at last allowed the smile to over-spread his sallow drooping features. Such a grand convergence of extraordinary events seemed to require a grand irony to accompany it. And here was one: the grandest irony of all.
Loralynn Kennakris had put him in this fucking wheelchair. And now Loralynn Kennakris was going to get him out of it.
And send him home.
Chapter 18
Denver Heights, Colorado
Western Federal District, Terra, Sol
“Look around,” announced Nick Taliaferro. “What’dya see?”
“A somewhat overpriced hotel room,” Mariwen replied. Nick’s dark mobile face wore that mirthful expression which generally meant some sort of trouble, and it was not wise to commit oneself unduly.
“Very astute. Knew I couldn’t put one over on you.” He waved a bear-like hand to encompass the room. “Behold your humble dojo.”
“This?” Mariwen followed his gesture and tried to keep the incredulous note out of her voice. She’d expected something unorthodox, but this . . .
“This,” Nick emphasized. “No mats cuz the bad guys aren’t gonna attack you in a gym. Lots of furniture around—like the coffee table and that nasty desk over there. Opportunities for you and obstacles for your enemy. The first thing is to be aware of your surroundings. Seven outta ten times, the person who uses their surroundings better wins.”
“What about the other three?”
“That’s usually reflexes.”
“How reassuring.”
“A’right, now.” Nick cracked his knuckles and shook out his arms. “First, let’s see whatcha got. I’m a guy in a bar—”
“And you’re out of luck. I never go to bars.” She said it with a beguiling smirk.
Nick stroked his chin. “Okay. Lessee. I’m a guy at the opera—you do go to the opera?”
“Season-ticket holder—Paris, New York and Milan.”
“Excellent. I’m a guy at the opera—Milanese probably—and I come up behind you”—he spun his index finger in a little circle—“Turn around, would’ja?” She did. “And I do this.” He reached under her arm and his beefy hand grabbed one breast. Mariwen’s prominent breasts were more than a handful and she gave him a second to get in a good feel because she was aware of the value of the distraction. It took discipline not to react instantly, but it was worth it because men instinctively expected to get hit before they made contact with the target.
She waited out the crucial moments, then slammed an elbow into his ribs and dropped into a crouch, spun and kicked for his groin. The elbow connected, the kick he blocked. She rolled under the roundhouse blow he aimed at her, popped his knee, got in behind him and punched hard to his kidneys.
“Ouch,” he said. He turned around to see Mariwen had opened the space between them to about three meters and poised there, prepared to
fight or run. “That weren’t bad. Who’d you train with?”
“Alison Jordan.”
“You know Allie?” Nick rubbed the small of his back. Gunnery Sergeant Alison Jordan was an All-Forces Unarmed Combat Champion.
“I was told to get the best.”
“She’s damn close. That hesitation tactic—that’s prime. She teach you that?” A male combat instructor never would have thought of it.
“Yep. She called it the maul-first, pay-later plan.”
Nick laughed, a booming sound in a register that rattled the windows. “Damn! That’s Allie all over again, that is! Wish I knew her better.” He flexed his shoulders and shook out his arms again.
“So, if you learned from Allie, now we can get serious.”
* * *
Mariwen winced, cautiously feeling a spot on her backside.
“Here.” Nick tossed her a tube of ointment. “Try that on it. That was an almighty thump you took.”
Mariwen caught the tube and peeled down the tight black exercise shorts to reveal a spectacular bruise, almost the size of her palm and still developing, low and on the outside of one buttock. She rubbed a generous amount of the tube’s greasy contents on it. Nick watched without batting an eye and didn’t attempt to disguise his appreciation.
The layers that made up that appreciation were another matter. The last occasion Nick Taliaferro had to spend much time with Mariwen, she’d been semi-alive in a Nedaeman hospital. That was in the aftermath of the Alecto Initiative when he’d headed up Mariwen’s security detail himself. The contrast between the mechanically smiling wreckage of then and the woman of now was, to say the least . . . inspiring, if in a somewhat pagan manner.
Even more inspiring, though, was the way Mariwen had been able to approach her training. The most necessary skill a field agent had to master—and possibly the most difficult—was the ability to “get Zen” with their situation, as Nick and his former compatriots liked to call it. It was the opposite of the detachment—and certainly the callousness—for which it was sometimes mistaken and went beyond the ability to focus. More, it was the ability to be present in the here-and-now, wholly attuned to where they were and what they were doing, and able to sense all the nuances of what was happening untroubled by factors outside their control. The rule went: Nine times out of ten, what got you killed was being distracted by shit that was none of your damn business in the first place (the tenth time was most often bad luck).
Nick knew, and could appreciate, what Mariwen must be going through. Not once in a century did someone face a trial like hers, with the threat of the woman she loved falling into the hands of an individual like Heydrich piled on top. Yet, in a remarkably short space of time, she’d come to terms with the fact that everything that could be done was being done and dedicated herself to learning her part. “Getting Zen” seemed to be something she could do almost as naturally as breathing, and that had gone a long way to reconciling him with attempting this op.
“Royal-marine kit,” he said, indicating the tube as he resumed their conversation. “Give it a coupla hours and it’ll fix ya up better’n new.” Mariwen returned her shorts to their socially mandated configuration, tossed the tube back to him and winked. “I wouldn’t sit on it for a good hour, though.”
Complying with the directive, Mariwen stretched out on her side on the floor. “So how long have you known the captain?” she asked, propping her head on a bent arm.
“Trin?” Nick puffed out a breath and settled back on his haunches.
“I don’t wish to pry.”
“No worries about that—not after . . . well, those two days.” He smiled, a surprisingly gentle expression. “She seems to have taken quite a shine to you, Ms. Rathor.”
“Mariwen,” she corrected him and patted the bruise. “We’re on a first-name basis now, I think?”
He nodded. “Mariwen, then.”
“And I think she likes you too.”
“We’ve had a time or three—no denyin’ it.” He shifted and resettled, that smile overspreading his heavy expressive features. “I never actually met ’er before the Alecto business. But it’s a small world, and word does go ’round, so I’d been acquainted, you could say, with facets of her career for a good while, going back from my ‘wilderness years’ between the wars. Before I got into law enforcement.” He couldn’t tell for sure what the reference meant to Mariwen. A lot of Service people had been at loose ends then, which led them to indulge in ‘extracurricular activities’ better suited to their gifts than civilian life, some more legit than others. Nick, whose long career had given him a wider skill-set than most, had spent some time in both camps. The small change in Mariwen’s expression and the nod she gave him suggested this topic wasn’t completely alien to her.
“Anyway . . . she has something of a reputation,” he completed his thought about Trin.
“So my brother told me. He said she was a field operative for . . .” She paused to resurrect the memory. “SSO? I think that’s what he called it.”
“Your brother does keep on top of things. One of the best fellas I ever had the pleasure of working with.”
“He thinks the same of you,” Mariwen said with another graceful inclination of her head.
“That’s damn generous of him.” Nick dipped his chin in acknowledgement. “And he’s right—about Trin, I mean. She was a field operative for SSO. Y’see . . .” He paused. “Trin’s Karelian. Her given name’s Katrina Virolainen. Her dad was General Raimo Virolainen. He led the defense of Karelia during the Halith invasion—the latter part, that is. Afterward, he led the resistance. Trin and her mother got out right before the capital fell. She was seven. Would you like somethin’ to drink? I'm gonna have a beer.”
“A beer would be perfect. Thank you.”
Heaving himself noisily to his feet, Nick shot her an immense grin with a thumbs up. Then he padded over the room’s bar and squinted at the menu. “What’s yer poison?”
“Pale ale, if they have it?”
“Looks like they have every damn thing. One pale ale comin’ up.” He turned back with the grin still plastered on his face. “Just one?”
“Just one will do for now”—with the smile that made her famous.
Nick chuckled and brought her the ice-cold bottle. Then he sat back down with another breathy grunt and opened his beer. Raising it, he gave Mariwen a salute, which she returned, and they took their first swallow together.
“After her father was killed,” Nick resumed his account, “her mother married an anthropologist named Brian Wesselby. Terran. Professor at the University of New Mexico. Studied ‘lapsed’ cultures.” He took another healthy swig. With Mariwen’s academic background, he guessed there was no need to explain that lapsed cultures were those which had fallen back into a pre-industrial condition as the result of isolation. “So Trin spent her teens on some interesting planets. Then the war broke out. Trin signed up as soon as she was legal.”
“SSO was brand new in those days. Hungry for people. Karelia was their bailiwick. Not too much to say Karelian ops were their reason for being. Huron Sr. had a hand in their formation—he and Trin’s dad were friends. The families go way back. To the time when the Hurons—they were the Harruǔynen family then—I suppose ya know that”—he gave Mariwen an apologetic wag with his beer bottle—“were merely rich. Trin, with all her gifts and her growing up on wayward planets, to say nothing of being Raimo’s daughter, was tailor-made for SSO. They snapped her up.”
For several beats, he stared straight ahead, contemplating on vacancy as he ordered his thoughts. “Her third time out, they sent her to Pohjola to retrieve data from a dead-drop that was being collected by a CID agent who’d infiltrated the Halith headquarters there. Unfortunately, he’d been detected and turned, and she walked straight into a trap. Got out of it—not quite so clean as you could wish for, though.”
Mariwen questioned him with a tilt of her head.
“Few busted ribs, partially collapsed lu
ng. Carried away a slug in her thigh.” Nick finished his beer and set the bottle down softly. “Her contacts being pretty hopelessly compromised, she took off into the back country. That’s hard country, there in Pohjola. Even the locals are wary of it.”
“How did she get away?”
“Skis.” Nick rocked back and interfaced his fingers around an upraised knee. “It’s like this. The Karelians use skiers as couriers, guides and scouts. Have for pretty much ever. They have their own corps: the Corps of Guides. When SSO sent operators, they gave ’em cover as guides. Less chance of them being subjected to rigorous interrogation that way. More likely they’d just be shot. Of course, SSO salted ’em with duff gen—”
“Duff gen?” Mariwen broke in, looking intrigued.
“Uh . . . sorry. Disinformation. Spread a little hate and discontent in case things went awry.”
“Oh.” A crease appeared in Mariwen’s smooth forehead. “Then the agents didn’t know it was false information?”
“Nope. They couldn’t be fitted with anything the Karelians didn’t have—and they didn’t have a lot. No memory modules, fancy tripwires or any of that good stuff. Things had to be done the old-fashioned way.”
“I see . . .” From the way her eyes dropped, Nick was sure she did. “What happened then?”
“She bashed on through the wilds for a few days, doing her best not to bleed out. Most folks woulda found a comfortable spot and been happy to freeze to death. Trin being Trin, kept going. Had the luck to run across a hunting party. They were decent sorts, happily enough. Did what they could for hurts and took her back to what passes for civilization in those parts. Would you like other beer?”—seeing her swallow the last of the amber liquid.
Orion's Price (Loralynn Kennakris Book 6) Page 14