Anger/distress.
“Skee is dead.”
It was not necessary for me to imitate an expression of shock. My stunned look was totally genuine.
Fists clenched, Flick was spitting mad. “He was killed on mission. Do you know how long it’s been since a combat enforcement officer has died on mission?”
“No.”
“More than eight years. It practically never happens.”
I considered his tone. “You think it was not an accident.”
“Damn right I do. What happened to you at the NARPA base?”
My mouth was dry, but I took a deep breath and answered him. “I don’t know.”
“Whatever it was, it cost Skee his life. He was a good officer. Really good. There is no way he got himself killed in an accident.”
“You believe he died as a result of his interaction with me?”
He crouched before the chair and gripped my shoulders. “Tell me everything you recall about the base again. Everything.”
“I did.”
His hands tightened. “Do it again. There is something I missed. Don’t leave out a single detail, even if you think it isn’t important.”
I sat up straight in the chair and he loomed over me with crossed arms.
Slowly, and methodically, I narrated everything once again, down to the smallest detail.
Skee’s death did not influence my decision to leave out the battle and the killing of my three unknown companions. It was important that this man should trust me, but I saw no reason to trust him in return, particularly in light of what I had seen in the bunker. I recounted the events from the moment the airship left the base while deliberately leaving out the earlier incidents.
“I used the thermal blanket to keep warm that night. Then you knocked on the door and announced yourself.”
He put his hands on the chair arms and considered me. “Say that again?”
“You arrived. We left together. You know the rest.”
“No, you used a thermal blanket. Where did you get it?”
I spoke slowly. “Skee gave me a survival kit.”
“What did you do with it before we left the base?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. There was no longer a need for it.”
“So you left it in the bathroom?”
“Yes.”
He stood up again and stared out at the trees. “They know he helped you. Someone went back there and searched. They found his survival kit.”
I felt a sharp stab of emotion at that moment. It was similar to the sensation I’d felt watching my three companions die.
Blame? Sadness?
Both.
“It was my fault,” I said quietly.
He seemed not to have heard me and continued to stare outside. “What was Skee doing there in the first place? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Flick, I’m so sorry.”
He heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t thorough enough. If only I’d asked about it, I could have told you to gather up all the gear he left and throw it in the ocean.”
I got up slowly, stood beside him, and placed a palm on his shoulder. “You had no way of knowing. There wasn’t enough data to make an informed choice.”
“That’s one way to put it,” he said miserably. Guilt/helplessness.
His shoulder felt warm beneath my hand, and I selfishly left it there while I thought about what to do.
If he had been in possession of all his faculties he would have noticed I was ice cold from being in the water for so long.
Fortunately, he was preoccupied and didn’t seem to notice.
“Allow me to speculate?” I asked.
He waved a hand dramatically. “Go right ahead.”
It seemed counterproductive to point out that flippancy was not conducive to problem solving, so I kept the observation to myself. One of us had to keep a clear head, and it seemed the task was up to me.
I let my hand drop from his shoulder and stood in front of him. “I doubt that Skee was associated with the two men who confronted me at the archive.”
He nodded agreement. “I’d already come to that conclusion.”
“So who directed them to retrieve me?” I asked.
“Maybe the same person who is scrubbing the surveillance everywhere you go. That’s actually how I found you. I followed the trail of scrubbed feeds until I managed to find the archive building. I think it’s got to be another Grey who is cleaning up after you and the two men might have been following his orders.”
“Can you contact him? Perhaps this other Grey would be able to tell you what happened to Skee.”
The fingers on his left hand drummed. “Not exactly. It doesn’t really work that way. Greys don’t talk to each other, by design, unless they are checking in at their primary facility. But whoever it is, he is taking a big risk. Just like Skee did.”
“And why would he do that?”
He turned his head to look directly at me. “You are someone important.”
“What if you took me to another city and left me there?” I suggested.
The muscles in his jaw flexed. “That is not happening. I need you where I can keep my eyes on you.”
“But why?”
He glowered. Resolute/fierce. “Skee was killed helping you, and he was an enforcer. Do you understand what that means? If I abandon you in some strange city, with half a memory, they will track you down in a matter of days.”
“I simply meant that you might be safer if I was not in your close proximity,” I said.
“I might be safer? Keeley, someone wants you dead. Until I can find out why you are going to stay in my close proximity.”
“I’m not sure I agree.”
He glared straight ahead. “I don’t care if you agree or not. You aren’t going anywhere.”
“What if there is another attempt to abduct me?”
“That won’t be a problem,” he said.
“What do you intend to do about it?”
Tenacious/grim. “Wait for them to come after you again, and then kill them.”
I paused for a moment. “Is that something you have done before?”
“You don’t need to know that,” he responded.
I added that meaningful phrase to my growing mental file of information about Flick. A picture of his real duties was now coming into sharper focus.
He scanned the trees once more, then shook his head angrily and went to retrieve his screenboard. “I’ve got some difficult work to do right now. Give me some time, then we can talk about what happens next.”
As he sat at the table and hunkered over his screenboard, I eased into the chair by the window and contemplated what I’d seen during my clandestine search of the property.
The urge to search the cabin after his earlier departure had not been a conscious choice, but more like an itch in my brain that I needed to scratch. It seemed evident to me that this refuge was not what it appeared to be, and as before, I wasn’t sure how I knew the information. It was simply there.
Adding up the available data was not easing my concerns, but intensifying them.
I considered what I’d learned so far.
The underwater bunker could not be found by someone conducting a casual perusal of the cabin, and building it had been very difficult, expensive, and time-consuming.
The government of New Dublin had probably sponsored it.
Flick was a highly trained combatant. The ease with which he’d handled two men, alone, with such expertise, told me that.
He had access to a helicar. I didn’t recall seeing other helicars operating in the city so that made them rare, and probably only available to a select few individuals.
This cabin, remote, isolated and only accessible by air indicated it was distinct in some way.
This locale was not his ‘retreat’ from work. It was his work.
No Grey had a private cabin in the woods.
This was Flick’s assignment.
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Scrubbing surveillance wasn’t his usual job. He could do it because his training gave him the ability and his level gave him the access, but it was obvious he was not a data specialist.
Flick was a Grey combat specialist.
So what was he doing out here in an isolated swamp on the edge of the jungle?
He was the guardian of the bunker.
The bunker was incredibly significant, and that significance had everything to do with what it contained.
I thought about the historical records I’d read while at the archive and called to mind all the information I’d seen concerning paramilitary and enforcement activities. Since I’d only searched data about enforcement teams and had not dared to investigate the Greys, identifying Flick’s mission would only be a hypothesis, but it would have to suffice.
After so many people had died in the plague wars, sanctioned killings by any state entity simply weren’t done. Protecting its citizens was the primary goal of the government, not executing them.
The archive records suggested that enforcement teams were merely allowed to detain citizens, hold them for legal processing, preserve the peace, and protect the governor. They were strictly prohibited from causing the death of a citizen, and therefore all types of enforcement tools were tightly controlled in New Dublin. Enforcement officers only carried smokers, not something that could fire a projectile capable of dismembering a human body on impact. Lethal weapons weren’t even supposed to exist anymore. So stated public policy.
But I knew from personal experience that was false information.
My three unfortunate companions had been dispatched without hesitation by a team of highly trained and heavily armed enforcement officers who were most likely instruments of the governing body of New Dublin. So my companions had posed a great danger to the state and had been eliminated.
By association, I also posed a danger to the state.
How did all of this relate to the bunker?
I leaned back in the chair, closed my eyes, and recalled the enforcement squad standing with their backs to me on the deck of the ocean base. My mind pulled up the details of the weapons they’d carried. They would fit nicely inside the lockers in the bunker, and their primary purpose was not to incapacitate, but to kill.
The only conclusion I could draw from that was grim.
The city government, in order to house weapons that they didn’t want anyone to know about, had built the bunker as a way to prevent their discovery.
This was a weapons cache, and Flick was the curator.
That realization altered my situation drastically.
Skee had known Flick because they worked for the same entity, and he had probably even asked Flick to help me in passing, while his team was here, returning their supposedly non-existent weapons to the cache after the operation on the base had concluded.
I’d been brought to the lair of the one person I needed to avoid more than any other on the entire continent.
Flick answered to the same people who wanted to hunt me down. It was his job to follow their orders, and probably to do so without hesitation.
He was a highly trained, tenacious killer.
That led me to the ultimate question.
How was I still alive?
There was only one logical answer.
They did not know where to find me.
Not yet.
When they did, Flick’s superiors would order him to execute me immediately.
This was a problem.
PART II
“Is it possible to fly at a slightly higher altitude?” I asked.
Flick didn’t bother to respond.
We skimmed over the surface of the ocean, cruising at an incredible speed only a few meters above the water like a deranged dragonfly.
I stopped talking so avoid causing a distraction. If he miscalculated the swell of a wave or failed to compensate for a sudden gust of wind, we would most likely die instantly.
“I have to fly this low or someone will notice us. We could climb to 9144 meters to avoid sensor detection, but this helicar isn’t pressurized, and since I don’t have any oxygen masks we would suffocate,” he said casually.
“Death from sudden impact, or hypoxia. Are those the only choices?”
He ignored me and maneuvered us away from a sudden swell.
The flight to Skee’s plausible childhood home was scheduled to last two hours. Flick seemed convinced that if we accessed old records pertaining to Skee’s background, we would also be able to locate information about me as well. He claimed a hunch that Skee and I had not known each other in the enforcement service, but had instead been acquainted when we were much younger.
His logic was based on the observation that I was clearly not a soldier.
Skee had spent his childhood in the city of Aukholm. Flick knew that information because Skee had talked about it ceaselessly while on mission.
The risk of discovery was high and I had argued against this trip. It was, as I had pointed out repeatedly, a stupid idea. But Flick had been adamant, and unless I suddenly and spontaneously managed to recover my complete memory, this was currently our best option.
I was able to make sense of the instruments inside the helicar after nearly an hour of careful study and felt confident that if necessary I would be able to operate the vehicle safely, if not as proficiently as Flick.
At some point, it would probably be necessary for me to take the helicar and use it to escape, so I watched his every move as he flew.
As we skimmed along I found myself growing weary of my tedious mental exercises and circular questions that did not have any answers.
Had Skee been killed as retribution for his assistance, or had he simply been eliminated because he knew my identity?
And what was my identity? Would I ever recover my memories or would I never know my origins?
Pointless.
Without more information, those questions were impossible to answer.
My eyes fell on Flick’s deft hands as he operated the control stick.
His arms were muscular, but not overly so, belying their true raw strength. I suspected Flick was mechanically and genetically enhanced, but it was not clear in what way.
Perhaps he had innate abilities so superior to my own that to me he seemed augmented.
How much longer would it be until he trained those specific talents on me?
That question only managed to produce an uncomfortable knot in my stomach.
Possibly I would be able to come up with an effective plan to lose him somewhere in Aukholm, but unless I did, I could not afford to give the impression I was even considering that course of action. If he suspected I might try to run, no doubt, Flick would take drastic steps to prevent it.
Sunlight glimmered sporadically between white clouds from behind the helicar, indicating that we were flying almost due north. As my recollection of geography was non-existent, this did me no good whatsoever, and after another half hour of fruitless speculation about the future, I surrendered to the situation and did something uncanny.
I sat back and tried to enjoy the flight.
Much to my surprise, I did.
The ocean glimmered as sunlight glanced off the surface, creating sparkles of crystal light. The low hum of the engine wasn’t disagreeable inside the sealed cabin, the temperature was pleasant and the rocking motion was soothing. As long as I didn’t pay too close attention to the looming proximity of the waves, it was a beautiful view.
If this was my last day alive, dammit, I was going to appreciate it.
“We will be there in a few minutes,” Flick told me, interrupting my reverie.
“All right.”
His voice sounded tight. “Remember what we discussed.”
“Refrain from engaging in conversation with the citizens of Aukholm, if possible. Avoid eye contact with the males. They are lecherous. Don’t ask any questions and try not to stand out.”
He glanced my way. Serious/firm. �
�And never leave my side.”
“You have made that very clear.”
“It would make me feel ever so much better if you repeated it, Keeley.”
I felt my shoulders slump. “You have indicated to me that Aukholm is a more casual environment than New Dublin.”
“They develop new technologies, test and improve inventions and some of the projects they work on make them act a bit—”
“Odd. Yes, I am aware.”
“And the last thing we discussed?”
I repeated it verbatim. “Don’t touch anything.”
“Right.”
“What if I am required to use the bathroom? Will you prefer it if I hover over the toilet?”
He sighed.
The helicar engine slowed as he banked hard to the right and climbed rapidly. “Hold on.”
My shoulder pressed into his as we turned sharply to gain altitude. Flick circled us back toward land after we had climbed sufficiently, and a city, surrounded by tall trees, appeared in the distance.
It looked nothing like New Dublin.
Aukholm architecture was the exact opposite of organic. Everything gleamed in various shades of metallic red, gold and orange. Long walkways crisscrossed ground level haphazardly and I assumed these were the preferred method of movement since no vehicles sped along the streets. The thoroughfares bustled with human activity.
As we approached a clearing just outside of the city and landed, causing a mighty spray of leaves and twigs, I studied the multiple spires reaching toward the sky and marveled at their gleaming, stark beauty.
Flick had told me the population of Aukholm was more than forty thousand citizens. Quite large compared to New Dublin.
We climbed out of the helicar and he tapped the underside of his left arm. “Lock.”
A tiny circle of light glowed momentarily on his wrist, almost like an implant underneath his skin.
The helicar responded to the command by slamming the hatches closed and retracting its propeller. The windows tinted automatically, concealing the interior. As I watched, the surface of the silver machine faded to match the colors of the surrounding area. It wasn’t perfect camouflage, but it rendered the helicar far less noticeable.
The New Authority Conspiracy (The Keeley Dorn Adventures Book 1) Page 11