by S A Gardner
I had to enlighten my Colombian team of the info they were being extorted for. The agent’s secrets. Those our enemies mistakenly believed they had. I couldn’t burden them with the knowledge that the agent still existed, or risk endangering it or those who did possess knowledge of its existence. Damian and Sir Ashton.
The agent’s formula had been lost with Jake, its antidote when Di’s laptop had been destroyed in the crash. As far as my team knew, so had the already manufactured agent. To explain the attacks, I gave them Damian’s opinion. Good luck convincing those bastards of that.
I believed everyone’s ignorance was our one advantage. No one had reconstructed what had happened after Damian and I had boarded the cargo plane with Jake and the rogue PACT operatives. And I planned on keeping it that way. Any way I could.
As it stood, my team didn’t have the intel they might leak out in the unlikely but still possible event of one of them breaking down. While our enemy thought my team leaderless, probably disbanded and in hiding, with the major players not war-ready and useless for their purposes since they hadn’t played a role in the crucial battle, had had no access to the info. As for the Colombian team, they must consider them stand-ins who’d became incidental bearers of something far bigger than they could handle, who’d be intimidated by the murders and the threat of more carnage and surrender all they knew. Our enemies’ misinformation and their underestimation of our fighting power was our only weapon.
Not that they’d be too far off in estimating said power. My core-team were back on their feet, but were they ready for a war of this caliber? There was no end to the people who could be targeted in our enemies’ fatal pressuring tactics.
I considered trying to convince them that we didn’t have what they wanted. For about a minute.
As Damian had said, our enemies wouldn’t mind eliminating as many as it took if they had any hope of gaining their objective. Even if they had no hope at all, just to be on the safe side.
There was only one way out of this. Taking the war to them. Yeah, Damian’s decree from three months ago.
I hadn’t listened to him at the cost of six lives already, and God only knew how many more until this played out.
But I’d fully believed it when I’d thought hiding was our best bet, that we hadn’t been up to waging war then.
But ready now or not, there was no longer any choice.
Like it or not, this was my only venue of action.
And I had to start with negotiating terms of surrender.
Three
One hour after the last murder had been reported, I was in a federal prison.
Ensconced on the warden’s Chesterfield couch, I waited for the one who’d help me stop the carnage.
My father.
They were taking their time bringing him out of his cell. He was probably in solitary again after crippling or killing some monster the system was coddling or about to let go free.
But now Uncle Newt, Dad’s old partner from their beat cop days was his warden, solitary was for show, to appease the system. And to do that while protecting my identity from Dad’s countless enemies, he’d gotten me regular visitation rights, not as Dad’s daughter, but as his autobiographer.
At first I’d thought it a ruse to get me in to see him after years of being denied his sight. But Dad was actually writing a book detailing his methodical elimination of forty-six serial killers and rapists who’d slipped through the system and gone free. As his supposed ghostwriter I was allowed to see him, away from regular visitation halls as frequently and for as long as “the progress of the work required.”
Not that I’d taken advantage of that as I’d thought I would. During the days of deprivation, when his octopoid vigilante operations within prison had gotten him thrown in solitary for real almost all the time and revoked his visitation right, I’d constantly pined for a glimpse, a word.
Then I was given the opportunity to see him whenever I wished, and what had I done with it? Not much. Not one I-miss-you-and-fear-for-you-all-the-time-based visit.
I’d been to see him before Colombia to invoke his extensive underworld knowledge and connections in pinpointing the origin of my friends’ then-mysterious affliction. Since we’d been back, I’d come to him to help me organize my team’s vanishing acts. Would I ever rush to him for a purely father/daughter visit?
Sure. As soon as I gave up my way of life. Maybe then I’d see my mother again, too.
“Even with the frown, the disguise and that horrific wig, you’re still the most beautiful baby a man ever had.”
The beloved voice jolted through me. Tell me again, how could a man this daunting in size and aura creep up on me this way? Every time. Oh, I knew how. I’d always had a problem with my feelers.
I’d never suspected he’d been up to anything till the day he’d been taken away from me or that there was more to Damian than all-American black and white. I hadn’t had a whiff of Jake’s nihilistic lunacy, had had trouble believing it up till the point when he’d been about to bring about Armageddon. It was a wonder I was let out on my own in this world.
And I bet I looked as idiotic as I felt, staring at Dad as if he’d materialized out of thin air. He exuded ferociousness and vitality. And love. As uncompromising as the rest of his unbending soul. My big, powerful, lethal knight of a father. Then he smiled. My smile.
I staggered up to my feet, threw myself in his arms.
“Whoa, darling.” He hugged me back, with the bruising force I needed, mashed his lips to the top of my wigged head. “I can always count on you for a heart-wrenching welcome.” He put his roughened fingers beneath my chin, raised my tear-stained face to his. My chin quivered. He pursed his lips. “And yet I don’t think you’re here to see me.”
My ever-ready-of-late tears surged with guilt as I dove back in his refuge. This was becoming a habit, me flooding him in tears on sight. And that’s after I’d gone through the advertised-as-the-weepy-stages of childhood and teenage with a concrete upper lip in the face of adversity and injury. Not that I’d had much of either. Until Clara. But even standing at my baby sister’s grave, tears hadn’t flowed.
There’d been Mom and Dad’s devastation to deal with. Mine had taken a backseat, had gone unexpressed, unscreamed.
Until Russia, during my first time with Damian.
Now since he’d walked away, some valve inside me had melted, leaked at the least provocation.
Not that this could be called “the least” of anything.
Seeing my Dad at all, now he was in prison for life, was cause enough for upheaval. But now?
I could have had Rafael transmit our needs to him. But I had to see him. It might be my last chance to.
“Sit down, sweetheart.” He steered me to Uncle Newt’s Chesterfield, settled me down and came down around me. I sank into his protection.
Then I told him everything.
His almost-obsidian eyes, the ones I saw reflected in my mirror, our only resemblance, stared at me, immediate, probing, yet detached, calculating.
Then he lashed the back of his hand on the stapled papers I’d given him. “Is this list comprehensive?”
Apprehension raced up my spine. Is anything ever so?
I shrugged. “That’s everyone we could think of who could be targeted as a possible next ‘message.’ Each one of my targeted team even listed exes, neighbors, former bosses and colleagues.”
He nodded, satisfied. “My whole force on the outside will be dedicated to relocating each potential victim and providing round-the-clock protection. But we’ll need some headstart to get to everyone, without alerting PACT’s dogs. So you’d better get going. The clock’s ticking.”
I wanted to remain right where I was, in his sanctuary. I couldn’t. He was right. Minutes now could mean more lives.
He solved my dilemma, rose to his feet and dragged me with him. He contained me in his endless hug and love, acknowledging that this could be, as always, the last time we’d ever see each other.<
br />
His words against my forehead mingled with his reassuring, bolstering kiss. “Your plan’s solid, baby. Get on with it. Send the enemy a white flag. Buy us time.”
By the time I stepped off the prison premises, I could barely walk. I somehow gave Rafael the agreed-on three rings as I stopped a cab.
I wondered that it did stop. With the way I was staggering, I must look drunk or high on something bad. As I spilled inside the cab, the belatedly worried driver seemed to be thinking just that. I pulled myself together, gave him steady directions, told him I’d just heard very bad news. Appeased, he drove on. I sank back in my seat and wept. And waited.
Rafael would now be hacking into TOP’s top executive-level computers. He’d deliver our message. That their message had been received and conceded and we only asked for a ceasefire. We had the info they needed but we’d had it buried so deep we needed time to retrieve it. We were asking for ten days.
I was waiting for my phone to buzz in my pocket. Still, it felt as if it electrocuted me when it finally did. I fumbled for it, my fingers a hybrid of wet rags and exposed wires.
“Instant response, Cali.” Rafael’s cheerful tones hit my inner ear. The world spun at cuisinart speed. With relief. And apprehension. What had they said? “They were waiting for our approach. If certainly not this way. I got the impression they were muy pissed I bypassed their untold million-dollars firewalls.”
I wasn’t up to prologues now. “Rafael, we all already know you’re a genius. Now quit bragging. Start talking.”
The elation of being able to get away with anything seeped out of his voice, was replaced by a situation appropriate somberness. “A week, then it’s annihilation if we don’t deliver. So—what will you tell the others?”
He knew. That I’d been lying to them. “Don’t ask, Rafael.”
“I never do. Ask your Dad. If your name is St. James I’m at your beck and call, no questions asked.”
Tell me about it. And it wasn’t because he had no personal stake here. I doubted even Damian knew who Rafael really was beyond the persona he’d manufactured once he’d stepped out of prison, and therefore not Ed and his new bosses. As an untraceable non-entity he had no precious people to threaten. I even thought he didn’t have any for real. But even if he had, he wouldn’t act against me in any way to save them. Since Dad had saved him during his years in prison, his life and everything else had been
Dad’s to command. Mine, too, it seemed.
I sighed. “Our own familial tech slave. I hear you’re inheritable, too.” He chuckled and something eased inside me. A week’s reprieve was better than I’d hoped for. It would have to do. “Thanks, Rafael. We couldn’t do any of this without you.”
“Anything for Samuel St. James’s daughter.”
“Yeah. Tell everyone to stay together and wait for my return. I have one more door to knock on.”
Four
“I’ll knock you out and tie you up,” I hissed as I advanced on Sir Ashton. “That’ll make you see reason!”
He gazed down on my agitation, fascination a slow expansion of black amidst the ocean blue of his eyes, the rest of him suave, unperturbed. Then with a graceful sweep, he receded out of reach, crossed the old-world spaciousness of his office.
“Is this some Twilight Zone episode? A parallel universe, perhaps? Who are you and what have you done with my Calista?”
Yeah, yeah. Everyone’s a comedian. Though it was hard as an alcoholic’s liver to picture Sir Ashton as one. But everyone made it a point to rub my nose in my habitual recklessness so why not him, too?
Well, dammit, I hadn’t been reckless for a while now. I couldn’t even think of being so now.
I stamped my foot in frustration. “Your Calista is here and well and about to play to type. I’ll rant and rave that you’re targeted for assassination, bring your security forces en masse, make them sweep you away and keep you under lock and key.”
He crossed the room, started pouring my compulsory cup of tea. “Do that, and my security would only incarcerate you.” I growled and he added smoothly, “Not that I think they can, of course.” An aha escaped me at his concession. So he was admitting their limitations. “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t top-notch. You’re just too unpredictable, too resourceful. Too—effective.”
“And you think PACT aren’t?”
“Damian’s PACT, certainly. But they aren’t anymore. Without Damian, they aren’t the unstoppable force they used to be.”
My heart dropped half a dozen beats. He had to bring up Damian, didn’t he?
He went on as if he didn’t realize what he’d done to me. Didn’t realize, my ass! “And then, I assure you I’m not in the least danger. I’ve made sure there were no leaks from the Russian side about the agent’s, and your and Damian’s survival. As for the agent, the Russians haven’t the slightest inkling of its existence. I’ve ensured that they believed the tanks I’d confiscated have been filled with a mere nerve-toxin.”
And it was a crazy, grotesque world where mere could describe nerve-toxin, but that only attested to the Armageddon potential of Jake’s agent.
“Oh, stop patting yourself on the back,” I grumbled. “We’re dealing with monsters here. What if they don’t wait that week for real? What if they start expanding their liquidation efforts towards all my contacts?”
He handed me my cup of Earl Grey, held my eyes. I felt him exercising his old hold on me from the years when I’d been his protégée.
“I do believe they will wait the week, Calista,” he said. “You made them an offer they’re not about to compromise. And then I am not another vulnerable, unsuspecting victim.”
Yeah? How come? What made him impervious?
So he had security, but to my knowledge—which could probably amount to total ignorance—it wasn’t the head-of-state-level surveillance/protection system he could easily afford with his multi-billions. Nothing that would stand in the most bumbling PACT member. So how come he was so sure? So secure?
He wasn’t about to tell me. “That’s quite an irritating habit you have, leaving your tea to get cold. Drink, Calista. And don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. You’d better take care of those who can’t.” He let me swallow this down with a still-scalding gulp of extra-sweet tea. Then he made sure I choked on it, adding as if in an afterthought, “And you’d better get help doing it.”
Twenty minutes later, I walked out of Sir Ashton’s office. One particular sentence was still bouncing off my skull’s confines until I felt the ricocheting would crack it.
You’d better get help doing it. Get help. Get help.
Had he meant it? What I suspected he meant?
Even if he hadn’t. Help, to me, was Damian.
If I ever found him again.
If he ever let me find him.
Five
I was never going to find Damian.
I’d walked out of Sir Ashton’s and progressed into another sweep for him. And nothing. Again. By the time I entered my room in the Sanctuary, I had to face it.
If all what happened during the past twenty-four hours wasn’t enough to make him surface from whatever netherworld he’d descended to, nothing would.
The bastard.
What? If I couldn’t say it out loud, I was sure as hell thinking it. I needed to think it. Before I disrupted my cellular cohesion!
I wasn’t buying his ‘This isn’t punishment. Or manipulation. This is a decision’ bullshit. He was punishing me.
And he sure as hell was manipulating me.
He’d done it so many times I knew the feeling in my bones by now. I’d been searching for him with nothing on my mind but laying everything he’d ever wanted from me at his feet. If this wasn’t a master manipulator at work, I was a houseplant!
But what really hurt was that the Damian I knew, or thought I knew, would have protected us whether we wanted it or not, no matter what. But with so many dead, I had to admit it. He’d withdrawn his protection. He truly n
o longer cared.
No. I couldn’t believe that. There had to be something else. What if he had no idea this was happening…?
Come on. This was Damian. If it had anything to do with crime, or PACT, he’d know about it. Of course he knew.
But what had I expected? He’d showed me in the most drastic ways that nothing superseded me, not duties or commitments, not right or wrong, not even sanity. Since
Russia, I’d sunk into the security of his love. The unconditional force of nature that had frightened and intoxicated me, enveloped and swept me. And yeah, I was right there reciprocating with hurricane-level ferocity.
But had I shown him that? Or had I just gotten drunk with it all, even gone out of my way to find if his love was really without limits? Like an obnoxious kid tormenting a guardian tiger until he ripped her heart out, or chipping with a relentless screwdriver at a dam until it broke?
If I had, I’d gotten my objective.
I’d shoved him to the point where he’d demanded I give him something, what would make the passion and pleasure worthwhile. And if my reaction had revealed anything, it had been that he didn’t occupy the same level of importance with me.
But he did. He did.
I’d just—just been spread too thin. I’d been too damn indecisive. After a lifetime of spur of the moment decision-making, being forced to deliberate my every step before taking it, factoring in everyone’s wellbeing before every breath had been crippling me. And I’d taken it out on him.
I’d had time during the last three months to replay and dissect my behavior after Colombia. He’d asked for a clean slate, doing whatever it took to start over. And I’d agreed. You wouldn’t have known that I had from my actions.
So I’d had to devote myself to my friends’ recuperation, but what had that to do with rebuffing all this efforts to get closer on any level but the physical? Had I been punishing him?