Kyle blinked at her, the attempt at humor obviously not registering.
“They’re waiting for us,” Tan said, pointing toward the transport idling in the alley just outside the open gate. The woman and girls were watching them. She closed her hand around Kyle’s bicep and guided her toward the car.
“It might kill the flowers, but banana trees thrive on acid,” Kyle mumbled.
Tan looked at her, surprised that she’d finally spoken, but Kyle’s face held no expression. So which was Kyle—a flower or a tree? She’d taken a life today. Would this experience damage her or make her stronger?
Chapter Ten
“I did as you suggested, Simon. We gave supplies to the believers and sent them over to the Cathedral to get the Advocates out of the way. Then, all it took was a few bribes to have the shipments held in the warehouse.”
“Excellent.” Simon eyed the man who had spoken. He was dressed in a fine suit, his dark hair slicked back like the mobsters in one of Simon’s previous lives. This man had a lot of potential. Simon sat back in his chair. His body felt numb and his thinking a little slow from the narcotics, but at least he could think now that he wasn’t consumed with pain. And his plan was so brilliant Cyrus would never know he was being undermined. While he and his misguided believers were making themselves a huge target for that infernal unnatural army, he would be quietly taking control simply by manipulating man’s baser nature—greed. “Xavier, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I’m putting you in charge of the Brasília operation, Xavier. You’ll be given access to a credit account to recruit a core group of enforcers you can trust. Those men—dung, I don’t care if they’re women as long as they’re tough enough—will be the people who make sure the quartermasters at the central and outlying warehouses aren’t giving away or skimming any of the merchandise or credits. The enforcers must make an example of anyone they catch doing that. Do you understand?”
Xavier’s gaze was unwavering. “Perfectly.”
“Good. You’ll receive forty percent of all profits. However, once the initial credits I’m giving you for start-up are gone, you must finance your own operation from your cut of the profits.”
Xavier tilted his head. “Once I’ve repaid the start-up cost, we can talk again about the division of percentage,” he said.
Simon narrowed his eyes. He’d expect no less from a man who was ideally suited for the job. “Agreed,” he said. “But first, we’ll have to get those pesky pyros out of your hair.”
❖
Furcho toed off his boots and stretched back on the bed in the room he and Diego would share. He was alone with the door closed for quiet while he spoke telepathically with Jael.
We need to find Cyrus’s second in command. Cyrus is an expert in cultural history, not military and political strategy. I think Simon could be directing some of their moves now, especially in Brasília.
Tan contacted me about an hour ago. The family of the doctor Simon forced to go with him is safe now. See if you can rescue him, too, before things get too hot.
I’ll assign Raven to that task.
Furcho rolled onto his side and reached into his pack to take out a silk scarf. He held it to his nose and closed his eyes. It smelled of Nicole. The silk felt like her hair trailing across his bare chest. Sun, he missed her. She was smart and sweet and sexy, but fiery when she saw injustice.
Furcho! Sun and stars. Can’t anybody keep their mind on business?
Sorry, Jael. I drifted off course for a minute.
That was the trouble with telepathic reporting. He’d forgotten she was in his thoughts. He wasn’t sorry, though. He knew Alyssa had softened the previously single-focus First Warrior. He smiled to himself.
Has Alyssa been by to make sure you’re taking time for lunch?
Of course not.
A long moment of silence.
Well, not yet.
Furcho had known Jael for many lifetimes and was her third in command, but he sat upright at the unfamiliar feel of her chuckle vibrating in his thoughts. He smiled, picturing her in her office, her eyes closed as she concentrated to project over such a great distance. Most people took her powerful gifts for granted, forgetting what it cost her to perform the feats no one else could.
We meet with Diego’s contacts in an hour. I’ll report back afterward.
Take care, my friend.
Don’t worry. I have a very good reason to keep my hide in one piece.
The chuckle again.
Looks like my lunch steward has arrived. She says she’d appreciate it if you’d d-vid with her assistant Advocate so she’ll quit worrying and get some work done this afternoon. I’ll message her to sign on the d-tablet in Alyssa’s desk.
As you command, First Warrior.
❖
Jael opened her eyes as Alyssa slid into her lap.
“No, don’t open your eyes yet,” Alyssa said.
Jael closed her eyes again and smiled as Alyssa nestled into her arms, her short, spiky hair tickling her neck. She smelled of warm vanilla and cocoa butter from the poultice Jael knew she mixed for burns. She dropped her mental shields and formed the picture. It was always the same—their place.
The field of wildflowers rippled like a flag of red, yellow, blue, and orange. The sky was an impossible blue and the sun warm on their skin. Sometimes they just sat in the field, holding hands or each other. But today, Alyssa stood to her left and bowed slightly to her. Jael instantly understood and returned the gesture. Then they began a flowing twenty-four-movement tai chi. No one else—not even Second, who as her clone was almost physically identical—matched her in such perfect unison. The last move executed, they bowed, and the mental image faded.
Jael let out a long, contented breath, then kissed her mate. “Thank you.”
“I could feel your tension all the way in the food prep while I was making a tray for us.”
Jael noticed, for the first time, a tray on the long conference table that doubled as her desk in their temporary encampment. It held a simple lunch of fruit and a couple of sandwich wraps. She realized she was hungry and picked up one of the wraps. “This looks good. But where’s Second?”
“She and Michael are sleeping. They’ve been training the army with you at night and working all day to get the medicine laboratory up and running, and I think it finally caught up with them.”
“I would have made myself something as soon as I finished with Furcho’s report.”
Alyssa slid off Jael’s lap and into the chair next to her. “Sure you would have. Remember who you’re talking to.”
Jael smiled and shrugged. As an empath, Alyssa could almost always detect when someone was lying to her or even to themselves. “Okay, maybe not. But if I always ate when I’m supposed to, then you might not come visit me at lunchtime.”
Alyssa swallowed the food in her mouth and stretched to touch her lips to Jael’s. “Honey, I’d still have lunch with you whenever possible. Now, tell me what’s got you so worried.”
Jael chewed her food while her mind chewed over her thoughts. She normally discussed her battle-strategy concerns with Second. Alyssa had no experience in such matters. And yet, she should share everything with her partner. Something else tickled at the back of her mind. Then she remembered what the most ancient of The Collective Council had said.
Open your mind, First Warrior. You will need to look through both old and new eyes for what is coming. We are stronger together.
“Our force is young and untrained. I don’t like splitting up the handful of experienced warriors I have.” She stood and paced by the windows. “I have a roaring lion headed north and a slithering snake headed south. Should I pursue both at the same time, or first one and then the other? But who is the greatest threat?”
Alyssa shoved her plate away. “Can I ask what Furcho reported from Brasília?”
“They haven’t met with the local contacts yet, but believers have taken over the Cathedral of Brasília. They don’t know what h
appened to the Advocates. The warehouse doesn’t seem to be under any guard, but shipments aren’t going out to the rural distributors for some reason, and the workers won’t tell them why. I’ve d-messaged the World Council for credentials that will allow Furcho to demand access to the quartermaster’s record-keeping.”
Alyssa stood and tugged at her right earlobe, a familiar gesture that meant she was thinking, as she stared out the window. “We should have sent Nicole with them.”
Jael snorted. “Right. I need Furcho’s mind on his work.”
Alyssa gave her a dismissive wave. “Right before we came back here, when we spent a few hours reconnecting, do you remember what you told me was the toughest thing about this uprising?”
Jael thought back to their conversation.
This enemy has no army I can march against. He utilizes small pockets of soldiers disguised as believers and hides among legions of misguided innocents. When I walk through town, I don’t even know if a person I meet on the street is loyal to The Collective or is secretly part of The Natural Order.
She nodded.
“Furcho, Diego, and Raven should have an empath like Nicole or Uri or me with them. How else will they know who to trust?”
She hadn’t considered this point. She’d never thought of empaths as soldiers, but how many lives could have been saved in past wars if gifts had been acknowledged? Suicide bombers could have been detected before they walked into crowds or soldier patrols. “You’re right. He plans to report again later. If we have time, maybe we’ll send her to join them. But that still doesn’t solve the problem of splitting my army.”
Alyssa pursed her lips. “I was in fairly close proximity to both men that night of the raid. Cyrus is truly insane. But Simon—” She shuddered. “He’s worse than badly born, Jael. His soul is horribly dark.”
Jael wrapped her arms around her mate, as if she could shield her from any evil the world still held. “We’ll go after the first one to surface. If they both surface at once, Simon will be our priority.”
❖
Cyrus made a diving catch to save his d-tablet with one hand and grabbed for something solid to anchor himself with the other. “Isn’t anyone driving this boat?” Not long after they rounded Cancun and left the Caribbean Sea to enter the Gulf, the sea had grown increasingly rough and the sky heavy with swirling clouds. He repositioned his d-tablet to continue his reading, but the yacht pitched again, and he had to cling to the table to stop from being tossed to the floor. “Stars above!”
The deck pitched dizzily under his as he stumbled through the galley to his cabin. He put the tablet away and braced himself against the bulkhead or anything else solid to make his way topside. He wasn’t prone to seasickness, but his stomach was beginning to feel a little uncertain. He needed some air.
The smell that wafted out when he struggled past Bobby’s and Luke’s cramped cabin didn’t help. Bobby lay in his bunk, delirious and mumbling incoherently. He was dangerously dehydrated after days of being unable to keep even water in his stomach. But they could do nothing more for him on the boat, so Cyrus tuned out his moaning and started up the narrow stairs.
A powerful gust nearly threw him back down the stairs when he emerged on the outside deck. The air was heavy and lay on his skin like a warm, wet cloth. He spotted Luke starboard about twenty feet, arguing with the captain of the yacht. Now that he was topside, he was adjusting to the roll of the boat and walked carefully toward them.
“What’s the problem?” He had to shout to be heard above the wind.
The captain turned to Cyrus. “You and your man should get below. Secure anything that’s loose in your cabins and put on the life vests stored under your bunks.”
“I’m not sure I want to be down there if we could possibly sink.”
The captain nodded curtly. “You’d be welcome to my office. I’ll be at the helm or in the communications room.”
“We could have already been in Galveston if this numbskull hadn’t been slowing us down.” Luke glared at the captain.
The captain shook his head at Luke, then explained as if he were speaking to a child. “The sea anchor has been keeping us steady in these heavy seas.”
“If that’s so, then why’d you just pull it out of the water?”
The captain turned to Cyrus, ignoring Luke’s accusing tone. “The weather conditions have suddenly changed. The storm has strengthened and moved our way. We’re now northwest of a category-two hurricane, where the winds are most treacherous. It’ll continue to gain strength as it crosses the Gulf. Our best option now is to outrun it.”
Cyrus wasn’t a physically powerful man, but he and his mate, Laine, had enjoyed hiking and camping when they were young. He’d grown a little soft over the past twenty years in a classroom, but these recent months of traveling from one disaster to another and then skulking through the Sierra Madres to elude The Collective Council’s trackers had returned some of his previous vigor. He was not afraid. He was The Prophet, filled with The One. Nothing could harm him.
“Let’s go below and prepare, Luke,” he said.
Chapter Eleven
Kyle stared at the passing houses, but all she saw was the charred remains of the believer’s head. It had happened so fast. The deafening blasts of the repeating weapon were bombarding her ears one nanosecond, and then a laser-like inferno was shooting from her fingers to explode the man’s skull.
Her stomach roiled again, and she put her hand over her mouth. She didn’t think anything was left in her stomach, but she didn’t want to find out in the back of this woman’s transport. Her fingers trembled against her lips, and she tucked both her hands between her legs to hide their shaking. She closed her eyes and felt smaller hands gently tug her left hand free. She looked down into the ten-year-old girl’s dark, sympathetic gaze. Her voice was soft.
“When my stomach tries to come back up, my papa tells me to press here.” She used both her thumbs to apply pressure to Kyle’s wrist. “He’s a doctor, so he knows.”
Kyle closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. She was about to break into a million pieces, and the girl’s kindness was a chisel wedging into the fractures she was barely holding together. She jerked and opened her eyes at the touch of something cool against the back of her neck. Tan, also in the rear seat of the transport, was reaching over the girl and holding a damp cloth against her.
“She’s right about the wrist thing, but this’ll also help the nausea,” she said.
Kyle nodded. She reached back, and Tan gently positioned Kyle’s free hand to hold the cloth. But Kyle didn’t look at her. She couldn’t. She couldn’t bear the pity or, even worse, disdain for a want-to-be warrior with no stomach for battle. She should have gone home and searched for her mother instead of coming here. She could have taken her brother’s place as an emergency responder, cowered under her mother’s wing like the weakling she was. Then she’d still be able to close her eyes without seeing that man’s charred brain smoldering in his shattered skull.
“My sister’s house is a few blocks from here,” the woman said, stopping outside the flow of traffic.
The older girl, who sat up front with her mother, pointed past Tan to a bench on the other side of the road. “My sister and I catch the public transport that stops there to go downtown. From there, you can board another or hire a personal transport to go wherever you like.”
“Thanks,” Tan said. “If nobody calls the peacekeepers, we’ll have someone clean your house tonight so you can go home tomorrow.”
The girl released Kyle’s hand. “When’s Papa coming home?” She looked up, and Kyle saw in her hopeful eyes the expectation of thousands—millions, if word continued spread via the d-net—that The Collective’s contingent would right their world again. More lives would be taken and lost before that could happen. Panic swelled in her chest until Tan’s hand clamped firmly on her shoulder to ground her.
“I can’t say exactly, but we have people in Brasília working to rescue him, just
like we rescued you today,” Tan told the girl. “They have to wait for just the right minute so your papa isn’t hurt. Okay?”
The girl nodded.
Tan turned to the mother. “It should be soon—within the week. You’ll hear from someone before they put him on the plane for home.”
“We owe you so much. Are you sure we can’t do more?”
Tan smiled. “Share what you have with others, and teach your children to do the same. We are stronger together.”
She exited the transport, but Kyle couldn’t seem to move. The woman and her daughters stared at her. She told her arms to move, her legs to move, but her body remained frozen. The door opened and Tan was there, grasping her arm and urging her up. Then she was standing on the side of the road with no idea how she got there. She felt like she was watching a vid rather than being actually present.
Tan was beginning to really worry. They crossed the street, but instead of going to the bench the girl had pointed out, she led Kyle to the shade of a tree on the opposite corner. They sat and Kyle slumped against the sturdy trunk. Kyle moved like she was sleepwalking, her eyes vacant. Tan knew she needed fluids and rest, in a bed rather than under a tree on a busy street corner.
Zack.
She had no idea if he was telepathically strong enough to hear her summons as Jael would. They weren’t mentally in tune like The Guard was to Jael, but they had left their ICs at the network quarters in case they were captured, and Tan didn’t think Kyle was in any shape to take public transport.
Zack.
Geez. You don’t have to yell. Woke me out of a dead sleep. What’s up?
We need transport. We’re at the corner of 11 Avenida Southeast and 8 Calle Southeast.
Tracker and the Spy Page 15