The Cardinal Rule

by C. E. Murphy

  Greg Parker waited for her in the little room, sitting on one side of a two-person table in front of windows open to let in heat and flies and the rising scent of street food. Aside from a minimum of electric wiring and a wire-framed bed, the room looked, to Alisha's eyes, the same way it probably had two, three, or even five hundred years earlier. There were days when she would take not just comfort, but delight, from that: things endured, despite humanity's best efforts. Today, though, all she knew was that she was sweaty, smelly, and professionally compromised. She flung her phone across the table and threw herself into a chair with equal violence before the phone had finished spinning and clattering its way to Greg. "It was a complete disaster, Greg. A total mess."

  "Is anyone dead?"

  "No."

  "Then it wasn't a complete disaster."

  "My cover got blown. Brandon knew who I was." Alisha pulled her lips back from her teeth, as if baring them would frighten the next thing she had to say into submission. "Reichart was there."

  Greg's mouth pinched, weary resignation in his eyes. "I'll take you off the assignment."

  "What?" Alisha jolted upright and brought her palm down on the table with a crack. "Like hell you will!"

  "Alisha, it was a mistake to send you in the first place. You're too close, by dint of being close to me. And if Frank Reichart's involved, it's—"

  "Not," Alisha growled. "It's not an emotional complication, Greg. Dammit, I've got too many questions. You can't take me off this. You should have questions." She straightened up, shoving a finger at the papers beneath Greg's hand. "Have you read my preliminary report?" A wave of guilt stabbed through her. The report was barely more than one of her illegal journal entries, filled with unanswered questions and exclamation marks.

  "I've glanced at the first page or two." Greg pursed his lips, tapping a finger on the papers before looking up at her. "It's…"

  "Sketchy." She doubted that was the word Greg had been going for. Emotional, more likely, or compromised. On an intellectual level, she knew he was right: she didn't belong on this mission. But on a deeper level—an emotional one—sticking with it felt important. "I don't like turning in preliminary reports, Greg, you know that. I like presenting the whole picture. But this time I feel like I'm missing too much already. Like, who the hell is Sicarii?"

  The shadow of a frown passed over Greg's face and he tapped the papers again, circling his fingertip against them. "The name doesn't mean anything to me. Are you certain about this information, about Brandon working for the CIA?"

  Alisha sighed explosively, sinking down in her chair. "I'm not certain of anything right now. It's what I overheard. I'm going to follow his old trail here and see if I can get as far as a dead end." It was frequently what she couldn't find that told her the most. An agent who'd genuinely gone rogue would have a current operation file as long as her arm. One who'd been buried in secret operations was far more likely to come up as a red flag and a warning not to pursue him any further.

  She wanted very much to find a dead end. For Greg, she told herself, and that was true. A son buried so deep in an undercover mission that even the father didn't know about it was a better ending to their story than resentment between the two having driven Brandon away.

  But her own pride was tied up in it as well. She'd been compromised, whether by Reichart or by Brandon himself, and it had left with more questions than she'd begun with. Being unable to see the whole picture was often the price of being a player in the spy game, and usually she could accept that. But Brandon's possible continuing involvement with the CIA, his contact, and the name Sicarii that had so quickly silenced his objections, all piqued her interest beyond the norm. There was a trail to be followed there, a significance that itched to be discovered, but Alisha pushed that away for the moment, focusing on the concrete. "He's got a prototype army of his AIs in that base, Greg. Half a dozen of the Attengee drones, way too many for me to take out. I didn't know until it was too late that I should be looking for more. With any sort of luck—" she cast her gaze upward, supplication to the sky "—the virus will be uploaded to their main servers by now, as part of the daily backup, and all the schematics will be destroyed when the virus is triggered. But we need those prototypes. They could be reverse engineered. I've been in there. No one else has."

  "How much of this is loyalty to king and country, and how much is revenge for being discovered, Alisha?"

  That was the second time Greg had used her full name, just in case Alisha hadn't already realized how serious he was. She straightened in her seat, leaning across the table with her hands spread in a gesture of earnestness. "Some of it's revenge. I'm—" She jerked her shoulders in a tight shrug. "Embarrassed. Angry. To have been betrayed." Later she might examine her own choice of words there, but for now she went on with a quick shake of her head.

  "But I genuinely believe returning to the base is vital, sir. The Attengee drones are highly effective combat machines. It's of paramount importance that a trustworthy organization hold all copies of that design—" Alisha broke off at the glitter of amusement in Greg's eyes, giving him a tight, rueful smile. "Let's at least pretend to believe the U.S. government is a trustworthy organization," she said, teasing as much as she dared.

  Greg brushed it away with a brief smile of his own. "Yes, let's. Go on."

  Alisha stood, crossing to the room's balcony so she could scowl out at the ancient city Their safe room hotel had been part of a smaller village engulfed by Istanbul's 20th century growth, and hints of the village remained in the shop fronts and street widths. The distance was littered with factories in various states of repair rather than any of Istanbul's historic beauty, but voices chattered up from below, the musical Turkish language rising in an indistinguishable cacophony. The relentless humanity of it, the steady wash of people involved with their own lives, washed away some of Alisha's anger, and she sighed. If she had time, she'd go out and lose herself in the press of bodies and the noise of the marketplace, singing scraps of Western songs to herself.

  "I don't doubt for an instant that Reichart will be reporting back to the FSB and they'll try something similar. We need to not waste time." It was too precious a commodity to be spent forgotten in the narrow streets among the vendors. Alisha touched the flaking paint of the window frame with a modicum of regret.

  "And what about Reichart himself?"

  "Permission to kick his ass requested, sir."

  Greg laughed aloud, an unexpected sound of genuine delight. Alisha turned from the window, modestly pleased with herself. "Permission granted," Greg said, "if you can find him. All right, Alisha. You've got a go on this thing. Good luck."

  "Thank you, sir."

  #

  The Kazakhstani base was deserted.

  Alisha hadn't been the only one to sense the wrongness as they'd approached, military helicopters dropping them just on the other side of the valley's mountaintops. She'd seen the exchanged glances, the wordless warnings, as they'd come down the mountainside into the silent, dark valley. No one liked it: it had the feel of a place rigged to blow, a recognizable quality to those with combat experience. The walls held their breath, listening for the countdown that would rupture them and blow the world asunder. The silence had purpose, and in the heart of enemy territory, purpose could be deadly.

  She found the first bomb herself, a block of C4 as big as her two fists. She lifted a black-covered hand, shrilling a soft whistle to gain the attention of the rest of her team as the numbers worked their way backward toward zero. Thirty-nine minutes until detonation. She uncovered her watch—no longer the delicate fashion piece she so often wore, but instead a heavy black-banded thing with dim numbers—and synchronized its alarm with the countdown as she spoke. "The prototypes aren't going to be here."

  "You want us to check anyway?" The squadron leader eyed the timer before turning his attention to Alisha. She pressed her lips together, then nodded once.

  "I'll bring two men down. The rest of you see if ther
e are any surface-to-air-defenses. If not we can just call the choppers in and get out of here before the whole place blows to kingdom come."

  "Yes, ma'am." The sergeant flicked a salute and motioned to his men, splitting two of the eight off to join Alisha. Overriding the elevator protocols took seconds, and despite the bombs counting down overhead, Alisha smiled as they took the shaft down. Much easier than sneaking through air ducts.

  Black acrid smoke rolled over them as the elevator doors swept open. Lights dimmed and brightened, sparking out with hisses and splatters. Alisha muffled a cough in the back of her hand, then pulled her turtleneck up over her nose and mouth, eyes watering. Her two guards stepped forward, one dragging infrared glasses over his eyes. They checked the hall, then Infrared nodded. Alisha pointed to her eyes, then down the hall; Infrared nodded again and she darted through the wispy fumes.

  Brandon could not have conceivably destroyed the prototypes, and yet Alisha was relieved to punch the pass code—unbelievably, it still worked—into the computer lab's lock pad and find that it was only the computers that had been destroyed. "We're clear," she said into her radio a moment later, voice hoarse. "They let out the magic black smoke."

  A chuckle answered her as she hurried through the sizzling computer remains, searching for any hard drives that might have gone unscathed. There were none. Brandon, or Hashikov and his men, had been thorough. Alisha muttered, "Shit," philosophically. It would have surprised her more to find something salvageable.

  "Ma'am?"

  "Nothing," she said. "Two minutes and we're out of here."

  "Yes, ma'am," the soldier said, sounding considerably more cheerful. Alisha crawled over the row of desks against the viewing windows, peering down into the hub room. It was clear of the smoke that roiled through the other levels, its ventilation system cut off from the rest of the bunker. Alisha coughed again, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. There was a single piece of paper in the middle of the hub room floor.

  "Conspiracy, or coincidence?" She tested the windows, finding them sealed, and crawled off the desks to run for the steel stairway. Bits of debris and wiring littered the floor, a few hot spots glowing as if determined to hang on just a little longer.

  The control room above was as hazy, but less damaged, than the computer lab. Alisha gulped air and yanked the window open, taking the wall-cut rungs down with abandon, which made her realize, gratefully, that her ankle had finally healed up. She jumped the last few feet, landing in a roll that brought her to the sheet of paper.

  A cardinal on an ornate dome, drawn in black ink on heavy parchment paper, dominated the page. Written in small block letters at the bottom of the page was a Latin phrase: cave retro. Alisha stared at the dome, something itching at the back of her mind. It was familiar, the ink lines edging a memory into place before fading into blackness. She shook her head, unable to grasp it, then frowned at the letters, searching for what little Latin she knew. The phrase was neither carpe diem nor illigitemi non corundum, but it took several seconds to get those translations, especially the second, don't let the bastards grind you down, out of her head. Alisha shook herself, wiping the phrases from her mind, and studied the paper again. Retro was behind. Cave—beware. In modern English—

  Look behind you.

  Alisha's shoulders went rigid as a tendril of cold slithered around her spine, stiffening her posture, while simultaneously, heat filled her belly, blood rushing from her core to her limbs, making her hands and feet itch and burn. Every impulse told her to run, even without knowing what she was running from. Alisha clamped down on the urge, swallowing thickly.

  Don't run. The order, spoken silently, felt slow and stupid, words a barrier against a million years of instinct. Don't run. Look first, Leesh. Don't run.

  The tiny muscles in her neck bunched, vertebrae creaking as she turned her head so carefully she couldn't tell at first that she was moving. The steadying breath she took felt cold against the heat of adrenaline spilling through her body in preparation for action.

  An Attengee drone crouched in the shadow of the back wall, its blaster compartments already open. She could see the shimmer of guidance dots against her shoulder, red on black. The soft whir of the weapons training on her told her the initial assessment—threat or not—had already been performed, and she had been found wanting.

  "Son of a bitch."

  Chapter 11

  "Ma'am?" The polite question on the radio was so incongruous with the lasers aimed at her that Alisha nearly laughed. She quelled the impulse, clutched the cardinal drawing in her fist, and flung herself into a roll, seeking cover.

  Laser fire smashed after her, bursts of heat that sent the concrete floor into smoking striations. Alisha jolted back, twisting her hip so hard it popped. Heat seared the air above her head as the drone overshot. Evasive action maneuvers. She heard the words spoken in Jean-Luc Picard's voice inside her mind as she hit the floor on her back, rolling again. It was almost impossible for a human to make truly random choices, and the drone's AI would likely recognize the pattern in random choices before she herself would.

  The alternative, then, was to out-think the machine. Make deliberate and irrational choices. Alisha snatched the gun off her hip, taking two purposefully wild shots in hopes of distracting the drone's AI for a few seconds. She heard the crackle of the radio as her guards recognized weapons fire and came running, but she didn't have time to wait on them. Rolling onto her belly and scrambling to her feet gave her the momentum to dive for one of the drone's three legs. The trifold foot snaked out of her reach, clanking down against the concrete floor hard enough to mar its surface. Alisha took another two shots, the first ricocheting off the drone's metallic ankle. The second hit, not shattering the bolt as she'd hoped, but at least wedging it in place and reducing the mechanism's ability to rotate. Combat-trained preternatural hearing kicked in despite the ringing in her ears from the gunshots, and a low buzz warning her the Attengee's blasters were focused on her again.

  She flung herself forward again, rolling beneath the drone and coming up flat against the wall. The silver dome whipped around, weapons firing and turning the wall behind her to slag.

  Alisha was no longer there, already flinging herself at another leg. They had to be the weak points. She wrapped both hands around one, just above the ankle, and scrambled backward, ducking laser fire to haul the drone off balance with all her strength.

  It toppled with an ear-shattering clang against the concrete, legs flailing like an overturned spider, and for one blessed moment, lay still.

  Alisha scrambled out of reach, fumbling with the utility belt at the small of her back. Her hands shook, endorphins pumping through her system so powerfully she could hardly control her own movements. The buttons popped open and she slid the Attengee's remote—the one advantage she'd thought she might have, in trying to bring the prototype army out of the base—free of its pocket.

  A ratcheting leg slammed into her diaphragm, throwing her backward across the room. Tears leaked down her cheeks, blocking her vision of the commands on the remote pad as she struggled for air. The drone swayed to its feet and lurched forward, reacquiring her as a target with another low whir. Alisha choked against the knot of breathlessness in her stomach and only succeeded in exhaling more of what little air she had left.

  Don't look up, Leesh. Just do it. Just find the right key combination. Her hearing wouldn't let her ignore the whine of the lasers preparing to fire. She'd forgotten to ask Greg about the Santa Claus song.

  Gunfire splattered the room, as precious as the sound of a knight in white armor riding down the evil king. The drone whipped around, spattering the concrete walls with bursts of laser fire. One of the soldiers bellowed, "Hit the deck!" and Alisha wheezed a little laugh, a tiny gasp of air that felt like the first promise she might someday breathe normally again. She wiped her arm across her eyes, coughing another insignificant breath out, and finally, weakly, punched the disabling code into the remote.

&nbs
p; The drone folded down into its resting state, lasers settling back into place and leaving the AI's silver dome unmarred once more. Alisha rolled onto her back, arms flung wide, and dragged in a painful breath around the baseball-sized knot beneath her sternum. Another fit of coughing brought tears to her eyes, but she lifted a hand in triumph, ignoring the cardinal drawing still crumpled there. "Drone acquired. Third objective accomplished, sir."

  "Ma'am?" The infrared-goggles-wearing soldier appeared in Alisha's line of vision and offered her a hand up. She took it, wheezing, and jerked a thumb at the drone.

  "My boss needs to see this. Can we pack it up and fly it out of here in the next ten minutes?"

  The soldier made a brief show of looking at his watch. "We can do it in seven, ma'am."

  "Seven. Seven is good." Alisha got the hell out of there with a squadron—this one friendly—on her tail. Minutes later, the reverberating explosions that confirmed the base's destruction were a deep echo of the helicopter blades, and Alisha, relieved, fell asleep to the sounds of destruction.

  #

  Returning to base with a successful mission under her belt lightened Alisha's step considerably as she helped Infrared—his name was Harrison, yes, like that one, he said—offload the drone in England after an all-night flight paused only for refueling. He'd insisted his men would do the heavy lifting, but having blown one mission, physically helping to deliver the drone into Greg's waiting hands felt important to Alisha. Satisfaction lit her handler's eyes as she and Harrison walked the drone off the chopper, and she watched with a pleasure close to glee as military nerds swept down on it like a holiday gift.