The Cardinal Rule

by C. E. Murphy

  "Last time?"

  Alisha shrugged one shoulder. "After you left the CIA. Greg told me about you. I looked you up. Doesn't everybody?" She smiled grimly. "Your file just followed you through the tech industry then. Now there's red tape everywhere, with clearances I can't get through. So you're probably telling the truth." Or someone far enough above him was tangled in the Sicarii business, and was covering for him. Somebody above Boyer. Alisha had to believe that, had to trust that someone, at least, was not involved in the Sicarii affair. Because if Boyer was lying to her as well, she had nothing left, and that was more than she could handle.

  "Which means I might've screwed you," she finished with a sigh, "because I told Greg you were still an operative." Keeping to the truth. As much as she could, at least.

  A flash of emotion highlighted his eyes. Anger. Frustration. Not surprise, though. "I asked you not to."

  She shrugged, looking away."I told you I was an idiot. If he starts digging…look, Brandon, I'm sorry if I've screwed up your op. I just—all of a sudden I don't know which way to turn." That, at least, was true, though she'd chosen her path and had every intention of seeing it through to the end.

  "Alisha…" Brandon reached for her wrist again, turning her hand up and rubbing his thumb across her palm. She groaned, letting herself relax a little at the touch, and heard his quiet chuckle. "Why are you telling me this?"

  "Because I'm tired of lies. I'm tired of not knowing who to trust and if I've screwed up a long-term undercover operation the least I can do is take responsibility for it." Alisha pulled away, getting to her feet and crossing to the window, arms folded around herself. "Because I want to do the right thing." Because she'd told her boss that she'd act as though she believed in him, and the absolute bitch of the thing was she wasn't sure she didn't. Uncertainty came with the job; it was one of the prices paid. But standing in Brandon's presence in the tiny Roman apartment made it harder to question him than she expected.. The lines between what should and shouldn't be had blurred. The things that were, were not the things she wanted. But Boyer had told her to act like she believed, not to fall for the guy.

  Brandon stood and came up behind her, putting his hands on the round of her shoulders. Warmth shivered through her, making her tighten her arms around her ribs. "Is that why you're a spy?" he asked. "So you can do the right thing?"

  Alisha made a sound in the back of her throat, an explosion of air that served as a short laugh. "You asked me that once before."

  "And I said I'd ask again. I knew money wasn't the answer." He squeezed her shoulders, renewed warmth. Alisha nodded, relaxing incrementally back toward him. Pretending that everything was going to work out the way she hoped it would. She had a few moments, maybe even a few hours, in which she could pretend, before her job took its toll.

  Me and Peter Pan, she thought sadly. Believing in fairies.

  "I liked the idea," she said before silence had gone on too long. "Back in the beginning, it was romantic. A secret lifestyle, disguises and great clothes, cool Bond gadgets. It took a while for that glow to wear off. To realize there wasn't much romantic about lying to most of your friends or getting shot at." Nothing romantic about planning to seduce and rob the man whose arms she stood in. For a moment it struck her as funny: both seduction and robbery were entirely heartfelt objectives, for wildly different reasons. One was personal, the other professional.

  Which was why they preached compartmentalization, she thought wryly. "It'd been all Truth, Justice and the American Way before that, you know?" she said aloud. She didn't get to be completely honest all that often, and while what she had to do would taint it in retrospect, she wanted to hold on to the moment as long as she could. She felt Brandon's nod against her hair, and sighed. "The thing is that when the romance faded, it turned out I really believed in all those things. I never thought of myself as being all that patriotic, but I honestly want to make the world a better place. A safer place. And if people won't talk to each other in a straightforward manner, then I'm willing to get my hands dirty to find out the secrets. Information is power." Which made her wonder which of them was more powerful, just then. She was offering up a lot of truth about herself, and so far Brandon had said almost nothing. Alisha shrugged. "Some days I think I'm still hopelessly idealistic. Others I think I'm just pragmatic. Either way, it gets me out of bed and on the road every day."

  Bemusement filled Brandon's voice. "How the hell did you end up with somebody like Frank Reichart?"

  Alisha laughed, surprised into it. "Opposites attract, I guess. What about you?" She turned her head toward him, feeling his breath stir the hair at her temple.

  "I've never found Reichart attractive," Brandon said, deadpan. Alisha laughed again and nudged an elbow back, trying to ignore the spike of frustration that made her stomach sour. It wouldn't be fair for him to avoid the question through laughter, the way Reichart might. Not after she'd been as honest as she had.

  "You know what I mean."

  "Yeah." He went silent a moment, before shrugging against her shoulders. "I got into it because Dad was a spy, and I was so pissed that he hadn't told me. I figured that meant he didn't want me to be one. Teenage rebellion, you know?"

  "Because you seem like the rebellious sort," Alisha said with a dry nod. The coil of discomfort in her belly settled, her confessions no longer seeming like such an exposure.

  Brandon grinned against her hair and went on without responding to the teasing. "I left because governmental research and development was too slow for me, and because I could make so damned much more money in the private sector. But after a few years the money stopped seeming so important."

  "How much did you have by then?"

  "A lot," Brandon admitted, and she could hear the smile in his voice again. "Which may have had something to do with it not seeming as important. Anyway, it was then that the CIA approached me again, and—I had to think about it, Alisha. I had to think for a long time. But it came down to building those drones. I'm not naive enough to think they'll just be used for peacekeeping, much as I wish they would be. I thought the world was probably better off with that kind of technology in American hands, and the truth is, I was going to develop them one way or another. It's what I've wanted to do my whole life."

  "Look at us," Alisha murmured. "A couple of wide-eyed idealists. Look, Brandon…" She turned in his arms, tilting her chin up to study him from a few inches away. "The CIA's got one of the drones now. Can't you come in? Haven't you been outside long enough?" She was surprised at the hope in her own voice, making her sound younger and more innocent than she was. She wanted him to agree. The idea shouldn't have come as such a surprise to her, she knew, but somehow it did. Brandon, and even the situation she'd deliberately put herself in here, was more than just the job to her.

  Brandon exhaled a sigh, sliding his hands down her arms and settling them at her waist. Alisha smiled at the touch, leaning into him a little more. "I could," he said reluctantly. "But the drone itself—that's a loss I can explain away to the Sicarii. As long as the CIA doesn't have the critical software, I'm still useful to the Sicarii, and that means I should stay in the game."

  Genuine disappointment settled around Alisha's heart, making her next breath harder to take. No going back, then, she thought reluctantly, and slid her fingers into his belt loops, tugging at them in a gesture of futile frustration. "You're not making it easy," she said in a low voice, "for a girl to find a way to see you a little more often."

  Brandon looked down at her. "This is probably the last time we should see each other, Alisha. Maybe for years. You being here at all is dangerous." Reluctance filled his tone. Alisha bumped her hips forward, nodding.

  "For both of us," she agreed, then rocked back on her heels and crooked a smile up at him. Tugged on his belt loops again, and murmured, "Maybe we should make the most of it."

  Brandon's grin was bright and quick. "That's probably a bad idea for about a million reasons."

  Alisha grinned back.
"Yeah." The smile faded and she stepped back, shaking her head. "Yeah, maybe you're right. Too much time spent trying to figure out who's right and who's lying in all this mess. I'm—" She broke off with a horrified choke that turned into real laughter. "God. I was about to say something like, ‘I'm feeling vulnerable.' I think I have to go turn in my Tough Girl card now. 'Scuse me." Still laughing at herself, she turned away. Brandon caught her wrist and pulled her back, grinning down at her.

  "C'mon, I've never had the vulnerability card played on me. You can't make me pass up the chance to take advantage."

  "Oh, so now we're taking advantage." Alisha let laughter come into her voice as Brandon curled his arms around her waist again.

  "Hell yeah."

  Alisha laced her fingers through his hair and stood on her toes to steal a kiss. "Well, if you insist." One tryst, she thought reluctantly, and then she had to do her job.

  Brandon lifted his hand to brush her jaw, and the last thing she felt was a cold needle piercing the flesh at the joining of her shoulder and neck.

  Chapter 24

  Thick black fog roiled through the world, clogging Alisha's ears, her eyes, even her nostrils as she tried to gag in a breath of air. Paste filled her mouth, sickening and sticky, making her tongue swell and adhere to her teeth. Discomfort ached along her spine, as if her arms had been pulled out of alignment and her head was too heavy to lift.

  "The part I liked best," Brandon's voice said from a long way away, "was finding the tranq dart in your pocket. Kind of takes away any guilt a guy might feel over drugging a pretty woman."

  Alisha swallowed against the thickness in her throat, barely able to move her tongue. The strain in her upper back intensified as she tried lifting her head, muscles protesting and shuddering with the effort. A gong sounded in her ears, endless repetitive bongs much deeper than the tinniness of ringing. The idea that there was a word for those crashing sounds drifted through her mind, but she couldn't think of the word.

  "You should have said you did it for the money," Brandon whispered in her ear. She forced herself to snap her head around so she could meet Brandon's gaze with her own forthright and angry one, except nothing happened. Her head just bobbled in place, making Brandon laugh.

  Rage bubbled up inside her, recognizable only because she knew that must be what she felt. The emotion itself was cut off, muted by the drug Brandon had slipped into her system.

  That's what had happened. She remembered now, the feeling of a cold needle sliding into muscle. She wanted to be angry, but her sense of betrayal and irony were both too remote to care about. A ludicrous giggle escaped the thickness that gagged her mouth and throat: she was finally compartmentalizing. Good job, Leesh.

  And that was another complete thought. Alisha swallowed again, trying to rid herself of some of the murk that filled her throat. The gonging in her ears faded, becoming recognizable as her heartbeat. She'd known there was a word for it. Heartbeat.

  "What…" The word was little more than the vowel sound, croaked out through dry lips.

  "It speaks!" Brandon crowed. She heard his footsteps beyond the heavy clanging in her ears, and concentrated, tightening one muscle at a time, to lift her head. An inch or two; just enough to prove that she could.

  It did almost no good. Her vision was blurred, as if tar had been smeared across her eyes. She blinked, slow thick deliberate action; no tears came to clear away the darkness. She could see a shadow of movement, the only warning before Brandon put both hands alongside her face. "Speak," he encouraged her. "Try again, Alisha. We're all waiting."

  "…we?" That was her training speaking, not her conscious mind. But Brandon laughed and shook her head back and forth with his hands. Dizziness swept over her, nausea building. It seemed to burn away some of the fog, so Alisha clung to it, closing her eyes so it would be harder for Brandon to see that his actions were helping her.

  "You don't really expect me to answer that, do you? Of course not. Pretend I'm speaking in the royal we, Alisha. After all," the warmth fled from his voice, leaving cool aristocracy in its place, "I should be."

  "Si…carii." She couldn't spare the mental space to berate herself, even as the sickness in her stomach burbled and pressed away more of the fog. She was beginning to feel her body again, the tension in her spine brought on by her shoulders being pulled as far back as they could go without dislocating. Rope, thin enough to feel like wire, bound her wrists behind the back of the chair she sat in. She didn't dare flex to test it, but through the fading drug haze she felt certain the rope that bound her ankles was the same piece that held her wrists. She could feel the chair legs pressing against her inner ankles, her whole body pulled awkwardly back toward the knot point that kept her tied. She forced her eyes open, staring down. Even gravity was set to work against her; the chair was tilted forward. No wonder lifting her head took such effort. Alisha let her eyes close again and her head hang heavy.

  "Sicarii," Brandon agreed. "Someone had to be." He sounded pleased with himself. Alisha tried curling a lip, managing a twitch instead.

  "Wha…d' youwan?"

  "Your help," Brandon said pleasantly. Even through the black fog, Alisha barked a laugh, such a raw sound that it hurt her throat.

  "Y'can…"

  Brandon leaned in, close enough that Alisha could smell his clean masculine scent. Enough of her mind cleared to let her think, I liked it better before, as he said, "I'm sorry, what was that?"

  Alisha lifted her head, muscles straining with the effort, and pried her eyes open to stare directly at Brandon. "You can," she said more clearly, then enunciated every syllable with all the concentration she had: "Go. Fuck. Yourself."

  The blow across her cheekbone was surprisingly welcome. Pain and dizziness swept her again, tears forced from dry ducts. Black fog cleared from her vision, replaced with red throbbing agony that dissipated into a dull pulse within seconds. Through the spilling tears she saw someone catch Brandon's hand: a woman, fingers smaller and more delicate around Brandon's wrist than a man's would be. She said nothing, simply stayed his action, then disappeared again, moving so quietly that Alisha didn't even hear her footsteps.

  "And here I'd thought," Brandon said nastily, "that fucking me had been your agenda."

  "Silly me," Alisha whispered. There was nothing in Brandon's tone, nothing in his actions or his gaze that suggested that his behavior now was a show. Nothing but sheer disdain and arrogance. Alisha's taste in men was nothing short of stellar. She coughed out a little laugh, using the tiny jolt of motion to test the ropes that held her. Yes, no doubt: wrists and ankles were tied together, wrapped around the back of the chair. Getting out was going to be a bitch. And there was at least one other person in the room, the silent woman. Alisha closed her eyes again, trying to listen past the slowly reducing gonging in her ears.

  "Whaddoyou need my help for?" She was getting more control over her tongue; not slurring the words took less effort now.

  "What," Brandon said, disappointment clear in his voice, "you're going to roll over just like that?"

  Alisha snorted, painful little sound that sent a spike of pain through her bruising cheekbone. "Curious." She took a slow, deliberate breath, relaxing as much in the ropes as she could. Her weight slid forward a little, putting more strain on her wrists and ankles, but the breath helped center her. The heavy ringing in her ears faded away, not gone, but less important. She heard her own exhalation, and Brandon's inhalation a few inches away.

  The rest of the room was silent. No hint of another person, no warning that the woman she'd glimpsed was still there. Alisha drew in another slow breath, letting Brandon's answer wash over her. A third slow breath; another. Brandon was waiting for her response. Alisha lifted her head very slowly, paying more attention to listening than to answering as she echoed, "Assassinate someone?"

  Brief amusement darkened Brandon's eyes. "Don't look so surprised, Alisha. Or do you really believe the CIA never stoops to a little politically motivated murder from time
to time?"

  Surprise, Alisha thought, has nothing to do with it. There. Two more people, their breathing just barely out of synchronization. Standing far enough away that their body warmth couldn't be felt; standing close enough together that there was no chance Alisha could see them, no matter how far she was able to turn her head. Almost directly behind her. One woman, if the glimpse she'd had was accurate. The other could be a man or a woman. It hardly mattered. Three was too many to fight, when she was starting out hog-tied to a chair.

  "You've been sent out to do a nasty job or two yourself, in fact, haven't you? Tell me, Alisha. Which is worse, seducing the enemy or shooting a friend?"

  Alisha brought her attention back to Brandon, still listening for any actions the guards might take, but focused on the man in front of her. He might be the weak point, especially if his harsh question was based in hurt rather than a deliberate attempt to rile her.

  "Shooting a friend," she answered in a low voice. Her throat still felt thick and dry, though the fog had largely cleared. "I wasn't exactly under orders to seduce you, Brandon. More like making the mistake of trying to mix business with pleasure." She managed a faint smile. "I really was looking for a way to save you." Treat him as if he's telling God's own truth, she thought wearily. More fool she. "Just who is it you think I'm going to kill for you?"

  Brandon smiled. "Director Boyer."

  Despite herself, Alisha's shoulders tensed and she pulled at the ropes, more an action of surprise than an attempt to escape. "Are you serious?" Brandon only cocked an eyebrow, and Alisha let her head fall again, trying to stretch a little of the strain out of her shoulders. "Guess that means he really is one of the good guys, then," she muttered. "That's nice to know. What's he done to you?"

  "Aside from head up this inconvenient investigation you're on?" Brandon asked. "Ask Frank Reichart sometime."