Calli stared at her. “I…um…what has happened in the last five days? I’ve heard nothing.”
“Are you asking for the Loyalist status, or the Insurrecto one?”
Calli blinked. “You know the deployment of the Insurrectos?”
“We are the toys of generals and colonels and majors.” Annamaria’s smile was dry. “Afterwards, they talk. They boast, to make themselves feel bigger. The data can be correlated, though. There are approximately eight hundred troops still posted at the northern base. The majority of the army is pulled in around the city borders…”
Calli held up her hand. “Wait. Let’s come back to that. First, I must know…have you heard anything about Nicolás Escobedo?”
“Your husband disappeared from Acapulco, three days ago.”
Calli’s heart leapt. “Disappeared…” she breathed.
“His absence gnaws at them,” Annamaria added, with a slow nod. “El Leopardo moving freely and unaccounted-for is a dangerous thing.” Her tired gaze met Calli’s. “Taking you was the wrong thing. It has backfired. They know that now.”
Calli grimaced. “Knowing they made a mistake hasn’t moved them to let me go.”
“Why would they? They have nothing to lose. They will want to have fun with you before the might of El Leopardo lands upon them.”
While Calli shuddered, Annamaria tugged at the shoulder of her tee shirt. “We will need to find you something better to wear than this.”
5.
RICHARD COLLINS LOOKED STRAINED, OLIVIA decided. The President sat across the table from Daniel. President Collins had survived votes of no confidence from the House, an assassination attempt and three wars, and still got himself re-elected, all without losing his boyish good looks or the sparkle in his eyes. Now, though, she could see he was feeling pressured.
It was indecently early—barely gone dawn. Daniel had roused her from sleep when the Secret Service banged on the door and demanded they come with them. They were led to another floor of the hotel, both yawning and rubbing their eyes.
Another door opened for them. The room beyond might once have been a standard hotel bedroom, only the usual furniture was gone. A large, round table took up the middle of the room and President Collins sat behind it, his suit still pristine and wrinkle free.
He got to his feet with slow movements as the door shut behind Olivia and Daniel. He held out his hand. “Castellano.” He said it the American way.
Daniel didn’t blink. He shook the President’s hand. “Good to meet you.”
“You didn’t meet me. Not today, anyway,” Collins said. He glanced at Olivia. “Sorry to wake you, Olivia.” He sat and waved at the other chairs. “We need to talk.” He strung his fingers together as Daniel and Olivia sat. “What do you need, Daniel? What will resolve this for me? I cannot operate in a White House full of people I can’t trust.”
Daniel sat back. “Agents do what they do—”
“Agents?”
Daniel hesitated. “What you call a spy is generally called an agent in the international intelligence community. I’m an operative. If I was CIA, I would be an officer. And just to confuse things, your FBI personnel call themselves agents.”
“The CIA and FBI language I was aware of. I see. Go on,” Collins said.
“Spies,” Daniel said, “do what they do for a short list of reasons, all of them self-centered. If you start there, if you ask yourself who stands to gain by killing Callan Davenport, then you can relax and narrow your focus.”
Olivia blinked, hiding her surprise, for Daniel was speaking with a mild American accent, similar to most trained and educated politicians in the DC circuit. When they were alone, they spoke Spanish. When they did use English, Daniel’s accent was the soft Vistarian blur of consonants.
Olivia wondered for a moment why he would mask his natural accent now, then realized he was putting the President at ease. An American accent was neutral to the President’s ears. He wouldn’t hear it. It would avoid reminding him he was placing extraordinary trust in a foreign national, based purely on Olivia’s recommendation.
Collins frowned. “The man who gains the most from the bombing is Doug Mulray, the deputy Chief of Staff. He’s an ambitious son of a bitch. Only, isn’t that far too obvious? If he’s the mole, then he must assume we would consider him first.”
“You’d be surprised,” Daniel replied. “Most intelligence assets underestimate how much they are telegraphing to the world. They believe they are being cagey and secretive.” He shrugged. “If I can see him in his natural habitat, I’ll know.”
“It would mean putting you inside the White House.” Collins shook his head. “No.”
“Then have a dozen armed Secret Service guys follow me everywhere I go. I don’t need access to your systems or information. All I have to do is watch him for a while and I’ll know.” Daniel hesitated. “Proof, though, might be harder to get.”
Collins stared at him. Olivia realized he was thinking hard. “Anyone I attached to you might be compromised.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “This is damn awkward. Is there anyone in the Secret Service you can clear? Give me a wedge, a crack in this faceless wall of suspicion.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “There’s Rosa Bergen,” he said. “She was head of the team covering the Vice President at the hospital gala.”
Olivia had read the same documents as Daniel. They included Secret Service field reports, although there had been nothing about the agents themselves. She held her face still, expressing nothing.
“I know Rosa,” Collins said. “She’s a senior field agent.”
Daniel nodded. “From her record, she should have been made a deputy director a long time ago. She was the only agent standing by the Vice President when the emergency teams reached him.”
“That’s their job,” Collins said gently, with a patient tone.
“She was on the other side of the room when the bomb went off,” Daniel said. “She made her way over to him and covered him with her body. The four men on the Vice President’s close detail all walked out of the mess with scratches and congregated on the sidewalk. Bergen’s arm was broken by the blast and she still stayed on her man.”
Collins scratched at his chin. “I didn’t know that,” he admitted. “It’s laudable, although it doesn’t clear her.”
Daniel raised a brow. “If she’d known about the bomb, do you think she would have stuck around for it to explode? She would have found a pretext, something convincing, which would put her outside the building before it blew.”
“So, because she’s on the injured list she’s clear?” Collins said.
“She’s also not regular White House staff,” Daniel added. “The mole is.”
Collins considered for a moment. “I’ll have to find a pretext to have her reassigned.”
“Tell everyone you heard about her heroism—above and beyond, etc.,” Daniel replied.
Collins raised a brow. “Which I can say with a straight face because it is true. Fine. Once she is in place, I’ll read her in.”
“It might be better if I do that…while you’re in the room,” Daniel said, his tone polite. “Bergen and I speak a similar language.”
Collins’ scowl formed, then smoothed out. “I want this solved,” he said, standing. “I want the mole rooted out and isolated, so I can get back to my primary job of running the country.”
Olivia and Daniel rose to their feet, too.
“Once I can watch your people, I’ll find him,” Daniel said, sounding sure of himself.
Richard Collins nodded. “I left a situation developing which I must go back and deal with.” He moved out of the room, the Secret Service agents going with him, leaving Olivia and Daniel alone.
Daniel picked up her hand and kissed it. “Let’s go back to bed. I have a feeling we’ll be short on sleep for the next little while.”
*
CRISTIÁN REALIZED HE WAS WATCHING Chloe’s rear view more than he was watching his step, as she
slid and walked down the crumbling sandy slope of the gully. He made himself look away and assess the state of the camp and the people in it, instead.
Captain Graves and her team were all cleaning and loading weapons and strapping armor back into place.
His heart gave a heavy thud. Cristián strode past Chloe, which was difficult because she had long legs—and those black jeans made the most of them, the rebellious voice in his mind whispered—and moved right up to Graves.
She glanced at him, then slapped the clip into the grip of the pistol she held.
“You’re moving out?” Cristián asked.
“New orders,” she said.
“Which are…?” He tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. Graves and her team had been here for less than two hours and he was already comfortable with their presence and the sense of security they imparted.
That security was false, yet it was reassuring and he was annoyed at himself for letting the cultural reinforcement sink so deep. The presence of armed soldiers did not guarantee safety. The Insurrectos had swept through Pascuallita in the opening days of the war, despite the largest Loyalist military base lying just outside of town.
Parris Graves shoved her gun into the holster on her hip. She glanced around, making it look casual.
Cristián saw what she would see. Half a dozen kids, ranging from toddler to pre-teen, sat watching their first real live American soldiers, barely three paces away. Behind them was the canvas which sheltered where Pia and Trini slept, their packs and gear piled at the edges to give a tiny amount of privacy. They were probably still asleep, for they kept vampire hours.
To his left, women cooked something spicy over a fire, the blackened iron pot bubbling and hissing. Breakfast, most likely. His mother was one of them. She was the tallest of the group, yet all of them were dressed in practical jeans and sneakers and hoodies. They looked far younger than they were, as they laughed and gossiped over the pot.
Chloe stayed beside Cristián. A dozen other people moved around them, on their way to or from somewhere else in the camp. It was the usual morning activity.
Graves grabbed Cristián’s elbow. “Step into my office a moment,” she told him, pulling him toward the edge of the camp where the soft slope discouraged anyone from settling.
Chloe followed them. It seemed natural she was included in the conversation. Cristián didn’t mind, and that bothered him, too.
Graves let go of his arm. No one was within hearing range, now. “I’m telling you this only because you’re family and you have no communications outside this valley, which minimizes the risk you’ll share classified information.” She hesitated. “Besides, this is your country,” she added.
“Spit it out,” Chloe said, her tone stiff. “We can take it.”
Cristián realized he was stiff with tension, too. Graves’ preamble was a lead up to bad news. His instincts recognized it just as Chloe’s did.
Graves nodded. “The call I took, just after we got here…?”
They both nodded.
“Someone commandeered a US Airforce prototype long range drone, and it’s now heading for the White House, leaking radiation.”
“Serrano…” Cristián breathed. “Jesus!”
“We didn’t know it was Serrano until twenty minutes ago,” Graves said. “Then a woman representing General Serrano contacted the White House. My guess is the woman is Serrano’s wife, as she was seen in Mexico and the States in the last few days. Anyway, after ensuring the call was being recorded, she left a message for the President.”
“She put the squeeze on him,” Cristián guessed.
Parris nodded.
“What did she want?” Chloe asked. Her voice was strained.
Parris shrugged. “Stop all US military advancement on Vistaria, or she will blow up the White House and spray toxic waste all over the greater DC area.”
Cristián swallowed. “Everyone knows the US doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.”
Parris shook her head. “We don’t. For now, until we can deal with him, Serrano has to think we are.”
“The US forces are halting?” Chloe breathed. “Nick and the others were so emphatic about maintaining momentum…”
“Just until we can deal with this,” Parris said. “The bomb has to be taken out of the equation, first. Then we can move in with impunity.”
“That’s where you’re going? To deal with the bomb?” Cristián asked, wondering how a ten-man unit could disengage a drone heading for Washington, from the far reaches of… He pressed his fingers to his temples. “You’re taking out the flight center controlling the drone,” he concluded.
“It’s here?” Chloe added, sounding stunned.
“The Palace or the admin building in front of it, in las Colinas,” Parris replied. “We can sneak in. We sound like Vistarians and we’ll look like you by the time we get there.”
“Then what?” Cristián demanded. “The Palace is the most heavily guarded building on Vistaria.”
“We just have to confirm the location of the control room. Another drone will take care of the rest,” Parris said.
“You’re going to blow it up?” Chloe asked, her voice rising.
Parris’ smile held a note of puzzlement. “What else should we do with it? We have to stop the bomb.”
“You can’t,” Chloe said. “Calli is there. The Mexican ambassador, all the women in the bordello in the basement…all the homeless people begging for a handout at the gates!”
“The Palace is right in the middle of the city,” Cristián added. “Babylon has a point.”
Chloe’s gasp was soft, barely heard. She didn’t quite smile, although her eyes and her face flooded with warmth as she looked at him.
Parris tilted her head. “Babylon?”
Cristián tried to thrust away the effect Chloe’s warm expression was creating. He bundled it up with his own dismay for speaking the name aloud and unconsciously. He was letting his instincts move his mouth. That was bad. He must think. “An old nickname of Chloe’s,” he told Parris. He waved his hand, a gesture which helped clear his mind. “You can’t bomb the Palace,” he said, bringing the conversation back to where it needed to go.
Chloe was still looking at him with soft, heated eyes and all the arguments he’d marshalled to convince Parris she couldn’t take out the Palace evaporated.
Why on earth had he used her Group handle? It was stupid, stupid, stupid. The Group would laugh at him, if they knew.
The Group had been his invention, although he didn’t realize at the time he was building a community. His mother bought him a computer and modem for his ninth birthday and Cristián embraced the on-line world, finding there an easy acceptance. It didn’t matter that the Internet which existed back then was all English-speaking. He taught himself to read and write English, driven to learn it quickly so he could stay in this world.
He practiced his burgeoning English skills upon anyone who would speak to him. He learned that the only people who even knew what the Internet was were geeks, mostly male and introverts. That was an English term which, when he learned it, delighted Cristián for it described him perfectly. Finally, he had a key to understanding his preference for his own company and his beloved books.
The Group coalesced around him without him noticing, until there was twelve of them, all using handles instead of their real names. They were the people Cristián sought out and spoke to about everything in his life, for they understood his differences while even his family did not fully grasp them.
They had no formal name or organization. They were just the Group. They didn’t swap personal information, for it was irrelevant. All of them had come to the painful realization they did not match the people around them. While other people struggled to understand basic concepts, they were already many years beyond the education considered appropriate for their age.
They taught themselves what they wanted to know, their curiosity guiding them. They helped each other. Supported and
encouraged each other.
They learned to hide themselves in plain sight. As some of the Group discovered, there were too many negative consequences to letting the world see their advanced abilities.
Instead, they taught themselves and each other how to blend in and look normal, so they could live normal lives with their families and raise no flags with authorities. They coached each other in how to land on pre-determined scores in exams and tests.
They also left clues around the Internet which other equally smart people could find. One by one, more members trickled in. Cristián formalized the Group in 2001, along with the membership rules. The use of nicknames and anonymity allowed them to deal with each other honestly and freely. He didn’t delude himself that anonymity was a security thing, for any of the Group had the ability to dig behind the shields and find out who everyone else was. No one bothered, though. They liked the unbiased support and total acceptance that came with facelessness.
Cristián chose Shadow as his handle and from the beginning he found himself a leader of the Group.
In 2006 a new member arrived, who asked to be called Babylon.
For Babylon Five? someone asked Babylon, their avatar switching to a bored expression.
For the Stars over Babylon function, Babylon replied, their avatar rolling its eyes.
Mathematics, Cristián recalled.
Some members drifted away after learning the Group’s culture. Usually, it was because the new member had an almost normal life beyond the Internet and didn’t need the intense, concentrated support and acceptance of the Group.
Babylon, though, had stayed.
Cristián grew used to Babylon’s quick mind—he leaned toward mathematics and the hard sciences. Babylon was one who fell foul of authority and got caught up in the system. He had escaped through some means he didn’t share with anyone, except to say he had learned the hard way to stay low and invisible, to not stand out.
It had taken Cristián a year to wonder if Babylon was not a man. By then, Babylon was a core member of the group and, to Cristián’s mind at least, indispensable.
In all the years since, the Group had been a silent part of Cristian’s life, unspoken to anyone in the greater world.
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