Deep Deception

by Cathy Pegau

  He didn’t know who Gennie really was. That may or may not work to her advantage, but it was definitely information with potential.

  “She worked at the site and offered to help me.”

  Garces casually reached over, grabbed her arm in his large hand and squeezed. Fire engulfed her arm. Natalia’s head swam and her stomach flipped. She didn’t bother trying to hold in the whimper that escaped her throat. Her arm felt like it was encased in tight, hot leather, her fingers as thick as sausages.

  “Don’t lie to me.” Garces looked down and grimaced. He wiped blood across her thigh, staining the dingy white fabric. “Helena Reyes said you were fed information before you ever left for Grand Meridian. It was this Monroe woman. How did she know about it?”

  Helena hadn’t told Garces about Simon? Garces might not be more than a signature on a page if he were suddenly so concerned about the origin of the information. What was the full extent of his involvement?

  Natalia glanced at the chrono on the desk. Twenty-one-oh-eight. The information should have been delivered to the director over an hour ago. Why wasn’t someone here arresting him?

  Garces reached for her arm again when she didn’t respond fast enough. Natalia took a breath in anticipation. Fuck, this is gonna hurt.

  A trilling sound came from his pocket. Frowning, he withdrew his comm and flicked the screen. She was saved from another bout of agony for the time being.

  “What?” He held the device near his mouth, on speaker but not on visual.

  A familiar voice responded. “Something just came in that you’ll want to see.”

  “Can’t it wait? I’m busy.”

  “Just look,” the man on the other end insisted, taking a tone with Garces no one but the director had ever used.

  Natalia’s heart sank as she realized who he was talking to and what Garces was now reading. So much for getting the files to Matthews. Garces’s face paled then turned a dangerous shade of red.

  “She hasn’t seen this yet, has she?” Garces asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Andrew replied.

  “You don’t think so?” The red deepened to purple. “If she sees this, I’m done, and I’m not going down alone.”

  “I intercepted it, but there’s no telling where that bitch had it sent.”

  Natalia almost smiled. They’d find out in the morning.

  “See what you can do,” Garces growled. “I’ll take care of things here.”

  He stabbed the disconnect and shoved the comm into his pocket. Garces hauled her to her feet. Her knees buckled from the pain. He grabbed her left shoulder, fingers digging into her flesh to keep her upright.

  “Think you’re smart?” Their faces were centis apart, close enough to kiss. Close enough for Natalia to feel the heat of his breath, the spittle of his rage.

  Close enough to strike his nose with her forehead.

  * * *

  Perkins sat across from Gennie, his pulser in hand but resting on his lap like a favored pet. She was surprised he wasn’t stroking it as he attempted a steely-eyed stare-down with her.

  Good luck, little man. I’ve gone toe to toe with grandmothers tougher than you.

  “Listen, Miss Monroe,” Simmons said, crouching beside her chair. Gennie rested most of her weight on her right hip, slouching to give her bound hands some room. Her pelvis wasn’t broken, or she wouldn’t have been able to walk, but there was sure to be a hell of a bruise. “We just want a little basic information. Then you can get patched up, okay?”

  Gennie licked her lips. “I could use some water.”

  Perkins kicked the leg of her chair, sending a jolt up her leg that brought tears to her eyes. Bastard. “Talk now, water later. How did you get involved with Agent Hallowell?”

  The pain must have affected her brain, because Gennie barked a short laugh. What would they say if she told them the truth? “Just one of those things.”

  “Help us so we can help you.” Simmons’s voice was soft, cajoling. He wanted to be her friend, not hurt her like that mean old Perkins. Right. Good agent, bad agent. She recognized the game. “When did you start working with her?”

  “A few weeks ago.” Gennie shifted on the chair. She winced, mostly for their benefit but also from real pain. She was more mobile than they realized, hopefully as mobile as she needed to be.

  “What sort of things did she have you do?” Perkins asked.

  Gennie stared at him for a moment then glanced at Simmons, who had an expectant look on his face. She spoke the lie, watching them closely. “Collecting information on the Dunlin mine.”

  Perkins kicked her chair again.

  Fire blazed along her leg. Gennie clamped her jaws together.

  “Hirahm. Tell us about the contracts.”

  Hirahm? It took her a moment to recall the case Natalia, Sterling and Mickelson had been discussing that afternoon.

  “I’m not sure of the details.” She dropped her gaze, acting defeated. “I was there to help her gather personal information on the Hirahm people.” She raised her head and gave them a significant look. “Very personal information.”

  Perkins’s lips twitched into a grin. Simmons nodded, his eyes alight with delusions of success.

  Did they have any idea what was really going on or what sort of information they were supposed to be extracting from her? Garces may have trusted them to do his bidding, but not with the extent of his actions. What if she told them the truth? Would they believe her? Or were they so enthralled with Garces that no matter what she said it wouldn’t matter?

  This would have been a lot more fun to play with if her and Natalia’s lives didn’t hang in the balance. If her kids weren’t waiting for her to come home.

  And she was damned determined to get back to them.

  Simmons patted her shoulder. “Good. Good, Miss Monroe.” He rose and poured her a glass of water from a bottle on his desk. Holding it to her lips, he allowed her a few sips before setting it down. “See? Isn’t cooperating better than fighting us?”

  Not really, but she was at a slight disadvantage with her hands bound.

  “What sort of information did you collect?” Perkins asked.

  “Contract managers were getting kickbacks for circumventing the open bidding process.” The fabrication came easily. Such illegal activities happened all the time—hell, she’d been part of them—and sometimes she doubted if there was an honest soul left on the planet.

  “And Hallowell wanted in?” Simmons jumped to the perfect, albeit completely wrong, conclusion.

  Gennie nodded. Sorry, Natya, but it’s not like they’d believe the truth. Why get them angry about implicating their hero, Garces, when she could just as easily make them think she was cooperating? Either way, they would hate Natalia for her actions against the sanctity of the CMA. That line of thought almost made her laugh again.

  “What did you get out of it, Monroe? A cut of her take?” Perkins leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His pulser was still in his hand, pointed off to the side. His gaze traveled down Gennie’s body. She was a mess, bloody, dirty and disheveled, but that didn’t deter his ogling. “Some fringe benefits, maybe?”

  Gennie sat up slowly, her smile reflecting his lecherous grin. “Oh, she was into some kinky stuff, Agent Perkins. Wanna see?”

  She scooted to the edge of the seat, hooked her right foot around the leg of the chair and opened her legs slightly. Perkins stared at her crotch. Asshole.

  In one motion, Gennie levered herself up and swung her left knee into his head. He tumbled out of the chair. Still moving, hip screaming, she rammed her shoulder into the solar plexus of the agog Agent Simmons. They flew back against his desk. The SI screen crashed to the floor. Gennie head-butted his nose with her forehead. Crunch. Spinning, she caught Perkins in the face with a roundhouse kick
before he could raise his pulser. His head bounced against the door frame. He fell then lay still.

  Simmons groaned. Gennie wheeled around, kicked him in the side with what strength she could muster then in the head when he hit the ground. He didn’t move. She bent over, gasping for breath, her left side throbbing from the abuse.

  Wobbly legs nearly gave way before she could sit on the edge of the chair. Gennie worked her bound hands beneath her bottom and drew her legs through the loop of her arms. It was an agonizing task to twist her bruised hip and leg, but searching the agents’ pockets with her hands behind her back while she crouched down would be just as bad, if not worse. She was panting and sweating by the time she had her hands in front of her. She wanted to throw up.

  Perkins had been the one to secure her wrists. She checked his jacket pockets. Her stunner. Good, she’d need that; neither of the agents’ bio-coded pulsers would do her any good. Pants pockets. ID. Cred chits. Key. Bingo. The pinkie-long electronic device had to physically touch the underside of the manacles. Which meant she needed another hand. Gennie fit the key between Perkins’s fingers and angled her wrists.

  Click. The cuffs dropped to the ground.

  Gennie rose, key and stunner in hand. She eased the door open. No one in the hall. She slipped the key down her cleavage and limped into the corridor.

  * * *

  Natalia was a hair too slow to catch Garces in the nose. He realized what she was doing and turned his head. Her forehead cracked into his cheekbone. Bright lights flashed across her vision. It felt like someone was piercing her with hot knives from her forehead to the base of her skull. Fuck, that hurt.

  Garces shoved her backward. She stumbled over the chair, hit the ground hard on her left shoulder. She rolled, struck at his kneecap. Missed. Hit his shin with her heel. He howled, enraged but not incapacitated.

  Natalia twisted around, her feet lashing at Garces as he attempted to grab her. He changed direction. She rolled onto her right arm, and the world exploded into fiery red agony.

  Bastard, bastard, bastard!

  Garces seized a fistful of hair and her left arm. Yanking her head back, he dragged her to her feet. Tears streamed down Natalia’s face, as much in rage as in pain.

  “You fucking bitch,” he wheezed. “This is not going to end well for you.”

  He slammed her against the wall beside the door. Natalia felt the impact of the jolt, but nerve receptors only fired so fast and couldn’t keep up with the overload to tell her brain it hurt. Garces threw the door open and dragged her into the hall. She stumbled on the four-centi heels, somehow managing to keep on her feet. Her entire body throbbed in time with her pounding heart. If she went down now she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get up on her own, and she sure as hell didn’t want Garces to “help” her.

  “The director might not see the files,” she said, “but the news feeds and Colonial Council will. Killing me won’t change a damn thing.”

  He jerked her head around so she could see his face. One thousand hammers beat against her skull. His left eye and cheek were swollen. She’d probably cracked the bone. It felt like she’d cracked her forehead as well.

  “It will make me happy,” he said through gritted teeth.

  He lifted her arms, forcing her to walk off balance, his other hand still twisted in her hair. There were ways out of that hold; she’d been trained in a number of them. But she couldn’t feel her right arm anymore. Couldn’t distinguish where one wound began and another ended. She’d have to wait until she caught her breath, and prayed she could find Gennie.

  Garces turned her down the side hall, back toward the elevator to the garage.

  Gennie stood in the hall, blood-streaked legs wide, her lace dress little more than a rag. She held her stunner in a two-handed grip.

  Natalia had never seen a more beautiful sight in her life.

  Garces stopped. He released Natalia’s hair. At the same time, he lifted up on her arms, immobilizing her. White-hot agony seared her arm and shoulder. When she could see again, the murderous look on Gennie’s face swam into view.

  “I have no qualms about killing you.” She spoke in the same deadly voice she’d used with Helena. Gennie limped toward them. She moved slowly, but there was no question of her intent.

  Garces pressed his pulser against Natalia’s side. “Do it, and we both die.”

  Still approaching them, Gennie aimed the weapon.

  Natalia went limp, her sudden dead weight too much for Garces to hold. Her arms felt as if they’d been ripped from the sockets. She hit the carpet hard. Pain radiated throughout her body. Gennie fired.

  Garces staggered backward, his pulser flying from his hand. He crashed into the wall and slid into a sprawled sitting position, howling in pain but not incapacitated. A glancing blow, but it was enough.

  Gennie kicked his weapon down the hall. She aimed hers at his head.

  It was tempting, oh so tempting, to tell Gennie to shoot. Their anger and desire for vengeance against Garces and the Reyeses was mutual. After all he’d done to both of them, directly and indirectly, and for what he was allowing to happen in Juneau, no one would blame them.

  But she was a Colonial agent, and there were duties and honor to uphold.

  “Don’t kill him, Gennie.” Natalia used the wall to sit up. “I’d rather see him charged and go through the humiliation of a criminal trial.”

  Garces looked at her and snarled, “Bitch.”

  He reached inside his jacket—for another weapon?—but Gennie’s shot was faster. Garces went into seizures, jerking on the floor, soiling himself. After an incredibly long five seconds, he lay still.

  Gennie lowered the stunner. She limped over to Natalia and brushed her fingers along her cheek. Beneath the smeared dirt and blood, her face was etched with worry. “You okay?”

  The look alone eased some of Natalia’s hurts, though her arm was going to require some serious drugs. “Yeah, but I need to sit down.”

  “You are sitting down. Here, let’s get those things off you.”

  Gennie reached between her breasts and pulled out a manacle key. She unlocked the bindings, dropped them on the floor. She slid down the wall to sit beside Natalia, wincing all the way.

  “How’s the hip?” Natalia asked. She laid her left hand on Gennie’s right thigh.

  “Hurts like hell. How’s the arm?”

  “Hurts like hell.”

  They smiled at each other.

  The elevator door opened. Director Matthews strode toward them, wearing casual clothes that implied she’d probably been relaxing at home. She stopped near Gennie, hands on her hips and dark eyes blazing as she took in the scene at her feet.

  “This’ll be interesting.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “You’re sure about this, Agent Hallowell?” Matthews’s gaze bore into her, promising serious consequences at anything approaching an untruth.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Natalia sat up in the visitor’s chair, despite the near overwhelming desire to lay her head on the desk and sleep. The new bandage on her arm included a thicker cushioning layer, and the dose of painkillers was doing its job nicely, thank you very much.

  The four days since taking down Garces had been a blur of activity. Visits to the medicos for both her and Gennie, reassuring the kids everything was fine. The most startling of all was how fast the CMA swooped in on the Reyes Corporation. Almost immediately after Natalia gave the director the information, agents were sent to secure their operations in Pembroke. No formal arrests had been made yet, but Natalia was confident they would be forthcoming.

  Then this morning, both Natalia and Gennie had been called to the director’s office by the woman herself. Natalia had sent Gennie’s regrets, and a promise to remain availa
ble for any depositions, as she was wrapping up some personal business. Natalia wanted to accompany Gennie to Pembroke, but this was something she said she had to do alone. Besides, Gennie needed her to look after Branson and Melaine while she was gone.

  She couldn’t imagine a greater honor than to protect Gennie’s heart by caring for those she loved most in the ’Verse.

  Matthews tilted her chair back, legs crossed, and drummed her fingers on her knee. “This is a helluva black mark on the CMA. Garces is too high up in the ranks to simply sweep his involvement under the rug.”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s why I didn’t go to the news feeds. I wanted you to decide how best to handle it.” No need to tell Matthews that there’d been a comm message primed to hit every Colonial News agency on Nevarro, had Natalia or Gennie not survived.

  Matthews inclined her head. “I appreciate that, Hallowell. Garces will have a chance to make his case, of course, but from what you’ve shown us and from what we can piece together, he may have initiated the yttrium fungus trade.”

  Natalia blinked, startled. “Ma’am?”

  “We still have to corroborate, but it looks like he was the investigating agent when the Reyes woman first applied for a collection and shipping permit. He and a tech discovered the yttrium, hushed it up and made a deal with her.” Disgust crossed Matthews’s face. “We’re trying to track down the tech, but she seems to have disappeared.”

  Natalia wondered if she’d been handsomely paid off or was an unidentifiable body buried somewhere.

  “I can understand you wanting to take some time off, Hallowell, but this?” She tapped the blue data crystal on her desk. A red crystal containing the Garces-Reyes-Grand Meridian evidence, including Williams’s thorough report, sat beside it. “This is a little extreme, isn’t it?”

  Natalia glanced at the crystal that held her official resignation. Did she have any regrets? Any desire to take it all back and return to her desk? She’d spent a good portion of her life at the CMA, doing her damnedest to catch the bad guys, when there was one working just down the hall.