The Firebird Deception

by Dermody, Cate

  “Besides,” she repeated, bringing voice to thought again, “the software didn’t have the drone schematics in it, and these look like yours. I don’t think it was Reichart, Brandon. It had to have been someone else.” It could have been you.

  “At least three FSB officers saw the Attengee that you disabled—”

  Alisha’s eyebrows shot up. “Disabled?”

  Brandon grinned faintly. “Destroyed. Credit where credit is due, eh?” Alisha huffed a satisfied breath and he went on. “The drone you destroyed. They may have built their Attengees according to description.”

  “The software was corrupted,” Alisha said.

  “Did you check it?”

  “I wouldn’t know how,” Alisha admitted. “But Erika wouldn’t have let me down.” She smiled at the memory of the technical geek shooing her out of the hotel room so she could work in peace. “Even if I wasn’t able to score her the German guy.”

  “What?”

  Alisha refocused on Brandon, then chuckled. “Nothing.” Erika and Brandon had dated once upon a time. He hardly needed to know the details of his ex-girlfriend’s love life.

  He gave her a curious frown, but let it go. “Even assuming you’re correct and the software was corrupted, a decent programmer would be able to extrapolate and rebuild from what was there.” He fell silent a moment, then amended, “A brilliant programmer.”

  “Credit where credit’s due, eh?” Alisha gave him a faint smile that he returned wholeheartedly as he leaned forward.

  “Alisha, listen. You could be right. They could’ve gotten the Attengee software and schematics from elsewhere. But will you accept that I could be right, too?” His smile turned into a small frown, a wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows. “I know this crap with Reyes and Reichart’s got you antsy right now, and I don’t blame you. Just…make sure you’re not having knee-jerk reactions in the opposite direction because of it, okay? Is that fair to ask?”

  Alisha looked down at the photographs, then put them face down on the table as she picked up her coffee mug again, inhaling the sweet scent. “Yeah,” she finally said. “Yeah, it’s fair.” More than fair, she thought, and gritted her teeth before putting the mug down and meeting Brandon’s gaze. “You’re right.” The words came hard-won, but she tried to make them gracious instead of simply angry. “Normally Reichart would be number one on my list of usual suspects. I’m just too pissed off to see straight right now. And…” She drew in a deep breath through her nose, tightening her hands around the mug. “I appreciate you believing in me.”

  Brandon’s smile went wry. “I hope someday you’ll return the sentiment.”

  She should have seen that coming, Alisha thought, and gave him a faint smile in return. “Help me save the world from the FSB Attengees and Frank Reichart, and I just might.”

  “Any idea how to start?”

  Alisha lifted her chin, looking around at the low Paris buildings until high-rises took the horizon away. “Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “I think we use you as bait.”

  Chapter 6

  Rain pooled in the small of Alisha’s back, a constant cool pressure against fabric that had not, as yet, allowed the water to seep through. She squirmed forward a few inches, feeling the water shift and run down over the curve of her waist as she dislodged it, then begin to collect again. She hadn’t known there was enough depth between hip and rib to make the tiny reservoir, and, she thought with an inaudible sigh, she could have gone her whole life without finding out.

  She suspected she’d been inside the building she lay on top of, a building Brandon Parker had entered only a few minutes earlier. Suspected, but couldn’t prove it: she’d been a captive at the time, never seeing more than a single dark room. Brandon hadn’t told her anything about where he was going. She assumed he had the wit to know she’d follow him.

  Alisha curved a brief smile, peeking down over the roof’s edge toward the ground three stories below. If he didn’t know she’d followed him, all the better. She’d fully meant it when she’d made the plan to use Brandon as bait. Dragging him to Rome and sending him back to the Sicarii safe house he knew best was the first step of that. But it could go both ways. Trailing him gave her the opportunity to discover if he was genuinely loyal to the Agency, or if he’d been waiting for a chance to betray them all again.

  To betray me again, Alisha amended wordlessly. Her stake in the matter was personal, and she felt no apology or remorse for that. She slid a rope over the building’s side, the black slithery snake of it invisible against the darkness and the rain. A few good tugs made sure it was secured on the rooftop, and she slipped over the edge, rope wound around one thigh and calf as she lowered herself a few inches at a time.

  There’d been no guards to disable on the Roman town house grounds. No dogs, no surveillance cameras; nothing to alert neighbors to the building being anything other than strictly ordinary. She’d come across rooftops to this house, making quick use of her pitoned rope to gain access to the more difficult slate-covered roofs. By the time the rain-muffled noise of the piton hitting stone alerted anyone, she had gone on to the next house, lithe and quick in the wet night.

  The first darkened window was to her left now. Alisha pushed off from the building wall, swinging a little so she could glance inside. Her own reflection came back to her: a close-fitting black hood, keeping her hair dry. Water tangled in her eyelashes and dripped off her nose; wetness on her cheeks gave a sheen of good health and attractiveness even in the darkness. Strong shoulders and a slender black-clad form, and through the mirror of herself, an undisturbed bedroom. Alisha stopped her bouncing swing and tested the window, mildly exasperated to find it locked. Who needed to lock third-floor windows? It wasn’t as though anybody habitually gained entrance at that level.

  Nor, Alisha thought a moment later as she slid a thin piece of metal between the sill and the frame, would an ordinary window lock stop anyone who genuinely wanted to enter through a third-story window. The catch inside slid aside with a tiny flaking of paint, and Alisha levied the window open a few centimeters before returning her wedge to a narrow pocket on her suit’s outer thigh.

  She hesitated on the windowsill a few seconds, long enough to ascertain that there were no pressure sensors beneath rugs strewn across the stone floors, then slipped all the way inside. Water spilled off her shoulders, pattering down to the floor in splats that sounded much louder to her ears than they really were. Alisha unzipped the throat of her jacket to tug a chamois cloth out, running the soft absorbent material over her body, then over the floor, wiping up evidence of her arrival. She twisted the extra water out the window, then closed it behind her, sliding the chamois back into her jacket and pulling a face at its clammy coldness.

  A light blazed at the end of the hallway outside the door, but there was no glow from beneath other doors; the third floor as a whole appeared to be as deserted as the room Alisha had entered through. She ran through the hall and down the stairs on her toes, keeping to the outer edges, where any dampness she left behind would be less likely to be found by stockinged feet.

  Not until the ground floor were doors open and lights on, incandescent light spilling into the hallways from the kitchen, dining room and well-appointed living room. But there were no voices, no footsteps beyond Alisha’s own, despite having watched Brandon enter not ten minutes earlier.

  A sheen of water, almost dried, caught the corner of her eye. Alisha turned her head, watching it fade away as she looked at it directly. A quick smile curved her mouth and she glanced away again, watching it reappear like a star too dim to be seen outside of peripheral vision.

  A second wet mark, a man’s stride farther away, made a slightly darker spot on the narrow carpet that lined the hall. Alisha darted forward, matching her steps to the marks on the carpet and stone, and stopped outside the kitchen door, pressed against the wall as she listened. Still no voices. The facade of an ordinary household was a thin one, here. Alisha slipped inside the kitchen door,
taking in the Tuscany-colored walls and counters with a glance, though her focus was on the drying footprints that led to a pantry door. If there were guards at all, they’d be beyond that door, she thought, and for the first time she hesitated.

  It would have been vastly easier to bug Brandon, but utterly pointless. The Sicarii would never trust him, not openly, not immediately, and sending him into the situation carrying a wire of any sort would spell his death sentence out in low-level transmissions. Alisha might not trust him, but she didn’t want his blood on her hands, either.

  If there were guards, the Sicarii would be alerted to her presence, and Brandon would be compromised. Alisha mouthed a curse and crossed the kitchen, pressing her ear against the warm dark wood of the pantry door. For a few seconds her own heartbeat echoed back at her, but it faded into unimportance as she drew a slow, steadying breath and focused her hearing.

  Nothing. Nothing she could hear, at least. Alisha eased the door open, wishing it opened inward instead of out, although out was a much more reasonable choice for a pantry. A grin flashed across her face and she shook her head minutely. The odds were better than even that a fight was waiting beyond the door, and she was making silent architectural commentary. You’re jaded, Leesh.

  The only thing waiting beyond the door was the heady scent of spices, garlic tangled with the sharper smells of tarragon and sage. Alisha took one deep appreciative breath, holding the door to let light into the pantry as she searched the floor.

  Round spots of water, the remnants of drips, spattered the floor at the far end of the pantry. Alisha squinted, taking one step back to consider the depth of the spice closet, then clucked her tongue inaudibly. Very nice, she mouthed, unwilling to speak aloud. The false wall at the back of the pantry was very likely as old as the house itself, stone appearing naturally aged. Had she not been looking, she might never have noticed the slight shortness to the pantry’s depth. Even knowing it was there, it was easy to doubt her own sense of spatial relations, figuring the width of the house in accord with the depth of the rooms she’d been in.

  But one stone at knee height had a smooth spot worn into it, almost unnoticeable. Alisha crouched and pressed her black-clad fingers against it, lips pulled back from her teeth in a grimace that anticipated the noisy scrape of stone against stone.

  Instead, an entire section of the wall slid backward several inches, stopping a finger’s width deeper than its neighboring stone, and slid to the left without a single sound. Alisha found herself grinning in astonished delight at the workmanship involved in the hidden door: the door itself would never be scraped up by the wall it hid behind when opened, thus making it all the more likely to remain secret.

  The real wall behind the false was carved with handholds, making a ladder that descended into darkness. There was perhaps as much as fifteen inches depth between the walls; even Alisha, whose frame was slender and strong from yoga practice, found herself holding her breath as she clambered down the ladder. No one carrying extra weight on his body would be comfortable entering the hidden passage, and anyone with a tendency toward fat simply wouldn’t fit at all.

  Thank God for modern clothes and fabrics, Alisha thought as she dropped to a stone floor. She couldn’t imagine making her way down that ladder in the clothes of the house’s era, five hundred years earlier.

  Of course, as a woman, she’d have been extraordinarily unlikely to have the option to explore such passages, five hundred years earlier. Let’s hear it for women’s lib, she thought irreverently as she turned her back to the wall, pressing herself into shadows so she could examine the hall she’d come out into. Damp, cool air smelled faintly, but not unpleasantly, of moss and mold; the house almost certainly had a wine cellar, separated from this passageway by thick stone walls. Electric lamps, spaced wide apart and filled with dim bulbs, scattered handsful of light down the unguarded hall in front of her. It angled away, cutting deeper into the earth than Alisha had expected.

  A faint click sounded above her. Alisha looked up to see the faint light from the pantry disappear as the door closed again. She crouched, back still to the wall, and examined the stones at knee height there, finding none with the telltale smoothness that suggested a lever or a button that would trigger the door. A cursory search of the rest of the wall found nothing, either, though Alisha was certain it had to be there.

  Maybe not, she scolded herself. Maybe the entrance was so easily accessed because it couldn’t be used as an exit. Maybe getting out was going to be the problem.

  She scowled into the dim hall and began a loping run down its slow descent. If leaving was going to be problematic, she might as well learn everything she possibly could before tackling that issue. Brandon Parker was somewhere in the dark in front of her. She’d learn what she could from his behavior, and worry about escape later.

  That attitude, Leesh, is going to get you killed someday.

  At least it would be interesting. Though why getting killed only qualified as interesting was a thought better pursued another time. The passage took a sudden sharp turn, its downward slope becoming a staircase cut out of earth and stone, spiraling deeper into the ground. If this was indeed the same building she’d been held at fifteen months earlier, there had to be another passage out. Alisha couldn’t imagine someone bothering to carry her unconscious body down the pantry ladder, or this tight-wound stairway. She took the steps quickly and silently, listening for voices or movement ahead of her.

  “You’ve taken a long time to return with your hat in your hand.” A woman’s alto, speaking Russian, echoed so suddenly that Alisha went still, unable to pinpoint the speaker’s location. She stayed where she was, hand against the round wall, her head tilted in concentration as she listened.

  “I’ve been in custody,” Brandon said in the same language the woman used. His Russian was marred by a slight American accent, unlike the woman’s. “I came as soon as I could.”

  “But not soon enough.” Venom slipped into the woman’s voice. Venom, and something familiar. Alisha frowned, trying to place it, but the recognizable note was lost in the woman’s liquid accusation: “The CIA must also have Attengees, now. Our advantage is lost.”

  “They do.” Brandon sounded steady and calm, not like a man bargaining for his life. “They also have the next generation of my combat drones, the Firebird aerial models. I’m coming back to you with those schematics and that software. Openhanded.”

  “And you expect us to believe you.” A murmur of agreement washed up the stairwell, two or three more individuals, at least one of which was another woman. Alisha began her passage down the stairs again, hesitating between each step to listen and try to ascertain Brandon’s position.

  “I’d be surprised as hell if you believed me. On the other hand, I’ve been cavity searched and swept for electronics, so if I’m here on behalf of the Company or any other agency, I’m sure as hell not doing them any good. Assuming I walk out of here at all, I won’t be walking out with anything like proof.” Chagrin crept into Brandon’s tone as he spoke. Alisha grinned at her feet as she made her way farther down the stairs. She hadn’t been sure they’d subject Parker to the indignities of a complete body search. Just as well for her, she thought. It had put off Brandon’s conversation with the Sicarii long enough for Alisha to trail him into the catacombs beneath the house.

  The clarity of sound cut off as Alisha stepped out of the stairwell, still pressing herself to the shadows between electric lights. Her lip curled, as much of a curse as she could allow herself, and she darted a few steps higher again, until the voices were no longer muffled.

  “—king with?”

  “Agent MacAleer.”

  “Alisha MacAleer,” the woman said. She sounded unexpectedly comfortable with the name, and a thrill of nervousness spliced through Alisha’s stomach. Brandon hadn’t stepped outside the boundaries of what needed to be said, but still, she could have done without the Sicarii being reminded of her existence. “Of course,” the woman breathed.
Hairs lifted on Alisha’s arms, familiarity niggling at her again at the softness in the voice. “Perhaps if you deliver her to us I’ll consider the rest of your proposal at face value.”

  “How long do I have?” Brandon’s response was steady, uncompromising. Just as it had been when he’d turned her over to the Sicarii once before, fifteen months earlier. Alisha allowed herself the luxury of fisting her hands, then flexed the fingers wide in a deliberate release of tension.

  “Three days,” the woman said, so carelessly Alisha could imagine the shrug that went with the words. “If you haven’t delivered, you’ll be terminated. You should have stayed in hiding, Dr. Parker.”

  Brandon’s voice dropped so low Alisha could barely hear him. “Even the power behind the throne has to come out into daylight sometimes.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” Dissonant harshness came into the woman’s voice. “Positions of that much power are reserved for players who’ve been in the game far longer than you have, Parker. Be sure your reach does not too far exceed your grasp.”

  “Else what’s a heaven for,” Brandon said. “I didn’t think you had any poetry in your soul, Phoenix.”

  Phoenix. The English word leaped out of the conversation, making a frown wrinkle into Alisha’s forehead. A code name, not nearly as useful as it might have been. But then, it was better than nothing, and if she was careful she might be able to work the Phoenix’s real name out of Brandon.

  Enough, she decided, and took two quick steps back up the stairs, deciding on the wisdom of escape over further intelligence. She’d heard enough to be able to check anything Brandon said to her in his report against what had really been said. It was enough.