The drone froze for a moment, quiet whir seeming loud in the rain as it assessed its two targets. Choosing one, Alisha thought: who was more important to the Attengee’s controllers? The artificial intelligence mastering the drone would almost certainly recognize them both. She had fought the machines twice before, though remembering those battles left her heart missing beats and making sickness in her stomach. The electricity she’d used to fry one of the drones had drained her gray. She’d been in therapy for days and watched for weeks: even with the energy-absorbent armor she’d worn, the human body simply wasn’t intended to be a conduit for that much power. Her heart had come out unscarred, except for this lingering effect of recall.
And now she had neither raw electricity nor any other weapon effective against the Attengee’s glittering silver dome. A hitch formed in her breath as she ran, lancing down into the cut across her belly. She stumbled, tears of startled pain blinding her for a moment. Laser fire crackled above her head, a shot that seemed more warning than deadly, though only her clumsiness had kept it from splitting her skull. A thread of gratitude for her injuries slithered through her mind: the AI could predict zigzag evasive maneuvers she might take, but the trips and spills brought on by a damaged body were far more random, and might well keep her alive.
Especially with the silver machine turning away from her now. A flash of offense sizzled through her, as if the drone choosing Reichart as its primary target was a personal insult. Alisha gathered herself and sprang forward, reaching for one of the drone’s three ratcheting legs. It snaked out of her grasp just before her fingers closed on it, the trifold foot whipping up to snap over her face. It wasn’t large enough to wrap around her entire head, but the pressure it exerted was more than sufficient: it clamped down, squeezing bruises that were precursors to shattering bone into her skin. Too late, Alisha wondered if the machine had feinted, choosing Reichart in order to draw her closer. Stupid, she thought, but there was no more time for recriminations as she curled her fingers around the droid’s foot, focusing all her strength on the task at hand.
Strength that was already greatly weakened. Her fingers cramped and loosened as she tried to pull the clamped foot free. The welts in her arms throbbed, warnings of her own weakness, and black spots began to swim in her vision. Breathing in deeply hurt, reducing her ability to focus through her breath. Even the preternatural hearing that she was so accustomed to counting on in the midst of battle seemed faded with the force bent on crushing her skull.
It was a stupid way to die, she thought dizzily, and the worst of it was she still didn’t have all the answers about Reichart, Brandon and the Sicarii. Dying in the line of duty was something she’d always been prepared to do, but dying without answers seemed a particularly bitter pill.
She was yanked forward with such strength that for an instant Alisha thought her head might actually separate from her shoulders. Then the clamp around her head released so suddenly that it seemed outraged. Alisha, full of forward momentum, skidded across wet cobblestones on her stomach, half expecting to hear the Attengee let out an angry whine like R2-D2 might. Clarity of vision returned in a painful burst and she rolled onto her back, searching for an answer to what had released her.
The drone’s foot slapped down onto the stones beside her, clutching the time-worn rock for balance. Reichart stood a few feet away, an arm wrapped up in one of the drone’s sinuous legs. Alisha reacted before conscious understanding could form in her mind, knotting her hands around the machine’s leg. Her stomach muscles sang with pain as she tightened them, using the ground beneath her to draw strength from as she lifted and pulled the Attengee off balance, just as Reichart had done. With two of its three legs down it was stable, but with two captured, its capability was severely limited.
The silver dome that topped the drone’s tripod spun around, firing blasts that came dangerously near its own imprisoned limbs. Alisha rolled, deliberately tangling herself in the drone’s leg. Thought was dangerous now, as dangerous as it was in a knife fight. Avoiding the fire was going to be impossible. The best she might do was entangle the drone enough to allow Reichart time to escape.
The thunderous silence of battle finally descended on her, her hearing so focused she thought she could count individual raindrops splashing to the cobblestone. There was no way both she and Reichart were going to come out of the fight alive, and she was already on the ground. Even gathering herself to shout “Run!” was beyond her, all her attention on knotting up the drone’s legs sufficiently that any fire it lay down would damage itself as surely as it would destroy her.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Alisha twisted a smile. Maybe Jon had been right after all. She reached for the drone’s silver body, forcing strength into her tired hands as she curled her fingers around its laser-blasting gun. A wordless scream erupted from her throat, the sound meant to focus everything she had left into tearing the gun away from its couplings.
It loosened with a shriek of metal, not coming free. Not coming nearly free enough, Alisha realized with dismay. Her strength was even more badly diminished than she’d realized. She could twist the blaster in several inches, enough to threaten the Attengee’s body, but its own artificial intelligence warned of danger and the blaster ceased firing. It was something. Maybe not enough, but it was something.
Her own harsh breathing sounded in her ears, the only sound in the world. Alisha’s fingers felt thick as she pulled at the metallic leg she’d wrapped herself in, fumbling the drone’s foot upward to jam it into the coupling that held the blaster. A wave of exhaustion swept over her and she slumped in the bindings she’d created for herself, but even her weight relaxing didn’t release the foot from where she’d stuffed it. Gears ground, almost against her ear, and she let out a high, startled laugh. The Attengee dome’s ability to spin and fire was compromised by the damage done to it, a bonus Alisha simply hadn’t expected.
Above her, an arc of silver cut away from the sky, falling with deliberate precision that was accompanied moments later by the sound of engines whining. An out-of-place thrill stabbed through Alisha, childish glee at seeing the Doppler effect in action.
Then fire rained down from the screaming arc, laser heat as deadly and rapid as the Attengee’s. Delight turned to dread and Alisha curled herself into as small a ball as she could while still tangled in the drone’s leg, waiting for the end to come in fiery bursts. With any luck, at least Reichart might have made it out. It was enough. It would have to be.
Metal boiled and spilled in rivulets beside her, the heat so overwhelming she could smell the bitter stink of her hair singeing. A blast shattered part of the leg she lay snarled in, concussive force rather than heat. Pain lanced through her abdomen, ribs bruised if not broken, but the next breath was unexpectedly easier to take, the drone’s leg no longer crushing her. Another volley of fire and metal clanged around her, followed by an instant’s reprieve. Alisha lurched from the Attengee’s fallen body, scrambling as far as she could on hands and knees.
The alley wall stopped her before she had moved more than a few yards, and weariness kept her from moving farther. She used the wall to push herself up against, no farther than a sit, and wrapped an arm over her ribs and stomach, trying to crush the pain there away. Reichart was gone, nowhere in her line of vision, and faulty memory refused to tell her what might have happened to him. Only a vague mix of exhaustion and amused offense spilled through her, carrying the memory of his last words to her.
“That’s because we’re not dating,” she whispered to the empty air, and then, for a moment, gratefully allowed herself to slip into painless unconsciousness.
A scent worse than her scorching hair woke her. Alisha coughed, batting at the smelling salts as her forehead wrinkled hard enough to ache. “I’m awake, I’m awake. Get that stuff away from me.” She pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to push away the pain forming beneath her skin, and squinted her eyes open. Brandon Parker smiled
down at her, lopsided and apologetic.
“Sorry. I didn’t think we had time to let you come out of it on your own. You’re pretty banged up.”
“We?” Alisha let her eyes close again, holding on to the idea that Brandon was there without yet being ready to question it. “Reichart?”
“Sorry.” She could hear him shaking his head, the brush of his hair against his collar. “Just me and the Firebird.”
“You call that a we?” Alisha’s voice croaked and she swallowed, wondering if she had the energy to prop herself on an elbow. Rather than try, she squinted her eyes open again. “You look better.”
He did. Blond hair was darkened by rain, but the bruises on his throat were faded and the scrapes he’d taken from the blast force were almost healed. One, along his cheekbone, gave him a bit of a rakish air, though not the James Bond debonair that Reichart could pull off. More like Prince William after a polo match, Alisha thought, then folded her hand over her eyes to try to hide a tired chuckle. It didn’t work, and she heard the smile in Brandon’s voice, as well. “Whatever happened, it looks like you came through with your sense of humor intact. You all right?”
“No.” Alisha inhaled slowly, feeling her ribs shift and pinch with the breath. Not broken, just bruised, judging from the comparative lack of pain. “But I will be.” She dropped her hand again, focusing beyond Brandon at the inside roof of a van. “What are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you, it looks like.”
“How? I’m AWOL.”
“The Firebird.” Brandon’s smile remained apologetic. “I’ve had her hunting for you since the sun went down.”
“How’d you even know I left Washington? I thought you were still in the hospital.”
“I got a tip. Anyway, the Bird’s recognition software works from the bones out, so cosmetic changes won’t fool her.” He picked up a curl and let it fall again. “The red’s nice, but you’re going to need a haircut.”
Alisha moved her hand to her hair with a wince. “How bad? A tip from who?”
“That’d be telling. You could do a mullet,” Brandon added, grinning widely as Alisha’s lip curled. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. I came to Paris,” he said, “because you seem to have a thing about it.”
Inwardly directed irritation slid through Alisha, accompanying the memory of a clear summer night and a marriage proposal by the Seine. “I should know better.”
Brandon spread his hand dismissively. “We’ve all got our tells. So I’ve been casing the hotels all night, looking for you, anyway.”
“Nice nick-of-time arrival,” Alisha said. Brandon shook his head.
“Not really. When the Attengees came online the Firebird picked up their frequency. I was on the wrong damned side of town, but she got here fast enough.”
“She got here.” Alisha pushed up carefully, feeling stiffness in all her muscles. The van was gutted, a sawed-off pallet covered with a narrow mattress on the left side, and a cabinet she imagined might carry the Firebird set against the right. “You weren’t behind her?”
“That rescue was one hundred percent my girl,” Brandon said, proud as a new father. “All her own brain power. I was watching it on my handheld, but she pulled your bacon out all by herself.”
“And Reichart?” Alisha elbowed Brandon out of the way so she could fold herself over into a puppy dog pose, arms stretched in front of her to pull the ache from her muscles.
“I was hoping you could tell me.” Brandon kept the words carefully neutral. Alisha sat back on her heels, twisting and stretching, then centered herself, chin up as she straightened her spine.
The van’s dark interior faded away to the memory of rain spattering on the cobblestones and the mechanical whir of the Attengee drone jamming. Alisha focused on the sounds she’d heard when her hearing had finally kicked in so clearly, and let her eyes drift shut.
It was part of the training, to observe unconsciously even when the mind and body were too busy to pay close attention. In the seconds between the Attengee being yanked off balance and being jammed, what had happened?
Footsteps. Not human: the harsh clatter of another Attengee drone, but not on the cobblestones. She knew that sound intimately. This was different, digging in and clenching, rubble falling to hit the paved street below. The pattern was wrong, as well. Too many feet clinking against concrete and wood. At least six, moving spiderlike, so their sound was an almost constant rattle. No new weapons were fired, but beneath the memory of her own struggle Alisha heard a muffled, startled outburst. Reichart.
She opened her eyes, staring sightlessly through the van’s side at the Parisian walls beyond. Then, with a blink, she refocused on Brandon. “Someone’s altered your design. They’ve got a climber. They took him. Over the buildings.” Despite the trembling ache in her muscles, Alisha pushed to her feet, ducking to avoid hitting her head on the van roof. “I’ve got to get him back.”
Chapter 21
Even as she spoke, Alisha swayed on her feet, the momentary rest in asana doing too little to rejuvenate her. Brandon slid a hand under her elbow, light touch that supported her without being invasive. “Alisha,” he said gently. “Even if you were in the condition to go after him, are you sure it’s a good idea? He’s—”
Alisha lifted her hand sharply, taking her elbow out of Brandon’s grip. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t tell me he’s Sicarii. I’m sick to death of the two of you pointing fingers at one another. I swear I’m going to just shoot you both in the back of the head and be done with it.” She sat back down on the low bed, her body in agreement with Brandon’s assessment of her condition even if her mind was not.
Brandon’s answering silence was so charged she spoke through her teeth, feeling drawn into an explanation she didn’t want to give. “It’s all he-said/he-said with you two,” she muttered. “The truth is I don’t have any hard outside proof who either of you is working for. You were right. He got me into this whole Sicarii mess.” Alisha closed her eyes, then shook her head. “And as soon as I can talk to Boyer I can verify whether the rest of his story is true.”
“Boyer,” Brandon said mildly. “The director whose orders you’re blatantly disobeying right now?”
“At this point I think he’s at the bottom of a long list of people I’m ignoring.” Alisha looked up. “I need to know, Brandon. I need to know who you’re really working for, and I can’t trust you to tell me. The Sicarii treat you as one of their own.” She rubbed her fingers together, sudden tactile memory coming back to her. “You even carry things with their emblem on it, don’t you? That lighter you lent me in Rome.”
Brandon put a hand in his pocket and came out with the lighter, rotating it between his fingertips to offer to her. “This?”
Alisha closed her eyes again as she took it, brushing her thumb over its smooth surface. Nearly smooth: a crown marred the silver, so faint it was difficult to discern with the eyes alone. “Yeah.”
“That was a gift from my father, Alisha. He gave it to me when he quit smoking. The Sicarii symbol is the circle of daggers. I’ve never seen them use any other emblem.”
The lighter felt abruptly heavy in Alisha’s hand, the warmth from Brandon’s pocket fleeing it. “From Greg?”
“He gave it to me when I was seventeen.” Brandon sighed. “Don’t tell me you’ve been holding it against me all this time.”
“I didn’t know he’d ever smoked.” Alisha stared at the lighter, light-headed with surprise and tiredness. It made her feel fragile, as though her preconceptions had been placed on edge and all it would take was one solid thump to shatter them irrevocably.
Compartmentalization, Leesh, she whispered, silently mocking herself. This is why they preach it. Because emotional investment was too complicated and too dangerous. It led to bad assumptions and often to worse choices.
It led, Alisha thought wearily, to safety-deposit boxes scattered around the world, each containing a journal that her heart was poured out into. Her way of marking passage th
rough a world that went largely unknown to people outside the espionage business. It led to shots fired by lovers, in hopes of saving lives, and it led to betrayals by partners, all in the name of a greater ideology. Alisha lowered her head into the spread fingers of one hand. Emotional investment would very likely be the death of her, but she had experienced the cold isolation of the alternative, and it was unthinkable.
Brandon sat down beside her, dropping his chin to his chest. “He had a real thing about that particular lighter. Never used any other one to light a cigarette. So giving it to me was a big commitment to quitting smoking. You really thought I was hiding something with it.”
“One of a hundred little things that made me think I shouldn’t trust you,” Alisha said, speaking into her hand. “An innocuous thing like a lighter.” She lifted her head again, feeling its weight, and turned her focus on Brandon. “Simone’s cleared you. God, I am so tired of not trusting people. Of feeling like I’m always looking over my shoulder.”
Brandon pulled a brief smile. “You are a spy, Alisha.”
She shook her head. “This is different. The last year, fifteen months, it’s been different. Not being sure that the people I’m surrounded with really are the good guys. Not knowing if Greg’s got some kind of agenda I don’t know about or whether you’re a double agent or—”
“Or if Frank Reichart really is as mercenary as he’s proved himself to be over and over again?” Brandon asked a little wryly. Alisha exhaled and looked away, shaking her head.
“I don’t want to talk about Reichart. I’ve got to get out of here and rescue his sorry ass, but you’re right.” She heard the aggrieved edge come into her voice and lost the brief struggle to modulate it away. She could, if she had to, retain perfect control over her tone and delivery, but for the moment it was a blessing not to have to. To feel as though she was safe, and with someone she could trust. It was a relief to let the facade go for a few minutes. “I’m too beat-up and too damned tired to be more than a danger to myself and anybody else right now. The last thing that’s going to do any good is going on a wild-goose chase with no idea where I’m going or what I’ll be up against when I get there. Can the Firebird track the Attengee drones without being detected?” The question came abruptly, a moment of clarity interrupting her tiredness. Brandon glanced at the cabinet, eyebrows lifted.
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