“Why isn’t it firing on us?” Reichart’s voice was low and full of tension. Alisha’s shoulders shared that tension, so tight they felt like steel bands around her neck.
“I don’t know. Unless they still don’t want us dead.”
“Then what do they want!”
“I don’t know, Reichart,” Alisha said, keeping her tone deliberately quiet. She shoved a gun through the window between the cab and the truck bed, lodging it in the passenger footwell before climbing through the window herself, Glock in hand. “I do know I don’t want Brandon’s baby following us home.” She rolled the window down, pressing the lock closed with her hip as she swung herself into the window, weight balanced on the frame. Wind, kicked up by the speed they traveled at, tried to whip her hair around her face, but could find no purchase. For a startled moment, Alisha felt a surge of pleasure at the new haircut, as if it thwarted nature’s master plan.
“Be careful,” Reichart said, so quietly she almost missed it. Alisha cast a lopsided smile at the Firebird’s rear thrusters, bringing her gun up to sight her shot. A .45 seemed like such a pathetic weapon against the sleek piece of technology soaring in front of them.
Any keep is only as strong as its weakest point, Leesh. The road wasn’t as smooth as she’d like, making the chance of her shots going wild that much greater, but an Attengee drone would already have assessed her as a threat. There was no time to hope for smoother paths. Alisha fired, three rapid shots that drowned out the wind howling by her ears. A pause, barely longer than a heartbeat, to determine if she’d done any damage, and she squeezed off three more shots, her target the rear thrusters.
The fifth shot hit, an explosion of sparks and smoke. The Firebird lurched and Reichart yanked the wheel to the side, getting out of its path. Alisha squealed, grabbing on to the truck’s roof as it skidded beneath the aerial combat unit. The Firebird turned on a wingtip, following the vehicle’s path, and sleek cutaways opened beneath the drone’s wingspan. “Good,” Alisha said through her teeth. “We just moved up to clear and present danger.” She dug her fingers into the truck’s roof, firing off more shots. One shattered a wingtip laser preparing to fire, the shot so unlikely that for an instant Alisha’s jaw dropped. She knew she could make it in a controlled environment, but having it hit in the middle of combat seemed like a godsend.
The Firebird winged higher into the air, as if retreating long enough to better assess the situation. “Come around!” Alisha bellowed. “I need to get the other thruster!” She slid into the truck, banging against the dashboard as Reichart threw the vehicle into reverse and yanked the wheel around. “Four shots left, if you need them.” She dropped the .45 on the seat beside her and dove for the second weapon she’d prepped. Reichart gave her a tight smile as she straightened up again.
“I do so love a woman with a machine gun,” he said beneath the shriek of tires. Alisha returned the smile and bent herself backward out the window, bringing the gun out above her chest. Laser fire rained down, smashing steaming holes into the earth and asphalt around the truck.
“Hurry,” Reichart said, too quietly to be heard. Alisha picked the word out anyway, battle-trained senses searching for every advantage or threat they might find. Reichart was right: it would only take one direct hit from molten light to end their chance of escape for good. She squeezed the trigger, sending up a spray of bullets that clanged and bounced off the Firebird’s gleaming surface, barely scarring it.
“I swear to God I’m going to kick his ass,” she breathed, not expecting to be heard. Reichart’s laughter startled her, sharp and angry.
“Not if I get to him first, sweetheart. Hold on.” The truck leaped forward with such violence Alisha slid along the window frame, cracking her arm against the edge. “That’s gonna leave a mark,” Reichart said without apology.
“And it was my good arm, too.” Alisha pulled the trigger again, hearing bullets scream through the air and shatter against the Firebird above. Several smashed back down, bouncing off it to penetrate the bed of the truck as Reichart’s driving left the flying machine a few yards behind. Alisha rolled, still firing a wide arc of noise.
Metal screeched and erupted, smoke billowing in thick white waves as the Firebird took another critical hit to its thrusters and slammed into the ground at full speed. Alisha let herself relax for half a breath, collapsing forward over the door, then shoved herself upright and back into the cab. “We should stop and pick it up.”
“You’re strong, Alisha, but you’re not fireproof.” Reichart spoke through compressed lips, inhaling sharply as he pulled the truck back onto the road.
“Reich—Jesus Christ, Reichart, you’re hit.” Daylight streamed in through holes punctured in the cab roof, bullets sizzling in the truck’s front seat.
“Just a scratch,” Reichart muttered. Alisha dropped the M16 and pulled her legs up on the bench seat, turning to face Reichart. A long score ran down his biceps, skin blistered and red, oozing blood. “I told you,” he said. “Just a scratch.”
“It still needs taking care of.” Alisha leaned in to set her teeth against the shoulder seam of his shirt, ready to tear the material. Reichart jerked away.
“Leesh, let it be.”
Alisha sat back on her heels, rolling her tongue inside her mouth, then nodded. “Yell if you see anything else coming after us,” she said flatly. “I’m going to see if I can get Erika back.” She crawled into the bed of the truck without waiting for an answer.
Weight smacked her hip bone as she wriggled through the narrow opening. Alisha sat down on a wheel hub, reaching for the comm unit as she dipped her hand into the jacket pocket to see what had knocked against her hip. Her fingers brushed body-warm metal and a missed heartbeat hit her in the throat, a deep thud that made swallowing uncomfortable. She traced the box with her fingertips, staring sightlessly at the truck’s far wall.
Curiosity impelled the cat. Alisha had no discernible reason for having slipped the box out of Helen’s pocket and into her own, only a lingering sense of misplaced possession. She knew she’d taken it, but could only just remember having done it, as if the reasoning that had prompted her to disappeared when looked at head-on. She glanced toward the cab of the truck: Reichart’s gaze, reflected in the rearview mirror, was on the road, intense with concentration. Alisha knew that intensity, having felt it within herself. It was the look of a man with a single goal in mind, that one purpose allowing him to push away any other thoughts that might intrude. He wouldn’t notice much of anything Alisha did, short of beginning to fire her weapon again. She slid the box from her pocket, palming it.
Black, heavy stainless steel, the surface unscarred, too dense to be marked. Barely larger than a portable disk drive, but considerably weightier. Alisha had only held it for a moment, before Reichart and Helen made off with it.
She’d assumed Reichart had had it all along. Alisha rubbed her thumb over the smooth material. You know what they say about assume, Leesh. It makes an ass out of u and me. She folded the box into the sleeve of Reichart’s jacket, hiding it before asking, “Who were you supposed to deliver the box to, anyway?” Her voice was hoarse and rough, much worse than it had been only moments earlier. Reichart shot a look at her via the rearview mirror.
“That was the drop at the cathedral. It was my final trading card to prove I was with the Sicarii. I don’t know why the hell they wanted it. I just know delivering it was what gave them the all-clear on me. If I’d turned over the wrong thing they wouldn’t have shown up at the hotel. Or they’d have shown up with guns.”
“They did show up with guns, Frank. I don’t think they were going to welcome you into the fold. I think you got used.” The box’s weight against her arm felt deadly, like it would drag her down into hell if she wasn’t eternally vigilant. “Did Helen know where you were staying?”
Reichart’s silence gave her all the answers she needed. Alisha traced the box beneath the leather and studied the floor, feeling cold. Worse than cold. Remote. Dis
tanced. Exhausted. Despite the bumps in the road that jostled her body, she felt unattached from her own flesh as thought scattered randomly through her mind.
There had been three trucks in the Firebird’s playback. Three vehicles that had stopped near the French countryside field, before the static blitz that had brought the glider down. Alisha could see them in her mind’s eye, blocks of darkness that went suddenly black as the electric lights in the night-vision recordings were shut down.
And, as clearly, she could see the two trucks parked in the cavern, kitty-corner to one another. Two, just two. The third had gone on.
But not before the veiled blond woman had passed the black box to Helen. Alisha closed her eyes, almost able to see it for all that she hadn’t been there. Helen, who was waiting for Brandon to deliver Alisha. Brandon, who had developed the Firebirds, and who would be best suited to unraveling any secrets held in the downed glider’s black box. The scenario fit together with a click that sent a shudder of unhappiness up Alisha’s spine.
Played. Used. Whatever the word was, she’d been taken in, and so had Reichart. The only thing that didn’t fit was why Brandon had given them a chance to escape.
Alisha lifted her gaze, turning it to the blank wall across from her. Ransom, Helen had said. Bait, Alisha now translated that. The Sicarii were counting on Alisha and Reichart to be able to draw someone out.
“Don’t let…” Alisha’s voice was rough again, and she shook her head as she reactivated Erika’s communicator. “Erika?”
“You’re still alive?”
“Yeah.” Alisha cleared her throat. “For the moment, anyway. E, you can’t let anybody come after us. No agents, no backup, nothing. Nobody. Don’t let them send anybody. I don’t know what’s going on, but I think we’re being used to flush somebody out.”
“Ali, you’re totally AWOL. If anybody comes after you, it’s not going to be backup, it’s going to be a retrieval team.”
“Right.” Alisha put her head against the truck wall, feeling the short curls bristle against metal. “Don’t let them do it.”
“Yeah,” Erika drawled. “Me and my army, we’ll stop the Agency from taking you down, eh?”
“I mean it, Erika. I’ll get back to you…” Alisha turned her head to look beyond Reichart’s shoulder, out the windshield. “When I can, E. When I can.” She blipped the comm off and turned it over, depressing the shallow button that deactivated it entirely.
The hotel was seedy and on the wrong side of Paris from where they’d dumped the truck, but no one would ask questions or even remember they’d been there, come morning. Alisha felt the key card in her hip pocket that would have let them into Mona’s much nicer room in a far posher part of the city, and gave a groaning sigh. The accommodations might be lacking, but at least she could sit still and feel hidden for a while. Hidden, but filthy. She thought she might never be clean or unbruised again.
Reichart was already in the shower. Had been for more than forty minutes, in fact, long enough for Alisha to leave and return with rudimentary first-aid equipment. Paranoia had prompted her to crack the bathroom door open when she came back, making sure Reichart was actually still in the shower, and hadn’t disappeared in the minutes she’d been gone. He’d felt the wave of cold air and pushed the shower curtain back, staring at her without curiosity or challenge, all the emotion and expression bleached from his face. Alisha had said nothing over the sound of falling water, only closed the door again before retreating to the bed.
The black box was a dead weight in her pocket, dragging her down with its undisclosed answers. Alisha folded a leg under herself and took the box out, running her fingers over it. Such a small thing, she thought, to carry the burden it did. It could be her keys to the kingdom, allowing her back into the CIA fold without much more than a reprimand and some counseling.
She breathed a laugh, shaking her head as she considered the idea. No: she’d gone too far this time. She’d deliver the box to Boyer, but she didn’t see it as her redemption. Redemption required regret, and she had none for walking away.
The shower shut off and Alisha doubled over the edge of the bed, sliding the box under the mattress’s box spring. A lousy hiding place, but Reichart didn’t have any reason to go looking for it, so she trusted it would go unnoticed.
Reichart. She could hear him banging around in the bathroom, using ferocious motions where an economy would do. She clenched her stomach muscles, then her teeth as she heard a crash and a curse. Her feet acted without her command, taking her off the bed and into the steamy bathroom. Reichart was already half dressed, grubby jeans still unbuttoned. Alisha stepped into the room behind him and put her arms around his waist, feeling his muscles go rigid. “Beating yourself up isn’t going to bring her back.”
Reichart yanked away, both at the words and the touch. Alisha lurched back a step, her lips pressed together as Reichart scowled down at her. “It’s none of your goddamned business, Leesh.”
“Yeah, it is. I’m sorry, Frank.” Guilt was an emotion she thought she should feel, but in its place was regret.
“She made her choices. So did we. So,” he said in a lower growl, “did Parker. Leave me alone.”
“No.” Alisha watched the man’s hands knot and unknot, cords and veins flexing into relief in his forearms. “You want to hit something, Reichart?” She could hear the thread of sad humor in her voice as she spread her hands. “Come and get me.”
Another growl erupted from his throat and he spun away, throwing a bunched fist at the mirror. Alisha was faster, stepping into him and knocking the blow askew. His knuckles scraped the wall and fury exploded across his face. Alisha ground her fingers around his wrist, staring up at him. “I know she made her choices. I’m still sorry. That wasn’t how I hoped it would go.”
“We’d both do the same thing again in a heartbeat, Alisha.” Reichart pulled his arm back, but Alisha wouldn’t let go of the grip on his wrist.
“I know.” Regret, but no guilt, she thought. Compassion, but no regrets. Funny how one emotion could blur into another so easily, and be left behind even more easily. Thousands of hours of training and habit had left more mark than she wanted to admit, sometimes. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t mourn her.”
“Did you?” Reichart’s voice was harsh, and he pulled away more solidly, breaking Alisha’s grip. “After Rome, did you mourn what you thought I’d become?”
Alisha let him go, rubbing her hand over the bruising on her forearm as she leaned against the bathroom counter. “Why does it always come down to hotel rooms and dark secrets with us?” She put the question more to herself than Reichart, and closed her eyes, tilting her head back as memories skidded through her mind. The black blossom of pain in her shoulder from a gunshot wound. A glimpse more than four years ago of Frank Reichart on a London street, playing the part of a family man. Engagement rings and high-drama rescues: all the parts that made up her relationship with Frank Reichart. Dr. Peggy Reyes, asking intense questions, watching Alisha’s every move and listening carefully to her choice of words as she discussed her former fiancé. Everything, every step, every play and every ploy, leading to where she stood now, facing a question she barely knew the answer to.
Alisha opened her eyes and looked up at the anger and pain hiding behind Reichart’s expression. “No,” she said quietly. “I never did. I was too angry and too hurt, and I’ve never gotten over it. I thought I had, but here I am.” She spread her hands, encompassing herself and Reichart with the gesture. “Still struggling to understand my place in your world. Your place in mine. I walked out of a job I loved because after all these years I couldn’t keep going without having those answers.” She sighed and turned away, putting her hands on the counter as she dropped her chin to her chest. “Don’t let Helen do the same thing to you, Frank. Mourning and moving on is better than hanging in an emotional limbo.”
“Alisha.” There was hesitation in Reichart’s voice, weary and uncertain. Alisha lifted her head, meeti
ng his eyes in the mirror. “Alisha, you know I never stopped—”
“Don’t.” Alisha interrupted harshly, shaking her head. “Don’t. Don’t say that, Reichart. Not right now.” Her stomach muscles contracted with denial, as if she could cut off the confession through pure physical desire to do so. Tightening the skin made her suddenly aware of how badly the cut across her belly itched and she straightened convulsively, flexing her fingers wide-open to keep from scratching. “Grrgh.”
“You all right?” Reichart turned her around before she could protest, tugging her shirt up to examine the cut. Action, Alisha thought distantly. Better for both of them than awkward words, or worse, silences.
“I’m fine. It’s healing.”
“You should take a shower,” Reichart said abruptly. “Put some lotion on it to soften it up some. It’ll help the itching.” He stepped back, the distance between them suddenly seeming far greater than just a step or two. Alisha put her hand out, semiconsciously wanting to bridge that space. Her fingers brushed his stomach and he inhaled a sharp, deep breath before grating out, “Don’t,” as he caught her fingers. “I’m not in the mood for playing, Leesh. I’m not—”
“I’m not playing.” Alisha’s body ached without warning, so intense she felt like her head was floating. Reichart stood frozen for an instant, then stepped closer. Close enough to ghost his hand across the cut on her belly, sending a dizzying wave of itchy pain and want trumpeting through her. She dragged in air, savoring the hard pulse of desire that thumped in her groin and shot upward. Reichart knelt, unexpectedly submissive, and put his hands on her hips. Not possessive: Alisha was familiar with possession in his touch, and there was none of it now. It was more as if he sought to draw strength from her, and it made a new swell of want run through her, tingling in her breasts and making her cheeks hot with color. Alisha put her hand out to steady herself and found nowhere to put it but into Reichart’s hair.
His shoulders slumped at the touch, his eyes closing as he leaned in to put his forehead against her stomach. “Alisha.” His breath was warm, spilling over her skin like a promise. She curled her other hand into his hair, bending over his head to kiss the dark strands.
The Firebird Deception Page 21