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The Firebird Deception

Page 22

by Dermody, Cate


  “This is a terrible idea,” she whispered. Reichart laughed, rough against her belly.

  “Do you care?”

  “No.” Alisha dropped down to her knees, slowly folding herself into Frank Reichart’s arms to make the biggest mistake she would never regret.

  Chapter 26

  The subtle sound of the clock flipping its numbers over awakened Alisha. It read 6:05, though whether that was morning or evening she had no idea. Reichart was still asleep behind her, sprawled over two-thirds of the bed. Alisha smiled tiredly, letting her eyes drift shut again for a few moments. She was still on the edge of sleep herself, her breathing unchanged, or Reichart would have woken already. There was going to be all kinds of hell to pay later, but for the moment she felt absurdly content, warm and safe.

  And she had a package to deliver to Boyer. Alisha’s eyes opened again, though her smile didn’t fade. It was just as well, she thought, that she’d slipped the black box under the bed before Reichart had the opportunity to undress her. Its presence was something she had no interest in explaining.

  And you get annoyed at lies of omission when other people tell them, Leesh, she thought with an audible snort. Reichart woke with a flinch, sitting halfway up. Alisha looked over her shoulder at him, still smiling, and rolled to trace her fingers over the bunched muscles in his stomach. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  Reichart relaxed back into the mattress, then yawned through his nostrils until the breath became too big to contain. “’S all right.” He rolled over, tucking Alisha up against him. She chuckled and unwound his arm from around her waist, then got up and went in search of her jeans. “Where’re you going?” followed her, muzzy voice suggesting Reichart was barely awake. It wasn’t a bet she’d place money on: he was fully capable of wreaking havoc when awakened from a dead sleep.

  “I have to talk to Erika.” Alisha’s clothes—Reichart’s, too—were piled one on top of another in the bathroom. She rooted through them, upending her jeans and sending the communicator falling to the floor with a clink.

  “Eh?” Reichart sat halfway up again as Alisha came out of the bathroom, one hand raised to assure him nothing was amiss. She crawled back onto the bed, yawning, and thumbed the comm on.

  “God, there you are,” Erika said instantly. “I was starting to think you were dead, eh? It’s been hours. Where are you?”

  “Sorry.” Alisha moved her hand to push hair back from her face and came up short, fingers startled to discover the length gone. Reichart crunched up on an elbow, giving her a crooked grin before kissing her shoulder.

  It looks good, he mouthed. Alisha smiled back, then fought the smile’s desire to turn into a grin as she looked at the comm again.

  “I’m here now,” she said. “It was kind of a rough…what time is it?”

  “There? It’s about six in the morning.”

  “Rough night,” Alisha completed as her eyebrows shot up. “That late? I really was tired.”

  Reichart squinted at the bruises on her forearm as he got out of bed, making Alisha study them, as well. Purple and black streaks wrapped them, but the outer edges were turning to healthier green and yellow. The ridges she’d initially felt were faded, though still visible around her wrists. Reichart said, “They look better,” and went into the bathroom himself, collecting the rest of their clothes.

  “Is that Reichart?” Erika’s voice rose with curiosity.

  “Yeah,” Alisha said, the word echoed in Reichart’s deeper voice. A longish silence followed, in which Alisha could all but hear Erika pursing her lips.

  “I so want the details,” the other woman said eventually. “Look, Boyer’s in Paris. He’s just waiting for the word to meet you, Ali.”

  “Boyer? What? Why? I told you not to let anybody come after us.” Alisha got to her feet as Reichart tossed her her panties. He watched with an appreciation as she slid them on, and she thought again about the price that would be paid for the night’s antics. For the moment, though, she realized she simply didn’t care, and watched him as avidly while he dressed.

  “Right,” Erika said, “because telling my boss he can’t do what he wants is a great way to ensure job security. I called him to let him know you’d contacted me,” she went on, oblivious to the strip show she was missing. Or whatever it was called when the participants were dressing instead of undressing, Alisha thought. She grinned again, this time at the comm. “Told him everything,” Erika went on. “About the code and about you being with Reichart in Paris. He started swearing and got on the next plane out.”

  “We’ll meet him—” Alisha shot a look at Reichart. “For coffee?”

  He nodded. “Sure. The French make good coffee, and I could use some.”

  “Is that where you got your thing for French coffee, Ali?” Erika asked, clearly delighted. Alisha put her hand over her face, fighting back another grin. Reichart gave her a sly, curious smile and she laughed.

  “You’re blushing, aren’t you?” Erika demanded. “Remind me to put a visual in this thing when I upgrade it. Is he naked?”

  “Erika! No,” Alisha added. Reichart tugged the top button of his jeans, clearly offering to remedy his lack of nudity. Alisha widened her eyes in amused exasperation and he subsided, pulling his T-shirt on. “Have Boyer meet us at—”

  “Les Deux Magots?” Alisha asked. Reichart began a nod, then gave her a sharp look that Alisha fended off with a brief smile.

  “Les Deux Magots,” he agreed shortly. “At seven, okay?”

  “All right, Ali. Be careful out there.”

  “Aren’t I always?” Alisha blipped the comm off and reached for her bra and shirt.

  “Thought you were AWOL.”

  “I was. Am.” Alisha shook her head. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on.” If nothing else, she thought, she could offer the black box as an apology for taking a walk. “He’s going to read me the riot act.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Reichart said. Alisha quirked an eyebrow and he shrugged. “We go back.”

  “I can handle myself, Frank.”

  “Yeah. I know.” He gave her another lopsided smile. “We’re still pretty good together, huh?” he asked. “After all these years apart.”

  Alisha looked at the shoes and socks still left on the bathroom floor, and back at Reichart. He pursed his lips and ducked his head, smiling again. “Believe it or not, that wasn’t what I meant. I was thinking about getting out of there yesterday.”

  “In that case, yeah, you’re right.” Alisha straightened up fully, dropping her shoulders and lifting her chin high to create the proper flow for breathing. It took a few seconds before Reichart said, “Hey,” in a mildly affronted tone, and despite her intentions of centering herself, Alisha opened her eyes.

  “Men and their fragile egos. Look, Reichart—”

  “Don’t say it was a mistake, Alisha.” Some of the warmth fled Reichart’s voice, leaving it defensive and prepared for hurt. Alisha shook her head, slow motion.

  “It wasn’t. I’m not naive enough to pretend I wasn’t making a conscious choice. We both needed it. But it’s not picking up where we left off, Reichart. I’m not sure I want it to be picking up at all.”

  “You don’t have a scar.” Reichart’s gaze fell to her left shoulder, the words betraying a question and a little draining of tension. Alisha folded her arm up to rub her thumb beneath the collarbone.

  “Not on the outside.”

  “Leesh—”

  “Don’t,” Alisha said. She delivered the ultimatum to stop a conversation she wasn’t ready, might not ever be ready, to have. Whether she believed that he’d acted to save her life. Whether the shadows of their shared past might forever darken a future together. Whether together could encompass mere friendship, or whether history tainted that possibility, too. A weariness that had nothing to do with her recovering injuries washed through Alisha, leaving a knot of pain beating around her heart. Too many questions waited in the words that lay ahead, and she
had no stomach for it. “Don’t, Frank. Just don’t.”

  Reichart drew in a breath through his nostrils, then nodded, looking away. Submissive body language, again. Another rare show from the man across from her. Helen’s death had hit him hard. Or maybe, Alisha thought, she’d finally learned enough of his secrets that he could stop hiding behind his masks. She sighed and pushed her hand through her newly short hair. “I don’t care what time we’re meeting him. I’m taking a shower before we see Boyer.”

  It was hours before Paris—or any European city—got started. There were no shops or boutiques open to buy new clothes at. Despite having managed showers, they made a more than grimy pair, Alisha thought as she caught their reflection in the café window. They were filthy, clothes wrinkled and bodies stiff, but it seemed like there was more than just dirt staining them. She thought the marks went all the way through to their cores: shadows that seemed to come from inside tainting every action either of them made. They moved like wary predators, creatures that knew even the mightiest animal in the kingdom might be hunted. There was desperation in the bruised reflections, all the more dangerous for being controlled and contained. When had the woman in the mirror changed? Alisha wondered. She’d been tired and injured the last time she’d seen herself, but now she looked like someone who carried knives, and who wouldn’t hesitate to use them.

  Boyer was a studied contrast to their battered state, his suit impeccably pressed and shoes shined to a gleam. His bulk made a pleasant shadow of the corner he sat in, the slightest hint of a smile playing around his mouth keeping him from looking foreboding. That smile tinted with dismay as Alisha approached and dropped into one of the chairs at his table. “You two look like gypsies.”

  “I think gypsies are cleaner than I am right now.” Alisha angled her body so it was between the director and Reichart, who stood at the counter, ordering coffee for himself and, Alisha hoped, her. She gave a brief nod that acknowledged his station as her supervisor without saying his title aloud, then leaned forward. “I have something for you, sir.” She fished the black box from beneath her shirt—she’d returned the leather jacket to Reichart that morning—and slid it across the table to Boyer.

  He took it without hesitation, dipping a hand into his inner breast pocket to hide the box, but his eyebrows elevated a little. “You never fail to astonish me, Agent MacAleer. This is what I think it is?”

  “Yes, sir.” A surge of pride lanced through Alisha, making her straighten her spine. There seemed to be a certain weight to Boyer pronouncing her title in public, as if it was the reprieve she’d hoped she might earn. “I have a question for you, sir.”

  Boyer’s eyebrows rose again. “I thought you were here to answer my questions, Alisha.” He spread his hand, though, an invitation, and picked up his coffee cup to sip while he waited. Alisha stole a glance over her shoulder at Reichart, making certain he was out of hearing distance.

  “Did Reichart recommend me for the job in Kazakhstan, sir?”

  Surprise filtered through Boyer’s dark eyes, almost answer enough. “He told you that?”

  “I came across some interesting material regarding his…” Alisha wet her lips, choosing her words carefully. “Loyalties,” she finally said. “Organizational memos, you might say.”

  Another smile filtered across Boyer’s face. “I told him you’d be like a dog with a bone if you got any hint of the matters underlying the Kazakhstan situation. He insisted.”

  “The matters underlying…” Alisha nearly laughed, but instead passed her hand over her eyes. The Sicarii. The Fas Infitialis. Relegating them to such innocuous terms as the matters underlying caught her somewhere between glee and despair, the wildness of the conflicting emotions testament to how on edge she felt. “And he insisted. Bastard,” she added in a mutter. Reichart, on cue, appeared with two enormous mugs of coffee.

  “You called?” He gave her a rakish grin that made her give in to laughter after all. It was too easy, she thought, to let him make her happy. Too easy to forget what had brought them together and there in the first place. Alisha shook her head, accepting the coffee cup. Smiles fell away again, though, as she explained in as few words as possible about Brandon’s betrayal and the chase afterward. Boyer’s lips thinned as she outlined what had happened, his demeanor darkening until Alisha felt a chill sweep over her.

  “I’ll talk to Susan Simone,” he growled when Alisha finished. “This has gone too far.”

  “We still don’t know why they didn’t just eliminate us immediately,” Alisha added. “They wanted something.”

  “And Simone ought to know what that is, if Parker’s still on one of her ops.”

  “What about Greg?”

  “You haven’t seen—no, you wouldn’t have. He’s in Paris, looking for you.” Boyer’s expression changed again, becoming more neutral. “You’re inspiring a whole rash of walkers, Alisha. I don’t appreciate it.”

  “Greg walked?” Alisha asked, disbelieving. Boyer lifted one shoulder and let it fall again.

  “He went looking for you, against explicit orders.”

  “My oh my,” Reichart breathed. “Dissention in the ranks.”

  Boyer shared a look with Alisha that they both turned on Reichart. “As the ultimate instigator of this near-disaster,” Boyer said mildly, “you might want to think about the wisdom of silent discretion.”

  “That was a lot more eloquent than my shut up, Frank was going to be,” Alisha said with admiration. Boyer gave her a faint smile.

  “Years of political experience. I’d say you’ll get there, but your sudden tendency toward haring off on your own agenda might jeopardize that.”

  “You’d rather not know that the dagger people have access to higher-level technology than the U.S. would have seen for another ten years without this operation being busted open?” Reichart gave the Sicarii their literal translation rather than say the word, even in a conversation held in English in a French café. “You’re an idealist, Rick, but I don’t think you’re a fool.”

  “Your mother would blister your hide to hear you talk to me that way.”

  “My mother,” Reichart said, “is dead. As you well know.”

  Hairs lifted on Alisha’s arms, rushing cold over the back of her neck. She curled her fingers around her coffee mug more solidly and risked quick glances at both the men over the mug’s rim. Reichart held his jaw thrust out and tight, challenge inherent in the expression, while Boyer’s expression remained so mild it seemed threatening. “And she died doing what she believed was right,” he replied. There were undercurrents to the statement that Alisha couldn’t read, curiosity driving her so hard she took a too-large sip of hot coffee to keep herself from blurting questions. The coffee scalded her tongue, making her hiss in air, and the tension was disrupted, both men looking at her.

  “Sorry. Coffee. Ow.” She opened her mouth, inhaling cool air over her tongue. Reichart looked away first, both from her and Boyer, and Boyer’s shoulders relaxed fractionally.

  “I don’t want either of you to do anything rash,” he said in his deep voice. “Alisha, you have my number. I want you to pick up a phone and call me in four hours. I’ll have spoken with Simone by then, and we can arrange a time to meet and discuss what she has to say.”

  “She threw me out of Europe,” Alisha reminded him. Boyer’s mouth pulled down sourly.

  “A dismissal which appears not to have taken. I want to get to the bottom of this, Alisha. That doesn’t mean you’re out of hot water when it’s over.”

  Alisha dropped her eyes, pulling her lower lip between her teeth. “Yes, sir.” She heard Boyer’s skeptical snort and found herself caught between amusement and offense. The show of recalcitrance had been a real one, not put on for her boss’s benefit. Maybe a job where genuine emotion is automatically assumed to be a ploy is one you ought to reconsider, Leesh.

  Assuming she had any choice, when this was over. “I’ll call in four hours.”

  Boyer nodded and stood, giving
Reichart a brief nod as well. “Frank.”

  “Rick.” Reichart didn’t exhale until Boyer had left the café. Alisha got up and went to the window, watching the director walk down the street toward his car. She could feel Reichart watching her in turn, and kept herself from looking his way in order to stop the impulse to ask questions.

  “She died on a joint endeavor in Ecuador,” Reichart said abruptly. “Boyer was leading it.”

  Alisha’s shoulders dropped and she put her temple against the window. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. It was twelve years ago this month. He focused on political rise after that. Less dangerous.”

  “Less emotional risk,” Alisha said. Boyer, down the street, climbed into his vehicle, and Alisha turned her back on the window, leaning on it. “He seemed sorry, too.”

  “I think they were in love.”

  The glass Alisha leaned on shattered, an explosion of such power she couldn’t hear it. She tumbled backward onto the sidewalk, flinging her arms up to protect her face as she rolled over glass shards. Heat bloomed from down the street, singeing the air and making it taste of burnt ozone. Pieces of debris rained down around her, clattering silently in the detonation’s aftermath. Alisha shoved up on an elbow, one arm still lifted to protect her face, to squint against waves of rolling hotness.

  Black smoke plumed up, stinking and thick, from the skeletal, fiery remains of Boyer’s vehicle.

  Chapter 27

  The spray pattern from the blast pointed toward her, black scars blemishing the street. Alisha put her hand down against shattered glass and hot metal, and pushed up in the too-loud silence of destruction. The sidewalk slid beneath her hand and she curled her fingers around the broken piece, taking it up with her without looking at it. She put her other hand out and Reichart took it, as stalwart as he’d ever been disappointing. Together they slipped through the growing crowd, until sound suddenly erupted again, the wee-ooh of sirens so loud they seemed like they must be more explosions.

 

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