by Meli Raine
But none of those weapons can soothe an upset toddler.
Light starts to break through the grey of night, the sun's early stretch making my bones ache. Between sunset and sunrise, our entire world disappeared. Just about twelve hours ago, I was in the nursery, packing for an escape I never dreamed would end up like this.
The items I packed didn't even make it, all the bags falling off the vehicles as we raced away. Someone in Foster's organization put great care into making sure the children and adults all have clothes, that the babies have diapers, that special formula is here.
It's as if it were all premeditated.
And that's why I can't trust anyone.
The more I think this through, the more I wonder: Why did Callum tell me to dress like Glen? Why did he buy clothes for me, help me to do my hair, encourage me to impersonate her? Yes, I chose to walk into Svetnu's office and try out my disguise, but it was Callum who put this all in motion.
Was he behind the bombing? Is he working with Glen? When he tells everyone she may be a double agent, is he covering up the fact that he's one, too?
Paranoia sets in when I am least resilient. We're taught this from the age of four on up. None of my thoughts surprise me. I have the tiniest bit of distance from them, able to examine them with a critical eye.
Wondering if this is all a setup for something even worse is a practical exercise. Failing to be suspicious would mean I'm too naïve to be in charge of anything.
Much less all these children.
“You don't trust me,” Lindsay says, reading my mind. The lurch in my spine makes me gasp, body signals completely confused.
When I turn to reply, I see she's in a stare down with little Hayley, who has her arms crossed and a pout on her face.
Ah. Lindsay wasn't speaking to me.
But she might as well have.
“You want Kina?”
Hayley shakes her head.
“You want me?”
“No!”
“Who do you want?”
“Phil-ip-pa!” Hayley says each syllable with painstaking care. It's hard to articulate when your top two teeth are missing. They fell out after a hard fall from climbing a tree. She turns five in a week. She'll move up to the training class soon, and–
No. No, she won't.
None of them will move into the training class.
Not now. Not ever.
There is no training class anymore.
As I start to settle a calmer Ashton into one of the cribs, a shadow darkens the light coming in through the window, the sudden movement outside making me turn away and move toward Hayley, using my body to shield her and Ashton. Lindsay follows suit. The shadow pivots, the silhouette of a long-barreled gun in stark relief.
“It's fine,” Lindsay says to Hayley, who clings to my leg.
Nothing about this is fine, I want to say.
Ashton is easiest to soothe and put back in his crib, Hayley trailing me the whole way, her hand going to her mouth periodically, then halting, pulling fiercely to her side. We've worked on her thumb-sucking habit, explaining that it's not allowed.
She has no idea that in the training class, her thumb would be struck with a hammer for such childish self-soothing.
Some part of me relaxes as I realize I don't have to worry about that now. Hayley can suck her thumb as she pleases.
“Kina? Where's Philippa?” she asks as I lead her to a bed.
“Asleep. In the next room.”
“I want her. She's nice at night.”
“She is?”
“She pats my back sometimes when I can't sleep.” Hayley's eyes widen. “Please don't tell anyone. She told me not to tell!” Hands clapping over her mouth, her long curls bounce with agitation.
There's no one to tell, I want to assure her.
“I promise,” I say instead, not having a script for any of this. “It'll be our secret. Philippa is a good person.”
“Am I a good person?”
“A very good person.”
“Then why did you hurt me at the fence? I didn't want to go, Kina. You made me. You hurted my finger.” Pointing her pinkie at me, I see a bandage. It covers the whole side of her hand.
“Oh!”
“When I cried and didn't want to go, you pushed me. You pulled my fingers. Why did you do that, Kina?” Her wails grow in frequency and volume, until I have to shush her with a gentle hand covering her lips, just enough to startle her into being quieter.
“I am so, so sorry. I never meant to hurt you, Hayley. But I did it to save you. You weren't going to go under that fence, were you?”
“It was scary!”
“But did you see the big fire? From the buildings?”
She nods somberly.
“If you stayed, you could have been in that fire.”
“Really?”
“Really. And I would have been a bad friend if I hadn't tried to make you leave.”
“But you're my good friend!”
A kiss on the forehead and about two minutes of shoulder patting is enough to get her to calm down to the point of letting me step gingerly away. My eyes scan the room, surprised when my gaze is locked by Candace, who is stiff in her bed, body tight, eyes begging for something.
Instinct makes me motion to her, beckoning with one finger.
She leaps up and scrambles across the room, pivoting her body like a warrior.
“What's wrong?” I ask her.
She looks away, head turning down, confidence gone. “I, uh, couldn't sleep.”
“It seems to be an epidemic.”
She fights a smile. “The babies are different. I'm twelve. I'm trained. I shouldn't be so...”
“So what?”
“Bothered. My mind is bothered, Kina. It can't stop thinking. And I know that's bad. We're supposed to put the thoughts in a box. Behind a door. Throw them off a cliff. Let them be swept away in a tornado.”
She's describing the psychological techniques we were taught when it comes to compartmentalization. Candace is too young to have been taught how to elevate. These are the precursor lessons, though.
“Sometimes we have to let the thoughts come out. Air them out. It's okay to have them.”
“It is?” Shock makes her voice jump. “I thought we were weak if we have so many thoughts we can't control!”
“No. Not weak.” I want to pull her into my arms and hug her. We're not supposed to show affection to children over four. Once they enter training, they become untouchable. The goal for them is to become Stateless soldiers, in body and mind.
Emotions are the enemy once they turn five.
A shaky exhale shows me how hard Candace is trying to hold herself together.
“Come here,” I say, finger to my lips, her instant response a preternatural calm. One of the first lessons children are taught is to go quiet, to a deep place so silent that you begin to doubt that you, yourself, are even present.
She has mastered this state.
I take her back to her empty bed, grateful she's big enough to get one to herself. The faces of the smaller children make me wistful as I look at them all gathered here. We got them out.
All but one.
I can't think about her right now.
What are you doing? Candace's eyes ask as I sit her down on her bed and lean in, my mouth so close to her ear, I can breathe in her scent. There is no babyhood left in her. She is twelve, on the cusp of womanhood, and what I do right now is critical for making sure she has hope in the world.
“When you were tiny and in the nursery, do you remember how I helped you to sleep?”
She sits up. “You'll do that?”
“Of course.”
“It broke all the rules. I know that now. I didn't know it then.”
“Some rules are wrong. Part of learning involves making changes when you know something is wrong.”
“I came over to ask for this,” she admits, eyes shy.
“Don't be embarrassed. Part of being a who
le human being is letting yourself feel.”
And with that, she lays down. I pull the covers over her and rub her back with long strokes between her shoulder blades in a figure-eight shape.
Infinity.
Five minutes, short like blinks, long like labor, pass by as I feel Candace sink deeper and deeper into slumber. Into release. Into a place I crave.
Oblivion.
The snores and sighs of so many bodies turns into its own white noise as I make my way to the narrow twin bed against the wall, covering myself with the unzippered sleeping bag, curling under it in the fetal position.
I'm almost asleep when I hear a noise that startles me, electric zings sending nerves afire, my fight-or-flight response instantly engaged. A hand lands on my shoulder. I spin around to find Callum there, face intense, brow low.
“Shhh. It's just me.” He nudges me over gently.
“What are you doing?”
“This.” Wrapping his arms around me, he curls up, a wall of heat warming my back, my shoulders, the backs of my knees. My ass is nestled in, the feeling of security so thick and present. Nothing sensual rises up in me. Instead, I feel good. Safe. Secure.
Home.
“Sleep,” he urges, tightening his hold. “I need you to sleep.”
“Why?”
“Because I can't sleep unless you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you're awake, I have to watch over you. If you're asleep, I can hold you and sleep, too.”
“That's how the nursery works, Callum. Not a grown woman like me. When I'm in charge of the children, I...”
“You need to rest. Tomorrow is, well... you heard what Lindsay said. Time is of the essence. Her plan is a good one.”
“Her plan is terrible.”
“Yes, it is, but it's good enough. It may be the only way to get the information we need.”
“What information?” I rasp. “What could Glen know that could help?”
“We need to know their endgame.”
“You're one of the leaders! You should know!”
“I know about specific international targets. Some domestic ones. But she knows a lot more.”
“Because she's part of the 'bad' side of Stateless?”
“Apparently. I had no idea they were closing the compound until it was almost too late, and you’re the one who found out and told me. I hate that I don't know more, but I've been kept in darkness. Lindsay's plan may be the only way to find out what their next steps are.”
“I can't leave the children, Callum. I can't. Not now. They're too vulnerable.”
“I know. I do. But time is running out. Bosworth is only in California for a day or two, and then he's out of the country for weeks. Who knows what Stateless will do between now and then? How many other compounds filled with children are going to be destroyed?”
A wrenching sound of pain comes from inside me. “You think I don't know that? It's an impossible choice.”
“I'm with you the entire time. Wherever you go, I'm there.”
“How long will it take?”
“You heard Lindsay. A day. No more.”
“And then I come back to the children?”
“Of course.”
“Assuming I do come back.” My muscles begin to shake. Fear? Exhaustion? Hitting my physical and mental limit?
Callum tenses.
“I'm not in charge of you, Kina. But I am bound to you. We don't need to talk anymore. Rest is what you need. It will be daylight soon.”
“How can I sleep when there's so much to worry about?” But a yawn belies my protests.
“I need you to do this for me. Please. Sleep.”
And with that, I do.
Because we all have limits.
Chapter 10
Callum
My joints ache, my mouth is a desert, my arm that isn't under the sleeping bag is an ice cube, my right rib is throbbing–and my dick is, too.
But curling up with Kina was worth it.
A few hours of deep sleep is enough for me. I test the ground with one foot, realizing our shoes are still on. The children are huddled under blankets and sleeping bags. Some of the little ones are head first, some upside down, some of them with butts in the air.
All still blissfully asleep.
Including Kina.
For a few seconds, I take the opportunity to watch her, how her nostrils flare with each breath, how her eyelashes flutter from whatever dream sparks involuntary movement. In training, we were taught to distill every observation down to the essential question: What purpose does this information serve? How can you use it in the future? How can you use it to manipulate someone, to get your way?
How does it serve The Mission?
My heart warms as I watch her, blonde hair mussed. I cut it shorter just yesterday. Sleeping on her side, she has one shoe poking out from under the unzipped bag. A choppy breath makes her inhale sharply, then hold it.
The final exhale makes me breathe again, too.
How much stress is she exorcizing in REM sleep? We store long-term memory this way, so the sleep cycles are crucial. But where do we store trauma long term? In the same way and the same place? Will the same sleep that heals her now torment her later?
These thoughts are a luxury. I'm in no-man's-land, at the edge of a cover story that will take Kina away from me. Every hour keeps us in imminent danger.
Which new risks revealed themselves while I slept?
The scent of coffee is a pleasure as I leave Kina to rest a little longer and walk into the main room of the lodge, the reception desk clean and set up as if the campground were open for business. A printer churns out pages as an operative greets me with a half smile, the show not necessary.
Yet.
Cheap paper cups stacked next to a large silver urn catch my attention. I pour a cup of wakefulness and drink it fast, enjoying the pain from the scalding liquid, needing something to divert my attention.
“Callum,” Silas Gentian says to me as I walk into the war room, his dark hair and deep brown eyes taking me in head to toe. The look is familiar. He's sizing me up.
“How are the kids? Thomas?”
“Jay and Sela came back with me. Thomas is too weak to fly. We have a separate cover story for him. Not sure we can ever get him back to Kina, though. Not for both cover stories to work.”
“She's not going to like that.”
“No one does. But if it's the only way to keep all the kids alive...”
“Damn it.”
“Right.” He turns to a computer screen. “Terrorists derailed an enormous passenger train in India last night. Hundreds killed. A group of American college students are among the dead. Study abroad program. At least forty-six U.S. citizens killed.”
“Sounds like a Stateless operation. Was the train near Kashmir?”
“Yes.” He looks at me like he wants to ask how I know.
“Expect more 'terrorist' attacks in countries with separatists. American lives lost. Stateless is baiting President Bosworth into armed conflict with countries with separatist or civil war activity. It's part of a diversion tactic, but also part of generating chaos.”
“Bet those countries all have rich fossil fuels we can exploit as well,” Gentian notes.
“Yes. But also booming alternative energy sources. Stateless isn't stupid. We're not Luddites. We know we can't go back to oil dependence. It's all about access to whatever best suits a regional system. And even then, I think we're past that. Ideology doesn't matter. Sheer control does.”
Foster interrupts us, drinking coffee and holding a cell phone in the other hand. “Our sources say that Stateless is in disarray. There may be more than two factions within it, and they’re turning on each other.”
“More than two,” I mutter, hating the words. “I know Svetnu leads one of them. I'm guessing Hokes is part of... something else.”
“We know from Kina that Svetnu and Josephs, along with Glen, were dispassionate about elimin
ating the kids. We can consider them to be one group.”
“And if Josephs is part of that group, so is Harry Bosworth.”
“Are we sure? Josephs could be double crossing him.”
This is the hardest part about intelligence work. It's a chess game, except if you lose a piece in a game, it goes off the board.
If you lose a piece in our world, it bleeds out.
For the next hour, I give them as much information as I can, naming names and connecting dots. I'm surprised by what they already know, and they’re surprised about my exposure to their secrets.
“El Brujo died a few years ago,” Foster explains. “But he was part of the core group that began thirty years ago. It was a young Harry Bosworth, his wife, Monica, Nolan Corning, and a local DA named Paul Ellison.”
“I know about him. Turned out to be a deep state operative. He works for whichever agency needs him most. Goes by Galt.”
Foster's head snaps up at me. Gentian's, too. “How the hell do you know that?”
“Once I assumed Romeo's job, my security clearances changed. I knew I had to learn everything I could about Bosworth. Romeo was in his private security service, and I assumed I'd be put in that job soon.”
“Yeah. Galt gets around. You know anything else about him?”
“I know he's one of the best at deep undercover work. Master of disguise. Should I know anything else?”
“No,” Foster says sharply. “You think Galt has something to do with Stateless?”
“No idea. I just know he's part of the whole group who were there when Stateless began in the 1990s.”
“What about your parents?” Gentian asks me as Duff walks in. “And Kina's? How did they end up losing kids to Stateless? That was what–twenty-three, twenty-four years ago? Just as Stateless was emerging.”
I cue Duff to answer. Hell if I know what to say.
“That's the part we don't know. So much is highly classified, and good luck getting access to those systems. Kina and Glen's mother, Paula Moray, and our parents had nothing in common other than my dad had military intelligence experience,” Duff replies.