10 Fatal Strike

by Shannon McKenna

  “Oh, yeah,” Nina’s eyes widened. “We heard on the radio when we were driving here from Portland that they evacuated the main train station in downtown Tokyo, and the bomb squad found enough explosives on a train to blow up . . .” Her voice trailed off, as she looked into Lara’s eyes. “Wait,” she said. “You mean, that was you? The anonymous tip?”

  “Yeah,” Miles said. “She got a Japanese friend to call for her.”

  “Keiko, this guy I hung out with in high school,” she explained, suddenly on the defensive. “He has no connection to my life in San Francisco. He lives in Seattle. I figured, why would Greaves or anyone make the connection? A bomb in Tokyo, and me? Why?”

  She looked around at the faces of the men in the room. The sense of growing dread in the air. No one would meet her eyes.

  “She had to call,” Miles said, more forcefully. “The bomb was going to go off in a matter of hours. There was no time to lose.”

  God, how she loved him. Never more than in that moment. Their clasped fingers tightened.

  “I’m not saying she should not have called,” Davy said. “I’m saying you should have told us. And we should have ground the fucking phone into powder and hauled ass out of here. Last night.”

  “Why would this high school friend in Seattle calling with an anonymous tip pop up on Greaves’ radar?” Miles protested.

  “Don’t even ask. Did he at least understand what he was messing with?” Davy’s voice was uncompromising. “Did you warn him?”

  “We told him to leave town,” Lara said, pressing her hand against the flutter in her belly. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking about the four hundred and seventy three people who would have been blown to bits. Body parts everywhere. I’ve seen it so many times. I wanted to stop it. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys, but I would have done anything.”

  “Of course you would,” Edie said gently. “And so would any of us. And you did save them.” She leaned forward, tapping the sketchpad. “Maybe this is another one of the things you can actually change. That’s what always tormented me about my ability, that it seemed like I could never change the outcomes. But you did, Lara! This is great news! This is a big victory! Chalk one up for the good guys!”

  Lara was deeply suspicious of the impulse to see any ray of hope in this mess. Letting herself be happy seemed like a trap.

  She smiled at the woman anyway, appreciating the encouraging thought. “I don’t have any hard data for this one, though,” she said. “With Tokyo, I had a time, a place. I saw the bomb, the date clock. With this one, all I have is random images of strangers in a park, and a picture of an unidentified virus. And a sense that it’s very bad. Even worse than the Tokyo bomb.”

  “In any case, we need to get out of here,” Connor said. “Let’s settle on someplace for her to be. We talked about it last night, while you guys were resting. The most fortified places are Tam and Val’s place up in Cray’s Cove, or Stone Island, with Seth and Raine. We figured we’d drive up with—”

  “No,” Miles said.

  His flat negation silenced the room. As if he had said something shocking.

  “Ah . . . Miles?” Nina said carefully. “You do know that Lara needs a safe place to recuperate from—”

  “I know damn well what she needs,” Miles said. “But these places are not safe. All the physical security in the world won’t stop Greaves when he comes down. And he will come down. He’ll figure out who I am, if he hasn’t already, and he’ll finger all of you.” He turned to Val and Tam. “You’ve got Irina and Rachel up at the Cove. You wouldn’t be able to protect them if he came after us there. Don’t give him any reason to do that. Really. Trust me on this.”

  Tam’s face looked like a marble statue. Val’s mouth was flat.

  “Same with Stone Island,” Miles pressed grimly on. “The security there is useless for our purposes. Who’s there, Seth and Raine, their security staff, plus Jesse, and the twins, who are, what, eighteen months old? Same problem. All of you guys with kids, you’re already too exposed. He’ll be looking at everyone I’ve ever had social or professional dealings with, and you guys are smeared all over my life.”

  “Excuse us for that,” Aaro muttered.

  “Don’t be a snotty bitch,” Miles said sharply. “That’s not what I meant. I appreciate the help you’ve given me already, and you know it.”

  “What you’re saying is that we can’t help you?” Kev asked slowly. “You’re saying that you and Lara are better off alone?”

  Miles grimaced. “Fuck,” he muttered. “I don’t mean to sound like an arrogant asshole. We wouldn’t have made it out without your help this far. But look at the facts. These people are all enhanced. Nina and Aaro and Edie are the only ones of you all with any practical experience at all in blocking invasive telepathy, and Greaves would smash them like bugs. You felt him, Aaro. You know it’s true.”

  Aaro stared back, stonefaced. Unable to deny it, but too angry and proud to say that Miles was right.

  “You can’t help us now,” Miles went on. “None of you can. You can’t even know where we run. It’s come to that.”

  Lara could feel the anger and resistance vibrating in the air. She broke the silence, pulling out the cell. “I’ve got to call Keiko.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” Miles flared. “Have you been listening?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The upshot is, we run like hell to someplace no one on earth knows about. Isn’t that the plan?”

  Miles shrugged. “Such as it is.”

  “I have to know Keiko is okay first, and I might as well call from this place, since I appear to have already burned it for us. Right?”

  A tense silence followed.

  “She has a point, at that,” Davy said heavily. “Call, then. We all want to know. But hurry. We need to get out of here.”

  Lara got the number wrong twice, with her shaking, rubbery finger. The phone buzzed and buzzed. Then a recorded voice, telling her the client was unavailable, and to try later.

  She met Miles’ eyes. Shook her head. The dread got heavier.

  “I’ll call the magazine he works for,” she said. “Can you find the number for me on your smartphone? It’s Beat Street Style magazine.”

  Miles’ finger tapped, teasing the number out of the database. He held up the display for her to see. She tapped it in, and waited.

  “Beat Street Style,” answered a young, male voice.

  “Hi. I’m looking for Keiko Yamada,” she said. “Is he there?”

  “Um . . . um, no. I’m sorry, but he’s not here right . . . oh, God.” The guy’s voice wobbled. “I can’t do this, Kim. You do it.”

  The phone rattled, clunked, as someone dropped the headset, and a couple seconds later, a woman spoke, in an overloud, professional tone. “Hi, this is Kim of Beat Street Style! Can I help you?”

  “I was looking for Keiko,” Lara repeated. “Is he—”

  “He’s not here right now! May I take your number?”

  Lara tried to speak, but her voice cracked, blocked. She coughed. “Please,” she forced out. “Please, just tell me. Is he okay?”

  The woman hesitated. “Are you the press?”

  Fear ballooned, dark and sickening. “No. Just a friend.”

  The woman’s voice went up in pitch, quivering. “I’m sorry to tell you this, then. He’s not okay. He’s dead. Both of them. Him and his boyfriend, Franz. Bill went up . . . he found them, and they were . . .”

  The voice continued, but Lara no longer heard her words.

  Cold swallowed her up. She had been an idiot, an asshole.

  The phone bounced on her feet. Her fantasy bubble had popped, and now she was naked in the cold. Outside the Citadel. The connection between her and Miles had broken. She hadn’t done it consciously.

  People all around her, their mouths moving, but she was a million miles away. Keiko was dead. Franz, too. She’d killed them both, as if she’d mowed them down with a car, or pushed them off a cliff.

>   Just like she was going to kill all these people in the room with her, who were trying so hard to help her. All their kids, orphaned at best. If Greaves didn’t decide to punish their kids, too.

  And Miles. He was talking, shaking her, his dark eyes full of love and concern. She could not hear his voice over the roar in her ears. He was so beautiful and gentle and brave. She was deflating, the world disintegrating as the vortex sucked her down . . .

  Keiko on the ground, the contents of his head spattered out in a broad red and pink fan, over a beige and brown patterned rug. Franz, naked, in a noose. Mouth taped, eyes bulging.

  Miles lay on the ground, someplace colorless and gray and barren. Eyes empty, face white and stiff in death. Blood trickled from his nose and mouth, and pooled behind his head.

  She recoiled with such violence, she jolted back into her body. She was on the floor, wedged between the couch and the coffee table.

  “. . . the hell is going on? Did she faint? Is she conscious?”

  “. . . Christ, we need a doctor, this shit’s way over our heads—”

  “Keiko’s dead,” she said. “And Franz, his boyfriend. Both killed.”

  The room fell dead silent.

  “I murdered them with that telephone call,” she said. “Just like I’ll murder all of you if I stay anywhere near you.” She looked at Miles. “You, too.” She shoved his encircling arms away from herself. “Don’t touch me. The more you touch me, the truer it gets.”

  “What?” Miles yelled. “What are you talking about? What’s true?”

  “That I’ll kill you,” she repeated. “You’ll die because of me. Oh, God.” She lurched up onto her knees. “Where’s the bathroom? Quick!”

  “There’s a utility bathroom off the kitchen,” Aaro offered.

  “Lara!” Miles shouted after her. “Hey!”

  She bolted, the high-tops squeaking on the kitchen tiles, and made it just in time. She lost the sandwich, the coffee, the orange juice. Up it all came. The violent heaves felt like being torn to pieces.

  When the retching was over, Miles tried to help her up, but she swatted his hands away, rinsing her face in the big utility sink. She grimly did the cleanup herself, wiping down and spraying the toilet.

  She caught a fleeting glimpse of herself in the small mirror over the sink when she straightened up from that task, and looked away fast. Frightening. Those red, wet eyes, staring out of her white face.

  She splashed with cold water again. Fighting for air. The feeling was unbearable. Writhing on the floor, begging for death—unbearable.

  “Lara.” Miles was still in the door. No shoving or snarling rudeness would dislodge him. “Get back inside my shield, please. You’re safer when you—”

  “No.” She whirled on him. “I can’t. It’s not safe, Miles. It’s not just about me. It’s about Keiko and Franz, and all your friends, and their kids! And you, too! You’re going to die, if you keep trying to help me. I’ve seen it. Understand? In a vision. I have seen it.”

  “No, I’m not going to,” he said. “Trust me, Lara.”

  Despair sank deeper, looking at his stubborn face. He was so convinced that he was doing the right thing. Blindly following his own heroic instincts, even though they would drive him right into his grave.

  She refused to let that happen. “Get away from me, Miles.”

  His gaze did not flicker. “Too late for that, Lara. Dream on.”

  “It’s not a dream. It’s reality. I saw you dead! Do you get it?”

  “You saw Tokyo, too. Doesn’t have to happen.”

  “I paid a price for that! I sacrificed Keiko and Franz for Tokyo! Who do I sacrifice next? Your friends? Their children? Your mom?”

  His mouth tightened. “We’ll find a way, Lara.”

  “Get away from me. Run!” She flapped her hands at him.

  “Your friends, too! I’m poison, I’m toxic! I’ll kill you! Can’t you see it?”

  “You’re just having a freak-out,” he said. “Stop. It’s stupid.”

  Oh fuck, it was the vortex pulling her from underneath. She fought it, with all her energy. She just did not want to see anything her personal oracle might show her right now.

  She was the vortex, she herself. She saw it, with horrible clarity. How anyone near would be sucked inevitably to their doom.

  Pain jolted her. Knees, thighs, spine, jarring her teeth. She’d fallen to her knees. Miles was down there with her instantly, trying to hold her, but she fought him off furiously. “Don’t. Just don’t. Please.”

  “It’s not you!” he insisted. “You’re not the one who’s toxic. You’re clean, Lara. Your heart is pure.” He pinned her flailing arms. “You’re not the one who killed Keiko and Franz, and you’re not going to kill me. I won’t let you. I’m tough. So get inside. Now.”

  An odd quality reverberated in his voice that shocked her into doing exactly what he asked, as if he’d pushed some button while she wasn’t looking. It happened before she could stop it, her mental dance.

  Suddenly, she was through the wall. Behind his shield.

  good u stay there damnit

  She could not bring herself to reply, but oh, God, it felt so good.

  And it was so wrong. How had he bullied her into this? She was stupid and weak and selfish, and still she sagged there against him, in a state of empty, dumb relief. Staring blankly at the plastic buckets and pails, the shelves of cleaning supplies, the washer, and dryer.

  His arms clamped around her. He smelled so good. He embodied everything she knew she could never have. Or even try to have.

  People were talking from the bathroom door, making suggestions, lecturing, scolding. Miles said something sharp, and swung the door shut. The loud thunk sent mops and brooms toppling around their heads like tumbling toothpicks.

  Miles shoved broom handles away and held her against his chest. Inside his mind, too. The embrace was warm, full of welcome. But she couldn’t take comfort with that vision burned into her mind’s eye.

  The vision of his face, staring up from the bottom of the vortex, with dead, staring eyes.

  “How far now?” Greaves demanded.

  Silva, in the front passenger’s seat, had the self-preservation not to indicate how childish that question was, even telepathically. In fact, the man and woman in the car with him were both breathlessly careful with their thoughts. All three had been in the room on the day that Chrisholm had been chastised.

  “Fifteen more minutes to the address where the phone signal originated. If the phone is still located there, of course. You should be in range in about—”

  “I can calculate my own fucking range, Silva. I have a grasp of basic arithmetic.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Greaves stared at the mountainous forest flashing by from the tinted window, vaguely noticing the pain in the palms of his hands. He turned them over. Half-moons, from his carefully buffed and filed fingernails. The crescents turned red as he watched. Blood welling.

  He was literally trembling with eagerness, to sink his claws into Lara Kirk and her rescuer. Her shield was like a beacon of hope. The only ray he’d had since those first, early years after Geoff went into the coma. Before he realized that the boy really, truly would not come out.

  His people had compiled extensive files for Lara Kirk and her parents, friends, lovers, acquaintences. There was no figure in those files who corresponded in any way to the physical description or profile of the mysterious figure who had rescued her. The man was clearly enhanced with psi-max or something comparable, and had astonishing physical characteristics, as well as combat skills that suggested military training. He must be gifted with long range telepathy to have communicated with Lara Kirk from outside the complex.

  Most importantly, he had to have a compelling reason to help her.

  That was the part that perplexed him the most. Lara was alone in the world, family gone, no husband or siblings, not even a casual lover, as far as his sources could tell. And the list of hu
man beings on the planet capable of what Lara’s rescuer had done was very short. Cross-reference it with anyone who might have even a passing interest in or connection to Lara Kirk, and he came up blank.

  Unless, of course, there was a new rival factor operating out there that he knew nothing about as of yet, and they wanted Lara’s unique abilities for themselves. That was a hypothesis that made sense to him.

  In any case, he would soon know the truth.

  He reached out, his mind a soft, wide net that extended miles in every direction. It was easier to sweep like this if he’d already tasted the flavor of a mind before. He homed in on familiar signatures much faster. The minds that he had touched thirty-six hours ago had all been very distinctive. All five of them shone very brightly.

  Perhaps that was why he picked them up from so far outside his usual five- to six-mile range. Three of them he had tasted the morning before. The unshielded ones. Male, adult, intelligent, aggressive. Lara’s shooter, and his cohorts. They shared a bond that puzzled him, until it clicked into place. Genetic similarities. Brothers, or cousins.

  Odd. That did not fit his hypothesis. Family connections suggested a more emotional reason for the rescue, but who? Why?

  He scanned for Lara, but felt nothing. Other signatures surrounded his three. He sensed the fourth one, the shielded one that had been on yesterday’s attack team. Silva and Levine were in his car, and Biehl, Mehalis, and Wilcox were in the other. Miranda’s telepathic abilities were on a level with Anabel’s, and Silva, besides his knack for coercion, had a specialized ability almost as precise as Greaves’ own—to cause telekinetic damage on a microvascular level. He could constrict a person’s blood vessel, provoking a fatal heart attack. He was the ideal assassin. Greaves had trained him personally.

  “Drive faster,” he said.

  “Sir, I’m already going eighty-five, and—”

  “Shut up!” He closed his eyes to savor the contact. Almost close enough to read their thoughts.

  He could hardly wait to tear them apart.

  20

  Something was coming down. Something bad.