“Come on.” The General motioned them forward. “Slow. Keep space between you,” he individually directed the five men until they were separated through the hall. Hand open flat, “Ok, that’s far enough. I want to thank you for remaining polite and cooperative.” But at the end of the hall, lingering half concealed behind the frame of the door, were two more men. “Come forward,” he called.
“Fuck you. I’ll come forvard when they get in the elewator.”
“We be calm,” the voice rose to fill the space.
“Yeah, ve be fucking calm, but I’d rather see vhat they do vith a galoot like you before I sving my balls out there.”
“If you will just come forward, we will get you out of here,” the General said.
Cracking his neck, “When the elewator comes, ve’ll see.”
“Sir, you obviously think you’re more important than I do, so let me tell you plainly, I am not interested in you or what you’ve done. I want you out of here. But the lift is not coming until you step out of that room.” The General looked nearly bored with the passing of time.
“Come, man, be calm and we leave.”
“Vhat’d the money molester say about me?”
“I am not here to share information with you, sir. My sole reason for living right now is to get you out of my sight. If you would please step into the hall so I can see you’re not a threat to us, I will get you on your way.”
After a longer wait, Radimir tightened his mouth into an exaggerated scowl, turned his head side to side and declared, “I think I vould like it better if you came down here and conwinced me.”
“Lo, be calm. He be calm,” the big man assured.
“Sir, if what you need is an escort, I will happily hold your hand.”
“I talk with him,” the giant began to turn.
The General gently stopped the move, saying, “I’m afraid I need you to stay where you are, and again, I appreciate your calm leadership through this.”
Shouting over the exchange was Radimir, “Yeah, I think I vant you to come hold my hand. I am wery afraid.”
The man’s sardonic assertion was undermined by the gut punching scream of male hysterics that startled the delicate balance of the hall.
“Lo shre han.” The big man looked over the soldiers into the room from which it came.
The guards at his back began falling back for the suite, and immediately the side rooms emptied of soldiers. Rifles pointed at their heads, Alowa heard the sharp commands, “Get down. Down on your knees.”
Certain he wanted no part in it, Radimir slammed closed the door.
~~~~~~
Captain Adams wondered of what exactly he had been left in charge.
She had said it so very kindly to the Count, “I understand, Radimir is scary, but now you have to learn that I am far scarier.”
Holding his head with compassion, she laid her cheek against his, and then, one hand slipping to his throat, she struggled to control him.
He jerked them both right, tried to shake her off by slamming back into the toilet’s cistern, then down and left, he banged his head against a cabinet.
Adams came forward, but not knowing what was happening, he hesitated. The Count stood upright, wild-eyed, arching back to get away from her, but she followed with her voice. Adams heard, “falling through the dark,” and suddenly dizzy, he braced his hand against the wall while watching the Count drop shrieking to the floor.
Covering the Count’s mouth with her hand, she kept him screaming. In the curve of the Count’s convulsed body, she knelt with her mouth pressed to his ear. Adams wanted to address her, but her name could not be spoken in the room. As the General had done, he placed a hand on her shoulder to gently pull her back.
She glared up at him with hard penetrating eyes, staring a cold warning until he looked away. He had forgotten by her dress she was Cloitare. Looking down the length of the mirrored cabinet, Adams sought advice from the other soldier guarding the Count’s two guards, but he only shrugged, unaware of what to do. Adams turned his appeal into the room where Fallon and another soldier stood over three more bound captives, and while both returned alarmed expressions, they also had no suggestion of what he might do.
The room had noisily cleared of soldiers when the Count broke the calm. Now, hoping to prevent further disruption, Adams came down on one knee beside Sable and tried again. Speaking softly, he began, “I am a little concerned—” but was stopped short as her hand laid flat against his chest.
She raised her head from the Count to draw out the word “Hush,” and then, hand sliding to his neck, “Be still.” She rumbled a slow breath through her throat before dropping her full attention back to the quaking puddle on the floor.
Adam’s reactions were thick and slow when General Berringer snapped his rank, “Captain,” and then, “Damn it, son,” the General pulled him through the bathroom door to take his place at her side.
She turned on him the same eyes, but rather than shrink away, he demanded, “What in hell’s great waste basket of plans are you doing?”
Adams was certain he could read her lips answer, “Recruiting.”
~~~~~~
“I’m going to tell you the same as I told Adams when I made him head of the Queen’s security. Do not,” Berringer stressed it to Lilly, “let her get her hands around your throat or near your chest. This is not a suggestion, Captain. You block her or knock her off if it comes to it.”
Lilly did not look eager for the promotion, or the certain demotion that would come of it.
“Don’t worry, kid, I’ve got your back. And like I explained in training, you’re not going to hurt her. The Queen Mother has evasive moves you’ve never seen before.”
While the remaining teams filled the second room with both the Count’s and Radimir’s guards, Lilly studied the room in which she had unexpectedly found herself responsible.
In the bathroom, the Count was heaving sick into the toilet, and on the tiles, his two guards gagged until the tape had to be removed from their mouths; the two lieutenants in the crowded space weren’t fairing much better. At the suite’s dining table was Sable, staring blind ahead as though none of it concerned her, and kneeling in the center of the plush seating arrangement was the giant, head bagged, wrists and ankles secured. Then there was Fallon, sitting on the couch beside the giant. Having been so recently abducted, he still had the gall to be looking on her with headshaking sad-mouthed sympathy.
Like Adams, Lilly wondered of what exactly she had been left in charge.
~~~~~~
Outside the suite into which Radimir and his last guard had retreated, a team of six prepared to enter. The General stood in the long hall wanting to be at the front of the action, but he well remembered what he thought of senior officers disrupting a practiced team to play hero, or, as this generation would accuse, to get a chub.
He had told them what he wanted from the operation and then left it to the team leader to see it through, making only one refusal: “Nothing stopping you from using your thermal scopes, but how about we not ignite smoke grenades in the Palms? Instead, how about we just turn out the lights? Maybe use your NVGs?”
“But General,” Adams had mockingly whined, “it’s not as much fun.” Glad to be free of the Queen, and not entirely certain why, the team leader was as jacked up happy as if he had snorted a line of speed.
On the unblocked military frequency, Adams received confirmation that a soldier was standing by the circuit panel, ready to throw the breakers to the sixth floor. “The suits aren’t happy about it though.”
“They should be grateful they won’t have to rip out all the carpet.” Hand on the shoulder of the soldier in front of him, he said, “Alright, it’s a green light rave. Let’s bang.”
All of the sixth floor went dark.
Dim light from a battery-powered bulb escaped the open door of the closest room and made the hallway bright through the unit’s NVGs. Wilson swiped the Count’s room card across the reader a
nd then pushed the door into the weak resistance of a barricade. In consideration to the Palms and its guests, the plan was to enter without shock grenades, but the barrier changed that. The man behind him held a stun grenade above his head for the team to see and then showed it to Wilson before tossing it through the meager opening. In the instant following the blaze of light and deafening explosion, the fourth man shoved into the door, skidding back the obstruction.
The delicate antique furniture of the Palms gave away easily, leaving tables and chairs overturned in a pile just within the entrance. As the fourth man fell back into the stack, Wilson waited until the second stun grenade was thrown before leading the swarm into the room. Looking left and then following the barrel of his rifle right, he quickly moved forward in a circle looking for threats. By the time he had secured the corner behind the door, the whole six-man team was in the room.
Room clear of targets, their focus settled on the sliding doors to the left of the sitting room, cracked enough for Wilson’s thermal scope to pick out a hotspot beside the bed. A heavy blanket had been pulled half off the mattress to form a mound at the corner, and concealed within the heap, Wilson’s scope showed several bright patches that he recognized as a face and two hands on a shotgun.
Adams saw it too. Through the green-tinted image of the night goggles, he followed the long glowing lines of lasers from the team’s rifles as they converged on the spot. This was the green light rave, an unfair game of blind laser tag, but as General Berringer would readily admit, “If you’re in a fair fight, I’ve done something wrong.”
The dots were crowded on the man’s head, and Adams knew in a moment the man would feel the heat of the lasers in his eyes. He would give the fugitives the chance the General wanted.
“You, beside the bed with the shotgun, drop the weapon.” Then more demanding, he was shouting from low in his throat, “Drop the weapon. Drop it now.”
To escape their line of vision, the guard tried to move right, but his intended cover entangled him. In the dark, he fumbled one foot forward with the gun.
On the first round released from Adams’ rifle, Wilson and a second soldier each put three more bullets through his head. The thermal scopes showed the splatter as white on the wall.
From inside the room came the shout, “Vait! Vait! I vant to talk.”
~~~~~~
On the table, a battery-powered bulb gave faint light to the room. Another like it illuminated the bathroom where the Count had curled himself tight on his side.
Sable had closed her eyes to relax in the shadowy quiet of the room. At first, the sound of inhaling matched her breath so she heard it as her own, but then it became louder, drawing heavy and deep. She looked to Alowa dragging hard against the black bag, pulling the fabric against his nostrils and turning his head in her direction.
“I smell you, Marlow.”
At the closed door, Lilly said, “Quiet, prisoner.”
But he pulled stronger for the scent. “You smell like bad weather. You smell like the sky before rain.” As he spoke, Lilly moved to silence him. “You smell like lightning. Like the gods when they cry.”
“I had no idea.” Sable came to her feet and walked forward to position herself between Lilly and the seating arrangement where Alowa knelt.
“You make that man scream?” he asked.
Lilly looked to the side of Sable and motioned Fallon off the couch and onto the giant.
Stepping back, Sable pointed her finger at William and shook her head no.
“I know you make him scream. I smell,” bag huffing, “the fear. These people afraid of you.”
“Are you?”
“You wear the grief of the gods as perfume. What you think?”
Sable sat across from Fallon and silently suggested he sit again as well. She kept to the far edge of the opposite couch, keeping as much space as possible between her and the giant that was causing so much trouble. “Alowa, I never quite understood what you were doing with Radimir. He’s a crying tantrum in a suit.”
“I tell myself this also. I am no bodyguard. War is better. Cleaner.” He shrugged his shoulders. “There was a girl. I think I love her. I stay. I no love her. I stay. Here I be.”
“There is a chair behind you.” Sable held her arm out to stop Lilly from going forward.
“You no make me bend the knee? Lo, maybe you make me bend another way.”
Sable smirked and then warned Lilly against taking offense. As he struggled with his weight and size to get to his bound feet, a rapid burst of rifle fire could be heard from down the hall. Sable could not keep Fallon from rising, and had she wanted to keep Lilly from pushing through, she would have had to grapple her to the floor. When Alowa felt the chair at his legs and managed to sit without being struck back to the carpet by the soldiers, Sable said, “I’m sorry about the hood. I wish I could take it off, but I don’t have a lot of sway around here.”
“I think about this also. I think maybe you no speak the truth. I think you have power. I ask myself, ‘Why that little girl with the King’s Army?’ I think I know who you are.”
“Quiet,” Sable snapped. She looked from Fallon on one side of the man to Lilly on the other. “If you ever want to be free again, it would be wise to guess wrong.”
His laughter was big and booming. “That man in the hall, I know who he is too. He is General Bear. He have no plan to let anyone free. And he be a great knee bender if he let Radimir live.”
“If Radimir dies, it will have been his own choice.”
“Lo, you defend him, he defend you. No one be free. What you want from me, Ommawa?”
Even trussed up as he was, there was something distinctly noble about Alowa. Sable studied his large build and the small line of color that could be seen on his neck beneath the bag. She had not been able to place her fondness for him before, but she recognized it now. He reminded her of Aidan. “What is this word: Ommawa?”
“Mother.” His bagged head cocked to the side, “Mother of nations when we in peace. When no peace,” the bag straightened with his back, “mother of war.”
Closing her eyes, Sable exhaled with all the hate she reserved for prisons. “You are not being very wise, Alowa, and you are a long way from home.”
“I think this also, but I think maybe you make me your guest.”
~~~~~~
Moving quickly forward, the soldiers split to either side of the sliding doors.
“Vait, don’t shoot. I vant to talk.”
Not to give away the team’s location, Adams retreated down the wall to reply, “You are in the presence of the King’s Army. If you want to live, lie flat on the floor.”
“Vait, ve make a deal.”
At the toppled barricade, the General stood beside Adams. Both men faced the sliding doors while the General listened to Radimir bargain, “I am a wery important man. Who is your superior?”
Like a goddamn prophet, the General was thinking, I can see the future. If not Catherine, then Sable would convince Remy to release Radimir back to General Marič. It mattered little which, one of them would see the man go free to benefit Girard and the Ministry of Intelligence. Catherine played a dangerous game of espionage while he had to provide security, and not ten minutes earlier, the prized Sierran was intent on dismembering a woman.
“Your superiors vill vant to talk to me.”
And from what the General had been told of the weapons dealer, he did not think Radimir would be less inclined to kill that woman should he learn who she was.
“I vant to make a deal.”
Adams was waiting to see if the General would negotiate, but when the General finally spoke, it was directed at the Captain. Without a trace of emotion to reveal his thoughts, Adams was told, “Secure that room.”
“If you want to live,” the Captain shouted, “you need to lie flat on the floor now.” Adams then took his place in line with the team.
The flash and bang of the grenade was followed by the doors sliding back and the te
am moving forward. The terms for survival had been given before they entered. The short burst of gunfire meant Radimir had not complied. The outcome gave the General no pleasure, but it did drop the tension from his muscles, leaving him deeply relaxed and, when he thought about the future, satisfied.
~~~~~~
The first room on the sixth floor had an uneasy level of resentful compliance stiffening both conversations. The lights had returned, the cellular block was lifted, and the room held only one target of interest. At the long side of the dining table, the Count sat between Sable and Fallon. He was cold and harshly sober, fully aware of his complicity, and feeling sick for a dose. The nausea shuddered through him at every encouraging sentiment uttered by Marlow.
“Let me help you,” she said gently while opening his laptop and sympathetically arranging it so he could continue to hold his trembling arms against his rolling guts.
Feigning calm, he muttered, “Thank you,” but all the while something primal inside him was wailing fear. The terror crawled up his chest and tightened his throat until it choked him silent, leaving him feeling small, like an animal whose only hope for survival was not to be seen.
Observing the three were Lilly and the General, watching but discussing Lilly’s reluctance to embrace the new assignment. Given a choice, she would rather be in the hall overseeing the conveyance of Radimir’s guards into transport for detention. There was no illusion in the Palms anymore that the group of revelers was anything other than soldiers from the King’s Army. Their sharp commands could be heard through the closed door of the suite, and louder as Lilly opened the door to the expected knock.
Taking the dark roll of fabric from Wilson, she closed the door to inspect it. Tucked inside were syringes and alcohol swabs, a lighter, spoon, and cotton, and then both medical-grade liquid anodyne and a bottle of powder she’d been told was sunshine from the streets.
Sister Sable (The Mad Queen Book 1) Page 32