“No,” Sean said sharply. “He’ll go into your squad car without being cuffed, ma’am.”
Alexei drew in a sharp breath, eyes flicking away from the mag-cuffs to where Sean had stepped closer in a way neither officer liked.
“Move back,” Officer Arguello ordered, his hand straying back to his holstered gun.
“He was a fucking POW and so was I,” Sean snapped. “Just give him some space.”
Sean’s words didn’t seem to give the officers pause. If anything, it riled them up.
“Don’t tell us how to do our job. You want to argue about this, you can join your friend in the back of a squad car.”
Under any other circumstances, Alexei would’ve fought his way free. Except this wasn’t a mission behind enemy lines, wasn’t a fight on domestic soil. These were fellow citizens he couldn’t lash out at, and making a bigger scene wouldn’t aid him or Sean in any way. Grimacing, Alexei steeled himself for the cold touch of the mag-cuffs when Officer Reed grabbed each of his hands and pulled them behind his back.
“Quiet, Senya,” Alexei grunted as the mag-cuffs locked around his wrists.
“Shut up, Lyosha,” Sean retorted as he was handcuffed as well.
The cold rings of metal made Alexei’s heart rate ramp up, and he flexed his fingers. Getting out of them wasn’t impossible, but he knew he had to play along at least for now, even if he didn’t like it.
And he really fucking didn’t like it.
The officers put Alexei and Sean into the back seat of separate squad cars. Alexei didn’t fight Officer Arguello as he was guided down onto the hard plastic bench. Alexei still watched him with a sharp-eyed intensity that made the other man glare at him.
“Problem?” Officer Arguello asked gruffly as he buckled Alexei up.
“<>” Alexei said in Russian.
The door slammed shut and Alexei faced forward, slouching down on the hard plastic bench. Squad cars were monitored, so he didn’t respond to Jamie’s voice coming through his encrypted comms.
“We’re on our way,” his captain said.
I didn’t even get any pancakes, Alexei thought to himself.
They should’ve just stayed in bed.
4
A Cycle of Blowback
Sean’s plans to propose to Alexei had been ruined and he was pissed.
He’d managed to get Alexei out of the apartment with the promise of pancakes even if he knew Alexei wasn’t a huge fan of museums. Sean liked museums, but the real reason he’d wanted to go to the National Mall was for the Constitution Gardens there and the biodome-covered area protecting Washington, D.C.’s famous cherry blossom trees.
The trees were blooming this week, and Sean’s father, a United States District Court judge, had managed to secure him two reserved tickets with an open-ended timeframe after reaching out to some friends in the judiciary. You could buy lunch from the small café inside the biodome and have a picnic beneath the blossoming trees in an environmentally controlled atmosphere. It was easy and romantic, something he thought Alexei would enjoy.
Sean was a little nervous about the proposal, but not for the reasons other people might think. Yes, they’d really only known each other for a year and three months, and technically been dating for less than a year, but Sean knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Alexei. What’s more, he was pretty damn certain the feeling was mutual. In their line of work, especially after what they’d gone through in Boston, waiting for the right moment to ask was a risk.
So Sean had gone ring shopping on a day Alexei had hung out with Kyle, quietly agonizing over his options until he finally broke down and called Valentina and Tatyana. Alexei’s younger sisters had practically broken his eardrums with their excited shrieking before regaining their focus and helping him out. Sean had sworn them to secrecy, though he wasn’t sure how much longer they’d be able to keep the secret. Russians liked to gossip, which was one of the reasons he wanted to propose sooner rather than later.
But the fucking police had ruined it for him.
He didn’t appreciate getting interrupted by a process server, arrested on a trumped-up charge, and losing everything in his pockets—including the engagement ring—to an evidence box. He was lucky that Alexei had been processed in a separate room and never saw the gold and diamond ring. The officer logging his personal items had merely raised an eyebrow at the flat velvet box and its precious cargo before entering the description into the computer.
If they pretend to lose it, they’ll have to charge me again with murder, he thought to himself.
Normally, Sean wasn’t easily riled, but he’d had this moment planned for a while. A lazy morning in bed and their favorite place to get breakfast that wasn’t fancy, offered large portions, and satisfied Alexei’s sweet tooth. Then a walk through the park and a proposal under the cherry blossom trees. Sean had dreamed about kissing Alexei after popping the question.
Seemed his dreams would have to wait again.
Sean looked up from where his hands were cuffed to the table when the door to the interrogation room slid open. Oh, the Metropolitan police didn’t call it that—the official sign outside called it Interview Room 1—but Sean knew otherwise. From the first moment when his and Alexei’s RealIdent chips had blocked all police access from identifying them, the police had been nothing but pissed off. The charming pair of officers who had escorted them to the station had almost immediately been replaced by a stern-faced detective who’d taken one look at the red flag in the system and outright sighed.
“You two are going to be a headache, I just know it,” the detective had said.
True enough, they were.
Both Sean and Alexei refused to talk outside of requesting their lawyer. Sean didn’t know where Alexei was, as they were still being kept separated, but he knew they were in no immediate danger, not while they were holed up in a district station.
That changed the second Sean got eyes on the newcomer.
“Good morning, Mr. Smith,” Helena Voakes said with a pleasant smile. “I understand you called for your attorney. He’s in a mediation today and sent me to cover for him.”
“And you are?” Sean asked, playing along, even though he knew exactly who she was.
Helena took a seat across from him at the table, rather than beside him. “Jane Johnson.”
An alias using some of the most common names in existence. It would be funny if the situation hadn’t done a complete 180 in the last few seconds.
Sean’s former case officer in the CIA was an unwelcome surprise. What’s more, his time with the CIA had been spent under Helena’s direct command, and through her by several degrees, Deputy Director Carter Bennett.
When he’d returned—alive—from the Belfast Market Blast some years ago, an attack secretly perpetuated by Bennett, Sean’s status as a metahuman had supposedly been locked down within the upper echelons of the CIA. He’d left his fellow agents behind without much of a goodbye, and that included Helena. They hadn’t been friends when they’d worked together. He’d spent a lot of time in deep cover, and Helena had handled multiple agents, so they never had daily interaction.
But she reported to Bennett back then and still did now, if MDF reports were accurate. Sean couldn’t ignore that detail, because she was here, before even anyone affiliated with the MDF had arrived.
Helena drew a work tablet out of her purse, along with a slim black disk that was biometrically activated with the touch of a finger. The electronics jammer flashed on and Sean spared a glance at the floor-to-ceiling opaque plas-glass wall to his right. He was under no illusions they didn’t have an audience.
“I understand your cousins missed you at breakfast this morning,” Helena said.
“Cousins,” Sean echoed, the slang term for fellow CIA operatives sounding foreign on his tongue. “Yes, it’s a shame they couldn’t be there.”
“Isn’t it?” Helena smiled again, but
her hazel eyes, when Sean met them, were flat and emotionless. “You’re in luck. I come bearing a message from them.”
She unlocked her tablet and slid it across the table. Sean’s hands were cuffed to the table, so he couldn’t reach for it. Sean kept his eyes locked with Helena’s as he leaned forward before eventually breaking the staring match in favor of looking at what she wanted him to see.
Jamie and Kyle were in a rooftop garden in the holopic, caught in mid-conversation with a woman whose blurry face was in profile. Sean knew where and when the picture had been taken, and by whom. Nothing short of a military-grade AI program could break the blur caused by nanotech strips on Yulia Vitsina, a spy out of Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye, the Russian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate.
She’d called herself Yulia Lebedeva at the time, but sustained digging produced her true identity and ties to the GRU. While her face wasn’t viewable, the double-headed golden eagle stamped on the back of the leather tablet case was impossible to miss.
So were the unspoken connotations the holopic projected.
Because here was a Russian spy chatting up Senator Richard Callahan’s son at an Empyrean brand party. It offered up proof that the dinner with the Pavluhkins in Paris that every media stream was chewing on wasn’t a one-off instance. Continued contact had happened, and the senator’s campaign couldn’t weather much more in this storm without going under.
“I’d ask where you got that, but I can make an educated guess,” Sean said flatly.
“I’m here to deliver a message,” Helena said.
“I’m not interested in what you have to say.”
“I think you will be.” Helena tapped a perfectly manicured fingernail against the tablet. “He will be interested.”
In no world would Jamie ever believe anything coming from the CIA, not after the shit Bennett had pulled recently. Sean leaned back in his seat and flattened his fingers against the tabletop.
“No, he won’t.”
Helena smiled calmly at him, folding her hands together on the tabletop. Sean wasn’t put at ease by the gesture. He knew, despite her forty-three years of age, that Helena was a force to be reckoned with.
“How did you know I was here?” he asked.
“You called us earlier.” They both knew he’d done no such thing, but this was a game that needed to be played. Helena slid the tablet back toward herself, locking it without looking. “I think you know why I’m here, Mr. Smith.”
Sean stared at her over the table, questions tumbling through his mind, but this wasn’t the time and place to ask if she’d helped Bennett plan his murder through intermediaries.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Helena waved off the question. “It’s the only thing that matters.”
Her non-answer aside, Sean could make an educated guess on how those process servers had found them, despite their home addresses being restricted. The CIA had probably usurped the Congressional channel and sent a hunting pack after them consisting of a surveillance team to monitor their every move for subpoena purposes or worse. Paired with Stanislav’s precognitive power, there was no escaping those eyes.
It left Sean feeling cold and uneasy, but he refused to show how uncomfortable he was. He didn’t allow a single micro-expression to slip through. Helena could try to read him all she wanted, but Sean wasn’t giving her any ammunition to carry back to Langley.
Helena pointed a finger at the tablet, but otherwise didn’t move. “That holopic is scheduled to be released tonight. Imagine the upheaval it will cause.”
Sean arched an eyebrow, not willing to play the word game any more than necessary. “Probably the same as the last set of holopics you helped release to The New York Times.”
“We’re willing to withhold it, and everything else we have, in exchange for your cooperation.” Helena gave him an encouraging smile for their audience, though her eyes were hard. “Think about it, Mr. Smith. I know you haven’t seen your family—your cousins—in a long time. You wouldn’t want any of them to come into harm’s way, now would you?”
Sean went still, not quite believing what he was hearing. As his former case officer, Helena knew what made him tick. She’d always come across as dedicated to their country, but he had to wonder if that was all a lie now. He’d never expected she would try to use the concept of MICE against him, a former CIA officer.
When one got right down to it, money, ideology, coercion, or excitement were what caused a person to betray their country. Sean had used that concept himself over the years to target people. That Helena was here, trying to coerce him into spying on the MDF for the CIA by dangling the lives of the former agents he’d once served with in front of him, was mindboggling. If it wasn’t the agents, then it would be Jamie and his family.
Neither choice was acceptable, but Sean knew which one he would ultimately choose if push came to shove.
“We’re done here,” Sean said.
“Don’t be difficult.”
“I’ll be difficult all I like. Tell my attorney who couldn’t be here that he really should have tried harder to get rid of that problem dogging his heels.”
Helena opened her mouth to respond when the door slid open again and three people stepped inside the interrogation room. She stiffened in her chair and turned her head to get eyes on the newcomers.
Katie, wearing a sheath dress, sharply pointed stiletto heels, and a pissed-off expression on her face snapped her fingers at the detective coming in behind her. “Get him out of those cuffs.”
The detective who’d been in and out of the room for the last hour or so looked annoyed at being addressed in such a way, but he didn’t argue. Sean wondered what agency the MDF had gone through to step all over everyone’s toes here and get the police to give ground so meekly.
Sean didn’t recognize the other man Katie was with, but by the looks of him, Sean would peg him as JAG, probably working out of the MDF. Two attorneys—even if one was fake—in one small room was too much, however, and Helena got to her feet. The look Katie shot her had Helena freezing where she stood, rightly understanding that she was not the biggest threat in the room at the moment.
“Your help is no longer needed, Ms. Johnson,” Katie said coolly.
Helena retrieved her tablet from the table, glancing between Katie and Sean, taking their measure. “Call me.”
Sean rolled his eyes as the detective undid the mag-cuffs. He let out a heavy breath, the tension in his body draining away. He had to stop himself from rubbing his wrists as he got to his feet.
“Oh, and Ms. Johnson?” Katie called out, keeping her eyes on Sean.
Helena paused in the doorway, looking warily over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“Tell your boss that offer will never be accepted.”
Reading my mind? Sean asked, not in the least annoyed at her actions.
Just your surface thoughts, Katie replied. “And send your assistant in. I’d like my subpoena.”
Helena’s eyes widened ever so slightly, her gaze lingering on Sean for a few seconds more before she nodded slowly. “I’ll send her in.”
Helena left and someone else darted inside. The woman placed the folded synthpaper into Katie’s outstretched hand before rushing out of there, obviously spooked. Katie didn’t even bother looking at it, just handed the subpoena to the JAG representative. He took it before handing Katie a black velvet box.
Sean’s eyes snapped from the box to Katie’s face when she offered it to him. I made sure Alexei never saw it.
The relief Sean felt at her kindness ran deep. He took the box from her and tucked it out of sight in his pocket. Thank you.
“Ready?” she asked out loud.
“Yeah.”
He wanted to ask about Alexei, but thought it better to keep his mouth shut. Sean needn’t have worried. Once they exited the interrogation room, he instantly spotted Alexei. The other man was turning away from the pair of police officers who had brought them to the statio
n, giving them a mock salute as he did so. The smile on his face was irritatingly smug, and Sean could only shake his head a little at Alexei’s audacity of stirring up trouble.
“You’re not helping the situation any,” Sean muttered under his breath as they followed Katie out of the building. He was a little amused at how everyone scrambled to get out of her way, and he didn’t think that was because she was employing her telepathy. She was just that intimidating.
“Not care,” Alexei retorted.
Alexei’s stubbornness was legendary in the team, and Sean knew a losing battle when faced with one. He stayed quiet on their walk out of the station, unsurprised to see two SUVs parked curbside, engines running hot. The windows were blacked out, so he could only guess who waited for them inside. When Sean opened the door, he saw Kyle wave at him from the middle bench, a handgun held in his right hand.
“Get in,” Kyle ordered, staring over their shoulders at the officers milling around the front entrance.
“No shooting anyone,” Sean said.
“Ha. You’re funny. Be glad Jamie barred me from going inside with Katie.”
Jamie looked over his shoulder from his spot in the driver’s seat. “Ignore him. How are you two holding up?”
Alexei followed Sean into the rear back seat. “Fine,” he grunted.
Sean immediately put his hand on Alexei’s thigh, glad for the grounding connection after spending the last couple of hours with his hands cuffed. Alexei put his hand over Sean’s and tangled their fingers together before buckling up.
Katie climbed into the front passenger seat and closed her door. “We’re clear.”
“The CIA probably has a surveillance team monitoring us,” Sean warned.
“Katie told me,” Jamie said as he pulled into the street. “I sent Madison to deal with them.”
“Sadly, it wasn’t a permanent fix,” Kyle said as he slung an arm over his seat back and twisted around. “She stuck a mini-EMP on their car and activated it once she cleared the area. Computer died and they aren’t coming after us.”
In the Requiem (Metahuman Files Book 5) Page 6