by Susan Grant
“DM rack?”
“De-moisturizing rack,” he explained. “It’ll dry the clothes in about a minute.”
“Wow. A super high-tech clothes dryer. Too bad we don’t have a food maker, too.” Her grin faded as he laid his pistol between their pillows, easily reached by both of them, and climbed back into bed.
“Get some rest, Bree.” He tugged the blanket higher. “Don’t get too comfortable, though. We’re not in the UCE yet.”
“Yet?” She came up on her elbow. “‘Now that you have won your liberty, Banzai Maguire, you must win freedom for us all.’ You heard it, Tyler. You were there. This person, or group, whatever it is, is using me as inspiration to overthrow your government. And you think I’ll be safe in the UCE?”
“I do.”
“Argh.”
“Do you think you’ll be safe here?” he asked. “Do you think Kyber will allow you to saunter into that cave and just look under rocks for Cameron Tucker? After you escaped him? He’ll have his entire army waiting for you— if they’re not already camped outside this door.”
“That’s a comforting thought.”
“It’s reality, Bree.”
Pride kept her from admitting that Ty was right. She was no freer outside the palace than she’d been within its luxurious walls. Prince Kyber, acting Han emperor, still controlled her—and everyone else within the borders of his kingdom. Everyone but the people who called themselves the shadows.
Battles changed minute to minute—often second to second. She had to learn to be as adaptable on the ground as she was in the air, especially if she wanted to achieve her goal of ultimately finding out the fate of her friend. To do that, she had to shift her focus from risking all to reach the cave to doing whatever it took to make the meeting with the shadows in the morning.
Ty pulled her into his arms and kissed her to cut off any protests. Stroking her hair, he held her close. The feel of his strong, warm body was something she didn’t want to argue. “I’11 make sure you get to the rendezvous point,” he murmured into her hair.
A peace offering, she thought; he wouldn’t be biased and pig-headed about the rendezvous, at least. What happened after that, heaven only knew. “Eighth radius,” she murmured wearily. “At nine.”
She closed her eyes, trying not to dwell on the mysterious person summoning her, the driver who died before her eyes, and the terrifying dash across town to the Celadon Inn in the cold. But the images haunted her—and would, she knew, for a long time to come. She liked combat a lot more from behind the controls of an F-16.
Slowly, her mind shut down. As her energy dwindled to nothing, the deepest of sleep claimed her.
* * *
Bree started into heart-thumping alertness. No sound had jarred her awake; rather it was awareness that something had changed, the way a shift in the wind direction sometimes woke her when she slept with the windows open. Ty’s slow breaths rustled her still-damp hair. So tired... But the feeling of change wouldn’t let her close her eyes. Maybe a storm was brewing. She hoped not. Bad weather would present yet another obstacle to making the rendezvous on time.
Too weary to get out of bed, Bree peered out the window. Tall buildings blocked the sky. Then, in her peripheral vision, she glimpsed movement. To the right. Inside the room.
Something dropped silently from the ceiling and crouched down in the shadows pooling at the far wall.
Her blood ran cold. Danger, her senses cried.
Bree shoved Ty’s arm from around her waist, pushing him away. Her fingers landed on the pistol, and she swung it around to intimidate whoever had invaded the room. But a flash of light burst from the direction of the intruder. Something thumped into the mattress. A hole of scorched cotton marred the spot where Ty’s body had been seconds before.
“I owe you for that,” Ty said with wild-eyed awe. He obviously had been awakened by her shove. “Now—get down!” Snatching the pistol from her hand, he lunged off the bed on one side, and she on the other.
Ty had disarmed her, Bree thought, outraged. Now, how was she supposed to help fight?
The attacker raised his weapon to fire at Ty’s head. Bree grabbed a pillow, flinging it across the room before his silencer-equipped gun flashed again. If she didn’t have bullets, she had bedding. As she’d hoped, the man’s shot went wild. But not wild enough. Ty stumbled backward with a grunt of surprise and pain.
Ty! His name—a silent plea—pushed its way up her throat. Then he proved himself unneedful of fear, deftly shooting the weapon out of their assailant’s hand.
“Lights!” Ty shouted. Illumination revealed a man wearing a mask fleeing, hoisting himself up a rope dangling from an air vent in the ceiling.
Instantly, Bree knew this was no ordinary intruder. He had “paid assassin” written all over his muscular, black-clad body. Someone must want them dead pretty badly if they’d hired a professional to do it.
Chapter Seventeen
Ty dove for the assassin’s legs before the man could escape back through the ceiling. The bastard swung his legs, trying to dislodge him. Ty hung on. Razor-sharp agony shredded his upper right side. With an experienced combat soldier’s detachment, he figured the bullet had entered below his collarbone, with an exit somewhere in his upper back. But his lungs felt clear, and his right arm still worked. It was his lucky day.
The assassin kicked and whipped himself around, trying to dislodge his captor. Lips peeled back with exertion and pain, Ty slammed his pistol viciously against the man’s pumping legs. He heard the snap of a cracking shinbone. With a hoarse howl of pain, the killer released his handhold.
He and Ty fell to the floor and rolled.
A fist caught Ty in the chin, but he was too high on pain and adrenaline to feel the blow. He rammed his knee into his opponent’s broken leg. A cry of pain told him he’d hit his target. Then Ty brought the pistol across the assassin’s face, breaking his nose.
“I don’t want to kill you,” he gasped. “I just want to hear who sent you to murder Bree in her sleep!” He slammed his weapon again across the bastard’s face, and then a third time—bone-crushing blows. Only the black mask worn by the assassin kept Ty from a shower of blood. “Who do you work for? Tell me!”
He flipped the man onto his stomach. Straddling the assassin, he jerked an arm into a brutal lock that would keep the guy still if by some chance the broken leg and shattered nose didn’t do the trick. His harsh breaths rivaled the downed assassin’s in volume. Fighting naked, Ty was lucky he hadn’t crushed his own balls in the process.
“Are you Kyber’s vermin? Did he send you here?” Ty tore off the mask. Covered in blood, the other man’s features were almost unrecognizable.
Almost.
Ty fought down a rush of bile. “Lopez...” As SEALs, he and this man had spent weeks in deep cover in the Raft Cities. Later in the war, Lopez had been on Ty’s team to find the mutilated UV crews. Lopez was one of the most brilliant and brutal soldiers he’d ever worked with. And, he’d thought, a friend. “Jesus. What the fuck is going on?”
Lopez gave a drawn-out moan.
“Who sent you here?” Ty’s heart hammered. Pain gripped his chest and made it hard to breathe. He blinked away the telltale black spots of blood loss and gave Lopez a vicious shake. “Who gave you a coward’s orders to shoot me in the back?”
That’s where the bullet would have impacted if Bree hadn’t shoved him out of the way. He knew all about assassination missions. If Lopez had struck true, the next bullet would have found Banzai’s head. It was the classic one-two punch: first, you got rid of my obstacles; then you hit your target. “Who was it, Lopez? Tell me! I’m your goddamned friend. Not the enemy.”
“Use...,” Lopez whispered. “Use...”
“Who? Speak up, soldier.” He was losing Lopez to unconsciousness. He shook him hard. “Use what?”
“Use...UCE.”
“The UCE sent you?” Ty reared back in shock. Everything he’d believed, everything he’d taken for gr
anted, came crashing down around him. Yet, it all made sense. Murdering Banzai Maguire would keep that Voice of Freedom from using her for any gain. They must be scared of her. But why? And to enter the Kingdom of Asia to do this? Only one man could have given the order for such a mission. “Was it General Armstrong? Did my father send you?”
He thought he heard a groan in the affirmative, but when he bent down to listen, there was only silence. Lopez stared unseeing at the foot of the bed. Ty checked for a pulse. There was none.
Holy Mother of God. He’d beaten the man to death.
Beaten him out of rage. A fellow soldier. A friend.
Ty stared at the blood on his hands—his own mixed with that of a man he’d once trusted. He tried to kill you. He tried to kill Bree, he told himself.
But only one man could have given such orders—“Ax” Armstrong himself.
A worse and more surprising thought occurred to Ty: If his father had acted on intelligence that Banzai Maguire had escaped, he would have known that Ty was with her. And if that were true, the general would have understood that in order to take out Bree, he might have to kill Ty. Collateral damage: every mission carried the risk.
Was that all he was to his father? A calculated risk?
Revulsion and a soul-deep sense of betrayal squeezed his gut. He loved his father. But his father, it was clear, loved the UCE.
The roar in his head swelled in volume and blackness rolled over him like a tidal wave.
* * *
“Thank God.” Bree leaned over him. “You’re back.”
It took Ty a moment to realize that he’d passed out. How long he’d been out, he didn’t know. A pillow cushioned his head, but he didn’t remember her putting it there—or that she’d donned her clothes and had somehow gotten him into his pants. A field dressing made of sheets and towels constricted his chest. Bree had done that. Good girl, he thought. A true soldier. Worthy of all he felt for her. Probably more. He swallowed, panting in an effort to control the pain.
He had to stay awake. He had too much to tell her yet.
She squeezed his shoulders. He couldn’t tell if her face was wet from sweat or tears. “Don’t die,” she whispered. “I need you.”
He managed a smile. “Yeah?”
“To help me locate Cam,” she replied—a little too quickly.
“That’s all?” He gave a pain-filled laugh.
Her shoulders sagged. Then a slight, almost self-deprecating smile curved her lips. “Well, the old me would like to think that,” she admitted in a quiet voice and brought a warm hand to his cheek. “But, okay, there’s more to it than that.” Her throat moved and tenderness filled her eyes. “I want you to stick around,” she whispered. “And by God, you will if I have anything to do with it, Tyler Armstrong.” Abruptly, she bent her head to tighten the dressing around his chest. “How did the UCE know I was here?”
“Oh, the UCE will have known about you for some time.” He paused for a spasm of pain to pass. “Especially if Kyber mentioned it to them. And he would have, I think. He’d gloat over you like he did me. And when the voice started using your name, you became a real threat to them. To the UCE.”
“The voice? That was tonight! How could they react so fast?”
“The broadcasts have been going all week. I doubt tonight was the first time it mentioned your name.”
“Mentioned?” She shook with uncertainty and anger. “It summoned me. You heard it.”
“Yes. And so did everyone else. Special Ops has probably been in the kingdom for weeks, working on getting me out, covertly, while the aboveboard negotiations took place.”
“Even so. How would they find us so fast? I thought we got out under cover.”
“They could be working with the shadows. Or have informants in the group.”
“Check Lopez,” he said, his breathing labored. “See if he brought the usual supplies.”
“I already frisked him for weapons.” She showed Ty a pistol she’d shoved in her waistband, one that had evidently belonged to Lopez.
“Find his meds, Bree. He’ll have something I can take.” He licked his dry lips. “It’ll slow the bleeding. It’ll keep me alive until we rendezvous with the Shadows.”
“What’s this?” She held up a small, chunky weapon.
“His fryer. Take it.”
“His...what?”
“Fryer. His neuron fryer.” He panted as she stowed the fryer in her pants pocket. Stay with her, Armstrong. Stay conscious, he told himself. “Doesn’t kill. Knocks out an assailant. Erases short-term memory.” He stopped to take a breath, fighting off the encroaching blackness. “Look under the belt for the med kit—inside his uniform.”
“Eureka,” she cried, tearing open the pouch. “What do you need? What do I give you first?”
“The patch. Unseal it, then press it under my chin. Make sure the spikes puncture my skin. It’ll release nanomeds. Slow the internal bleeding.”
The room spun, and he felt lighter than air, as if he were floating. And he was cold...so cold. The tremors that had so far remained in his abdomen had spread to his limbs.
“You’re shivering,” she said. “You’re losing too much blood. But then you know that. You’re the one who was pre-med. You know how serious this injury is. Why aren’t the meds helping?”
“Takes time.” He lifted a leaden arm and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.”
“My guts are twisting, Ty. Will we be able to stop the bleeding? Will I lose you before I can get you to a doctor? Where will I ever find a doctor who won’t turn us over to Kyber? And you tell me it’ll be okay?” She looked sick to her stomach with worry. Her dread-filled gaze shifted to the door. “I’ll go find a doctor. I’ll get you care. The Shadows will help us.”
“Will they? The shadows facilitated your escape, but maybe we should question that. Who can we trust? What if they’re undercover operatives of the UCE and not rebels? Lopez found us here...”
She appeared to struggle with that. “We have to put our trust in someone. They’ve done nothing so far to indicate they’re trying to hurt us. Do you think they would have brought us all the way to New Seoul just to be in this hotel room for their man to come through the ceiling?”
Ty shook his head. “I don’t know what my father is capable of anymore,” he said wearily. “And yet, I can’t blame him.”
Bree’s cheeks reddened with anger. She seemed surprised. “How could a man pay someone to kill his only child?”
“He stands to lose far more than a son if this call to revolution takes hold.” The sights and sounds of the demonstration roared back into his skull. “It’s haunted me, Bree, that scene we watched on the news. And, to my alarm, it stirred me.”
Bree paused. Then, “Me, too,” she whispered.
In thirty years spent as the son of a powerful man, and as an officer serving his country, he’d never seen anything like what he’d witnessed last night. Lopez’s appearance confirmed what he already knew in his gut: He and Banzai were witnessing the birth of something that would change the world.
And Bree Maguire was the rallying point.
“I can’t help thinking I’m committing treason to even think this way. Treachery is not in my blood,” he said, almost as if compelled to convince himself of it. “I’m a loyal soldier.”
“You are,” she said, her eyes filling. “That you were moved by what you saw doesn’t mean you’re a traitor.”
“Then what am I, Bree? What am I if not a soldier of the UCE?” He felt lost, truly lost, for the first time in his life.
She rested her hands on his. “Now you know how I feel. When I realized I could no longer be a USAF pilot, I didn’t know what I would do that would give any meaning to my life. Maybe...maybe this is it. Maybe it is for you, too.”
He grimaced, both from the pain of his wound and the turbulence of his emotion. “I took an oath. I swore to defend the laws of my country.”
“Ty, tell me
the truth. Do you think the men you serve are representative of the people you protect? They’re not elected, from what I understand. They’re appointed. Including your president.”
“Appointed, yes. By other appointees.”
“Exactly.” She used a towel to wipe her hands clean of blood. “While you were unconscious, I started thinking of my great-grandmother. I admired her greatly. She was a true patriot, and I learned a lot from her. She’d been imprisoned once, like me—though they didn’t call it that—but she never let her love for her country die. Just because I’m a hundred-and-seventy years from where I started out, doesn’t mean I should, either. It’s twenty-one seventy-six. Like seventeen-seventy-six. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Fate brought me here for a reason.” Bree’s gaze softened. “My great-grandmother used to tell me a favorite quote of hers—‘don’t be afraid of death. Be afraid of the unlived life.’ Maybe that’s what I was—afraid. I wanted nothing to do with the voice or its call to arms because I was sure I wasn’t up to the task. That I couldn’t possibly influence things on such a grand scale. But I must be capable of helping, Ty, in a bigger way than I ever wanted to admit, or the powers that be wouldn’t be trying so hard to kill me.”
Her chin lifted. “‘I serve in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.’ I am, Ty. If the voice is calling me, I want to go to it. Its preaching is a return to the country my great-grandmother loved. I want that country back.”
“I think the people in the UCE do, too,” he said. He’d known from the start that her reappearance would inspire and motivate—it was the excuse he’d given himself when he decided to go in search of her—but never had he imagined this. The attempt on her life had just demonstrated quite graphically that she wasn’t only his to have anymore; she belonged to the world. For the first time, he grasped the awesome responsibility that lay in his hands. And he knew what he had to do.
He stroked his fingertip down her cheek. He was sluggish. It was getting harder to move. He began to have his doubts about the nanomeds and their effectiveness. “I will stay with you in whatever you decide to do.”