A pity that, in the end, none of it had been enough to grant Midas and the Coalition a final victory.
The best they were able to manage against the United Colonies was an end to the hostilities in exchange for certain concessions.
It was a point of pride for Celia that even those concessions would not have been achieved without the intelligence she provided, proving the value of her continuing to remain embedded in the Colonies.
Admittedly, her role would require some adaptation now that Jessup, her key source of intelligence, had been eliminated. And here he’d only just taken command of the Tactical Division, which would have proven a veritable crystal field of information.
Sadly, Gideon Quinn’s release had left her no choice but to clean up her husband’s mess.
At the thought, she had to laugh, for Jessup’s death had been far from clean.
Nahmin had seen to that.
At least the inherent viscera of murder had given her the opportunity to give the staff the rest of day off, and while there had been a token protest from the cook, the maids—both of whom had been required to clean Celia’s bedchamber after Jessup was removed—were more than happy to excuse themselves.
From the looks on their faces, Celia imagined she’d be advertising for new maids by the week’s end.
Still, it was a small price to pay for freedom from her husband’s past mistakes.
After all, if he’d simply killed Gideon Quinn during their encounter at Nasa, there would have been no need to have Nahmin kill Jessup last night.
But that was Jessup all over, Celia thought with an amused fondness for the husband she’d had murdered, always adhering to the protocols. Even while he was framing another man for treason.
She recalled the day Jessup had returned from Nasa to tell her what had happened, and how she’d momentarily lost control, furious that Quinn still lived.
It had been a mistake, but thankfully Jessup assumed her anger was based in fear of Gideon Quinn, rather than disappointment in himself, and so her cover remained intact.
“What you didn’t know, Jessup, dear,” she murmured as she reached for the soap, “never hurt you.”
“Actually, it kinda did,” Gideon said from the door—before ducking the soap she automatically hurled his way.
44
Perhaps later Gideon would appreciate the memory of a wet, naked Celia, surging from the bath.
In the present moment, however, he was more concerned with containing the slippery, kicking, scratching, she-draco before she could do some serious damage.
As it was, he took a wicked scratch to the throat, and barely avoided a knee in his most favorite part, before he swept her up over a shoulder, where the punches and kicks were more annoying than dangerous.
She did, while he was reaching down for the robe she’d left on the tile floor, get her teeth into his side, which had him this close to letting her drop straight down onto her head.
Fortunately for Celia, Gideon needed her alive, and conscious. So, while she dug her teeth in, he reminded himself it had been a gift to find the house emptied of servants when he broke in, and to expect the rest of the plan to go so easily would be greedy.
With this in mind, he gritted his teeth, slung her out of the bath and into the adjoining bedroom—already scoured of the previous night’s violence—and tossed her soapy ass onto the bed, where she immediately scrambled to her knees, ready to attack again.
“Think about it,” Gideon said, braced for impact. “I was being nice before. You come at me again, I won’t be nice. I might even do what I really want to do, and break your very lovely neck.”
She thought about it and, while she did, he tossed the robe, still scrunched in his left hand, onto her lap.
She ignored the scrap of fabric as she studied his face. “You’re not lying. You really would kill me.”
“I can’t believe you find that surprising,” he said as fresh blood welled from his neck and his side.
“But it’s not your first choice,” she observed, sitting back on her heels. “Which means you’re not here seeking revenge so… what is it you do want?”
“Walks in the rain, a dinner that hasn’t been drugged, world peace—unless—did you mean right now?” he asked at her fulminating look. “I came for my coat,” he said, then nodded to her robe. “You may as well get dressed. Unless you want to catch cold while I continue to not fall for your painfully obvious charms.”
Interesting, he thought, that the cool spy would blush so… comprehensively. She did, however, put on the robe, tying the sash with short, angry jerks.
“Happy?” she asked, biting off the word with enough violence to make it bleed.
“I’m still a long ways from happy,” he said, just as shortly. “About seven years, six funerals and four thousand kilometers, give or take.”
“If you are speaking of the Nasa incident—” Celia began.
“It wasn’t an incident,” he cut her off, tamping down the old anger, which would not serve him here. “It was murder.”
“It was war,” she shot back. “And in war, a soldier does what she must.”
“Soldiers fight on the line, face to face. They don’t—”
“Don’t lie? Cheat? Steal?” She shook her head. “I’ve read your file, Colonel Quinn. Most of your career was spent behind the lines, destroying munitions, stealing supplies, and intercepting intelligence. Hardly fighting the honorable fight, was it?” As she spoke, her face, her voice, her entire body softened. “We are not so different, Gideon.”
“Yes, we are, and stop that,” he ordered, his tone deliberately bored. “We both know you’re as seductive as the proverbial road to Los Angeles, there’s no point pushing my buttons just to prove it. Which brings up another issue…”
“It does, indeed.” She looked down, then up again. “I thought you weren’t interested?”
“Ha. And I’m not,” he said between clenched teeth, because of course he was interested.
“Of course you’re interested,” she said with a scary little smile.
“You,” he said shortly, “are poison.”
“And you a blunt instrument,” she said, showing no sign offense. “Weapons, the both of us, in service to our masters. But knowing that, why can’t we—”
“Why can’t we what?” he cut in, wishing his mouth weren’t so dry. “Just get along?”
“Something like that,” she said laying back onto the bed, so the satin of her robe blended with the silk of the coverlet and it seemed to Gideon she was swimming in a pool of wine.
Or blood.
“Just that easy?” he asked, his voice rougher than it had been as her calf turned, just so.
“Why ever not?” she asked in her turn, while her hands slid up the coverlet to either side, open and inviting—until her right hand slipped beneath the massed pillows at the head of the bed.
He had to give her credit, she’d almost gotten her finger on the knife hidden under the pillow before he was on top of her, his left hand tightening around her wrist until she was forced to release the needle-like weapon.
“Nice try,” he said, taking custody of the blade.
“Who says I failed?” Beneath him, she relaxed. Her lips parted, and he became uncomfortably aware how little fabric was involved in the robe she wore. “I got you where I wanted, didn’t I?” When he said nothing, she smiled. “Why, Gideon, I sense you’re… conflicted.”
Conflicted wasn’t the word for what he was. He could feel every centimeter of the woman, see the flutter of her pulse at her throat.
Every breath he took was filled with the scent of her.
It would be so easy to rip that flimsy bit of satin aside. So easy to…
What the hell is wrong with you?
He blinked, then let out a curse that came out more like a growl before flinging himself away, taking the knife with him.
She sighed, and curled herself to a sitting position with the consciously unconscious air of pur
e sexuality that, Gideon was certain, had raised blood pressures across all five of the United Colonies.
“Why,” she asked, “are you so resistant?”
He shook his head. “Where to start? Oh wait, I know, how about where you framed me for your husband’s murder? And that’s after I did six years hard labor because you persuaded him to frame me for treason? Nice work, by the way. I’d ask how you did it, but after last night and just now, I think I’ve got a good idea.”
She tossed her head. “Don’t be crude.”
“How can you say that with a straight face?” he asked. “But that’s not what I meant.”
She frowned. “Then what did you mean?”
“I meant that as attractive as you are—and yeah, I’ll be taking cold showers for a month—I find it odd that I only have to be in the same room with you and I turn into a randy teenager with the mental faculties of a dodo.”
“And that’s different from your norm in what way?”
“Ouch,” he said mildly, before continuing, “I felt it the first time in Allianz, when my team extracted you from under the enemy’s noses. I remember feeling nothing but irritation, at first. Then you shot that Midasian soldier, and he looked so surprised—and kind of hurt—that it was you pulling the trigger. I thought his reaction was odd, until you looked at me and all my thoughts just,” he raised his right hand and exploded his fingers outward in description of his mental state. “Then we were moving, and there wasn’t a lot of time to think, until you sent that little thank you note, months after the extraction, which was weird.”
“I don’t see—”
“Weird because one would think a well-bred lady such as yourself would have sent the letter directly after the event, not months after it occurred. What was more weird, was that it arrived shortly after my company intercepted a courier bearing intelligence meant for Midasian Command from a spy named Odile.”
She said nothing, just watched him through eyes going remarkably cold.
“And then you came to my quarters in Epsilon while I was—otherwise occupied—and next thing I know, I’m sitting down to tea with you and my lover, while she happily opened up to you about pretty much everything, which should have felt way more awkward than it did, and which was an order of magnitude beyond weird.”
“Is it really so difficult to believe I found you attractive? Dani said you always thought too little of yourself.“
“Do not mention her name. Ever.”
She raised an eyebrow, but remained silent.
“All of those instances were weird,” he continued after a beat, “but what was particularly odd about that day, and about every encounter I’ve had with you, was that, at the time, I never found them odd at all. Not only that, I managed to forget them almost entirely, after they occurred.”
“I don’t find that odd,” she said, “I forgot about them before they’d even ended.”
“Again, ouch. Also, a lie. Because if you had forgotten, you wouldn’t have convinced your husband I assaulted you. Who’d you get to mark you up, anyway?”
She stared.
He waited.
She sighed. “Nahmin. He did a very convincing job, so much so that Jessup went quite mad. Luckily my tears, and the fear of scandal, dissuaded him from confronting you, directly.”
“So instead he used his position to send my company into Nasa, making me look like the traitor,” Gideon finished for her. “And I bet he never once questioned what he was doing, because it was you who asked him to do it.”
“He loved me,” she said simply.
“I’m sure he thought he did.”
She raised her hands in frustration. “How is that not the same thing?”
“It’s not the same thing because it wasn’t him loving you. It was you making him love you.”
Her face, usually so expressive, closed like a moonflower at sunsrise. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Cut the crap, Celia. You know exactly what I mean, and you know exactly what I mean because you can feel it, and you can feel it because you’re a sensitive.”
45
The university clock was chiming three o’clock by the time DS Hama pulled up outside the grounds of the Rand estate with his remaining officers.
The keepers and their new charges had returned to the Elysium Hotel, where the youngsters would be offered Sanctuary. Tiago had gone with them, as several of the children needed medical care.
The other half Ishan’s team back to the precinct with the Pradish twins, who were taking full advantage of the right to remain silent and stare sullenly at anyone in their view.
This left him with officers Prudawe, Giacomo and Hodges, as well as Mia and the draco.
She had refused to go with the keepers, swearing she’d make her own way to the Rand house if he tried to leave her behind.
Ishan didn’t doubt her for a moment, and decided she’d be best in his sight rather than out of it.
He was less sanguine when, upon dismounting from his cycle, three massive silhouettes emerged from the hedge surrounding the Rand property.
“I know you,” he said, as the shapes became the Ohmdahl triplets. “Drunk and disorderly,” he pointed at Ulf. “Assault with a bar stool,” he pointed to Rolf. “General mayhem,” he pointed, finally, at Freya.
“That was long ago,” Freya said.
“That was last week,” Ishan told her.
“As I said, long ago.” She nodded decisively. “Back when we are without purpose, yes? But Gideon Quinn gives us job with meaning, now!”
“Gideon Quinn did, did he?” Ishan looked from Freya to Mia.
“He needed help to set up the marks,” she said with a shrug. On her shoulder, Elvis made a complicated trill which seemed to confirm the statement.
“Is not to worry,” Ulf assured Ishan. “Quinn tells us you are the man in charge, and we are to follow your orders.”
“Good,” Ishan said, resisting the urge to press a finger to his twitching left eye. “That’s… good.”
“You have our radio, yes?” Rolf asked. “Is important, Quinn says.”
“I have it, yes, but—”
“Sir?” Prudawe was approaching, her own radio in hand. “I just heard from Sergeant Tyree. She says—”
“A moment,” Ishan held up a hand. “Listen,” he said to the three Ohmdahls, looming hopefully, “I don’t believe—”
“But sir,” Prudawe pressed, “she says to tell you to expect—”
“Did I not just say,” Ishan turned on the officer, “to give me a… a…ah…” He faltered to silence as a Corps green sedan pulled up next to his cycle, barely coming to a halt before a General of the Corps began to climb out.
“Kimo Satsuke,” she introduced herself while her gaze turned from the Ohmdahls, to his own officers, and landed finally on Mia, before returning her attention to Ishan. “Commander of Corps Internal Operations. I believe your sergeant told you to expect me?”
Ishan looked at Prudawe, who cleared her throat.
“Only just now, General,” he said diplomatically. “But we didn’t get far. How may I be of assistance?”
Nahmin saw the large gathering on the corner of Chaucer and Canterbury long before they could notice him, so he turned onto Donne and abandoned his transport two streets away.
He then walked around the block, slipped over the wall of the Muir’s garden, and then again over the estate’s dividing wall to the Canterbury side of the Rand town home.
He landed in the kitchen garden nestled between the stables and the main house, where he paused to listen to the proceedings on the other side of the wall.
Which was how he learned Quinn had used the buffoonish Ohmdahl triplets to lure Rey and Ronan to the boathouse, and into the waiting shackles of the Nike P.D.
Why Quinn chose the boathouse for his sting he did not hear, nor did he care.
For now, his primary focus was to remove Odile from a compromising situation.
Beyond the wall, another
vehicle pulled to a stop, urging him onwards. He raced to the house itself, only to find the servant’s entrance bolted, and the key broken inside the lock.
Quinn, again proving himself canny.
He stepped back, and looked up to Celia’s bedroom window, which overlooked the street where Hama and his team assembled.
It would be tight, but Nahmin could also be canny—canny enough to reach his objective unseen and, once there, put an end to the Quinn problem.
46
In the silence following Gideon’s revelation, Celia observed the curtains, closed over the bedroom’s open window, moving gently. “Are you waiting for something?” she asked, focusing in Gideon. “Applause? A clap of thunder? A tearful confession?”
“I don’t doubt you could pull one out. But like I said earlier, I just came for my coat. And maybe some answers,” he admitted with a negligent shrug.
“You’ve done such a fine job of coming up with your own answers. What could I possibly add?”
“How about why you’re still active, now the war has ended?”
“Foolish man,” she said, watching him. He really was a pleasure to look at. Too bad he’d have to die. “The war hasn’t ended. It has simply moved to a different battlefield.”
He looked at her, stretched out on the bed. “I’ll say. So,” he flipped the knife he’d taken from her in his left hand and then used it as a pointer. “To sum up, you, Celia Rand, are in fact the Coalition operative known as Odile.”
“You are impressed with yourself, aren’t you?” She sat up and crossed her arms over her knees, the better to enjoy the show.
“You are also a sensitive of some flavor or other.“
“Empath,” she confirmed.
He let out a low whistle which she took to be appreciation. “I can see how that would be a plus for maintaining a cover as deep as yours.”
Oh yes, she thought, he definitely has to die.
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