“Trying to appear innocent doesn’t suit you, either, lieutenant,” she drawled while I was still lost in thought about how to proceed.
I made a point of focusing on her, letting her know she had my attention. “I wouldn’t dare insult you like that,” I told her, putting on a little too much charm, a little too obviously. The way her mouth twisted into a disgusted line made me guess I’d gotten the balance just right—and she was obviously not the woman I stood a chance of charming the pants off. While I knew charm wouldn’t work on Marleen, she seemed like the better target—even more so as I was counting on her investing some quality time into testing my loyalty, now that we were here. “You seem to have me at a disadvantage,” I observed. “With you knowing who I am, but I don’t even know your name.”
She pursed her lips; without the perpetual frown, she could have been considered beautiful by some, if not in a very glamorous way. She wore a conservative dress—utterly useless to survival but much like most of the other noncombatants I’d seen around her so far. Brown hair, brown eyes, and the pallor of her skin made me guess she hadn’t spent a day outside since the shit hit the fan. She was definitively intelligent and quite possibly homicidal, which, considering her presumed tasks, would have been a prerequisite. There was something vaguely familiar about her features but that could have been pure coincidence; I’d passingly seen so many people over the years that it was easy to find familiarity in just about anyone, somehow. And yet—
“You may call me Guinevere,” she offered, sounding very gracious about it.
“Like King Arthur’s fabled queen. Very befitting a woman of your importance and standing,” I observed, continuing with the sleaze routine.
Rather than another frown, I got a smirk from her—and it didn’t hold a hint of humor. “Only that I don’t need men needlessly quarreling over who gets to lay claim to me,” she stated, the smirk deepening, pretty close to a grimace now. “Instead, I’m rather fond of doing away with self-described gallant knights. You’d better make sure not to end up on that list.”
I gave her a low nod to acknowledge that the message had been received. Marleen returning with Gita in tow thankfully put an end to this conversation that was leading nowhere except to my sudden, painful death, probably. Gita looked nervous, glancing from me to Guinevere and back before finally settling on Marleen. Apparently still not over the mistake she’d made, Marleen glared at me, silently prompting me to spill the beans.
“I presume that your plan was to shank Lewis in her remaining kidney?” I asked the assassin. When she nodded, I glanced at Gita. “You got her the file from Emily Raynor’s operation documentation, right?” Gita was slower to nod but eventually did so. I allowed myself a small, triumphant smile as I turned back to the Queen Bee. “See, therein lies the issue. Emily, bless her pedantic working manner, hates typing up notes. And she’s dyslexic.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Marleen grated out, thankfully not disputing my claims. I was counting on the fact that they knew about my personal involvement with the surgeon and thus trusted my lies as long as I could make them sound plausible.
Guinevere herself also wasn’t impressed. “That sounds rather illogical for a woman who thinks of herself as that brilliant, and might not be far off with said claim.” What amounted to almost praise coming from her made me wonder if Gita wasn’t the only one she’d tried to bring to her side. The fact that she’d had wrong intel underlined that she hadn’t been successful, albeit I was sure it had nothing to do with Emily’s moral code. She simply wouldn’t bother playing anyone’s games.
“Yes, she is brilliant,” I was quick to agree. “And she has an eidetic memory, at least where her surgeries are concerned. Why bother much with writing something down if you’ll never forget performing every single step of it? Add lack of concern and a certain issue with reversing letters, and you easily end up with a file that makes you stab a woman in a kidney she hasn’t had for over two years.” While I had their attention, I turned to Gita to add the final puzzle piece to sell it all. “While we were on the destroyer bound to France, you helped Miller take care of his wife’s recovery after surgery, right?”
Gita nodded, looking appropriately green around the nose—and I doubted she needed to fake that. I’d seen more of Lewis’s body in that state than I’d ever needed to see not to have continual nightmares. “The scar from the kidney excision was on her right lower back, right? Not on the left.”
Again, Gita nodded, even going as far as to stammer, “Yeah, like it’s on the opposite site from the scars on her leg and hip, front left.”
I turned back to the other two women, who were still portraying sour moods but no doubt about my claims. “See? If you’d just asked me, I could have cleared up that mistake for you before you even made it.” And because that wasn’t enough yet… “And I know a lot more that you won’t find in any files or reports from people who’ve barely crossed their paths. I’ve spent two months with Lewis and Miller on that mission to France, and unlike some random newcomer, they have both confided in me on multiple occasions. Ever wondered why I was there to pick her up when she escaped the camp? Before they bounced, Miller left instructions with me for a dead-drop box for information exchange. I knew something was up when the box was empty last time I checked. I know shit, and I’m happy to share it with you.”
Marleen looked less impressed than I would have expected for dropping such a bomb, but maybe I was reading too much into it. Guinevere didn’t react at all except for cocking her head to the side. “What makes you think I’m only interested in those two?”
Good question… and one that reminded me how far out on thin ice I was coasting with no clue whatsoever what I was doing. “Isn’t everyone all over themselves over them these days?” I muttered sarcastically, hoping my tone would sell what my words clearly didn’t.
Guinevere gave me one last look that I couldn’t read yet left the point unanswered as she turned back to Marleen. “Our plan is proceeding well, I’m being told. I want a full briefing tomorrow morning at nine.” She cast a sidelong glance my way. “Why don’t you get our esteemed guest’s opinion on it? After verifying that we can trust him.”
She barely waited for Marleen’s acknowledgement before she strode back into one of the adjoining rooms, dismissing us.
That had gone well… I thought. At least it hadn’t been a complete catastrophe, from what I could tell. Gita remained jumpy where she lingered closer to the corridor, making me wonder just how much of a powder keg this was—and how much I was missing. She kept eyeing me warily, which I could understand well; I wasn’t quite sure what to make of her presence here, either. She didn’t regard Marleen with any less reservation, which made me guess Gita had gotten her fair share of glimpses behind the charming, spunky mask Marleen usually wore on the outside.
The assassin herself lingered for only a moment as if to quickly arrange her internal schedule before turning to her men. “He’s not to walk anywhere without at least five of you to make sure he doesn’t cause any undue trouble.” Giving me a smile that looked way too real, she added, “Not that you would, I’m sure.”
I shrugged off her unspoken scorn. “As I see it, I don’t have a reason to, right?”
She didn’t give any indication what she thought of that as she spoke to the others again. “Gita, call the hospitality manager and get him stashed away somewhere. I’ll go grab a shower. I presume my update will be compiled by then?”
“You can get it anytime you want from my workstation,” the girl responded, a little more relaxed since the subject had turned to her work.
“Perfect,” Marleen drawled. She gave me one last pointed look—a warning, I figured—before marching off into the rabbit warren of corridors.
Gita indicated for me to follow her back the way we had come. All the guards fell into step around us, although by the time we reached her workstation, half of them had turned down other corridors. Still ignoring me, Gita picked up w
hat looked like the receiver of a landline phone, punched in three numbers, and told whoever picked up to please come over. She then plunked herself down back in her chair and started typing, pretending to ignore me, but it only took her ten terse seconds before I heard her mutter low under her breath—too low for the guards to hear who had faded into the background.
“Please tell me she dragged you here at gunpoint and you haven’t actually fallen for her act.”
I presumed she meant Marleen with that. Pointedly crossing my arms in front of my body in a way to reveal my chafed wrists, I gave a small nod. “Quite literally. And I haven’t. Not for over seven years.”
Gita looked up sharply, but since she never stopped typing, none of the guards noticed, from what I could tell. There was no way of explaining now, so I didn’t try.
“We’ll talk later,” she whispered. “It should only take a few days until they decide to trust you, if you don’t fuck up.”
I couldn’t help but snort softly. “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.”
A frown appeared on her face but she didn’t look away from her monitors. “You do realize what you’ve gotten yourself into?” She paused, then added, “You do know who she is, right? Marleen must have told you.”
I shook my head. I could have repeated what I’d blurted out before but since by now it was obvious that Guinevere wasn’t “just” anyone’s secretary, I didn’t bother. I also wasn’t sure if she’d ever been anyone’s secretary for that matter.
“No.”
Gita stilled, quickly finding some papers to fiddle with to pretend she hadn’t just drawn up short. This time she made sure to catch my gaze before she responded. “She’s Hamilton’s sister.”
That… changed things.
My first impulse was to be stupid and ask who she was referring to; even with the world disappearing in waves of violence, duplicate names were still in use. The list of people we both knew of that name was rather short, though, so it was obvious who she was referring to. My next reaction was to wonder about him having siblings at all, but that was also false, I realized. I’d heard before that he had a sister—if I could just remember when. Right—in France, when Hamilton and Miller had had their heart-to-heart. Hamilton had mentioned something to Lewis, about gear left in the underground bunker that Miller’s people had spent the first winter in, gear that she’d presumably used and never wondered about why it had been there, with virtually everyone else a long shot from her size. I tried to compare the two women in my head, coming up with the decision that it was a bad fit. Lewis was a little shorter yet a lot more… compact, for lack of a better word, her body on the strong side of lean, well-muscled with not much extra fat left. It occurred to me that it had likely taken her a good year for her physical composition to change into how I knew her, so Guinevere’s old gear might have fit her well that winter. Why I was rambling on in my head about that of all things, only exhaustion could explain.
But then I realized that wasn’t the only thing I knew about her. After Hamilton’s speech we’d dispersed, but I had lingered after leaving Lewis and Miller’s immediate vicinity, not quite eavesdropping but catching a few words in passing. I’d missed most of what must have been Lewis rounding on her husband to—pretty please and right fucking now—explain what exactly she’d just witnessed and why she suddenly found herself with a huge target painted on her back. What little I’d caught—and still remembered—was that apparently, Hamilton’s sister had somehow been involved in the rift that tore up Miller and Hamilton’s friendship for good. I had a hard time gauging Guinevere’s age, but she must have been a good five to ten years younger than Hamilton. I wasn’t quite certain when that rift had appeared, but she must have been still a teenager back then—which left a host of unpleasant implications.
I made a mental note to ask Gita about that conversation—if she’d been privy to it, which I couldn’t remember anymore. Either way, I was sure she knew more.
None of that explained why she was now sitting in a doomsday bunker, evidently quite cozy and safe while the rest of us had to watch our world go down the drain.
I had a feeling that I’d know more soon.
A slight hispanic woman in a well-fitting pantsuit stepped out of a different corridor, putting an end to our whispered conversation. Gita greeted her with a small smile, not bothering with introducing me. Which, it turned out, wasn’t necessary, since the woman seemed to know exactly who I was—which wasn’t a hard guess since I was the only one standing there, unwashed, stinking, and tired, who clearly wasn’t a guard. “If you will please follow me, Lt. Richards?” she asked, her voice soft and welcoming, just as if she were the concierge at a hotel.
Just how close that resemblance was I only realized when, a good five minutes of turning down yet more corridors, she stopped in front of a door and lightly touched the security panel next to it, making the lock click as it disengaged. There were similar doors up and down the concrete hallway, at least twenty of them. “These are your quarters for now. Please make yourself at home. I’m sorry if anything is missing but we don’t regularly have guests staying with us. Someone will come in the morning to get you.”
I expected some variation of the good old cell motif—unfinished walls, floor, and ceiling, with a threadbare mattress in a corner if I was lucky; maybe some water dripping for effect. Instead, what lay beyond the door looked like every hotel room I’d ever stayed in, maybe even a little on the more luxurious side. The floor was carpeted, most of the room taken up by a queen-sized bed, and I could see a rainforest shower in the bathroom beyond through another door. A huge flatscreen took up what seemed like half of the wallpapered wall opposite the bed, and there was a small fridge humming next to the desk underneath it. No racks for weapons or gear; not even a mat for shoes. The very idea of me in all my filth stepping into such a pristine environment was anathema.
“There are several changes of clothes in a variety of sizes available,” the woman explained from where she was still hovering beside me. “We didn’t know your exact size. If you want to do a quick check to assure that you have everything you need? Food and bottled water are in the fridge.”
“No, I’m good,” I heard myself utter as I stepped over the threshold, still bewildered.
“Very well,” the woman offered. “Have a good night.” She touched the panel again and pulled the door shut. The locks engaged automatically, and with enough finality to make me guess the door wouldn’t open for the inside. That proved to be right when I tried. Somehow, I doubted anyone would care about fire safety regulations here.
This was beyond ridiculous.
It took me a moment to shake myself out of the momentary stupor. Careful not to drag dirt everywhere, I took off my boots and jacket right by the door; at least there were pegs for clothing available. My socks were dirty enough to possibly leave marks after wearing them since we’d set out from the slaver camp almost two weeks ago. With no pack or other gear, I didn’t exactly have much to stow away. I carefully padded across the lush carpet—feeling incredibly alien underneath my soles—to the fridge. Not only was there bottled water but also some juice, candy bars, and wrapped sandwiches. I stared, transfixed, at the contents for several seconds straight before I pulled out the candy bar. It was two years past its expiration date, but that wasn’t what made me hesitate. With no way of knowing what manufactured goods containing syrup had been contaminated, I hadn’t had sweets beyond fruit—and that rarely—in four years.
Was this a test? That very idea made me want to drop the bar immediately. The instinct had long since become ingrained.
Or was there a different reason for why they still had candy bars in here? Like that they knew for a fact that they were safe for consumption? And the reason for that wouldn’t be having tested some of the batches on less important people beforehand.
It had been impossible to ignore that not all of the guards had looked too young and plain incompetent to be seasoned soldiers. Some had been very obv
iously only a step away from brain-dead.
I felt my stomach knot up as I stared at the candy bar in my hand; I would have felt much better with a poisonous snake, or even some radioactive material. I was just about to put it back when something else occurred to me: a first cursory look around might not have revealed any cameras, but I was sure that I was under constant surveillance in here. What would they make of my behavior if I didn’t eat the bar?
It would be highly suspicious since I’d spent going on two minutes now, staring at the thing. So I did the smart thing, unwrapped it, bit into it, and chewed until the sickly sweet taste made me salivate so much that I had to swallow.
It was divine. So sweet that it was bordering on foul. And except for my stomach seizing up from not having had anything to eat since a very scarce breakfast, I was completely okay.
I made it through half of the bar before I couldn’t stomach a bite more, purely because of the saccharine assault, not moral issues. I drank some water, then polished off the sandwiches, this time without doing any navel gazing over them. Then I checked up on the drawers full of clothes. They turned out to be mostly comfortable necessities like sportswear. Everything was perfectly folded and so soft to the touch that I guessed it had never been worn—a long shot from my current clothes that had been mended multiple times and had become stiff from sweat and harsh detergents. I picked out some shorts and a T-shirt that I took with me into the bathroom, leaving them at the sink while I peeled myself out of my remaining clothes.
Beyond Green Fields | Book 6 | Red's Diary [ A Post-Apocalyptic Story] Page 13