“You the leader of the SIO team?” he asked when she found him.
“Zira,” she replied. “Thanks for the backup.”
“Thank you for coming out here. We definitely aren’t equipped to handle something like this on our own.”
It was a small town with a bare-bones police force, and looking around, she could see what he meant. There were only five other officers on site, and three of them didn’t appear to be armed. The squad cars they’d come in were easily more than twenty years old and had seen better days. Still, Zira was grateful for the information and backup they’d provided. “Are we ready to move?”
“Should be. We were just waiting for you.”
“Good. I’m leaving one of my guys with you.” She pointed Tripp out to him. “My team and I will head over there on foot. Once we’re in position, you should move in with the cars and surround the building. Don’t let anyone slip past you. After we secure all the hostiles, we can figure out what to do about the weapons inside.”
“Sounds good.”
She returned to the van and strapped on the tactical vest Jared handed her. She checked the magazines in her rifle and pistol and slipped a few extras into her vest. Then she donned a black helmet and looked around at the rest of her team. They all wore identical gear and carried the same weapons, but Dodge and Josefina both clutched long, steel forcible-entry tools as well, which would help them breach their respective entry points. Not exactly subtle, but they didn’t need subtle.
The gear was a lot bulkier than what Zira had grown accustomed to as an E-2 operative, but stealth was their primary tactic only to a certain point here. They didn’t have to rely on quietly taking out targets the way she once had as a solo operative or part of a two-man team. Instead, they wanted speed and efficiency, and the fact that there were six of them meant they could afford to be a little more forceful in their approach.
Tripp handed her an earpiece and they ran through a quick comms check. “Everyone ready?” Zira asked.
They all nodded.
“Stay safe,” Tripp said.
“You too. Let’s go.”
They jogged down the street, Zira and Jared leading the way with the other four on their heels. Behind them, the sun had just started to rise, casting a faint gray light over the little town. A single car passed by in front of them as they rounded a corner, but other than that, all was still and silent. Whatever nervous anticipation Zira had felt before melted away as she focused on the rhythmic thud of her own footsteps against the sidewalk.
When they reached the end of the block, Jared’s trio split off to come in towards the building from the front. Zira, Dodge, and Nova kept going. They veered into an alley and got into position at the back door, then waited.
After a couple of minutes, Jared’s voice came through her earpiece as a whisper. “We’re in position.”
“Got it. Tripp, what’s your status?”
“Police units are rolling out now.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and exhaled it through her mouth. “Breaching in five, four…” She held up her fingers for the rest of the count.
Three. Two. One.
When her hand became a fist, Dodge slammed the end of his forcible-entry tool between the door and the door jamb. He gave it a hard wrench. The door popped open to allow them access.
Zira entered first, the stock of her rifle pressed against her shoulder as she scanned the area for hostiles. No signs of movement in the immediate vicinity. Behind her, Dodge’s firm footfalls and Nova’s lighter ones kept pace with her own. She signaled for someone to take the room on her right and continued down the hall. She passed another room and signaled for someone to take that as well.
The hallway opened up into a lobby space occupied by a long couch and several chairs. Beyond the couch, the door where Jared and the others had entered hung open. Red and blue lights flashed outside, indicating that the police had closed in.
On the other side of the lobby, a long receptionist’s desk stretched out at a diagonal across the floor. As Zira’s eyes started to slide past the desk to appraise the rest of the area, a man peered over the top.
She immediately swung her weapon back around to train her sights on him. “Hands up! Now!”
An instant later, Salim’s voice came through her earpiece as he gave similar orders to someone upstairs. “Get down! Put your hands out in front of you.”
Zira kept her gaze fixed on the reception desk. “Get up slowly and put your hands in the air.”
No response. Dodge came up beside her and aimed his weapon in the same direction as hers.
More voices echoed in Zira’s ear as Jared’s team continued to shout orders to whoever they’d found upstairs. She tapped a small button on one side of her earpiece to shut off the sound and gritted her teeth. If the man behind the desk hadn’t followed her instructions by now, he probably wasn’t going to. Which made him more likely to do something incredibly stupid, especially since they had him cornered.
She called out to him again. “Just put your hands up and—”
Gunshots from upstairs cut her off. The man behind the desk seized his opportunity. A long arm reached around the counter, pistol in hand. He fired blindly in Zira and Dodge’s direction.
Zira took cover behind a nearby armchair. Dodge shrank back into the hallway and pressed up against the wall beside Nova.
The gunshots above them stopped, and rapid steps pounded across the hardwood floor. Zira rolled out from behind cover to see the man running for the front door “Stop!” she shouted.
He hesitated upon seeing the police outside, and for a moment, she thought he might finally surrender. Then he turned back around with his pistol aimed at her.
Multiple gunshots sounded at once as Zira, Dodge, and Nova all fired their weapons at the same time. She wasn’t sure whose bullets hit him, but he went down quick and didn’t move again.
Nova let her rifle hang at her side as she stared at the man’s body. “Why didn’t he just surrender? He should have just…” She swore under her breath.
Dodge clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Come on. We have to keep moving.”
Zira turned her earpiece back on. “Jared, what’s your status?”
“Everyone’s fine. We have five hostiles up here. Two dead, three surrendered.”
“One dead here,” said Zira. “We’re still clearing the area.”
She motioned for Nova and Dodge to follow her as she took the hall branching off to the right. There were four offices and a bathroom. They each took an office. Inside hers, Zira found a woman standing with her hands up against the wall, a discarded rifle at her feet.
“Don’t shoot me,” she said, turning her head to look at Zira with wide, panicked eyes. “Please don’t shoot.”
Zira took a few seconds to pat her down, then jerked her head towards the door. “Move.”
Back in the hallway, Nova stood with a pair of men as Dodge finished clearing the other two rooms. He shook his head when he came back alone.
“We’re all clear down here,” Zira said.
“Same,” Jared replied. “Salim’s coming down with the ones who surrendered.”
Zira turned to Nova, who still had her rifle trained on their three captured hostiles. “Take them outside. Tripp, did you get that? We’re coming out.”
“We have squad cars standing by to transport them,” he said.
A few seconds later, Salim came down the stairs behind the three individuals they’d captured and followed Nova out to the waiting officers.
“Any sign of the missing weapons?” Zira asked.
“Not yet,” Jared answered.
Dodge tapped her on the shoulder and gestured for her to follow him back to one of the offices he’d cleared earlier. In the back corner, a supply closet door was propped open to reveal shelves that held at least thirty automatic rifles and dozens of crates, boxes, and large metal canisters. Zira glanced at the lettering printed on the containers, which told her t
hey were full of ammunition and, in lesser quantities, explosives. Most were stamped with a familiar dove emblem, the official seal of the PEACE Project. These had to be some of the missing munitions they were looking for.
She gave Dodge an approving nod. “Nice work.”
“I know,” he replied with a wink. “You definitely owe me some pancakes now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The raid ended up being a huge success. Or at least, that was how the media portrayed it. All told, six PRM members had been captured with another three dead, at least one of whom was directly connected to the bombing in Liberation. The fact that Zira’s team had also secured weapons the PRM might have used in future attacks was an added bonus, and both SIO and the local police were being hailed as heroes.
Zira wasn’t sure the publicity was warranted for such a paltry victory. The weapons and explosives they’d found accounted for less than a tenth of what had been taken from the Project’s munitions depot, and they hadn’t recovered any particularly useful intel from the building or the captured PRM members, who were all unwilling to cooperate with questioning. Tripp, Celeste, and a few of SIO’s other technical support specialists were going through their CLs in the hopes of finding more information, but that wasn’t looking very promising either.
The public acclaim was short-lived, however. Less than two days after Zira and her team returned to Liberation, new footage of the raid’s aftermath began circulating various news broadcasts. Jared’s face only appeared in the clip for a few brief seconds as he loaded some of the guns they’d found into the back of their van, but that was more than enough for someone to recognize him. Reporters started to question what a former Project assassin and wanted fugitive was even doing working with SIO, and after that, they dug into the backgrounds of everyone else they could identify in their footage from the raid. It didn’t take them long to discover that Zira was also a former E-2 operative and had been released from prison early without serving her full sentence.
They stopped singing SIO’s praises after that, and criticism against the Republic and the National Security Department quickly intensified. How could they condemn the PEACE Restoration Movement when they themselves employed former members of the PEACE Project? How could they trust someone who had been one of Ryku’s most loyal subordinates just a year ago? Why had Zira and Jared been given special privileges and reduced punishments for their crimes when thousands of people were still sitting in prison on sentences they’d received under Ryku’s authority, waiting for their cases to be reviewed? They were fair questions, and despite Zira’s frustration at being the cause of all this controversy, she couldn’t help but watch, curious to see how it would all play out.
One evening several days after the raid, she stood in the kitchen alone chopping vegetables for dinner with the nearby projector tuned to a popular national news broadcast. Jared had gone upstairs to take a shower while it was free, and Nova had retreated to her room as soon as Zira had offered to take a turn cooking dinner for everyone. On the evenings he was home, Tripp usually cooked for all of them. It was a new hobby he’d taken up on Rita’s advice to replace his destructive drug habit with a healthier pastime. Tonight, though, he was out at one of his support group meetings. Zira doubted her chicken soup would taste as good as his would have, but it had been a long, somber day, and she needed something to divert her attention. Preparing a meal for everyone and watching an inflammatory discussion on the news about the Republic’s apparent double standards seemed like an easy way to accomplish such distraction.
Two news anchors had just finished a story about the Republic judiciary’s massive undertaking to review all criminal cases from the past two years, as far back as six months before Ryku murdered the other four chairmen and took sole control of the Project. Much of the public felt the process was taking too long, which only made Zira and Jared’s situation seem that much more unfair. Naturally, that was exactly where the newscasters’ conversation turned next.
“Well you can see why people are upset,” said the male reporter. “The Republic got rid of the Project and put most of its members on trial for their crimes, but now they openly employ two people who served directly under Chairman Ryku. And these E-2 operatives were some of the worst of the worst among the Project’s ranks.”
His female co-anchor nodded. “Right. But then you have people like Trinity Jones, Angela Yang, Seth Patil, even President Bradshaw himself, all of whom have expressed support for SIO’s decision to hire these individuals. And to be fair, they do have some unique knowledge and skills that could really benefit the department, especially as they’re trying to deal with the PRM and other threats. Under these circumstances, is it justified for SIO to employ these people and allow them to exchange prison time for their services?”
The man considered this for a moment. “Look, if that’s going to be an option, it needs to be an option for everyone. Not just for those with personal ties to the people in charge.”
“But how realistic is that?”
“It’s not. And I think that’s part of why this situation is so frustrating. I mean, I’ve got a brother and two cousins rotting in prison right now for some minor mistakes they made while Ryku was in charge, and the Republic can’t be bothered to review their cases yet.”
Zira glanced up from her chopping block as Jared came down the stairs. He stopped just outside the kitchen and leaned against the wall without saying anything, then turned his attention to the broadcast.
“I’m probably going to get a lot of heat for saying this,” the man continued, “but I’m going to say it anyway.” He paused a moment and chose his next words with careful deliberation. “The Project did wrong by a lot of folks, including myself. But at least they were consistent. The Republic—I’m just not sure they even know what they’re doing at this point. And while they’re sitting there trying to figure it out, the PRM could come in and snatch the government right back out of their hands. And then what? Ordinary people like you and I and everyone watching right now will just keep getting pushed back and forth trying to figure out whose rules to follow.”
Zira tightened her grip on the knife and resumed chopping her carrots with extra force. Heat throbbed against the inside of her skull. That news anchor had no idea what he was talking about. To even suggest they’d be better off with the Project still in charge just showed how little his miniscule brain comprehended. The Republic wasn’t perfect, but at least they were trying. At least they weren’t unnecessarily cruel and domineering. He had no idea the sacrifices some people had made to—
Splotches of blood darkened the metallic gleam of her knife and the wood surface of her cutting board. The pain registered in her mind an instant later as she stared down at where the blade had sliced across the end of her thumb. She threw the knife into the sink with a curse and turned around to grab a towel.
Jared was closer and faster. He pulled down the one hanging from the oven door and handed it to her. “I know the guy’s a jerk, but there’s no need to take it out on yourself like that.”
Zira glared back at him, not in the mood for teasing or jokes. She snatched the towel, wrapped it tight around her thumb, and applied pressure with her other hand. “He’s right, though. I still hate him, but he’s got a point. Why do you and I get to walk around free after everything we’ve done?”
Jared shut the projector off, found a new knife and cutting board, and set them on the counter. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “But I’m glad we do. Second chances, and all that.”
He began chopping the carrots, and Zira shot him a half-hearted glower as she tightened her grip around her thumb. “I was going to finish that.”
“I’ve got it. You just sit down and try not to bleed everywhere.”
She rolled her eyes but walked around to the other side of the counter and sat on a stool as requested.
For a few minutes, the rhythmic clop of the knife against the cutting board was the only sound in the room. She was half te
mpted to turn the broadcast back on again. She wanted the noise. She wanted the distraction, even if it made her angry. Angry was better than all the other things she knew she’d feel if she didn’t find something to occupy her mind.
Then, without looking up at her, Jared spoke, his voice a low and gentle rumble. “It’s Aubreigh, isn’t it?”
Zira’s heart collapsed in on itself, and all the distractions she’d been trying to focus on vanished in an instant.
March 15th, one year ago to the day.
“How did you—” She stopped herself before she could finish the question. It was a horribly insensitive thing to ask. Of course he remembered. He’d been there.
She remembered seeing how Aubreigh had clutched his hand when she died, remembered wishing she was close enough to do something. But what could she have done? What could anyone have done? A familiar, hollow pang expanded inside her chest.
Jared finished chopping and slid the carrots into the pot on the stove. “She tried to tell me something, I think, right before he shot her. I’ve wondered what she was going to say every day since then.” He paused a moment and stirred the pot, then his shoulders slumped, and he turned back around to face Zira. “I should have figured things out sooner. Maybe we both could have escaped. Maybe she wouldn’t be dead.”
“Well she is, and wishing she wasn’t isn’t going to change anything.” She immediately regretted the snappiness in her tone and bowed her head, staring at the space on the floor between her knees. “I just don’t know what the hell this was all for sometimes. Aubreigh gave her life for the rebellion, but it seems like all we did was drag up a whole new set of problems. I never should have gotten her into any of it.”
He came around the counter to stand next to her. “You did the best you could with the information you had at the time.”
“That sounds like something Tripp would say.”
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