by Ronie Kendig
“No! That’s not . . . wholly true,” Alisz admitted. “I was trained by the same woman who trained Mercy.”
“No, Nonna Kat trained me. Mina destroyed me. It’s why I left more than ten years ago. You?” Mercy’s chest rose and fell raggedly. “You stayed. You continued to work for them and can’t be trusted.”
“Who’s Nonna Kat?” Cell hated that he was learning so much about Mercy—who he’d thought he knew pretty well—from a girl he’d met online. A girl who’d apparently used him to get here.
Mercy touched her forehead. “She was a woman who worked with my parents.”
“Doing what?” Canyon tucked his hands under his armpits.
Mercy shrank, then lifted her shoulders. “I . . . I can’t discuss that.” She glanced around, then quickly added, “It was a condition of my Agency contract never to speak of it.”
“I think key intel is missing and may be mitigating factors in what’s happening here, with Dru, with my brother.” Canyon roughed a hand over his mouth, but his gaze remained locked on her.
Some sixth sense told Cell that if anyone could sort this out, it’d be Leif’s brother.
“Mercy,” Canyon said slowly, “are you aware of some way this secret connects to what’s going on?”
She swallowed.
Canyon straightened, his eyes lasering her. “Because Dru is MIA. Nobody can find him. My brother—your team member—is in trouble. And if I’m hearing this correctly, you might be able to help them. Am I tracking right?”
“It’s not that simple,” Mercy said quietly. “What Alisz is talking about—I don’t recall that. But . . .” She glanced at the floor, forlorn. Then drew up. “Most of what I do feels like instinct because of Kat and Dietrich.”
“Who are they?” Saito asked.
“Kat was Rutger Hermanns’ sister,” Alisz asserted.
Mercy scowled. “No, she wasn’t. She—”
“Katrin Hermanns?” Braun asked, easing into the conversation.
“Nonna Kat used a different last name,” Alisz said. “But she was definitely Rutger’s sister.”
“No, I . . .” Mercy said, frowning and now uncertain. “She was just Nonna Kat to me, then she died, and Mina took over.”
“You know this Katrin?” Nesto asked, glancing at Braun.
The admiral didn’t answer right away. “There was a Katrin Schreiber connected to a very early program.” She studied Mercy for a long time. “Is there any chance—any—that Alisz is right and you can find them?”
“I will, of course, do anything to help Leif and Dru, but I’m not aware of anything special I can do,” Mercy said. “Alisz was never trustworthy. She always got in trouble. I didn’t trust her then, and I don’t trust her now.”
“It was an act,” Alisz said with emphasis. “I was to drive Mina crazy to draw attention away from you. It was all part of the plan.”
“Mina’s plan? What, to punish me?”
“No, Rutger’s! It wasn’t about you. At least, not all of it. Acting out and getting under Mina’s skin was a pleasure. That woman didn’t have a nice bone in her body, and what she did to all us girls?” Alisz shuddered. “When Rutger asked me to do this with the promise of keeping her off my back, it was more than I could refuse.”
Mercy rubbed her temple. “Your lies are as bad as your snooping. I didn’t even know Rutger existed until I got this job.”
“Exactly as he wanted it. It wasn’t just the Neiothen Rutger was trying to save—he was going after the girls, too. Trying to dismantle Mina’s influence as much as he could.”
Admiral Braun bent over Cell’s system and pulled up a picture. “Put that on the wall.” As he complied, she addressed them. “Is this the woman you two are talking about?” She pointed to the wall.
Mercy seemed to visibly rattle. “Yes, that’s Mina. How—”
“She’s been on our radar for several years, but recently a lot more. Though she has been very careful not to be directly connected with Veratti, we have reasonable cause to believe she is at the very top of ArC’s org chart.” Braun narrowed her gaze at Mercy. “I know what she’s doing in that school of hers—but you don’t fit the mold, Mercy. You are terrible at subterfuge and not operative material.”
“You’re right. I hate subterfuge—it’s too much like lying, and I had a lifetime of that once Nonna Kat died. I hate fake. I can’t do it.” She pulled in a long breath, then let it out. “Mina forced me into scenarios where I had to save lives by hacking, transfer money from banking institutions into her accounts, steal state secrets, ruin politicians or whomever she wanted destroyed—all with a few keystrokes and false cyber histories. If I failed the assignment, I didn’t get hurt—someone else did. She was heartless but effective. Coding was my gift. The only thing my young mind could cope with, since I didn’t have to see the people I hurt. At the school, however, I did see the girls who received my punishments.”
The ominous groan of freight elevator doors opening in the side hall severed their conversations. Amped tension. Hand on his weapon, Culver rose, and Saito joined him. A curse hit the air as they both stepped back with grim expressions.
Mercy stilled, her face blanched.
What was going on? Cell wheeled into view and froze. No . . .
Two Marines entered with a body bag on a gurney. Behind them, looking like a drowned rat, Leif limped into the hub, head down, wearing gray sweats and a Navy T-shirt. Scrapes and cuts marred his hands and arms. When Iskra hovered and offered help, he rejected it with a minuscule shake of his head. His cheek twitched with something Cell couldn’t identify.
Iskra wasn’t much better. Her tied-back hair looked damp. Walking stiffly, she wore a Navy hoodie and sweats as well.
Leif’s gaze almost met the team, but it veered off as he kept moving, locked on the gurney’s quietly squeaking wheels. Admiral Braun fell in step with them as they made their way back to the medical bay.
A chill slipped down Cell’s spine, and he couldn’t look away.
Canyon strode to his brother, gripped the back of his neck, and pulled him into a hug. Patted his shoulder. “Glad you’re alive.”
Leif tensed but didn’t pull away. Closed his eyes. Seemed to take a breath, then stepped out of his brother’s hold. Nodded.
“Who’s in that . . . bag?” Mercy sounded panicked, raw.
Leif peered over his shoulder at the team. “Dru.”
No. Unable to move, Cell noticed the name sent a shockwave through the bunker that made Culver and Saito stagger. Gasps and curses hissed into the air. Mercy’s choked cry was the loudest. Face in her hands, she shook beneath sobs as Baddar drew her into his arms, his head bowing to hers. As if bowing in honor . . . of . . .
No. This wasn’t right.
Cell’s mind refused to process that the Marines had wheeled Iliescu . . . “He’s dead,” he muttered. It felt like trying to plug in a lamp, but the adapter was wrong. This was wrong. Iliescu couldn’t be . . .
He looked at the director’s office, a cold vacancy washing through him. Even now, Iliescu’s bark—scolding, hard—howled through the concrete. He stared at his hands, feeling the need to return to his computer and . . . what? He couldn’t extract the director’s life from some hidden data byte controlled by Death. But he sure wanted to try.
“What do you think happened?” Culver asked. “Runt looked pretty wrecked.”
“You think he killed him?” Saito asked quietly.
Canyon lunged but stopped himself. “You know better than that about my brother.” He glowered around the bunker. “Tell me you know that.”
“We do.” It rankled Cell that they would even think that. But . . . where had Leif come from? How had he hooked up with the director and Iskra? “If he was responsible, they’d have brought him in cuffs and dragged him to the tank. Braun would’ve informed us of the director’s death.”
“I think we need to pull together,” Mercy said around a sniffle. “Rather than accuse and blame each other. There’s be
en too much of that.”
“Agreed,” Canyon said. “The best thing we can do for Dru and Leif is to stop this train wreck before more people we care about get hurt.”
Silent nods sent them all to their corners. At least, that was how it felt as Cell rolled back to his station, skating one last glance at the others, who were at their desks, heads down. Hearts down.
THIRTY
REAPER HEADQUARTERS, MARYLAND
When the doctor finished stitching his leg and applying burn salve—with a hefty warning that he really needed to go to a burn center—Leif sat up and pulled on the Navy sweatshirt again.
“What I didn’t know,” he said to Braun, “was that glass had punctured his lung. That, combined with the blood loss from the missing limb . . . nothing could save him.” Something in him broke off and set adrift.
“So you were here. Part of the Neiothen insertion,” the admiral said.
Leif clenched his jaw. “I was.”
“Did you shoot anyone?”
“Negative.”
Silence hung in the medical bay as Braun seemed to struggle over whether to believe him or not. “I’m sorry,” she said, her features lined with grief and concern. “Sorry you went through another attack. Sorry Dru had to die like that.” Her mouth twitched with restrained emotion. “Thank you for trying to save him.” Her eyes reddened. “He thought of you like a brother.”
The gravitas of those words pushed Leif’s gaze down. He rubbed his knuckles hard and tightened his trembling lips. The wave of memories drenched him again. Dru’s words. His apology.
“What I don’t understand,” Colonel Nesto said, unfolding his arms as he leaned against the wall, brooding, “is how—”
“Colonel.” Admiral Braun’s face shone with disapproval. “Later.” She nodded to Leif. “Despite those heroic efforts, there remains the matter of your . . . actions.”
“Understood.”
“I don’t think you do, Chief,” she countered. “We’re talking dereliction of duty, assault with a deadly weapon, grand theft of government property, trespassing into a secure area, conduct unbecoming . . .” She huffed and shook her head. “There are so many more.”
Head down, Leif had no defense.
“But since there’s a nightmare brewing, I’m putting that on hold—”
“You can’t!” Nesto came off the wall.
“In light of Iliescu’s death, I am acting director”—she glowered at the colonel—“of this team until such time as a replacement is named.” She held up her phone. “You will face formal discipline for your actions, Mr. Metcalfe.”
Leif knew he deserved every book they threw at him. Serving a life sentence in Leavenworth could never compensate for losing Dru. But . . . they had to finish this. He held his tongue, hoping that was where Braun was going.
Iskra appeared from behind a curtain, a butterfly stitch on her cheek and the same weight in her expression that sat on his shoulders.
“Right now, we have a mission—and that’s to end ArC.” Braun expelled a thick breath. “I think we can both agree on that.”
“You seriously trust him?” Nesto growled. “He went rogue!”
Braun examined Leif, weighing, measuring. Then her gaze drifted back to the colonel. “And he nearly got himself killed trying to save Dru. What did you do?”
Nesto gaped at her.
Braun shifted her attention back to Leif, then sighed. “You are not to leave this bunker without my express authorization.”
“Understood.”
“I have an op to get underway.” She nodded to the doctor on her way out. “Send his clearance ASAP.”
“I want a copy, too,” Nesto barked. He sent Leif a heated look before following Braun back to the hub.
Dr. Dodson worked quietly on his handheld for a few minutes, leaving Iskra and Leif to stand in awkward silence. Ten minutes later, he gave Leif antibiotics and painkillers.
“No,” Leif said. “Ibuprofen is fine. Nothing to interfere with my ability to perform.”
“That scald on your back has to be painful—to the point of interfer—”
“Pain reminds me I’m alive.” Unlike Dru. “Am I cleared?”
Dr. Dodson sighed. “I need to review your bloodwork.”
Leif hopped off the table to make his point clear. “Time’s ticking, Doc. Like a bomb. Which is set to go off and destroy the world as we know it. They already killed the director. I don’t want them to kill anyone else.”
Irritation scratched at the doctor’s eyes, but he gave a nod and strode into an adjoining office.
Alone with Iskra, Leif couldn’t bring himself to look at her, even when she crossed the room and propped her hip against the examination table. She bumped his shoulder with hers. “How are you?”
He swiped his thumb over the scratches on his hand, the ones he’d gotten lifting Dru. “He died thinking I hated him.” Bobbing his head, he tried to stem the squall of grief. “I was so convinced he was holding out on me that I never thought for a second he was really, honest-to-God trying to protect me.” The squall was overtaking him, the grief stronger than his will. “I didn’t want to see it. I was so angry at him, at the world.”
She threaded their arms and leaned into his side. “Dru knew that. But he was holding out on you.” Her smile was still small. “Just not for the reason you thought.”
“He kept saying we had to be careful, that those behind what happened to me would act if they thought I was digging.” He cocked his head. “He was right. They acted—decisively. And took his life.”
She faced him. “You do know Dru was looking for answers, right?”
“He said that, but I didn’t believe it when I bailed in Taipei. I was fed up, ticked. Then, having that asinine code fry my brain . . .” He slid his hand down her arm and laced their fingers. “I’d had enough inaction and needed to know. I was afraid I’d be the next Neiothen killing friends and family—you.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t let that happen. And yet, I did.”
Iskra reached for him, and he took her into his arms. Buried his face in her neck, crushing her against his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he breathed. “I thought I could fix this. But I snatched it out of capable hands and ran straight into the trouble I was trying to avoid.” Tremors of grief washed over him, demanding tears, but he defied them. Then understood that defiance was as much a part of the trouble as walking away. “I failed, Iskra. I failed, and because of it he died.”
She bounced her shoulder, forcing him to lift his head. She cupped his face. “Dru died because of ArC. Because of Ciro. Not you.”
Shouts echoed through the hub.
Still holding Iskra, the only right thing in his world, Leif looked toward the disruption and saw the team coming out of their seats. A deep voice boomed across the concrete bunker.
“Nesto.” He broke away from Iskra and stalked out to the main area.
“Mr. Metcalfe,” Dr. Dodson called, bringing Leif around. The doc held up a tablet. “Just sent your clearance through. Same for you, Miss Todorova.”
Leif nodded as another shout rang out. He stalked toward the action, assessing the tension. A comical standoff was going down—Reaper on one side, Nesto and Braun on the other. “What’s going on?”
Silence was the only response. He looked at Culver and Saito, then Cell. Baddar, Mercy, and the new girl. So, the silent treatment. He guessed he deserved that, too. Where was Canyon?
“It seems,” Nesto growled into the thick air, “that this team is untrained and undisciplined, refusing a direct order.”
“Not sure which team you’re referring to, but mine is the best.” Leif planted himself in the middle of the confrontation.
“Yours?” Nesto scoffed. “You walked out and abandoned them. What makes you think you have any say here?”
Leif had to take that punch, no matter how much it hurt. “Because I am the only one who was in the water when the director was killed. I was in the basement of the South African facility
where ArC is experimenting with human-animal hybrids. I know more about this than anyone.” He folded his arms and felt the protective salve and bandage along his spine tug against his shirt. “Admiral Braun, what order is the team taking exception to?”
“It was not my order,” Braun said quietly, scowling at Nesto.
“It’s my order,” Nesto growled. “I was given oversight—”
“You were given an advisory position,” Braun corrected with more than a little annoyance as she cringed away from him.
Interesting. Braun countered Nesto, whom she clearly detested, yet also feared doing so. What had them ready to throw down?
“He told us to spy on you.” Saito fell in line next to Leif. “Interact, take notes, and report back to him.”
“We told him it wasn’t going to happen,” Culver chimed in, forming up on the right.
Leif understood why the colonel would ask that of Reaper. After all, he’d betrayed everyone here, gone on his own. But . . . His mind started shuffling the deck of cards this man dealt. The amusement park . . . Nesto had been with Sienna, hadn’t he? That was what General Elbert had said, that Sienna had been attached to Nesto. And . . . Egypt . . . Chibale.
“We are cursed because we let Colonel Nesto do this,” Chibale had said.
Nausea churned through Leif. His friend Ausar had died because of this man. Why, with his perfect recall, hadn’t he made the connection before now? How had he missed it?
Leif locked on the colonel. “What did you do to the village?”
Nesto frowned. “What village? What’re you talking about?”
“The village in Egypt, the one decimated by the Meteoroi.” The tremor in Leif shifted from anger to a focused, decisive compulsion to act. It was coming together. Finally. After all this time. All this time he’d been looking outward when the demon had come to roost in their own bunker. Because if Nesto had been connected to Sienna, who was a Neiothen, if Nesto had been involved in the Meteoroi activity in Egypt, and now had advisory oversight of Reaper . . . “Who sent you here? Assigned you as advisor?”
“General Elbert,” Nesto stated. “Why?”