Oracle's Diplomacy

by A. Claire Everward

  She squinted at him. “Didn’t I tell you to take some time off?” Aiden had stuck with her throughout the events of the past days, the mission that she herself had been the center of, and before leaving the war room the night before she had asked him to get some well-deserved rest. And yet there he was.

  “I did, I was off part of the day yesterday,” he said, scrutinizing her. “Long night. May I suggest you go home, ma’am? You’re still officially off duty, and there really is nothing urgent.”

  “No.” She put the cup down and rubbed the knots out of her neck. “No, it’s okay. Since I’m already here, I’ll run mission analysis and go through the updates. Of the pending missions first.”

  When Aiden had left, she swiveled in her chair toward the window spanning the wall behind her and settled back. But it wasn’t the view outside that she saw, nor the increasingly gray autumn sky, clouds overpowering the new day’s sun. Instead, her mind went back to days past and to new attractions and revelations that promised different tomorrows, and she marveled at how right things had turned out despite everything that had happened and that had come so close, too close, to ending so wrong. After a while she turned back to her desk, swiped her hand over it, activating the multitouch platform, and went to work.

  Aiden walked to his workstation, his eyes pensive. No, he wasn’t tired. He was used to working this way, in the same hours Ms. Holsworth did. She never allowed weariness to stop her—like now, he had seen the deep weariness in her eyes—and so neither did he. He was used to taking time to rest when she did, although even then he was in charge of the updates she received and kept an eye on each and every pending mission she was scheduled to guide.

  And, as always, he was alerted about the emergency mission when she was. He had set that up a long time ago, ensuring that he would be there when she was. He’d been with Ms. Holsworth since her very first day at IDSD, and would have it no other way. Specifically chosen and carefully trained to be an aide, he had initially been assigned to her temporarily, but the fit was immediate, and he hadn’t left her since. Now, five years later, he could easily anticipate her needs, and ran everything both Lara and Oracle around her with unequaled efficiency and loyalty. Even when he was off duty, he never really was, just like she wasn’t.

  Ms. Holsworth’s phone indicated an incoming call, and Aiden answered it. He’d taken it from her, as always, before she entered Mission Command, and had planned to keep it for a while longer so that no one would bother her after the mission she’d just completed. He was now glad he did.

  The name by which the man on the other end of the line introduced himself and the first words spoken had him halting in place, then turning and walking briskly not back into Ms. Holsworth office, but to Vice Admiral Scholes’s office on the other side of the war room. As he burst in, not heeding the indignant protests of Scholes’s aide, Celia, the look on his face had the vice admiral stand up in apprehension. Aiden was not one to be easily shaken.

  The movement at the door made Lara raise her head. The ready smile that appeared on her face at the sight of the vice admiral faltered, then dimmed, then was replaced by a frown.

  “Frank?”

  “Lara.” He stood in the doorway, hesitating.

  She would have asked him what was wrong, but something clicked in her mind. Out of nowhere, a memory surfaced, a distant one she had not thought about for a long time. It was the look on his face that had triggered it. A look she had only seen once since she’d first met him. Only once, on that day five years before.

  Only on that day.

  She froze.

  “No, it’s not like that, not like then.” Scholes realized he’d made a mistake. He should have waited a beat, collected himself, planned this ahead. But he had been there, back then when it happened. He’d barely known her then, not at all, really, and even then it had been difficult, what he had had to do. And now he knew her well, and he cared. Now she was like family to him. And this was painful.

  “Listen.” He spoke fast, wanting to explain, to give her all the details, to show her it wasn’t the same, not necessarily. Not yet. He hoped to God it wasn’t. “Director White called you, Aiden took the call. White just wanted . . .” He faltered. He couldn’t believe he had to do this again. He’d seen Lara and Donovan grow close, saw the way Donovan looked at her, how he had put himself in harm’s way to protect her. Saw Lara react, push back, then finally respond. Finally, after all this time.

  No, he couldn’t believe he was doing this. Again.

  He gave it to her straight, knowing who he was talking to. He didn’t want her to fill in the gaps herself. “Donovan flew to New Mexico last night, as part of an investigation. Apparently he was chasing someone he’d been after for a while, together with the local marshals. Donovan and his agent followed the guy into the desert hills, and White says the agent called for backup, but the call was cut off.”

  Her eyes remained on his.

  Scholes braced himself. There was no sense in hiding this, not from her. “Last thing they heard were shots and the agent shouting Donovan’s name.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Lara, it’s not the same.” It can’t be, oh God, it can’t, not again.

  She said nothing.

  “White sent in agents from their local office, and the marshals had already gone in, but there’s nothing. Nothing yet,” he corrected. “Before he left, Donovan asked White to call you if he’s delayed, he didn’t want you to worry. White waited before he called, he only did so when after the sun came up they still found nothing, and he thought—” He stopped, realizing he was rambling.

  Lara couldn’t breathe. The past came rushing in, mercilessly drowning too recently awakened emotions, too new an attempt, a hesitant decision to let a present, a different future in.

  Scholes skirted the desk and eased his huge bulk to the floor before her, his knees protesting. He took her hands in his. “Lara, it doesn’t mean anything. He could be safe, this could be . . . there could be a dozen reasons why he hasn’t made contact yet. You know that.” But even as he spoke he knew it didn’t matter. This wasn’t a mission, something for her to assimilate and resolve, this wasn’t Oracle he was talking to. This was Lara, Lara of the past, before Oracle ever existed. These were old emotions, pain so deep it never healed, had only began to heal with the man whose death he feared she might now have to deal with.

  “Listen,” he said, “White has an open line to me, as soon as he knows anything he’ll call.”

  She said nothing. There was nothing. Threatened by overwhelming emotions she knew she had no way of dealing with, she had already shut that part of herself down.

  Donovan, the thought unwittingly came to her mind, and with it his face, his eyes on hers, his smile for her. His kiss. She clamped down on it with everything she had.

  And hoped it would hold.

  Leaving Lara’s office, Scholes stumbled into Aiden, who was standing immediately outside. Scholes nodded but said nothing. Aiden would watch over her. It wasn’t by chance that the aide had taken the call to him rather than directly to Lara. All those years ago, Aiden had learned the truth about how Lara came to be recruited to IDSD from Scholes himself, who had seen the young man’s immediate rapport to her. He had been there at the very beginning, and in the first weeks and months as she had fought to take step after step forward and rebuild her life. Even now only a rare few knew the whole truth. Aiden was one of them. He was loyal, and had never said a word.

  As Scholes walked away, Aiden stationed himself at the doorway to Ms. Holsworth’s inner office, where he could see her. He didn’t worry about her seeing him. She had turned back to the window and was staring out. Locked somewhere inside herself. Damn. He liked Agent Pierce and trusted him with Ms. Holsworth. He liked what the agent brought out in her. It was the first time he had seen in the remarkable woman something that was different from what she had been like until then. It was the first time he had seen that pensiveness that accompanies deep-rooted
pain ease.

  He resumed watching over her, praying silently that this was all a mistake.

  The doors of hangar A506IDSD-T slid shut and locked with an audible click.

  “Alfa-five-zero-six secure,” came the affirmation, even as manned security moved to surround the imposing structure. Normally technological means would be deemed sufficient, however in this case IDSD Security opted for the additional measure, noting the necessity that no information about what was going on here would leak out.

  Inside, the military hangar, specifically designed for the inspection of malfunctioned aircraft, housed only a single executive jet at this time, and yet the number of people working on it was staggering. Aviation accident investigators, crime scene investigators and intelligence agents, they were all there. Behind the transparent divide separating the main floor from the primary inspection lab overseeing it, Dr. Rebecca Tanner watched the rare sight with awe. They were like ants, swarming the aircraft inside and outside, yet not getting in one another’s way. Everyone worked with somber efficiency.

  The aircraft was empty when it was brought here, to IDSD-Alliance Defense Forces Europe Air Base at Mons, southwest of Brussels. The bodies had already been taken away when it was still on Cres, and the medical examiner’s team was still working on them, no findings there yet. All the investigators had to work with in their efforts to piece together the story of what had happened was the sleek aircraft and its systems, now dormant.

  The oddest thing was that there was nothing wrong with this aircraft. When the first search and rescue teams dispatched from the air-sea base at Split got to it, it was simply standing there, silent. All its systems were shut down, but otherwise it was intact. There had been no apparent attempt to damage it, nor to hide it. Whoever had perpetrated the hijacking had taken what they wanted and left the aircraft as is, with the gruesome testimony to what had happened inside, the bodies. And so, ironically, the aircraft was fully usable. Theoretically, all its finders had to do was turn it on and fly it to their airport of choice.

  Of course, that wasn’t what they did. The aircraft had not been activated and had instead been brought to this hangar as the inanimate object it was now, hoisted by a military heavy-lift transport helicopter in the deep of night and flown above dormant Joint Europe countries in the hours when it was least likely to be seen, arriving here just before the sun first appeared over the horizon.

  Dr. Tanner took in a breath. “Right. Let’s hook it up,” she said, and her own technicians and engineers joined the agitated swarm of those so desperate to solve this mystery.

  Hoping the missing ambassador was still alive.

  The call came directly to the vice admiral’s phone. He snatched it up. He had given this number to USFID’s director Leland White, Donovan’s boss, to ensure there would be no delay in giving him any updates. As he took the call his hand shook. As he listened, his eyes closed.

  He wanted to rush into her office, giddy with the news. But this was far too complicated, and so instead he walked in with a measured step. He found her sitting with her back to the door, her eyes on the world outside the window.

  “Lara,” he said, his voice gentle.

  She didn’t move.

  “Lara, he’s safe. Donovan is fine. He checked in.”

  She turned to look at him and his heart broke. He began to walk to her, but she stood up. He halted. “Apparently, during the shootout the person they were after escaped into a cave and Donovan and his agent followed,” he said, “and this was a blind spot for all comms. They didn’t return until they got the guy. White says they will be back in DC in a few hours, they’re scheduled to return on a designated USFID flight.”

  She was hearing every word, he knew. Yet she simply stood there, looking at him. And there was too much in her eyes.

  His news was enough, but too late.

  “I’m going home.” Her voice was quiet, controlled. Empty.

  “Yes, of course. How about I drive you?” He was worried. Terrified, more like it. He hadn’t seen her this way since . . . No. No, this was different. And he could understand why. After all this time, she had finally taken the risk and had allowed Donovan in. And he ended up almost getting killed. For a while, a short while perhaps but too long for her, she had thought he might be dead. The old loss had been too much. This new one would have been unbearable. Scholes had no idea what to do, how to fix this. How to help her.

  “It’s okay, Frank. I’m fine. It’s just been a long night, a long couple of days,” she said with a forced smile, meant, he knew, to keep him at a distance. This only made him more concerned.

  She was shutting life out again.

  Council Head Stevenssen did her best to preserve her focus. She was tired, worried, and felt as if she had the world on her shoulders—and considering the situation here in Europe, this was more than an abstract observation—but there was much to be done, much that had to be accomplished to ensure the sense of certainty of those who needed her leadership and strength.

  She had finally gone home the night before, realizing there would likely be no news for a while. But she could not rest and had returned to her office in the early hours of the new day.

  And was still waiting.

  “Ma’am.” Her personal assistant stood at the door. “The Chairman of the Joint Europe Civilian Command is on the line.”

  Stevenssen nodded. She had already spoken with André Lerner as soon as she had adjourned the High Council’s meeting the day before. Faced with the possibility that Ambassador Sendor would not be found within the time frame after which the consequences facing the region would become inevitable, she had realized Lerner had to be told. And now that night had come and gone, and they were no closer to understanding what happened, let alone finding the missing ambassador, the steps she had discussed with him had to be implemented. Delaying was no longer an option.

  Considering the volatility of the situation, the representatives of the Joint Europe countries who made up the Joint Europe Civilian Command—the civilian administration of the Joint Europe treaty—would now be told, in a secure videoconference that was already being set up. The Joint Europe Military Command, located, like its civilian peer, in Brussels, would follow—its chairwoman had already been updated by Stevenssen together with the head of IDSD Defense Europe Command, although so far only the IDSD command had gone on alert, in an effort to avoid the disputed region understanding too soon that something was wrong. And next would come talks with the leaders of alliance nations outside Joint Europe, who would be called on to assist if it came to that.

  But first, she and Lerner would update the leaders of the two countries most affected by the unfortunate turn of events. Stevenssen had already broken the news to both of them, together, as soon as the ambassador’s jet was found without him. Their trust at least, if not that of their people, had to be maintained at this crucial time.

  War, Council Head Stevenssen thought with a flare of anger, war they had all worked so hard to eradicate, was threatening the alliance once again.

  Lara didn’t remember leaving the war room, taking the elevator down to the building’s lobby—Frank, she remembered him there with her, couldn’t recall what he said, if he had said anything at all, just the concern in his eyes—going to the car, getting in, letting the autodrive take over and drive her home, passing that spot off the road where Donovan . . .

  She pushed away the memory, the emotions it awoke, held herself in check, focused on the distance left to her house. Finally there, she walked in, dazed. She stood still in the middle of the living room, seeing nothing but the past in her mind, feeling nothing but the pain in her heart she couldn’t breathe through. She couldn’t seem to get a handle on this, on what was happening to her. Couldn’t think.

  Couldn’t allow herself to feel.

  She sat down on the closest couch.

  Her phone rang. Then her home system. Then her phone again.

  She didn’t answer.

  Chapter Fi
ve

  Donovan was eager to get to Lara. The guy he’d been after, an elusive killer who had made it a point to kill diplomatic personnel worldwide—specifically American ones—and quite unpleasantly at that, was safely in custody. Finally, after a chase of over a year. He’d sent Supervisory Agent Ben Lawson, the investigator who headed the team that had worked the case with him and whom he’d taken with him to New Mexico, to USFID with the prisoner and an escort of USFID agents as soon as they landed after the short flight, not accompanying them himself. White had informed him, while Donovan was still on the flight back, that he’d spoken to Scholes while the chase was still ongoing, and that Scholes had said he would update Lara. He also knew that White had later updated Lara again through Scholes, this time with the news that he was safe, but he still wanted to go to her, see her himself. He remembered what it had been like for him when he had thought he had lost her, and the idea that she might think the same about him was unacceptable to him.

  He tried calling her, but there was no answer. He frowned. This wasn’t like her. It didn’t make sense that she wouldn’t answer the call, especially if she knew he’d been in trouble, and if she knew he was on his way back to her. Which she did, he was told that, too. And he knew she wasn’t on a mission, Aiden would have taken the call if that were the case. He thought again about the situation, reversed, just days before, about how it had felt for him.

  So why wasn’t she answering his call? The way things were between them, he would have expected her to be eagerly anticipating it, him.