A Rumor of Real Irish Tea (Annals of Altair Book 2)

by Kate Stradling

  Oliver frowned.

  “Because he’s already in custody,” Birchard said in response to that look. “If there was sabotage from another agent… Well, it doesn’t really matter either way. There has to be a full-blown internal investigation into the matter as it stands. We’ve already started credit checks on every man that was there, and they’ve pulled them all in for questioning at the various branches. And to think, if everything had gone well tonight, we’d be done here.”

  Oliver could perfectly relate to the note of bitterness in Birchard’s voice. Everything had been planned. The Wests should have been recovered, but some twist of fate had snatched victory from the GCA. “Who tranquilized the bird?” he asked. “Do you know? Or did they not recover the dart? I can’t imagine that Hawk just ran off without his beloved pet, even if it was dying.”

  “It wasn’t dying,” said Birchard quietly. “There was no tranquilizer in that dart.”

  Oliver hissed. “What?”

  “There was no tranquilizer,” he said again. “I’ve reviewed our video footage multiple times—that was an injured bird, not a sedated one. And to answer your original question, we don’t know. That dart wasn’t one of ours, and we don’t know where it came from—probably a nearby rooftop.”

  The weight of that pronouncement settled on Oliver. “And Greene knows nothing about it? Even when a projector asks him?”

  “He’s one piece in a much larger puzzle,” said Birchard, who seemed suddenly very tired. “It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for one rogue agent not to know that another was stationed nearby—it might even be essential to the success of the plan. But, as I said earlier, I’m inclined to believe that Greene was framed. Most likely an insurgent organization paid one of the other agents to sabotage the mission. It’ll all come out in the internal investigation.”

  “By insurgent organization, you mean Altair,” said Oliver. Beside him, Emily stiffened in her chair. Mentioning the name in present company wouldn’t get him in any trouble, he thought derisively. She worried too much.

  A shrill ring sounded from Birchard’s pocket. “They’re at the top of the list,” he confirmed as he withdrew his cell phone. “If you’ll excuse me, this is probably an update on the situation.”

  Oliver glanced Emily’s way to meet her gaze. Together they shifted their attention to Birchard as he answered the call. He stood with his profile to them. His initial salutation was friendly enough, but then his whole body stilled.

  “No trace at all?” he said in a strangled voice. “Have you checked his house? Is there a secondary address?”

  His face went ashen, and his breath quickened as though he sought to control an oncoming panic attack. “If even the—” He checked his words with a self-conscious glance toward his two eavesdroppers. “Trigger an alert,” he said abruptly. “There’s no time to waste. I’ll report this to General Stone immediately. If he has further orders you will be notified.”

  Then, he hung up.

  “What’s gone wrong now?” Emily asked before he could bolt out the door.

  A muscle tightened along Birchard’s jaw. “One of the agents from the South Phoenix office has vanished. He left their confinement area to use the bathroom, and then he just vanished.”

  “Then he’s the traitor,” said Oliver. “All you have to do is track him down.”

  “He has vanished,” Birchard repeated, baring his teeth. “Not just the man—his personnel record has been cleared from the central database. He’s gone, like he never existed in the first place. Oh, General Stone is going to have someone’s head for this. I just hope it’s not mine.” On this last remark, he strode from the room.

  A moment of silence followed his departure. When Oliver turned his attention toward Emily, her gaze was still fixed on the empty door.

  “What’s your problem?” he asked her. “You miss your boyfriend that much?”

  “He—” she began, but her voice faltered. “That really upset him. Have you ever seen the blood drain from someone’s face that quickly?”

  Oliver shifted against his pillow. “Not from Birchard,” he grudgingly said.

  He didn’t see what the big deal was. A GCA agent had disappeared right after a mission went horribly awry. Obviously the man was guilty of sabotage and had made his escape. Deleting his personnel file was just another means of covering his tracks.

  Worse than Birchard’s overreaction, though, was Emily’s. “What’re you so worried about him for?” Oliver asked jealously.

  “I’m not—!” A blush rose to her cheeks. “You should be more worried. You should be grateful to him.”

  Oliver recoiled in utter disgust. “What? Why?”

  “He carried you off that warehouse lot,” she said, pointing toward the door where Birchard had disappeared. “Everyone else was coming out of the fog from Happy’s projection, and his main priority was to get you to safety. If that sedative had been too strong or if you’d had any sort of reaction to it, you could have died. Ben made sure you were stable and got you help.”

  “So he wasn’t affected by Happy’s projection?” Oliver asked. “Why am I not surprised? He was probably standing right next to Quincy, wrapped in safety. Of course he should react quickly, if that was the case. And why should I be grateful to him for doing his job?”

  Emily scowled. “You just don’t like him.”

  “Neither do you,” he reminded her nastily. Then, to emphasize his righteous indignation, he flopped over onto his side and covered his head with his blanket. “Go away. It’s way past hours, and you’re not supposed to be in here.”

  He heard her stand, but he didn’t uncover his head. “You’re welcome,” she said sarcastically, and then she left the room.

  She had sat with him all that time because she was concerned about him. Most handlers would have gone to bed. Some would have even rejoiced that their charge had gotten such a comeuppance.

  Emily was different. She may have been an idiot, but her heart was sincere.

  He was being childish, but he didn’t care. No one had asked the infernal woman to get so worried about the welfare of Ben Birchard. And it wasn’t like one missing agent was such an incredible setback anyway. They’d already known there was sabotage involved.

  “The GCA is brimming with fools,” he muttered as he burrowed deeper into his sheets. “Why is anyone surprised that tonight went so badly?”

  XXII

  The Morning After

  August 3, 9:45am mst, GCA Regional Office, Central Phoenix

  Emily passed a perfectly awful night. She’d gone to bed after three o’clock. What should have been a deep, dreamless rest was instead fitful and filled with passing visions of fluttering wings and clandestine figures shooting one another with tranquilizer darts. She was chasing after a childlike version of herself, who ended up having the head of a raven when she finally caught up. She awoke with a start to morning sunlight through the slats of her window blinds.

  It was Sunday. Under normal circumstances, the GCA office would have only a skeleton staff on hand, strictly for security purposes. Instead, the building almost burst at the seams with personnel. Even on the fifth floor there was extra activity from agents and analysts who had slept in the extra rooms before returning to work.

  Emily checked on Oliver. To her surprise, he had already dressed and combed back his hair. A small red scab on his neck, right beneath his earlobe, served as the only evidence of his misfortune from the night before.

  “I thought for sure you’d still be passed out,” she said wryly.

  “You’re almost two hours later than usual,” he retorted. “Even I have limits on how long I can sleep. And you look terrible.”

  It was true. One glance in the mirror had revealed puffy eyes and dull skin. Even after a long, hot shower she still felt sluggish.

  “I know,” she said. “I watched this crazy little kid get shot last night, and it kind of stressed me out.”

  He eyed her, a furrow between his
brows. “You sure you weren’t worked up about the woes of a middle-aged administrative assistant?”

  “What middle-aged administrative assistant would that be? Maggie Lloyd’s the only one I know, and I certainly wasn’t worried about her.” She beckoned him to the door. “If you’re ready, come on. I’m starving.”

  Wordlessly he followed her down the hall to the kitchenette. It had been busy earlier, but Emily thought it might be deserted now. Much to her dismay, she was wrong.

  Seated at the only table like a duchess at tea, Veronica Porcher sipped a cup of coffee as she idly flipped the pages of a news magazine. She glanced up when they entered, and Emily was annoyed to discover that her face was as flawless as ever. Veronica had been up into the wee hours as well, but she looked as fresh as a daisy.

  She hummed a good morning—not the words themselves, but a vague noise of recognition that someone else had entered the room—before she returned her gaze to the magazine. Emily skirted past her to the countertop, where an array of bagels sat next to a scattered pile of jam and cream cheese packets. The breakfast supplies had been picked over already. Some had little gouges in them, as though someone had pinched a sample of the bagel and then decided against eating it. A few had been torn in half. One actually had teeth marks.

  Emily sifted through the assortment, thankful to discover a couple of pristine bagels in the mix. “Do you want plain or onion?” she asked Oliver over her shoulder.

  “Onion,” he said promptly, “with orange marmalade, if they have it.”

  “Gross,” said Emily.

  “How do you know?”

  He had her there. She’d certainly never tried the combination before. Dutifully she pulled a marmalade packet from the condiments, along with some cream cheese for her plain bagel. She slapped both orders on disposable plates and set them on the table, right across from Veronica. Then, she turned back to the fridge.

  “What do you want to drink? Looks like your options are orange juice and soymilk.”

  “Orange juice,” said Oliver. She could have guessed as much, but she knew he liked to state his preferences over having them anticipated. Just like her. She snatched up a box of each beverage and returned to the table.

  They each prepared their breakfast in silence, her plain bagel with cream cheese and his onion one with marmalade. When he took his first bite, she asked, “How is it?”

  He shrugged, mouth full.

  The magazine across the table folded shut. “I thought for sure he was going to try to make you eat that,” said Veronica. “We had a running prank at Prom-C where we’d see who could make their handler eat the grossest thing. I always won.” She smiled proudly.

  “I’ll bet you did,” Emily said before she could stop herself.

  Veronica looked annoyed. “It wasn’t a matter of simple projection. We had a null-projector at Prom-C back then, and he took delight in leveling the playing field. I couldn’t just tell my handler to eat the scum off the bottom of the door-sweep. I had to use some genuine persuasive methods.”

  “You had to distract him so you could plop it in the middle of his food, you mean,” Oliver said flatly. “We play that game at Prom-A, too.”

  Emily looked at him in horror. “What awful things have you made me eat?”

  He screwed up his face. “There’s no point to the game if you don’t have other kids to witness it.”

  She’d never been with him at Prom-A, and he hadn’t been chummy with any of the kids at Prom-F. Emily breathed a sigh of relief, glad that she hadn’t unwittingly eaten any odd or disgusting items. Not yet, anyway. “I’m starting to wonder how any handler actually makes it through the full two years.”

  “Necessity,” said Veronica and Oliver in unison. They exchanged a guarded look, irritated with one another. Veronica broke eye contact first.

  “Is quitting an option for you?” she asked Emily.

  Emily considered the mountains of school debt that this internship would erase and took another bite of her bagel, sufficiently humbled. If she had to pay back that debt herself, it would weigh her down for the rest of her life. She hated to admit that much to either Veronica or Oliver, though. Prometheus students were among the elite group that snatched up the few available scholarships and tuition waivers, so school debt was nonexistent for them.

  And as a projector, Veronica had probably never experienced money problems in her life.

  Emily changed the subject. “If there was a null-projector at Prom-C back when you were there, why aren’t they using him now, for this mission?”

  Veronica’s brows arched. “How should I know?”

  “Oh,” said Emily, “I didn’t mean… Um, what’s he up to now?”

  “Do you keep in touch with people who went to the same primary school you did?” Veronica asked. “I don’t. But then, it’s partly because of my job—when you’re in the limelight like I am, you don’t really have a lot of spare time for keeping track of old acquaintances.”

  Her glib tone chafed against Emily’s sensibilities. “That’s true. You’re such an important person now, so busy that you probably never have any time to yourself.”

  Veronica smirked at the childish provocation and retreated behind her magazine again. Emily itched to snatch it from her hands and smack her across the head with it.

  “Ooh, she gets under my skin,” she confided to Oliver when they entered the elevator some ten minutes later. Veronica had sat in silence for the remainder of their breakfast, languidly reading her magazine and sipping her cup of coffee as though she had the entire day to herself. For all Emily knew, she did.

  “You’re jealous,” said Oliver. “You wish you were a projector with the whole world groveling at your feet.”

  She stared at him. After a moment’s consideration, she asked, “Can’t I just wish that she wasn’t a projector?”

  “Jealous,” he said again.

  The doors opened on the second floor to a flurry of activity. No one had issued any instructions for Oliver yet today, so it seemed like a good idea to ask whether they needed him. Emily would have turned back when she saw how harrowed everyone looked, and when she heard General Stone’s voice bellowing from his usual conference room, she actually grabbed Oliver’s shoulder to waylay him. He shrugged away from her with a glare.

  “I want eyes and ears glued to every single Altair network we have record of! I don’t care how old they are! Do you understand? Good!”

  Emily presumed that General Stone made this declaration into a phone, because no vigorous “Yes, sir!” answered him. She and Oliver paused in the doorway as the general searched his contacts list for a new verbal punching bag. Next to him, Ben caught her eye and hastily motioned her to retreat.

  She yanked Oliver out of sight just as General Stone looked up.

  “What was that for?” the boy demanded, wrenching away from her again.

  “We’ll wait out here, I think,” Emily said. From inside the room, General Stone barked orders at his new victim. “Or on second thought, maybe we should go back upstairs.”

  Suddenly, Ben poked his head out of the conference room. “It’s better if you steer clear of the general for now. He’s been on a rampage ever since they discovered the ghost.”

  “Ghost?” Oliver echoed sharply.

  “The—” Ben started, but he caught himself with a self-conscious glance back into the room. He tipped his head down the hall. “There’s another conference room two doors down. Wait for me there. I’ll be right with you.”

  He disappeared back inside the room in time for General Stone to snap an order at him. “Birchard! Get me Secretary Allen on the phone, pronto! And where are those files I asked for?”

  Emily felt a mixture of pity and relief as she guided Oliver away from the door—pity for Ben, who had to put up with that sort of behavior, and relief for herself, who didn’t.

  The second conference room was smaller, and it was oddly dark and empty. Most of the agents assigned to this branch probably had
their own work space, so they had no need to retreat here. She flipped on the light and took a seat at the oblong table.

  Oliver remained standing, his hands clasped behind his back. His critical gaze traveled the walls. There hung a picture of the President of the United States, right next to one of the Service Czar, Secretary Mary Rose Allen.

  “She’s probably having a conniption too,” he said.

  “I think this situation has blown up beyond what anyone expected,” said Emily. “I mean, it’s got to be pretty unsettling to discover a traitor rooted in your midst.”

  “Whatever.” Dismissively, he turned to study a prestigious-looking plaque behind him.

  His apathy was rather forced—he had been tranquilized last night because of that traitor, after all—but Emily didn’t say anything. Instead she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes as she waited for Ben to appear.

  The conference room door opened. “What could have possibly possessed you to come downstairs this morning?” Ben asked as he slipped inside.

  Oliver looked at Emily accusingly.

  She folded her arms tight, shrinking away from both of them. “No one told us what we were supposed to do today. I didn’t see Quincy or Alyson in the break room, so I assumed they were down here.”

  “I saw them at breakfast and told them to keep to their rooms today,” said Ben. “Sorry. I should’ve put a note on your door. I just figured that Oliver would want to rest for a while after what happened last night.”

  “You thought I wanted to sulk for a while,” Oliver intuitively said.

  Ben tipped his head in honest acknowledgement. “Either way, you don’t want to get in General Stone’s crosshairs right now.”

  “What’s this about a ghost?” asked Oliver.