by P. R. Adams
A sandpaper towel and rough undergarments were waiting on the bench. Beside those was a pale gray jumpsuit and a simple pair of matching slippers. The outfit was gloriously warm.
Tiny Ears held up a pair of restraints. “Hands behind your back.”
They were reinforced plastic, a pair of thin cuffs and a narrow cable. The keys bulged in his pocket.
She did as ordered, hissing softly at the brutal force used to lock her wrists. The guy was strong—really strong—and made a point of grabbing the joining cable and keeping her restraints pulled back and high so that her arms always felt millimeters away from being yanked from their shoulder sockets.
Still, she managed a smile. “Thank you.”
The beefy woman snorted. “Might want to save that, sweetie.”
Another wave of the baton, and the group of them retraced partway back to Stiles’s cell, then cut down another corridor. Up two flights of stairs, three turns, then a tall but somewhat lean albino—one of Sleepy Eyes’s original team—shouldered another steel door open.
Sunlight. Brilliant. Morning. A cool breeze with a trace of floral scents nearly washed out by cold, hard smells—earthy mud and mold, stagnant water. Wings fluttered, and birds cawed.
And underneath it all, a hint of chlorine.
They were behind the main building. A parking lot used for special purposes—deliveries, usually. And off to the west, the enclosed pool from her training days. Dead twigs, leaves, and loam washed from the nearby woods during rainstorms all collected in the corners of the lot.
When she was maneuvered into the parking lot, her legs nearly gave out. A dark gray shuttle awaited them in the middle of the open area.
The guy with his hand wrapped in the restraints jerked them up. “Uh-uh.”
She gasped. “Sorry. Cramps.”
He guided her forward. “You can sit down in a minute.”
“Where are we going?”
“Transfer.”
Sleepy Eyes jogged to the shuttle. “People want to hear your story.”
Stiles leaned back as the doors opened, revealing three rows of black upholstered seats. “Who?”
“Important people, I guess.”
The guy working the restraints was good. He kept tension on Stiles’s shoulder and elbows but gave her just enough slack to slide into the center of the middle seat, then he hooked the restraints to a heavy plastic clasp. He slid back out and took a seat behind her.
Sleepy Eyes and the albino who’d shouldered the parking lot door open took the front seat, while the other guy who’d leered at her—the guy with the heavy jaw and brow—joined his buddy Tiny Ears in the back seat. The other four guards waved, then returned inside.
After a moment of tapping buttons and flipping switches, the shuttle doors closed, and the engines whirred to life.
Stiles craned her neck and squinted at the complex as the vehicle shook and rose into the air. “I thought they were going to get me into surgery.”
That drew a chuckle from the big lady. “Maybe after your testimony.”
“Dr. Dietrich said the arterial wall wasn’t going to heal.”
“Yeah? Never heard of him. You’re doing okay.”
“I’m really hungry. I haven’t been able to sleep.”
“I thought you were supposed to be special. Tough.”
“I nearly died.”
“Yeah. Heard that. You should like the digs where you’re going.”
“I can’t talk to anyone if I’m dead.”
Tiny Ears snorted but shut up when the big lady glared into the rearview mirror. She twisted around and looked Stiles over. “You’ll be fine. These guys who want to talk to you know what they’re doing.”
“O-okay.” Stiles bowed her head. “How long have we been here?”
“They brought you in…a week ago? Yeah.”
“Did the Navy find the Azoren fleet?”
“Nope. No proof any Azoren ships were ever up there, really. Just a bunch of debris.”
“I…didn’t get to see the ships myself.”
“Yeah. The big hero’s testifying before the parliament today about the whole thing.”
“Commander Benson?”
“Sounds right.”
The shuttle leveled—trees, rolling hills, in the distance what might be a foggy bay. The sun was off to their left but at an angle. Southeast. Away from the GSA facility. Away from Varudin. There were heavily wooded areas along the coast, some of them still quite pretty. And isolated.
Stiles lowered her chin to her chest and drew in an even breath. “Colonel McLeod said I would have a chance to talk to General Lavrov.”
“Yeah?” The big woman shrugged. “Might work out that way, I guess.”
“Which division of GSA are you from?”
Tiny Ears leaned over her shoulder, breathing down her neck. He smelled like coffee and berries. “Quality Control.”
She leaned against his hand slightly; he didn’t pull away. “Sanitation?”
“That’s what people like to call it, sure.”
That drew another glare from Sleepy Eyes. “We take whatever tasking comes our way.”
Stiles slowly exhaled on the big man’s arm; thick muscles shivered beneath the mahogany flesh. “Like taking prisoners to interrogation sites?”
“We don’t ask.”
“You don’t believe SAID’s behind all this?”
“That’s outside our—” The big woman’s head whipped around. “Dirk, fucking get your hands off her!”
Tiny Ears had a name—Dirk.
Dirk’s hand wrapped around Stiles’s chest, fondling her. “Just drop down in the woods, Sarge. I only need—”
“Dammit!” Sergeant Sleepy Eyes whipped around, baton in hand. “You forget to take your—?”
Stiles brought her legs up just as the baton hummed to life. She wrapped her thighs around the big woman’s forearm an instant before the albino in the passenger seat twisted around with his own baton. Before he could check his swing, Stiles twisted the big woman’s wrist, sending the baton down the length of the albino’s, then over the back of his hand.
The albino brute’s baton fell toward the sergeant’s wrist.
Stiles released her grip an instant before the baton made contact.
The air grew heavy with the smell of ozone, and the two agents in the front seat writhed, then went still.
Dirk’s grip had grown tighter, less a grope than a desperate effort to pin Stiles to the seat. He grunted, a sound of a man coming out of a lustful sleep. “Hey. Hey! Jimmy!”
The guy with the heavy brow and jaw. His baton came to life. “I got her.”
Stiles slammed her feet against the shuttle floor and pushed up, driving Dirk’s shoulder into Jimmy’s baton.
The big man groaned; his grip weakened. A bit of the current rolled through her—enough to make her muscles tense and her stomach roll.
You’ve been through worse.
Jimmy grabbed the collar of her jumpsuit and yanked her back, cutting off her breath. “Sorry, pretty lady. Got to do what I got to do.”
His baton began the recharge cycle, the hum slowly building.
There was no good angle to get at him. He had always been the complication in the plan.
But plans were about improvisation.
Stiles kicked against the back of the big woman’s seat—kicked hard and fast, even as the lack of oxygen began to cause darkness to creep into the edges of the world.
The seat back rocked just enough to knock Sergeant Sleepy Eyes forward, into the piloting console.
Killing the engine.
Which wasn’t exactly what Stiles had intended.
Jimmy panicked, though, which was the point. “You stupid bitch! What the—”
He let go as the vehicle nose dipped down, and they fell toward the dark green forest below.
Stiles gulped in air and leaned away before the Sanitation agent could think to bring his baton down on her. There was only one way she was getting out of the
mess. The restraints had just enough play in the connecting cable to wrap around the clasp. Snapping the restraints wasn’t an option, but sheering through the clasp?
Her shoulders protested, and the thin, reinforced plastic cut into her wrists, but when she brought her legs up and pushed against the door, the clasp gave.
Jimmy swung at her then.
She rolled off the seat, narrowly avoiding the baton. Then she slid her hands beneath her butt and legs.
A groan floated up from the front seat—the stunned pilot was coming around.
Jimmy came over the seat, but his baton wasn’t charged yet. He swung anyway.
Stiles took the charge on the restraint—plastic, not terribly conductive. It was like brushing her fingers over power pack leads.
She pushed through the contact, until her hands were on the big man’s face, then drove her thumbs into his eyes.
He pulled away, screaming, reaching for the gory sockets.
“Shit.” It floated from the front seat, same as the earlier groan.
Sergeant Sleepy Eyes.
The engine kicked back on, and the shuttle leveled off.
Stiles threw her hands over the seat, felt the big woman’s hands searching for a grip—forearm, wrist—then wrapped the restraint cable around the big woman’s throat.
And hauled back, knees pressed against the rear of the seat.
Sleepy Eyes was stronger, but Stiles had all the leverage, and a cable across the throat was a terrible thing. Even a trained combatant could panic when air was cut off. It was one thing to bully prisoners and clean up dirty sites; it was something completely different tangling with an experienced and committed field agent.
Desperate tugging quickly turned into even more desperate flailing, then that stopped and the big woman went limp.
Just as the albino seemed to shake off the worst of his shock.
Stiles reached over the seat and pulled the sergeant’s pistol, then fired two rounds into the pale-skinned man’s face. Blood and brains spattered the shattered window behind him, and he folded forward.
She turned just as Dirk tried to slide over the seat separating them.
He froze and held up his hands. “Hey, now—”
Stiles put a round between his eyes, then put two more into Jimmy’s face.
Blood trickled onto the dark material. The engine was loud through the holes that had been punched into the chassis and the shattered glass, and the whine sounded a little off.
She climbed into the front seat and put the shuttle into hover, then unbuckled Sleepy Eyes and Albino’s seat belts.
The big woman’s eyes fluttered open. She wheezed and put thick fingers to the red welt on her neck. “Wait—”
Stiles brought the pistol grip down on the other woman’s forehead, over and over until the woman’s eyes went dull and closed again.
Then Stiles opened the doors and pushed the woman and albino out. Their bodies fell into the trees far below. After retrieving the keys from Dirk, he and Jimmy followed; Stiles thought she heard branches snap for them.
She listened to the engine and checked the console; everything was still green.
Barely.
She wiped blood from her hands and closed the doors.
Somewhere in the woods not too far away, a team of interrogators was waiting for her. Like the agents she’d just killed, they weren’t part of SAID, but they were at least covering up the mess the rival agency was making. Maybe McLeod was in on it, maybe he wasn’t.
Was General Lavrov? She would leave that to someone else to determine.
For now, she needed to find someone she could trust, someone who couldn’t possibly be part of the conspiracy.
Trust. It wasn’t something she was meant to embrace.
Stiles searched the woods below, then the console. She had her destination for now, but when she was done, she would have to head to Varudin.
Maybe she could find someone there, someone whom she could trust, and more importantly, whom she had earned the trust of.
18
Going back as far as Benson could remember, she’d hated being locked up. It could be real, like when Sargota had a rare parenting moment and sent her mouthy child to her room and closed the door “until you come to your senses.” Or it could be symbolic, like the many times at the Academy where instructors or senior cadets took away Benson’s voice. Either way, she would stew. She would grind her teeth. She would glare. And she would fight against the painful pressure that built in her head when blatant idiocy reared up.
That pressure was building now, as she leaned against the bunk of her cell—her “protective” cell. She massaged her forehead to push back the throbbing pain.
Grier leaned out from the bottom bunk where she lay, hands clasped behind her head. She was down to T-shirt and pants, both of them clinging like paint to her muscles. “You okay, ma’am?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Silence getting to you?”
“No.” Benson hadn’t actually noticed how quiet it was. When she paced, her boots echoed off the bare, gray concrete floor and walls of the cell and hall outside.
“Bored by the decor?”
“Reminds me of the Pandora. A little.”
“Ouch. It’s not really so bad, is it, ma’am? Reminds me of boot camp, but a lot more comfortable, and it doesn’t stink like a hundred recruits stuffed into a little barracks. Hell, they’ve got a good air conditioning system, right, Clive?”
Halliwell sat on the bottom bunk on the opposite wall, hunched over, studying his fingers. Like Grier, he was down to his T-shirt and pants, but his brooding was painful to watch. A small patch of his brow glistened where fresh skin had been sprayed over a gash. Once again, he was blaming himself for something outside his control. “Sure.”
“Don’t be such a sourpuss.”
His dark eyes came up, then dropped back to his fingers, which he slowly interlaced and straightened. “Sorry.”
“Oh, man. You’re looking at it all wrong. It’s a paid vacation. Without the booze.”
“You’re off the booze, Toni.”
“Sure. But you find the right guy, get him smashed, no telling what happens.”
Benson grinned. “I seriously doubt you need to get someone hammered for a good time, Corporal.”
“Nah. For a great time, though…”
Benson stretched her leg, which was bugging her again. A week at the Academy had meant access to an excellent gym, a chance to rehab. Now everything felt stiff and sore again.
Maybe it was stress. Maybe she’d pushed too hard.
She paced a bit, then leaned against the bars that made up the wall that kept them penned in. Protected.
Six hours.
Six hours of “protection.”
Six hours while order was restored and everything was sorted out.
But what was there to sort? The prime minister was dead. Most of her strongest allies were as well. And Sargota…
Benson came around, head throbbing, ears ringing. Blood trickled down Halliwell’s face. His eyes were a little glazed, but there was enough focus in them to see the concern in their depths.
“Faith? You okay?” He squeezed her.
She longed for the feel of those powerful hands, but everything conspired to keep her apart from the big Marine, especially his recent melancholy. “Dazed.”
Off somewhere in the distance, Grier whistled. “Fuck.”
Benson pushed up to an elbow, remembering what had caused the blackout—a blast. The corporal was squatting, hunched over a crumpled form. Blood pooled on the floor. Fire reflected on the dark surface. Black smoke slithered along the ceiling, following air currents through blasted windows.
Memory strengthened, and Benson understood who the crumpled form was: Sargota. She’d been much closer to the blast.
There was so much blood, and when Grier stumbled toward the Kilimanjaro room, arms raised to shield her from the heat, Benson had a better look at the extent of her mother
’s injuries.
The corporal gasped. “Oh, fuck.”
But it was the crack in Sargota’s face leaking blood and the awkward and wrong twist to her arms that kept Benson’s focus, even when alarms finally roared.
Waking the giant. Telling the world that horror had come to Kedraal.
Again.
Maybe a younger woman could survive the injuries Sargota had sustained. But the representative looked so old and frail, even before the blast broke her.
Grier was there, face pressed against the bars. “Sorry about your mother.”
“Thank you.” Benson wasn’t so sure she deserved sympathy, though. It was the Republic that had suffered. Her loss seemed trivial by comparison. Could the Republic feel pain, though? She struggled to breathe evenly for a second.
“Maybe she’ll pull through, ma’am. She seemed like a tough old bird.”
Benson smiled. How many times had she said that about her own mother? “She is.”
“My mom was like that, too. Mostly, though, it was pickling.”
“Pick—”
Grier pretended to knock back a drink. “She loved the sauce.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize she was dead. I’m sorry.”
“Nah. It’s okay, Commander. She had a good run.”
“Is—” Benson swallowed, embarrassed not to know more about one of her crew. “Is that why you quit drinking?”
“Huh? Oh. No. It’s why I started. I mean, the whole family was like that. I was getting smashed every day by the time I was thirteen, you know?”
“I—I should have.”
“Well, no. I wasn’t advertising to the Marines that I had a problem, right?”
“They could have helped you with alcoholism.”
“They are, ma’am, but they’re damned good about turning a blind eye, y’know? Clean for years now. Thanks to Clive.”
Halliwell looked up. “You cleaned yourself up.”
“Nah. It was you, big guy. He’s a great motivator, huh, ma’am?” Grier winked slyly.
She knows. Everyone knew. Or suspected. The pictures. The videos. I’ll get through it. A fragile smile touched Benson’s lips. “He is.”
The staff sergeant pushed up from his bunk and shoved his hands in his pants. “That bomb—”
Benson shook her head. “Careful. They’re saying gas line break.”
