Oliver Invictus (Annals of Altair Book 3)

by Kate Stradling

  Oliver’s eyes bulged and his breath stuttered. In a fluid movement, Abel drew a handgun from where it was tucked beneath his coat, but when he brandished it, Ben stepped firmly into the line of fire.

  Never had the back of a dress-shirt looked so saintly—and never had terror so clawed up Oliver’s throat on someone else’s behalf. Jenifer sidled up behind him, her back to his as she stared down the foot soldiers around them, and his dread redoubled.

  “Put your gun away,” said Hart. “We can tranquilize the null to better effect.”

  “Not good enough,” said Abel, his aim steady. “We’re not complying unless he’s dead, so tell his little bodyguards to step aside.”

  Wythe made eye contact with his son and tipped his head.

  “I’m not moving,” said Ben.

  “What affiliate are they from, Tallmadge?” Abel sneered. “A bunch of useless would-be heroes. Meanwhile, time’s a’wastin’.”

  His trigger-finger tugged. A deafening crack shattered the air as Ben slammed backward into Oliver and sprawled them both upon the floor.

  Chapter 32

  Checkmate

  Adam Wythe launched himself on Abel before the man could take a second aim, tackling him with a roar. Shrieks and shouts echoed against the concrete and steel around them. In the brief tumult, Jenifer dragged Oliver away from the motionless body on the floor. The perimeter of Sparta minions closed in, brushing past the pair as they homed in on Abel and his group.

  The Brotherhood defectors had guns drawn, but they were outmanned and surrounded. Still, live ammunition held a viable threat against mere tranquilizer darts. An electric tension possessed both parties.

  Kennedy broke the silence with a trembling voice. “Let him go or I’ll never help you.” Did she feel any guilt whatsoever after watching her father shoot someone in cold blood? Or was it for Abel alone that she worried?

  Regardless, her threat served its purpose. Hart clapped a hand on Wythe’s shoulder and tugged him off his quarry. Abel scooted backward, smug and grinning. His gun lay on the floor beyond his reach, though he seemed not to care.

  “She’s a good girl, very loyal,” he said, pawing her arm as he stood again. “And what do you care if a Tallmadge lackey dies? Shoot the null and let’s be on our way. You have no other choice, unless you want those GCA pigs to overtake us.”

  Wythe, his eyes deathly, snatched a tranquilizer gun from the nearest minion.

  “Not like—” Abel began, but the rest of the sentence died in his throat. The gun swung his direction, and Wythe pulled the trigger without a second’s hesitation.

  The red-tufted dart stuck in Kennedy’s neck. A gurgle escaped her throat, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

  Abel screamed, catching her as her knees buckled. “What have you done?” A slew of profanities streamed from his mouth, escalating in pitch. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

  Wythe tossed the spent unit back to its original owner and pulled a pistol from his belt. “I hope you had a backup plan, smart guy.” He cocked his gun and shifted his attention to the Rosses’ underlings. “Your leader is a worthless coward. Drop your weapons or we’ll tranq you and leave you for the government to collect—or blow up, however they see fit.”

  Abel’s swearing renewed as six guns clattered to the concrete floor. His men lifted their hands above their heads, exchanging cagey glances.

  “Carry the girl down to the van,” Hart said. Five Sparta minions sprang into action. They tore a screaming Abel from his unconscious daughter. One of them slung Kennedy over his shoulder and headed for the waiting elevator.

  As the door slid shut, Hart stooped low, blocking her father’s view of the flagrant kidnapping. “You thought a double-cross would work against us? We know well enough to cover our backsides.

  “Junior,” he snapped over his shoulder, “get off the floor. Everyone knows you’re wearing a kevlar vest.”

  Oliver, halfway to the windows by now, jolted as Ben uncurled from his crumpled pile. With a grimace, the man rubbed the heel of his palm across his chest where the bullet had struck.

  “No one asked you to play the white knight,” said his father, wrenching him up by his armpit.

  A scorch mark ringed the hole in his shirt, with a damaged panel just visible beneath and no sign of blood. The stupor that had possessed Oliver since the gun went off disintegrated. He looked to Jenifer in burgeoning outrage and found not an ounce of surprise on her face. “You knew he was fine?” he hissed.

  She spared him a sideways glance. “Anyone with eyes could see his extra bulk wasn’t from a dad-bod. He’s lucky Abel aimed for center mass, though.”

  “What’s the status on that vehicle convoy?” Wythe barked at the computer tech.

  “They’re positioned around the base of the building. Looks like they’re gearing up for a raid.”

  Hart raised his voice. “That’s it! Everyone to the garage.”

  Gun-bearing minions approached to gather Oliver and Jenifer as others herded Abel and the Brotherhood defectors toward the stairs.

  “How do you propose to get out of here when the building’s surrounded?” Ben asked his father.

  “C’mon,” said Wythe with a reproving glance. “You really think we wouldn’t leave ourselves a back door? Brax is out there with the rest of our crew.”

  Belatedly Oliver recalled the third mugshot from the recurring NPNN broadcast: Braxton McKean, who had been inconspicuously absent from this meeting.

  “And what do you plan to do about the drones?” Ben asked.

  “Ten to one they’re only for surveillance,” said his father.

  In answer to this, glass blasted inward and the whole building shook. The rocket crashed through the opposite wall and burst in the air beyond, leaving a trail of smoke and flames.

  Jenifer hauled Oliver beneath one of the folding tables full of computer equipment. Amid stripped concrete and iron girders, the explosion had little to catch on fire, but glass shards littered the floor. People scattered, bolting for the stairwell as flakes of debris rained around them. The computer tech abandoned his post to join his fellows. Oliver ventured a glance out the window behind him to the ground, where a GCA retrieval team swarmed toward the building like ants on a pile.

  His ears were ringing, a high-pitched note punctuated with the thundering of his pulse. “There’s no way out. They’ll have the stairwells covered before we can get to the bottom.”

  Jenifer was too busy craning her neck out of their makeshift shelter to pay him any heed. When she slid back under with a laptop in hand, his eyes almost popped out of his head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What I’m trained to do: take advantage of an opportunity.” She’d already slipped the teardrop necklace from beneath her shirt and detached the hidden thumb drive.

  Oliver clamped a hand on her shoulder, but before he could voice the rebuke on the tip of his tongue, Ben crowded into their space. “The building’s on fire. We need to make our exit now, while everything’s in chaos.”

  “The GCA’s storming both stairwells and Sparta’s making a run for the parking garage,” said Jenifer, intent upon her task. She briefly met his gaze with a faint smile. “Maybe if we sit this one out long enough, they’ll eliminate each other.”

  “Bring the laptop with you,” he said, tugging her and Oliver from beneath the table.

  A hiss sounded on the air. Through the broken bay of windows, two canisters clattered to the floor, where they spewed an acrid smoke.

  “There’s the tear gas, right on time,” said Ben, lifting his sleeve to his face. “Cover your nose and mouth and run.”

  They bolted for the closer stairwell, avoiding the encroaching miasma as best they could. Oliver’s eyes stung as he grasped the railing.

  A voice rang out across the chaos. “Junior, we need that null!”

  “Down, down, down,” said Ben. He pushed Oliver ahead of him while Jenifer lagged behind. They rounded three flights, passing more strippe
d floors until they came to a fire door that had yet to be removed. Boots pounded from below. Ben shove the door open and ushered them through, into a sea of faded cubicles.

  Someone shouted from above, their words garbled, but the shutting door cut off any further noise.

  “Keep away from the windows,” Ben said, steering them into the nearest aisle. “The drones can detect visible movement, but their infrared sensors can’t see through glass.”

  “This is nuts,” said Oliver. “There’s no way Stone won’t sweep the whole building.”

  “Let’s hope Brax gives him a decent enough distraction, then.”

  The cubicles surrounded the central elevator shaft in layers, their walls no higher than Oliver’s shoulders. The trio took refuge in one, ducking beneath the built-in desk, and not a moment too soon. Noise from the stairwell echoed through the space as a fire door opened. The chaos deadened when it shut again, proof that the new arrival was not a platoon of GCA agents.

  Jenifer clicked the laptop’s trackpad, the muted sound deafening in the tense silence. Ben and Oliver both shot her a warning look. Although she appeared apologetic, she curled toward the fabric wall behind her, shielding the device with her body as she continued to work.

  A rustle from somewhere beyond their hiding place made Oliver’s skin crawl. His ears perked, attuned to signs of movement. Any moment, Hart or Wythe would cross the cubicle’s entrance and spy them. He waited, his throat tight. The rustling drew nearer, barely a whisper as it approached. Oliver stared at the worn industrial carpet, expecting a shadow to fall from the direction of the windows.

  Instead, someone brushed against the fabric walls coming from the opposite direction. His attention snapped to the source, his nerves tight. Either their pursuer—Hart or Wythe—had circled around from another aisle, or the newcomer had come from the far stairwell.

  Greasy hair slid into view. Oliver couldn’t contain his intake of breath. Quiet though it was, it caught the attention of a creeping Abel Ross. A lurid grin spread across his face. He straightened his posture, lording over them, even as Ben tugged Oliver behind him.

  “Well, well, well. Lady Luck smiles on me after all.” He waved a handgun—a smaller model than his first, but still deadly in its heavy construct. “Here I was looking for a tactical place to give fight, never considering I might find the rat I’ve been hunting all along.”

  “Shouldn’t you be running for the parking garage?” Ben asked.

  Abel’s lips curled back. “All in good time. Those backstabbers will get what’s coming to them, if not from me then when Button wakes up. I’ll settle for eliminating her neutralizer.” He pointed the gun, careless that Ben yet splayed himself in front of his true quarry. “Everyone’s life would be a lot easier if your corpse were rotting in a woodshed, kid.”

  Oliver tried to push Ben out of the way, to avoid an extra casualty in the obvious outcome, but the man stubbornly held his place. With a smirk, Abel crouched and aimed directly at the teen’s head, too far for them to tackle and too near to miss his mark.

  The air split. Oliver flinched as warm wetness spattered his cheeks. The ringing in his ears intensified.

  But it was Abel Ross’s body that slumped to the floor.

  A shadow fell across the aisle. “What did I tell you about white-knighting?” Wythe asked, stepping into view with pistol in hand. He kicked the body to one side and extracted the gun from Abel’s limp fingers. “I raised you better than to get yourself killed by a second-rate revolutionary.”

  Oliver, appalled at the giddy relief that flooded him, averted his gaze from the dead man, but not before his mind registered the gaping head wound and the glazed eyes that stared directly into his soul. Blood fanned out across the floor and the fabric walls. Dumbly he wiped at his face and drew back a streak of crimson on his fingers.

  Wythe crouched, the better to look them square in the eyes. When he spoke, it was with quiet restraint. “Adam, we need the null.”

  Oliver gaped, to hear his handler so addressed. But of course “Junior” would signify that he shared his father’s name. And with his father in open rebellion to the government, no wonder he had set that name aside.

  Ben, arms spread wide, maintained his guard. “I can’t give him to you. You’ll have to shoot me first.”

  His father sighed. “Is it yourself or your sister that you see in him? Hiding him from the GCA won’t bring her back.” When silence was the only response, he shook his head. “We don’t have time to track down Stone and his pet null, and I can guarantee the girl will flip her lid when she finds out her dad died in this little raid.”

  Never mind that he himself had killed Abel. The GCA would take the ultimate blame, but Kennedy’s despair would infect every soul around her, and wrath would soon follow. Her father’s destructive influence had transitioned her from childish vandal to callous destroyer. If no one kept her in check, she might burn down the whole world.

  With heavy heart, Oliver tapped Ben’s shoulder, signaling for him to move aside.

  But, “Stone is easy to find,” Ben said, scorn in his voice. “He’ll be holed up in the back of his private car, with Cedric tucked next to him to keep him safe. Never in his career has that man put himself on the front lines. He just comes close enough to watch and then takes credit in the aftermath.”

  Wythe digested this information. “Did you catch that, Brax?” he asked the air. “Let’s relieve the good general of his safety net.” His attention returned to the trio huddled beneath the desk. “That doesn’t change the situation here.”

  “What if we offered you a drone strike as a trade for letting us go?” asked Jenifer. She uncurled at last from her hunched position, bathed in the blue light of the stolen laptop. On its screen was a moving aerial view of the building, with a column of static pictures off to the side.

  “What in the—” Wythe began.

  “You have at most three shots before the tech on their side realizes something’s wrong. The drones are mostly autonomous, but they need human approval to fire, so all they do is fly around collecting prospective targets.”

  For a breath, he didn’t move. Then, “We could use a girl like you,” he said, reaching for the device.

  Jenifer pulled it further from his hands, smiling wanly. “Not so fast. Do we have a deal?”

  “That’s our machine.”

  “It’s my hack.”

  “Touché. All right, it’s a deal.”

  A gurgling protest started from Ben’s throat as the computer changed hands. His father favored him with a thin smile. “What, worried that I might kill someone?” After a pointed glance at Abel’s body, he fixed his gaze on the screen.

  Jenifer edged toward the cubicle exit, still mostly blocked.

  “I want my strike before anyone leaves,” Wythe said, arresting her movement. He tapped several keys in succession. An explosion reverberated from outside, and a second one rocked the building.

  Ben started forward, ashen. “What did you blow up?”

  “The other drone and the floor below ours. The connection cut pretty quick, or I’d’ve hit the self-destruct too.”

  “Not necessary,” said Jenifer. “A rogue drone always gets called back until they find out how the breach happened. Can we go now?”

  Wythe raised his gaze, but in that vacant way that showed his mind was elsewhere. “Brax, what’s our best way out?” he asked the air. He snapped the laptop shut and tossed it to Jenifer, who caught it. When he stood to his full height, the trio under the desk scrambled out.

  Oliver consciously avoided looking at the bloodied corpse as he stepped over it. He kept expecting Abel to lunge, to make one last gruesome attempt on his life. As he followed Wythe and Jenifer toward the nearest stairwell, he glanced backward.

  Ben reoriented him. “Don’t. It’s done.”

  They approached the broad windows to overlook a scene of chaos. Rocket launchers fired from the roof of a low building nearby, destroying the GCA’s perimeter vehicl
es as black-clad agents took cover. A black sedan positioned behind the others tried to u-turn out of the yard, but a pair of SUVs blocked its exit. Soldiers with assault rifles converged. They yanked open a back door and pulled the occupants out.

  Oliver’s throat constricted. “That’s Cedric and General Stone.”

  “It’s also our cue to leave,” said Wythe. He opened the fire door to a stairwell filling with smoke. Agents poured from the second floor, where his drone strike had interrupted their sweep of the building. A break in the stream of bodies provided the perfect window of escape.

  Acrid smoke burned Oliver’s eyes. He covered his nose with his sleeve and descended between Jenifer and Ben. The GCA agents pushed through the fire exit on the ground floor, but when Jenifer tried to follow, Wythe blocked her.

  “Not that way. You’ll be surrounded. We’re going down and out through the garage.”

  They descended another flight into dimness and emerged on the edge of a battlefield. GCA and Sparta agents alike lay strewn across the concrete, evidence of a skirmish. Some had tried to take refuge among the nearby rows of garbage dumpsters. Tranquilizer darts and shell casings littered the whole area.

  In the middle of the lane, a black van faced the far exit ramp, where daylight mingled with wisps of smoke. Its engine was running. From beside its open side door, Hart beckoned.

  “We need the null here.”

  “You heard the man,” Wythe said to Oliver, tipping his head that direction.

  Jenifer gasped. “You said you’d let us go! The deal was for all of us!”

  The protest fell on deaf ears. “The only safe passage for him is with us in that van.”

  “You don’t need him,” said Ben. “You have Cedric now.”

  His father spared him a pleasant smile. “But I don’t want you to have him either. That would just ruin so many great things to come.”

  The blood drained from Ben’s face.

  “There’s a second wave coming,” Hart called. “We need to go!”

  Even as Wythe clamped a hand on Oliver’s upper arm, shots rang out from the top of the ramp. A handful of Sparta minions hopped from the van to return fire, and Wythe drew his own weapon to help. Four GCA sedans, lights flashing, skidded into view and blocked the exit.