"You let them run across because of me," Jon said, putting the pieces together. "Jesus...you let them get shot because of me? Because you couldn't trust me to keep my thoughts to myself?"
Revik gave a half-shrug.
"Sort of," he said. "Well, no...not entirely. Really, you pointed out a flaw in our logic. I shouldn't have known they wouldn't shoot at me. You saying that about me being too valuable to risk running scout made me realize that it wasn't logical, from Ditrini's perspective, that I go first. They might have gotten suspicious if I'd done that. So really, you helped...but..."
Revik didn't finish the sentence, but his eyes drifted back to the flat rock where Illeg, Jaden and Angeline crouched against the wind and spray.
He made a vague gesture then, rather than say actual words.
"Yeah," Jon said. "I get it. That's great, man. I'll be sure and let them know they took one for the team. I'm positive they'll all want to send me a big bunch of roses and a thank you card for that one..."
Revik clicked at him mildly, but his eyes held a faint humor.
Sighing, Jon turned away. He reached for the ladder to climb up to the upper deck where the engine's controls were housed, thinking he would see if he could figure out how to work the damned things, when Revik grabbed him. Before Jon could protest, the seer pulled him into a strong hug, crushing him against his body. Lowering his voice, he spoke into Jon's ear.
"You ever disobey me like that again, Jon, and I'll really do what I threatened. Moreover, I'll lock you up..." he added. Revik's light exuded warmth, but his voice remained hard. "I mean it. I'll collar you and lock you up for a month without so much as a comic book to keep you company...I don't give a damn what Wreg says. Or Allie, for that matter..."
Before he let him go, Revik kissed him on the cheek.
From the way he'd said it though, Jon had absolutely no doubt that he'd meant every word.
24
DROP ZONE
JON HAD BEEN wrong. They hadn't simply taken the boat to shore to catch a plane straight to South America; instead, they took the rusted fishing boat to shore, caught a helicopter in Santa Cruz that took them to a slightly larger airport in Santa Barbara, then hopped a plane that flew them a good ten hours south to an even bigger boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
From the virtual satellite images he saw once they landed, Jon gathered they had to be somewhere in the vicinity of Peru, or maybe northern Chile.
In any case, the floating runway where they landed didn't stop its trajectory south, where it continued to head at a decent clip.
How the hell Balidor got access to an actual aircraft carrier was a little beyond Jon, particularly given the generally rundown and dilapidated condition of the majority of the transportation vehicles, whether land, sea or air, that Jon had seen the Seven and the Adhipan use. Clearly the aircraft carrier had to be some kind of loaner.
Of course, there were clues to that effect, as well. Not only did it say U.S.S. Indiana on the side in big, white letters, but more than half of the crew wore human military uniforms for the United States Navy. That same crew also seemed to have been pushed into believing some story or other that involved them saluting to Revik, human fashion, whenever they passed him in the halls. Allie laughed a little, each and every time they did it, which probably didn't help much in maintaining the illusion.
Regardless, the fact that Balidor managed to wrestle an entire aircraft carrier and its human crew away from the U.S. Navy and however-many seers they employed to protect it from that very occurrence was disturbing enough.
When Jon asked Balidor about it, the seer just smiled, then said something vague about 'gratitude for the release of seer prisoners due to the Registry operation.' Vague or not, the explanation made sense. Someone who knew someone or was someone at a high level had a relative or other loved one who'd been freed by Revik and Allie when they hit São Paulo a few years back and disabled the perimeter lines of those work camps.
Balidor clearly had been making good use of the refugee camps.
Still, given the tenor of the feeds lately, the potential blowback made everyone a little tense. It wasn't only seers who were tracking Allie and Revik's movements these days. Black Arrow, a major defense contractor for the United States military, among other governments, had put a major bounty out on Allie and Revik after that same Registry job. Sooner or later, the missing aircraft carrier would be noticed, and satellites would pick it up well outside of its last known location. Given the panic about the disease and the fear of terrorist attacks more generally, they'd be lucky if the government didn't nuke them just on principle.
Further, they weren't all that far from those same SCARB headquarters that Revik and Allie hit in the first place. Sweeper units had their home base in Brazil, as did the main Registry offices and Black Arrow themselves. Whatever Balidor had been ordered by Revik to do down here, clearly subtlety hadn't been on the top of the list of priorities.
Jon found himself mainly grateful they had full medical facilities on board. No one died due to the mishap on Ocean Beach, for which he now couldn't help but feel responsible.
He heard the whole story from Allie once she joined them on the fishing boat.
They'd gotten a cease-fire out of the Lao Hu once Revik broadcasted they had Ditrini and three of their other high-ranking infiltrators captive, so Jon had essentially brought the fishing boat as close to shore as he dared, and waited for Allie to swim out to him while Revik picked up their wounded on that flat outcropping of rock just south of the Cliff House.
Once they reached the aircraft carrier, Jon got news of the rest of their motley group in San Francisco, too. Garensche, Jorag, Poresh, Neela, Deklan and the remaining humans had left the city, just as they claimed at Jaden's house. They'd used a similar system to get out as Jon, Allie, Revik, Jorag, Neela and Yumi used to get in, hiding in the back of another Arc Enterprises transport truck and heading east and then south to reach the Fremont airport.
Allie, however, and Yumi, who acted as Allie's bodyguard and cover, hadn't left, obviously.
They'd never intended to leave, although only the two of them and Revik knew it.
After exiting through the back yard of Jaden's house, they followed a parallel route alongside where Revik had taken the rest of them, following underground passages and sewer systems where they could, along with side streets, alleys and backyards to reach the shoreline about a half-mile north of where Revik and the others emerged outside the park. Like Revik told Jon, Allie had surmised that Ditrini would follow Revik, and attempt to use him to bring Allie in 'willingly,' once he contacted her with the news.
Allie also surmised that Ditrini might have split his forces if they put Jon with Garensche and the others, thinking Jon might be an easier and equally-effective target as Revik.
Neither Revik nor Allie wanted to risk missing Ditrini himself, so Revik brought Jon along with him, to sweeten the pot for Ditrini. They'd carefully and subtly leaked the plan to use a boat to get most of them out, along with the intel that they were using a seer (Neela) as a body-double for Allie, and that Allie would be getting out on her own while Revik provided a diversion so she could safely leave the city. They banked on Ditrini taking the bait by going after Revik and Jon. Allie had been certain that Ditrini was arrogant enough and crazy enough to think he could take down Revik if he caught him by surprise.
Expecting to be drugged...since it was the only real way to take down a telekinetic seer without a collar...Revik had taken some kind of adrenaline booster to keep the drug from knocking him out. Revik told Jon afterwards that, even without it, he doubted that the dosage used would have been sufficient. Apparently the Lao Hu's intel didn't extend to the fact that Revik had been trained to resist the effects of most types of sedatives, pretty much since he'd been old enough to use his seer abilities at all.
Even with all of the explanations and rationales, the whole thing still seemed pretty risky to Jon. As with most infiltration ops, they'd been p
laying to a lot of guesses, hunches, psychological tricks and assumptions. He also understood why Allie had warned Revik about including Jon in their 'diversion.' Jon had a feeling it probably would piss Wreg off when he found out, even though they'd been successful.
Oh, and it got Jaden, Illeg and Tina shot.
While Jon didn't like two of those three people all that much, it almost got him shot, as well, which made him wonder about the rest of what the two of them had planned. When he got a chance to talk to Allie alone, however, of course she focused on all of the wrong things.
"What the hell were you thinking?" she said, openly angry at him. "You almost let yourself get killed to help Jaden and that angry groupie? What...are you Saint Jon, now?"
Jon didn't have a good answer for that, but the question irked him.
It seemed like more than half of what they'd told him before they left New York had been bullshit, in one form or another. Balidor hadn't stayed behind in New York, either; he'd been deployed...he'd also been busy running extensive scans on everyone in their team in an attempt to find any additional security leaks besides Dorje. So far, he and his team found two other seers he suspected; he'd used them to leak the information about the boat meeting Revik on shore. Those two seers were now in a holding cell in Asia somewhere, and as far away from the construct in New York as Balidor could get them.
Even Wreg hadn't gone where Jon had initially thought.
Instead of going straight to Argentina to ready for the assault on this Shadow guy's base in Patagonia, he'd stopped off in Brazil to do some other job first. No one would tell Jon what that job entailed exactly, but Jon didn't like the impressions he got off Revik or Allie as they talked around it. Clearly they didn't want him to know at least partly because whatever it was, it had been dangerous. When Jon said something to Revik about it though, the seer only got angry.
"Jon, he's in command of the damned military forces for this team! You need to get used to that, or find someone else to get infatuated with...I can't afford to have both of you second-guessing every order I give, just because neither of you can keep your light under control..."
Then he'd ordered Jon to go work with Yumi on sight training, demanding he spend as much time as possible 'learning to control himself' before they reached South America. He also assigned him to work with Holo and Chinja on basic military ops, and gave Holo permission to 'discipline' him if he hesitated on a single order, including slamming his light and making him run laps around the deck of the aircraft carrier...no mean feat given its size.
So yeah, Wreg hadn't been kidding about Revik being a different animal where ops and training were concerned. Allie hadn't been much more sympathetic really, although Jon could tell she'd tried a little harder to be.
They only stayed on the ship for about 36 hours.
Most of that was spent in planning and intel-sharing meetings, to which Jon had only been invited to about half. He did manage to overhear part of a big fight about whether Jon himself should be allowed to come with them to South America, and in what capacity. Allie wanted him to remain behind, left on the ship with Jaden and the others. In fact, Allie argued the most vociferously for leaving him behind, which Jon tried not to take personally and pretty much failed. He understood her logic...or the excuse she was using anyway. Allie saw him as a possible asset for the other side, if captured. She also argued that Shadow clearly had his eyes on collecting and/or killing as many as he could from the list of humans meant to lead in the coming phase of the Displacement. Given what nearly happened to Dante in Times Square, Jon couldn't argue with that really, either.
Still, he felt more behind her argument than she was admitting to any of the others, and while he loved her for caring, it made him want to shake her, too.
Revik, surprisingly, had disagreed with her...almost as adamantly as she disagreed with him. The male Elaerian argued that Jon being on the list meant, for better or for worse, that he also had a role to play in the conflict. Related to that, he argued that they couldn't afford to bench all of their real assets, simply out of fear that Shadow might try to kill them. After all, by that logic, he should be sitting out the conflict too...as should Balidor, Wreg, Allie herself, and everyone else who made the list.
Funnily enough, Jon got the feeling Revik wasn't sharing the whole story as to why he wanted Jon along, either, but unlike with Allie, Jon couldn't get a clear sense of his real motive.
In the end, Allie agreed reluctantly to let Jon come. At first she tried to argue to have him accompany Balidor and the rest of the infiltrators, not the main strike team, which included Allie, Wreg and Revik, along with most of the military seers from New York and Garensche and the others from San Francisco once they joined Wreg in Brazil.
Revik didn't like that, either, and again argued he needed Jon with them on the ground. At that point, most of the rest of them sat out their back and forth, realizing it bordered on a family argument at that point. Only Balidor intervened once, and that was, surprisingly, to agree with Revik. Allie eventually backed down, but Jon could tell her emotions were running high when she accused Revik of doing it just to placate Wreg.
Jon didn't bother to voice his opinion, or even to get too invested, either way.
Truthfully, he didn't really see how he would be much good to them in the main assault either, no matter how good he'd gotten with a gun of late, at least according to Wreg.
He did know that after that last argument got resolved, Revik ordered him to work with Holo on line jumping...as in practicing how to parachute out of a plane.
Jon had been skydiving exactly once in his life, which he was reasonably sure was one more time than Allie had been. That was over eight years ago, though. He'd also gone with a group of friends in Oregon during vacation in broad daylight...not in the Andes Mountains in the middle of the night as part of a military drop. Holo tried to reassure him that they might not need to use it, but Jon didn't feel at all reassured.
When Jon left the aircraft carrier, it was on one of those planes that looked like a helicopter, in that the engines could swivel up and down for vertical landings and take-offs. Like everything the Seven used, it looked beat up...so much so that he wondered if it belonged to the Navy or if they'd gotten it somewhere else entirely. No one told him where the airship was taking him exactly...he didn't get a lot in the way of specifics about any of it, just another lecture from Revik about following orders and the chain of command.
Regarding that, Jon had already been told he'd fall under Wreg for the main assault, but also that Wreg answered to Revik. Even Allie agreed to fall under Revik's command for the assault itself, which again, all made sense to Jon. He found it interesting that she'd ceased to argue with him once the basic strategy had been agreed upon, and seemed fine with following his orders on the ground. Jon knew they must have some sort of system worked out, but he also couldn't remember Revik and her ever arguing about a point of strategy the way they had about him. It made him uncomfortable, and also a little annoyed...at both of them, really.
He also didn't really trust either of them to give him a realistic assessment of his actual abilities on the ground.
But Jon kept that to himself, too.
Now he sat strapped into a seat between Yumi and Holo, with Allie on the other side of Yumi and Revik across from her. He knew Balidor already left the aircraft carrier as well, along with a good portion of the higher-echelon infiltrators. Jon knew he didn't really belong with that crowd, either, but sitting here now, looking around at expressionless seer faces in serious military mode, Jon felt more superfluous than he really wanted to think about.
Only Revik seemed relaxed compared to the rest of them. Jon watched him look out the window into the night sky, his arms looped around his seat harness comfortably as the plane jostled his long form back and forth.
Jon wondered again why he'd fought so hard to bring him along. Allie thought it had to do with Wreg, but Jon had his doubts.
Truthfully, he suspected
it had more to do with Cass.
Jon had been thinking about Cass most of that day, actually. Balidor's team had gotten new intel related to the search for her, while the rest of them were in San Francisco. That had been one of the planning meetings to which Jon had actually been invited.
They'd found Baguen's body.
The Wvercian had been killed outside Phoenix, Arizona, in an alley behind a gas station. His body had been stuffed into the trunk of a rental car, which had been leased to one of Cass' aliases. Apparently she'd used it to fly from Beijing to Moscow to Berlin to London to New York, back when the rest of them were in Asia. She'd then gone from New York to Phoenix, presumably to visit some friends. They'd tracked that same alias before, as the name and passport had been provided to her by the Adhipan for her trip to Beijing the year before. They just assumed she'd stopped using it after Phoenix, maybe after purchasing a new one.
The fact that she and Baguen had gotten off the plane in Phoenix and immediately rented the car actually lent credence to the theory that Cass might have been heading west to visit her mother after all. They now theorized that she'd decided to drive the last leg, maybe to avoid the stronger airport security measures against seers in San Francisco, due to the heavy SCARB presence on the coasts. Given that Baguen was Wvercian, and therefore had no chance at all of passing as human, driving into California actually made a lot of sense.
It seemed pretty clear now that they'd never made it.
From what the Adhipan and Seven operatives could determine, they'd been ambushed at that gas station outside of Phoenix. It looked like they might have been heading to Sedona, actually, which Jon happened to know was one of Cass' favorite places.
After seeing the VR images Yumi shared of Baguen's battered and bloated body, Jon found himself feeling a wave of regret for the passing of the Wvercian, even though he hadn't known him very well. Baguen, despite his social limitations, had been good to Cass...and, Jon suspected, good for her in a lot of ways, too.
Allie's War Season Three Page 66
