“You think she will go to the airport right away?”
“I do,” Tarak said. “Now that she has all the pieces to her puzzle, I imagine she’ll want to put them together.”
Keeping her head down, Lilith followed Tarak as he tugged on her hand to lead her off the train. It didn’t take them long to get outside the station to the busy street. He stopped her for a moment and again she had to control the panic that seemed to want to envelop her. What she’d seen from the train had only been a small portion of the activity that was around her.
How did these people live together like this? How was it possible that a defined space could hold so many lives? If she had to imagine all the people in the world, she didn’t think there would be as many as this.
“Stay close.”
“That will not be a problem,” she assured him. “What are we waiting for?”
“Our ride.”
As he said the words a compact car zipped its way between two other cars on the road nearly sideswiping a food cart along the way. The brakes squeaked as the car stopped just short of where Tarak was standing.
The driver rolled down the dirt-smeared window and inside Lilith could see there was a redheaded woman behind the wheel.
“Need a lift, mister?”
“Please tell me you didn’t come alone.”
The redhead smiled. “What? You need more than me on this job? I don’t know, T. I think you’re getting soft in your old age.”
“I am only a year older than you.”
“Right. Get in. My people are already in position.”
Tarak opened the door and tilted the seat forward so that Lilith could slip into the back. He took the passenger seat in front and shut the door.
“Lucy Karmon, this is Lilith,” Tarak introduced. “Lilith, this is Lucy.”
“Your friend,” Lilith said, for her own peace of mind.
“I hope she is my friend,” Tarak said quietly. “Well? I need to know, Lucy. Before we go any further. Did you betray me?”
Lucy turned her head to face him, shaking her head in obvious disgust. “You know, you really should have asked me that before you got into the car.”
Chapter 18
L ilith didn’t exactly understand what was happening, but she sensed that Lucy might be a threat. Immediately she began to pull off her glove. This woman would not hurt Tarak. Even as the glove came free she could see the shine on her skin and knew that she was armed.
“It’s all right, Lilith. You don’t have to hurt her.”
“Hurt me?” Lucy looked over her shoulder into the backseat. “She was going to hurt me with her hand?”
“She has a rather unique touch,” Tarak said. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I had to ask. You provided the intel for that mission. You must have heard what happened.”
“I did. And when I didn’t hear from you after I knew things went south, I got the feeling that it must have been with the intelligence, that maybe you suspected me. You could have asked me, Tarak.”
“I was sort of busy trying to get out of Colombia alive, when I did I didn’t know who to trust. I was lost. Physically, spiritually.”
“But you called me,” Lucy reminded him. “You asked for my help.”
“Call it a gut hunch. I am relying on those a lot these days.”
Lucy smiled. “Good hunch. It wasn’t me. Now you want the good news?”
“Please.”
“Vasher is dead.”
“You?”
“Unnecessary. As is typical in these types of transactions, after they hired him to give you false information they decided that rather than paying him they could kill him for much less.”
“When will the traitors ever learn?” Tarak turned around and smiled reassuringly at Lilith. “It’s all right. She’s a friend.”
“I agree with her. We should have verified that before we got in the car.” Annoyed, Lilith sat back against the seat and tried not to look at the chaos that was passing all around her. People on bicycles moved at fast speeds, weaving between the cars. It was a miracle that they weren’t constantly being hit.
Or perhaps they were. Lilith couldn’t say what it might feel like to be hit by a motorized vehicle. Perhaps a bump here and there didn’t make a difference to the riders. They must be used to it.
“She’s feisty, Tarak. Who is she?”
“Lilith is a friend who is currently having…family troubles.”
“Family troubles?” Lucy snorted. “Look, Tarak, I get the only-what-you-need-to-know-keep-everything-vague thing, but I left a really warm bed, a really warm bed, to be here. For you. So I need to know. Everything.”
“Then I will explain….”
Again Lilith found herself irritated by the conversation happening in the front of the car. “I can speak English. I also understand that it is rude to discuss someone as if they are not present. I am here. I am the person who has the problem. The person who brought Tarak into this. It is my favor to ask. My responsibility.”
“Sorry, love,” Tarak muttered. “You’re right. You tell her.”
Lilith didn’t miss the surprising look that Lucy gave Tarak. But as much as the woman would have liked to continue staring at him in shock a large bus was headed seemingly directly at them. She swerved the vehicle and made an odd gesture with her hand out the window as the bus passed. After that, she kept her eyes pinned to the road in front of her.
Lilith found herself trying to formulate the story she wanted to tell. When she listened to it in her head, even she didn’t believe her. It all seemed so unreal. But it wasn’t. That was the truly ridiculous thing.
Finally she said, “My half sister has taken something from me that I need to get back.” It was the easy truth.
“Okay. I get that. Tarak said this half sister of yours has special talents.”
“She does. She can block things.”
“Things?”
“Bullets. People. It is a field that she can create around herself. Although I cannot say if the field covers her completely. I do not know how she creates it, how long it will last or if there is anything that can penetrate it.”
“Well, that pretty much sums it up.”
There was silence for a time and Lilith tried to assess what the woman meant. She feared Lucy was using sarcasm and while Lilith understood what the word meant she was not the best at interpreting it.
“You think I am lying?”
“No. I don’t.”
“If you believe me then you do not seem as surprised as I might have expected. As if you already know that such things are possible.”
Lilith could see the woman shrug her shoulders. “Let’s just say I’ve seen my share of strange and unusual things in this world.”
“No,” Tarak countered as he stared at his friend. “It is more than that. Do you know who Lilith is looking for?”
“We’re here at the airport. Let’s get settled and then I’ll explain everything.”
Lucy turned the wheel and Lilith fell sideways as the car made a harsh turn into the entrance to the city’s airport. All things considered, Lilith concluded that she would rather be hiking through the jungle.
Less dangerous.
“They’re searching the train,” Rolf reported.
“So?” Echo pushed past Rolf and a few other travelers who had been asked to remain inside the train car. Instead she made her way to where the exit door was still sealed shut. Turning around, she caught Kent’s eye.
“Come here and shoot it.”
He muscled his way to where she stood near the sliding glass. A latch mechanism sealed it from the other side. “Shoot through the glass and I’ll open it from the other side.”
“You don’t think that might arouse some suspicion?”
“You think I care? I want out of this country. I want my plane. I want to go home. What’s stopping me is this door and, currently, you. Now I don’t want to waste my bullets, but I know you have plenty of them so shoot the glass.”
/> Kent sighed but moved her back a few steps. As soon as the first bullet left his gun Echo could see everyone in the train car in front of them hit the deck. Including the police who were checking each row of seats. Behind her, the crush of people started to cry and shout as they, too, tried to make themselves smaller by crouching low. Only there wasn’t nearly enough room for that. Irritated, Echo didn’t lash out; instead she focused on getting off the train.
Three more shots and there was a decent enough size hole in the glass. Forming a shield around her fist, she punched through the glass and opened the latch from the outside. The door slid open and she could almost smell it: home. But then she smelled the crowded streets of New Delhi. “This doesn’t smell good at all,” she whined.
It wouldn’t be long now, she told herself. One last journey, some minor details and she would be off to conquer the world.
“Hold it right there!”
Echo stopped as what passed for a police officer in this city held up his hand. She realized her expression must have been lacking in respect, because he scowled and drew out a long stick with a metal tip on the top. The lathi, an ancient weapon, was still the sidearm of choice for the Indian police and it almost made her laugh.
Actually she would have laughed if she hadn’t been so annoyed at being delayed. But this was no longer funny.
“Back off.”
The officer could obviously see she wasn’t threatened and reached for his sidearm. A small sidearm that he had trouble dislodging from his holster. He turned his head and shouted in Hindi for his comrades.
Echo wasn’t fazed. She merely hopped down the steps to the platform. The man backed off, clearly uncertain what to do with such a recalcitrant criminal. When he finally dislodged the small gun Echo put her hands on her face and blinked a few times.
“Oh, no! The policeman is going to shoot me.”
“Do not move,” he shouted in English, his eyes wider than an ocean. “Or I will shoot.”
Echo looked behind her to find Rolf and Kent stationed securely behind her back. Of course that was where they would be. They knew a good thing when they saw it.
“Okay.”
She took a deliberate step forward. Then another. Then another. The gun that waggled in the policeman’s hand started to dip, and then suddenly, as if he understood his life was in danger, he tightened his grip. He raised the weapon. Pointed it directly at her heart.
And pulled the trigger.
The bullet exploded out of the gun with extreme force. Echo knew she’d have little time to construct her field but she wasn’t worried. Her thoughts could travel faster than a bullet and that was all it took.
She could see a ripple of impact and then the projectile was ricocheting into another direction. She wasn’t sure where until the man ten feet down on the platform to her left, who must have been waiting for one of the passengers to disembark, suddenly clutched his arm and fell to his knees. The man shouted as blood poured between his fingers.
“Oops. Looks like you missed.”
The policeman was clearly stunned by the chain of events. He twisted the gun so that the nozzle faced toward him no doubt expecting something to have happened to it. Echo wondered if he thought she might have bent the thing in half with her mind.
Now that would be a talent.
Instead he froze as she continued to walk toward him and calmly removed the gun from his hand.
“You shot an innocent bystander. Tsk, tsk, tsk. You are going to be in trouble.”
Beyond understanding, the man had nothing to say in return. He turned his eyes in the direction of the fallen man whom the other officers had rushed to in order to administer first aid. Without warning the officer’s legs gave out and he plopped down ass-first on the concrete platform.
“Next time you’ll remember this when someone tells you to back off. Let’s go, boys. We have a plane to catch.”
“You’re in position?”
Lilith listened to a voice reply over the phone—a phone that didn’t ring but beeped instead—that he was indeed in position. Curious, Lilith glanced around the parking lot of the airport where they were now waiting and tried to determine if she could see where this position was.
“You know what we’re looking for. Two muscle, one woman. She’s going to be calling the shots, but no way of knowing how loyal they’ll be to her if the bullets start flying. We could get lucky and they might back off.”
“Yes, because in our work we get lucky so often,” Tarak drawled.
Lucy glared at him but didn’t reply. Instead she put the handheld phone down on the console between them and met Lilith’s obviously worried gaze through the rearview mirror.
“You can relax—we’ve got everything covered. I’ve got five people scattered throughout the airport and another five at key spots.”
“What is a key spot?”
“At terminals for two airline flights leaving for South Africa plus the private jets terminal. I already know two planes have been reserved. They won’t tell me where they’re going, but if it was me and I was trying to get out of Dodge I might want a little more control over my schedule.”
Lilith shook her head. “I don’t understand…dodge. What is she dodging?”
“Forget it. Just know that I’m as keen as you are to talk to your sister. As soon as we get a nibble we’ll move.”
“You never explained how you knew who she was,” Tarak pointed out.
Lucy shrugged. “That’s a little complicated. And I don’t know Echo. I know of her.”
“You know her name,” Lilith said. It was difficult not to feel suspicion again. How was it possible that this woman who was just supposed to be a friend to Tarak could know that name?
“I recently learned her name. I also happen to have a passing acquaintance with your mother.”
This time Lilith had no trouble deciphering Lucy’s meaning. The memory obviously wasn’t a fond one.
“I know what my mother was. I know what Echo is. There is no point in protecting me. What I do not know is how you are a part of this.”
Lucy nodded. “Okay. That’s fair. Have you ever heard of a place called the Athena Academy? Or of a woman named Allison Gracelyn?”
The name instantly registered with Lilith, but it took her a few moments to place it in context. Then she remembered. “She is responsible for killing Jackie and my other sister. That is what Echo said.”
“Not surprising. It’s not true. Your mother took her own life. And as far I know, nobody knows who actually killed your other sister. Although, I’m starting to have my suspicions.”
Suicide. It didn’t ring true. Lilith tried to put the image of Jackie with a woman who would willingly give up her life and those two images did not mesh. Whatever Jackie was, Lilith had always seen the life in her.
“Trust me,” Lucy said, seeing Lilith’s doubt reflected in her eyes. “I was there. She knew it was over. For her, anyway. She destroyed herself and what we thought was her information empire until we learned differently.”
“And this woman…Allison. Is it true she wanted to stop Jackie?”
“Yep. You see, Allison’s mom goes way back with Jackie. And not in the good way, if you know what I mean. Allison has made it her mission to learn everything she can about Arachne, her empire and most especially her children.”
“Echo said it was because she wanted to take over my mother’s empire.”
“Echo is a liar. But maybe a pretty convincing one. You have to trust me when I tell you that Allison is one of the good guys. Seriously. Not only does she make sure that Athena Academy continues to grow, she…well, let’s just say I think she’s got some other irons in the fire. That academy is an important place. It saved me and a lot of other girls. It’s a home for us. For girls who are…different.”
“Different?”
“Special. Talented in all kinds of ways. Even in the not-so-normal ways. You said your sister had special talents. I’m guessing she’s not the only one,
right?”
Lilith hesitated, but ultimately she relented. “Yes.”
“You can do things? Strange things?”
“I can.”
“You’re not the only one, Lilith. There are others out there like you. You’re not alone.”
“She’s not alone regardless of who is out there,” Tarak said softly.
“I’m saying she would find a home at the academy. If she wanted it.”
A home. Not alone. With other people like her. Lilith felt a twinge of guilt at the idea. Was it wrong to turn her back so quickly on the village that she’d called home for so many years? Yes, she’d been separate from everyone because she was part of no group, but she’d also had friends. That had been home. But what if this place could be, too?
It was all so much. The emotions bubbling inside were as overwhelming to her as the people had been back in the city. It was hard to know what she was feeling.
“You must have been watching Lilly this whole time. You knew where she was, knew her sister would come for her. You were just waiting to see what happened, weren’t you? She could have been killed if she hadn’t been so quick to react.”
Lilith could hear the accusation in Tarak’s voice as he continued to interrogate Lucy on what she knew.
“No. I promise. We were looking for her but it was just one hell of a twist of fate that you rang for help.”
“Then this woman, Allison, knows that you are here. She knows that you have found me and possibly Echo?”
Lucy squinted as if she was trying to determine how to answer. “It’s possible. Through a third-party person you don’t need to worry about. Which brings me around to the reason we’re all here. What did Echo take, Lilith? What is it you want so badly to get back?”
“A necklace,” she answered.
“I hope you are kidding.”
“She’s not,” Tarak interjected. “But it is a very special necklace with a flash drive and a tracker tucked inside it. You understand now?”
“I get it. Arachne’s empire was built on information. She’d pretty much hacked into every computer system in the world. Taking pieces of people’s lives. Using their darkest secrets against them. It makes sense that she wouldn’t have wanted a lifetime of accumulated data to go to waste. More sense that she would give it to her children.”
Untouchable Page 17
