Cloud Dust

by Connie Suttle

  "I worry that he'll be seen in the bay," Rafe pointed out. "Once that news gets out, along with a few cell phone photographs, the truth will be splattered on every television screen whether we want it to be or not."

  "This is a nightmare," the President shook her head. "Ms. Tadewi, have you contacted Matt with this information?"

  "We spoke earlier," Opal confirmed.

  "Does he have a team prepared to go to Seattle? I want him working on this, too."

  "He may come himself, and bring others with him," Opal said.

  "Then tell him he has my blessing to do whatever it takes to keep the population safe and get rid of this menace at the same time. The same goes for you, Colonel Hunter. I understand that you think this is a diversion, but I beg you to cooperate as much as you can with Director Michaels while you search for the enemy's next plot. I have a call scheduled to the former President, to ask if he may know anything we don't."

  "Madam President, will that be a video call?" Auggie asked.

  "Yes."

  "May I have a recording of it-audio and video?"

  "Of course. Why do you ask?"

  "You know the former President has shied away from the cameras since he left office. I'd like Corinne to take a look. She may see something that he is reluctant to tell you."

  "I'll do what I can." Madam President ended the call. Auggie had done what I'd wanted to do-ask for a current image of the former President. After all, he's the one who'd approved the drug for use on volunteers. I wanted to know exactly what he knew about the Program.

  * * *

  "Honey, I'm starved, and I need to sit with the sunlamp for a while," I mumbled the moment Rafe and I arrived at our suite.

  "Let's do both-I feel the need for some light in my life," he agreed. "What shall we fix for breakfast?"

  "Oh, my God, what time is it?" I looked up at him.

  "Nearly seven in the morning. It's really foggy out."

  "Breakfast?" James walked in, a hopeful expression on his face.

  "What do you want, hon?" I asked. "How are Laci and her guards?"

  "She finally went to bed when it looked like the ground wasn't going to shake again. The same news, shown repeatedly on television, put all three of them to sleep. I found quarters for the guards, so we're okay for the moment."

  "Good work," I rubbed his back. "Want eggs, omelet, ham, pancakes-what?"

  "I want ham, pancakes and eggs," he said. "And then a bed, if Colonel Hunter doesn't come looking for me."

  "I'll see what I can do," I said. "Come on, you can make coffee while Rafe and I do the rest."

  Leo arrived in time to get fresh pancakes, and then the others dribbled in. I'm beginning to wonder why we have a cafeteria, Rafe sent as he surveyed the crowd at the table.

  Let's hope everybody else inside the mountain doesn't find out, or they'll be here, too, I replied.

  "Auggie, you look like you've been in a war," I rubbed his back when he sat beside me and accepted the plate of food Rafe handed to him.

  "Yeah. At least Laci is asleep. That makes my life marginally better."

  "Small miracles," I agreed. "We'll take 'em."

  "She'll be staying here with me until the mess in Seattle is sorted," he went on, his words grim. "She probably won't like it, but that's all there is unless she wants to stay with her parents again."

  "I don't think she wants that," Leo offered.

  "I just don't want her to feel trapped here with me," Auggie said.

  "Nobody's trapped here," I said. "If she wants to go somewhere, I can take her."

  "Cori," Auggie warned.

  "Yeah."

  Rafe snorted.

  * * *

  Ilya

  We slept for six hours after breakfast before Colonel Hunter woke us with a message. Madam President had her conversation with the former President, and we had a recording to view.

  "Wake up, sleepyhead," I nuzzled Corinne's cheek before planting a kiss on her temple.

  "Ilya," she grumbled, "let me sleep."

  "I would like nothing better than to keep sleeping with you," I said. "But Colonel Hunter is calling for our presence."

  "Slave driver."

  "Me?"

  "No. Auggie."

  "Come, cabbage. We have time to shower and make a sandwich before we go."

  "All right."

  She wasn't happy, but she sat up in bed and forced her eyes open. "See," I smiled at her. "You can wake up when necessary."

  "It shouldn't be necessary."

  "It is. Come along. My cabbage's leaves looked wilted. A shower will remedy that."

  She slid off the bed and walked toward the bathroom, cursing in several languages while she wobbled along. Some of those words sounded alien to my ears.

  Half an hour later, we were in Colonel Hunter's office. James had arrived ahead of us and he looked concerned.

  "What's wrong?" Corinne asked.

  "Colonel Hunter thinks Merle Askins has been playing everybody," James mumbled.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because former President Phillips doesn't know very much," he frowned. "We think Merle may have been secretly in charge of the Program, and signing off on everything without President Phillips' knowledge."

  "Get in here," Auggie appeared in his office doorway. "There's only one way I know to get to the truth of this."

  Corinne, James and I walked into Colonel Hunter's office. James shut the door behind us, then took a seat next to Corinne. That left him between us. I didn't care-I think he felt safer that way.

  Colonel Hunter pointed a remote at the screen hanging on the wall. Images of the current President were shown while she spoke with Former President Phillips on a screen inside the Oval Office.

  "Hello, Madam President," President Phillips' image said.

  "Holy, fucking hell," Corinne exclaimed.

  "What?" Colonel Hunter demanded, hitting pause on the player.

  "That's not President Phillips," Corinne stood and hugged herself. "That's the real Hal Prentice."

  * * *

  Corinne

  "I'm on the most secure line available," Madam President assured us. "What do you have? Was he not telling the truth?"

  Warily I watched Madam President as she did the same-she had no idea what was going on. I was almost as confused. "Madam President, the person you spoke with earlier isn't former President Phillips."

  "You're joking."

  "No, ma'am, I'm not," I assured her. "That's Hal Prentice. He's been posing as President Phillips since before Phillips officially left office. One of Hal's clones, made before the extensive surgery Hal had to look like President Phillips, was acting as the Hal Prentice you hired as your Chief of Staff."

  "Where the hell is the real President Phillips?" the President snapped.

  "No idea," I said, "but now I think we can put a name to the enemy."

  * * *

  "Madam President didn't tell Phillips-or the one posing as Phillips-what she was really calling about," Auggie informed us later, after we'd ended our call with the White House. "She told him it was about foreign policy instead, in case anyone was listening. She caught him off guard when she casually asked him about the Program."

  "Should we bring the real Hal Prentice in?" Rafe asked. I watched his hands-they were fists and his knuckles were white. He was furious.

  So was I.

  "That will only tip our hand," Auggie said. "I think we should let him believe we still don't know. Instead, I suggest we have him followed and monitor any communications. That call was placed from Northern Ireland-Madam President had it tracked. Now, I don't need to tell you who else we've seen in Ireland, recently. Granted it was Ireland and not Northern Ireland, but it wouldn't be difficult to travel from one to the other."

  "Mary Evans," Rafe growled.

  "Do you think Hal Prentice has control of the Mary Evans clones?" James asked.

  "It's possible," Auggie agreed. "At this point, I'm not prepared to rule anything o
ut."

  "Hal has enough political experience to accurately predict every move made by the White House," I said. "His clone was likely feeding information to him all along, with important information being passed along to whatever President Phillips is now."

  "What do you mean?" Auggie whirled in my direction. "Fucking hell," he said when he understood what I meant. "He saw the Program as a way to live forever, didn't he?"

  "Maybe," I shrugged. "I imagine he saw the possibility of becoming more than what he already was, too. All the survivors of the drug are special in some way."

  "So he wanted to be a superhero," Auggie huffed. "Instead, he's public enemy number one."

  "When he was in office, his detractors would have said the same thing while he was still himself," I pointed out. "What I can't get a handle on is what's keeping him hidden from all of us. I can't figure this out."

  "If he has allies in the armed forces, or is still in bed with the Joint Chiefs or Merle Askins, then it could have been easy to get those survivors away from Nevada," Auggie muttered.

  "Under the cloak of official government business," James agreed. "Nobody would have asked questions. I'll look into military transports, ground and air, in Nevada," he added.

  "This gets worse as it goes along," I said. Rafe unclenched a fist and reached out to hold my hand. I understood what he was thinking-he'd refused to approach the former President while he was in office-instead, he'd held on, hoping his disease wouldn't take him until Phillips' successor came to the White House.

  He hated President Phillips. If we learned that Phillips was acting as puppeteer in all things governmental in the U.S., Rafe would be furious. Truthfully, I'd be just as furious. Phillips' every move while President had been made with a cavalier attitude, regardless of who or what was damaged or destroyed in the process.

  "Do we have any word out of Russia?" I asked. "Have they announced Baikov's disappearance?"

  "I believe they'll sit on that, since they're expecting a newsbreak any day from Ukraine, announcing that they captured or killed Baikov while he was attempting to start a war. For now, I don't believe they know what actually happened in that bunker."

  "Maybe we ought to give them that information," Rafe dropped my hand and stood.

  "Perhaps we should," Auggie said, his brow furrowing as he considered the idea.

  "It's my guess that all this is connected, which means Phillips was in contact with Baikov. That also means that Phillips may have been controlling the current Russian President, since he's danced to Baikov's tune for two years, now," Rafe added.

  "What the fuck does he want?" Auggie asked, tossing out a hand. "I can't for the life of me figure this out."

  "I'm worried that he's in contact with the mother ship," James whispered.

  "Honey, you're forgetting that he's a megalomaniac. There's no way he'd call the mother ship and let them take over, when he can do it himself," I said.

  "You think he will?" Auggie's dark, worried eyes bored into mine.

  "It's possible," I said. "So far, he's managed to get what he wants, except for Rafe and me. He still considers Rafe to be the bigger threat."

  "Because I want him dead," Rafe hissed.

  "Honey, you have my blessing to make him as dead as you want," I said.

  "You'll be assassinating a former President," Auggie said.

  "You don't want this?" I stared at Auggie in disbelief.

  "I want it," he said. "I just thought I'd state the obvious."

  "Look, right now, Hal Prentice is the former President-in everybody else's eyes. If we leave him alive and go after the real former President, who's going to say it was an assassination? Especially since nobody will recognize the real former President. If he's like everybody else who survived the drug, he no longer looks like himself."

  "Fuck. He could look like anybody and we'd never know," Auggie exploded.

  "Here's my question-did he get the drug through our Program, or through the Russians?"

  "You keep making this worse," Auggie turned to James, who'd posed the question. I was glad he'd asked, because I had the same question going through my mind.

  "Do you know how we can find that out?" I turned to Rafe.

  "My contact in the Russian government was killed outside a D.C. bar," Rafe sighed. "At least his killer was taken down shortly after."

  "After Corinne pointed him out," Auggie said.

  "Did you do that, cabbage?" Rafe pulled me against him.

  "Yeah-I guess I did."

  "Thank you." He leaned in to give me a kiss.

  "You're welcome." I smiled when he pulled away.

  Auggie's phone rang. He answered it after looking at caller ID. Madam President was on the line again.

  "We have a Mary Evans sighting reported in Ireland again," she said. "I want Corinne there immediately. Rafe, too. Matt wants Opal to go, so put a team together. I want this sorted out. I want Hal connected to all this. I want to know what information he has from this office."

  I could tell the President had thought hard about all the implications after our phone conversation. She was beginning to think perhaps Hal and the former President were pulling strings-just as we'd discussed.

  "Get your things together, cabbage," Rafe said. "I know a place we can go, if you'll take us."

  "Great-another cloudy country," I said. "Why can't they hole up in a sunny place for once?"

  * * *

  Notes-Colonel Hunter

  "Do you think Cori has SAD-Seasonal Affective Disorder?" James asked. "She has her sunlamps-plural-turned on most of the time inside her suite."

  "I think it may be tied to the changes this time," I said. "Leo thinks the same-what if she belongs on a world where sunlight is prevalent? Wouldn't that make a difference?"

  "Yeah, I guess it would," James agreed. "I guess I just worry about her."

  "So do I. I'd still be trying to get out of Seattle and back up this mountain if it weren't for her. We'd still be in the dark about Hal Prentice and President Phillips. Look, Rafe will be with her. They're a good team. Besides, you and I have to work with Matt Michaels on the DB problem."

  "It'll be like getting a cockroach out of his hiding place beneath a baseboard," James muttered. "He'll come out when he wants to and not before."

  * * *

  Corinne

  Rafe's destination was Dublin. Actually, it was a hotel on the outskirts that had once been a mansion. It was now renovated and housing wealthy guests.

  "I know the owner," Rafe breathed against my hair as we walked up the steps. Opal, Nick and Maye were right behind us.

  "But," I began.

  "Really. Don't worry," he smiled. He and I walked up to the front desk. "I'd like to speak with Katya," Rafe said.

  "Right away, sir," the clerk said and walked through a door behind the desk. Moments later, a lovely young woman appeared. "Take care of that phone call, Daniel," she ordered the clerk. Daniel the clerk nodded and disappeared through the doorway.

  I think my breath stopped for a moment as I blinked at the hotel's owner. Don't give her away, Rafe warned.

  Yeah. I remembered to breathe again as Ilya's daughter offered both of us a beautiful smile.

  Our party was given an entire wing to ourselves. "We can go to the smaller kitchen anytime," Rafe pulled me close. "I told Katya about you when I was here before. She couldn't believe I'd finally found someone."

  "I couldn't believe she was happy to see me," I said. "I was relieved to see that she wanted to meet me, instead of only thinking I'd replace her mother."

  "Her mother has been gone for a very long time," Ilya said. "Since she was four. She doesn't remember much. What she does remember is her older brother-who is also dead."

  "Yeah." I'd seen that, too. Ilya and Katya had wounds that might never heal and a justified grievance against the Russian government. "I'm sorry, Ilya."

  "You have wounds, too," Ilya pulled me against him.

  "Yeah."

  "Katya wants me t
o be happy. She knows you make me happy."

  "I'm glad she knows her father is alive," I mumbled against Ilya's chest.

  "I'm glad she's away from Russia and Ukraine," he breathed against my hair. "She has Irish citizenship. She just can't go back to either country, or they'll imprison her. They know who her father is and also know, thanks to Baikov and Phillips, that I'm still alive."

  "We need to take care of that situation," I said. "There's no way I want to lose you. No way."

  "I have no intention of being lost," he pulled me tighter against him. "Just as I have no intention of letting you go."

  "What about Katya? Is someone watching out for her?"

  "There are several, one of whom is her husband," Ilya said.

  "Is he as badass as her daddy?"

  "Almost," the corner of Ilya's mouth curled into a smile.

  "Gotcha. I have the most badass guy on the planet," I said.

  "Just remember that," he said and laughed.

  * * *

  "Here's the latest on the Mary Evans sighting," Auggie informed me on the video call early the next morning. "You'll have to be discreet," he added. "She's shown up twice at the same coffee shop. It's frequented by tourists, so she may be meeting someone there."

  "Do you have more photographs?" I asked. "None of the people in this one are connected in any way."

  Rafe was looking over my shoulder at the photograph Auggie held in his hands. It had been taken two days before by British Intelligence. They were still hot on the trail of anyone who might lead them to the stolen crown jewels.

  "Do the Brits know about the cloning?" Rafe asked.

  "Top level clearance only," Auggie said. "I worry about the information supplied-it came from the CIA and may be tainted."

  "Get me a recent photograph of good old Merle," I said. "If you wouldn't mind."

  "I'll see what I can do," Auggie agreed. "In the meantime, have a cup of coffee at this coffee shop, just to see if anybody stands out."

  "We will," Rafe responded. "This morning."

  "Ask Maye and Nick to tail you," Auggie said. "Just in case. Opal stays behind at the hotel, monitoring your movements. She has tags for all of you."

  "What's the range on the tags?" Rafe asked.

  "Twenty miles. That means a picnic in the countryside is out of the question."