by Cate Dermody
“No,” he said after almost as long a silence. “The software you gave us—”
“You stole from me,” Alisha corrected, pedancy enough to help take her mind away from the questions Emma presented. Reichart gave her a sour look that would’ve been visible in a pitch-black room, and Alisha twisted a brief smile.
“That I stole from you,” he agreed. “It was corrupted enough we haven’t been able to rebuild it.”
Alisha’s smile held challenge, not pleasure. “How about we go steal some functional systems for you, then?”
A lifetime’s training in secrecy and silence didn’t stop Reichart’s startled bark of laughter, though the sound was quieter than it might have been if given voice by someone else. “Are you mad?” He sounded delighted, not accusatory.
“Completely.” Alisha didn’t dare look at Emma, sure the British woman wouldn’t see the humor that Reichart did in the proposition. “If we—if Emma,” she corrected herself, determined to give credit where it was due, “hadn’t found you in there, I’d’ve risked proposing the idea to her.”
“Even without knowing I was Infitialis?” Emma asked.
Alisha did glance her way then, another pang cramping her heart. “I still don’t know you’re Infitialis. Are you?”
Emma’s eyelashes shuttered closed an instant before she inclined her head in a nod. “Like Frank’s, my family’s been involved for decades. My grandfather believed in egalitarianism. Ironic,” she added in a murmur, “as he had money and his own Sicarii connections. He chose to sever the latter, and turn his wealth toward a better end. My daughter knows what I do and wants to follow in my footsteps.” A mix of pride and dismay curved her mouth.
“Who else do you work for? MI-5? Lilith said—”
“Does it really matter right now, Alisha?”
Alisha clenched her teeth, then pushed curiosity away. “I guess not. Anyway, Reichart trusted you enough to give you access to that number I called.” Not even Alisha had the voice mail code for that private number, another detail that made her feel cold and small if she let herself dwell on it. “The only other person I knew who had Infitialis connections died last October.” She shrugged, an easy, dismissive motion that cost her more than she liked to admit. “So yes, even without knowing, I’d have risked it. I didn’t see another choice.”
The confession made, Alisha turned her attention back to Reichart. “The Infitialis are the only people I’d trust with those drones. I know what you intended to do with them. Of course, if you’re lying to me…” She tried for a smile and found it weak, but it would do. Reichart, frowning, glanced between Emma and Alisha.
“Wait. You called me? On the private line?”
Disbelief stained Alisha’s gaze as she stared at him for a few seconds, then gave over to a frustrated laugh. “I guess you wouldn’t know about that.”
“I thought you’d found out I was in trouble and come in with guns blazing.” A note of sheepishness crept into Reichart’s voice, a rare admission of the man’s self-centered viewpoint. “Shit, Alisha. What’s going on?”
“The Sicarii came after my family,” Alisha said with a helpless shrug. The rage had burned out, she discovered. Determination to protect her sister and nephews from the threat the Sicarii provided remained, but fury, at least for the moment, had been overtaken by the need to move against the dissemination of the Attengee drones into worldwide war.
And that, it came to her suddenly, might have been why she was a good spy. So often in her career she hadn’t understood the larger picture, but when faced with it, she couldn’t help but move on the path that would benefit the many. The good of the one was often a necessary sacrifice for the survival of all. The dredge was bitter to swallow, but in the heat of the moment it was also her instinctive choice.
But Reichart paled, even in the darkness. “Alisha.” Her name was filled with a dozen things: regret and horror, defensiveness and sorrow, all powerful emotions that Reichart rarely allowed himself to show.
“They came after Brandon,” Alisha amended, sudden weariness coloring her explanation. “He’d come to me for help. They barely missed my nephews, Frank. I’ve got to find a way to stop this, to get out of it so they’ll be safe. The Infitialis, they’ll disable the weapons functions on the drones? Use them for sophisticated delivery systems?” That was what he’d promised the Infitialis had wanted the semi-intelligent machines for. Capable of making their own decisions about how best to travel overland, the drones could be used for good works instead of the warmaking devastation they’d been designed for. “Diverting the drones to the Infitialis would be one hell of a bitch-slap in the face of the Sicarii.”
A brief smile colored Reichart’s expression. “I hate to be the one to point this out to you, Ali, but—”
“Oh, God, don’t do that.”
More humor creased Reichart’s face. “Alisha,” he amended.
Alisha felt Emma’s curious glance on her and said, “I don’t mind Ali. It just sounds wrong coming from him.”
“Really,” Emma murmured, and Alisha all but heard the rest of the question: What does he usually call you? It brought fleeting satisfaction that warmed some of the outsider coolness Alisha had felt. At least there were some things she had with Reichart that the other woman didn’t share.
“But that’s a U.S. government facility in there, not a Sicarii organization. You’d be stealing from your own government.” Reichart’s tone made it more than clear he recognized the irony of him, of all people, arguing in favor of playing by the rules.
Alisha shook her head. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take. Besides, Cristina’s involved, and I don’t trust her any farther than I could throw a snake. Reichart,” Alisha added, finally remembering to ask, “what were you doing in there anyway?”
“Being held hostage to ensure the good behavior of the Infitialis with regard to the delivery of the Attengee and Firebird drones,” Reichart answered, deadpan. Alisha stared at him hard enough to earn a second quick, quiet laugh.
“You were—and you’re still warning me about stealing U.S. government property?”
“Leesh,” Reichart said gently, and for all that the nickname was private, her own way of naming herself, Alisha found herself smiling at the name and at his tone. Out of the corner of her eye, Alisha saw Emma look away, and in a sudden reversal, felt a spike of sympathy shoot through her. “It is U.S. property,” Reichart went on, still gently. “The fact that the Sicarii influence U.S. politics through special interest groups and fronted corporations doesn’t make it any less true. What I know about what the Sicarii intend to do is one thing, Leesh. You participating in doing something about it is something else entirely. It goes against everything you’ve done your whole career.”
“No.” Alisha’s voice thinned. “It goes against everything I did up until two years ago, Reichart, when you got me pulled into this Sicarii-Infitialis war without even warning me. Everything’s changed for me, Frank. I’m not the little girl I was when we were together. Not anymore.”
Reichart lowered his chin in acknowledgment, though he kept his eyes on Alisha’s. “I’m sorry for that.”
“Are you? If you want to know the truth, Frank…” Alisha looked away, eventually shaking her head. “I’m not sure I am. I used to believe I was working for the good guys.”
“And now?”
Alisha looked back at him, then pushed out of her crouch, hands on her thighs. “Now I don’t know what I believe.” She let that rest, a full and hard stop, before jerking her head to the side. “Come on. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover to get back to the main roads and a way out of here before dawn.”
“Stop.” The word came from ahead, low and full of warning. Reichart crooked his fingers, inviting Alisha and Emma to crawl through bushes and with him, look down over a cliff’s edge at the road below.
Serbian police blocked the road, impatient and weary voices lifting in oft-repeated explanation. An exchange of glances amongst the trio abov
e the road earned a nod from Emma, who listened, then whispered, “They say they have a tip-off about a drug run coming through this part of the country. All the roads are blocked, all vehicles are being searched summarily. It has been going on since four this morning and will continue until the shipment is discovered or their superiors call off the search.” She fell silent again, listening, then added, “Most of the rest is abuse being heaped upon the police from angry drivers. I’d be cautious, if I were them. People disappear in these searches.”
“Too bad it hasn’t been going on since yesterday,” Alisha whispered. “It’d be lovely to just drop down on one of the trucks and wrest control, then deliver it as we saw fit.”
“You’ve been watching Bond films again,” Reichart muttered. “Besides, it might not be as good as the delivery trucks, but see what we have there.” He pointed down the road, where, just at the bend of a curve, a slim blond woman, her every step indicating irritation, stalked back and forth around her car. Alisha drew a sharp breath at the same time Emma did, making them exchange glances. It was Emma who broke the silence.
“She wouldn’t recognize me. You and Frank…”
Setting someone other than herself on Cristina made Alisha’s palms itch with frustration, though Emma was undoubtedly correct. “It might be the best chance we get to find out who she’s working with. Who the senator she mentioned is. Whether we can get to the Sicarii plans for the drones. Dammit.” The words were spoken almost to herself, Alisha’s gaze fixed on her former partner on the road below. “Can you keep on her?”
“What is it you Americans say?” Emma breathed, “‘Does a bear shit in the woods’?” She pushed up to hands and knees, already skirting to the right. “Someone in that line of cars will be willing to trail her for enough euros. Frank, if you haven’t heard from me in forty-eight hours…”
“I know, Em. Don’t worry.”
That was all the reassurance it took. Within seconds the brush swallowed Emma up, branches rustling with nothing more than wind. Only when she was certain the other woman was out of earshot did Alisha say, “Mazie?” and earn a nod from Reichart.
“We can get beyond the police line,” he added. “As long as we stay up here. We can probably pick up a ride a little farther down the road. Do you speak any Serbian?”
“Hungarian. Russian. You know that, Frank.”
He slid her an amused glance. “Are you calling me Frank because she does?” Rather than waiting for an answer, he turned to the left and began pushing through the underbrush, careful not to let branches snap back and betray their presence with their sound. Alisha curled her lip in acknowledgment of his jibe and followed, wondering what the answer was.
Chapter 9
“You want me to sit here cooling my heels for how long? Alisha, I’ve already got most of the damned facility crawling all over me. Half of them want to know what’s eating up the processing power and the other half want to know who shifted their code to produce more favorable results. Lilith’s practically napping—”
“Which she’d be doing in your flash drive anyway,” Alisha interrupted.
Brandon barreled on, undeterred. “—when she could be doing something of real use. Was the roadblock helpful?” he asked abruptly, leaving Alisha blinking at the phone.
“Road—that was Lilith? It was helpful.” Bemusement filled Alisha’s voice. “Furthermore, I heard on the ten o’clock news that the police had actually picked up a huge heroin shipment at about seven this morning. How could she have known?”
“Extrapolation of drug-running patterns over the past thirty years,” Brandon said carelessly. “There was a twenty-eight percent chance a shipment would be going through northern Serbia in the next forty-eight hours.”
“Twenty-eight percent’s not very good.”
“It is when the other likelihoods ran at three to seven percent. You see, Alisha? Lilith’s much too important to let anyone control her. She’s capable of making a real difference on her own, as a hyperintelligent sentient being.”
“Yeah,” Alisha said, only half kidding. “Isn’t that how everything went wrong in the Terminator movies?”
“Alisha.” Brandon’s tone was reproving.
Alisha sighed and moved away from the airport window, shaking her head. “Just two days, Brandon. You can hold tight that long. If we haven’t intercepted these shipments by then—”
“Lilith could help, Ali, if you’d just give me the information to pass on to her.”
“This is an unsecure line, Brandon.” It was all the answer she was willing to give, and Brandon’s exasperated sigh admitted he acknowledged her point. “Besides, I thought she was locked up making like an ordinary program. And where could be safer for you, anyway? I doubt the Sicarii have a stronghold inside the London computing facility.” Truthfully, there was no reason Alisha could think of that they might not, but Reichart trusted Emma, and Emma had brought them to the supercomputer. It would have to do.
“I don’t like this, Alisha.”
“I didn’t ask you to like it.” Some of the anger that she’d let go of slipped into the words and she heard Brandon’s careful exhalation.
“All right,” he said. “All right, if that’s what I’m stuck with. Just get back here, will you?”
“As soon as we’ve disrupted a delivery or two,” Alisha promised. “Trust me, I don’t want to be responsible for you any longer than I have to be.” She hung up, feeling Reichart’s gaze on her, and turned to the dark-haired man.
He’d been tolerably well treated in his captivity, no bruises or torn clothes, though his brown eyes were tired and he moved more clumsily than usual, as if he hadn’t had enough sleep recently. Well, neither had Alisha, and Emma’s pursuit of Cristina didn’t bear thinking about. That, at least, boded well in its likelihood of turning out. There was no reason at all for Cristina to recognize the British woman, and Reichart would never have agreed to send her if Emma hadn’t been capable of a discreet tail.
“Why is it you’re helping him?” Reichart asked mildly.
Alisha sat down with a groan. “There are men in my life I don’t seem to be able to say no to,” she said half seriously, but shook her head. “Because he’s the only piece of insurance I’ve got to keep my family out of this mess.” She gestured Reichart over, taking his hand as he sat down and leaning her head against his shoulder. The very picture of tired lovers on a long trip, she thought, but the topic they discussed was worlds apart from romance. “We’re going to have to split up. As it is, two’s not enough to intercept all three shipments. We’re going to have to let one of them go.”
“I don’t like it.” Reichart turned his head, kissing her hair in a familiar gesture that made Alisha smile despite herself. “I’ve been wondering,” he said, “whether I should have called. When I heard you’d left the Company I thought it might not be welcome.”
“It would’ve complicated things,” Alisha admitted. “But things got complicated anyway. There are days when I wonder how people live ordinary lives.”
“I think they start out by choosing a different occupation than the one we’ve chosen. Leesh—”
“Reichart.” Alisha sat up and put her fingertips over his lips. “God knows I’ve spent a lot of time wanting answers and resolution from you, but this isn’t the time. We have a lot to do, and talking about us isn’t getting it done.”
Reichart moved her fingers, kissing them before he lowered her hand. “Maybe for the first time I’m afraid there’s not going to be time to discuss us if we wait any longer.”
“Oh ye of little faith.” Alisha snuggled back down against his side. “We’ll have later, Frank. One thing about us is we always seem to have another chance.”
“All right, but once we’ve saved the world again, I’d like to take you somewhere tropical, with no cell phone reception.”
Alisha laughed. “It’s a date.”
“Good. Who’s Lilith?”
Alisha turned her face into Reichart’s sh
oulder, stifling a groan. “Brandon’ll kill me for telling you,” she said, but it didn’t stop her from quietly explaining the new direction Brandon’s AI program had developed in. “The Attengees are so quick at real-time decision making they seem like they’re almost alive. I don’t know if Brandon’s goal was always sentience in a machine, but the pathway seems to be there from the work he’s been doing. Lilith’s got personality and opinions, Frank. I don’t know if that constitutes independent intelligence and awareness, but she sounds alive,” she concluded.
“How many people know about this?”
“Erika got into Brandon’s code—Lilith’s code,” Alisha amended, “and reported to Greg. Cristina came in, which means the Sicarii know. Emma knows now. You. Me. Brandon.”
“A secret known to six people…”
“Isn’t a secret at all. I know. The top is going to be blown off Lilith’s existence any day now, unless everybody who knows has a vested interest in keeping it silent, and I don’t see why they would. I’d think there’d be a lot of cash in sentient computers.”
“Or a lot of threat,” Reichart murmured. “You take the Paris drop, and get back to Parker and his damned brainy machine as fast as you can. I’ll go to Afghanistan and see what I can do there.” Something cautious lined his voice and Alisha frowned, scooting back so she could look at him.
“What aren’t you telling me, Frank?”
He hesitated, then slipped his arm around her shoulder and drew her close again. “I don’t know if you need to know this.”
“Reichart.” The name lashed out and garnered a laugh from the man she leaned against.
“Sorry, kid. Alisha,” he corrected himself, almost as sharply as she’d just reprimanded him. “It’s been a bad year for the Infitialis, Leesh. Boyer was the first of…” He inhaled deeply and sighed just as deeply, sorrow coloring his voice. “Of a lot. We rewrote all our codes, abandoned all our regular safe houses, but even so, we lost forty people between Boyer’s death and the end of last year, Leesh. More have gone missing or died since then, and we can’t find the leak. If we don’t get those drones, as much to defend ourselves as to continue our work…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “The Fas Infitialis have been around since the days of Rome, Alisha, but unless we win this fight, our days are numbered.”
