Ramsey Hollis. There was yet another name that haunted his dreams. It was enough to lose his beloved Alison in the twisted, awful way he had lost her. She’d betrayed him and saved his life all at the same time. Blown to bits right in front of him.
Adding Hollis to the mix was another layer of tragedy. Almost more than Ward could hold in his heart. And his death had been overshadowed in many ways by the death of Hollis’s own best friend, John Bailey. Bailey had been so important to the Suns’ mission that his name just kept coming up since. But not Hollis. His skills had been under the water and most days there was no call for that. Hollis was being forgotten far too soon. They all were.
But not for Ward. They haunted him. Like his dead wife. Like his dead son.
Ward reached for a large but nearly empty bottle of Jim Beam. He unscrewed the top and leaned over, finding the glass he had been drinking from yesterday, still out on the counter. He snatched it up.
Ward peered down at the glass. At the dark brown ring at the bottom, now long dried into the decorative ridges that were staring him down in some kind of morbid mockery. He made a face, put the glass down, took a quick swig from the bottle, and headed off to the shower, Jim Beam bottle in tow.
He set it on the ledge of his wide, open shower. It was marble encased and had a rotating head with every massage setting known to man. Ward spread his arms out under the spewing head, hands on the wall in front of him, and let the steaming water run down his body. He stayed there so long he nearly fell asleep standing up. Occasionally, he took another swallow of the bourbon. He finished the bottle before he turned off the water.
Ward dried himself off and strolled into his bedroom, steam billowing out behind him. He pulled out a new pair of boxers and slipped them on. It was at that moment that he noticed the socks.
Laid out on his bed. Strategically. They spelled out a phrase. A phrase that gave away exactly who had put them there.
They said: Nice Ass.
“Okay, Miss Dodge, where are you?”
Rachel materialized in front of him and for a moment he was confused. Gone was the invisibility cloak. Rachel was clad in the tightest white bodysuit he had ever seen. As she came into the light, he saw just how tight. Ward couldn’t just see the shape of her nipples through the skintight fabric, he could see every ridge and bump of her areolae. He could tell that she knew exactly what he was looking at and felt himself blush.
Which caused Rachel Dodge to beam a cat-has-cornered-a-mouse-type grin.
“Where’s your usual next-to-nothingness?” he said, moving over to sit in a chair in the corner of the room and clearing his throat, trying to seem unaffected by the sight of her.
She had a sexy confidence about her that was irresistible. Rachel had a long, angular face with prominent cheekbones and full, pouty, blood-red lips. Her dark brunette hair was accented with subtle blonde highlights. Her figure was thin but muscular and unnaturally curvy. She’d been an exotic dancer in college. Fifteen years later she still had the body of a centerfold.
Ward found her playful spirit very attractive. In another place at another time, he’d have certainly been interested in her. But his heart still ached for Alison, even as her betrayal ripped at his soul.
Rachel was smart, but some part of her tried hard to hide it. Ward had been around plenty of women of privilege who tried to hide their obvious talents under a facade of trophy-wife triteness. Similar thing here. Rachel always downplayed it when asked, but she had helped to make invisibility a reality—something the intelligence community had given up on.
“You like? This is just a prototype,” she said. “It’s not done. It only affects the visual range right now.”
That’s for sure. “Show off,” he said, trying to be cool, but his face was on fire.
She beamed at the comment.
Rachel’s invisibility cloak could do more than make her invisible to the naked eye, or “visual range.” She could move undetected through nearly all optical sensors. Only the world’s most advanced motion detectors gave her any problems.
“You left in such a hurry after Marconi, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. We all did,” Rachel said.
“I’m not good company tonight, Rachel. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. I’m here on business, too.”
“I don’t want to go back to fulltime hours, boss,” Ward teased.
“Hmm...aren’t you a chemist?”
Oh, boy. Here it comes. He grinned. “Yeah, why?” he asked hesitantly.
Rachel purred and turned on her little girl voice. “I thought you were supposed to know chemistry when you saw it.”
Ward managed a laugh. “A guy can dream.” Ward smiled at her, but then added, “I still need more time.”
“It’s been three months.”
“And I’ve helped out. Every time.”
“Every time we’ve taken on a bunch of thugs, yeah. But now we’ve got something bigger, something harder. More at stake. A fuck lot more to lose if we fail.”
“No more losses for me, thank you.” Ward said, dropping his eyes, sounding exhausted all of a sudden.
Rachel stopped the verbal volley for a moment. She ambled over to his bed, picked up the socks, and began returning them to his drawer. “We both lost someone close to us,” Rachel said.
Ward thought about that. “Bailey?” he asked.
She nodded. “He helped me nail the guys that murdered my mentor. What seems like a long time ago. Just before the Purge.”
“Council?”
Rachel nodded again. “They had to consolidate the intelligence community before they started the Purge. John’s been...was fighting them from the start. Saved my life many times.”
“But you’re in this business, Rachel. I’m not. It was a mistake to think I could get so deeply involved. Hell, do you know I still have headaches all the time? Still end up puking during most of them. I can tell you, these are not good symptoms to have, three months out. I’m sorry. It’s good to see you, it’s really good to see you,” Ward grinned at her and cast his eyes down her bodysuit in a way that might have gotten him accused of sexual harassment anywhere else. Rachel just smirked and struck an alluring pose for him. “But you can let yourself out in whatever way you let yourself in.” Ward rose and walked to the bedroom door, snagging one of his serenity darts from the dresser as he passed by, hoping she wouldn’t follow him.
Rachel frowned and dropped the pose. “Lantern found the chamber,” she said.
Ward stopped dead.
“Where?” he said, turning his head back toward her.
“In New York. In Freedom Rise.”
“Freedom Rise would be suicide,” Ward said with finality.
“Letting the Council keep that fucking chamber is suicide.”
Ward turned to her. He knew she was right. “Why do you need me?”
“I don’t.” She grinned at him. “I want you. The Revolution needs you.” She shrugged, dropped the tease for a second. “At least just talk to him.” But then she found the little girl voice again. “And then you can take me to dinner and we can lick our...wounds together.”
Ward could feel himself relenting. What would it hurt to at least go talk to the General? “What’s the timeframe he’s thinking of?” Ward asked her.
“Soon.”
CHAPTER 10
Sophia woke up sweating. Her throat was dry, painful. She’d had a dream. No, a nightmare.
Just then, Rachel slowly opened the door to Sophia’s room and peeked in. The light from the hall illuminated Sophia’s face in the shadows.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, of course I’m okay,” Sophia scoffed. “Go back to bed.” She glanced over at the clock. 3:32 a.m.
Rachel stepped into the room, and Sophia rolled her eyes and swiveled her legs out of the covers. Sat on the edge of the bed. Rachel closed her partly open robe and tightened the tie. Sophia could tell she was naked under the robe.
Sophia rolled her e
yes.
“Man-O-War again?” Rachel asked.
Sophia nodded her head but then froze and looked up at Rachel. “No.” Sophia dropped her gaze to the floor. “I mean, I can’t remember.”
Rachel shrugged. “Well, you’ve always been a hell of a lot tougher than me.”
“No kidding,” Sophia said, still peering down.
Rachel paused and grinned to herself. Same old Sophia. “I’ve not been able to get Bailey out of my head since we lost him. He’d always been there, you know?”
“Not really.”
“I just mean, I can’t get over that night. Maybe if we both talked about it—
“Save it. I’m fine. I just had a bad dream. It happens.”
Rachel turned to leave. “Okay.” As she reached the door she stopped short. “Why do you think the Council hasn’t attacked us yet? I mean, what are they waiting for?”
“I don’t know,” Sophia said, sliding back under the covers and folding her arms under her head. “But I think we should take the fight to them...” Sophia tried to suppress a swallow but couldn’t. “Before they build another one of those things.”
“I think we need to get back inside, get more info. Find out what they’re really doing in there.”
“I think we already know.”
It had been over two months since Ward had been back to the new HQ. They were still rebuilding the old one that Fiona had destroyed. The fact that the new HQ was in the remains of an old abandoned prison was only one of many factors that made coming back difficult for him. Since being captured and tortured by the Council Guard, Ward had come to hate prisons.
As he strolled through, he saw many Resistance members he recognized, but it wasn’t until he got to the Science Division that he saw folks whose names he actually knew.
In particular, Dr. Leslie Gibbons. She was probably the most important scientific mind to go “missing” after the Purge that followed the Freedom Council’s rise to power. Ward had assumed her dead all these years. Everyone had. To meet her not only alive and well but making breathtaking scientific breakthroughs was one of the most exciting aspects of his brief period as a member of the Suns of Liberty.
It remained one of the most difficult temptations to resist in trying not to come back. And today was a case in point.
He saw Leslie from across the big open space of the laboratory. She was patched into a holographic video feed with a red-haired middle-aged man he knew to be a former senator from New York named Livingston Roosevelt, one of the more prominent members of the Resistance. Leslie was carrying on some kind of political conversation with Roosevelt at the same time that she and a handful of techs were testing a new weapon of some kind. A handheld pistol that looked a bit like a drill rather than your average handgun. The handle and stock looked normal, but it was the barrel that was different. It had a cone shape with rings of concentric circles that progressively narrowed toward the opening.
Then he noticed one of the other scientists with a pair of much larger versions of the cone-shaped barrel attached to his hips. One on each side. Suddenly the cones ignited and the man shot into the air.
About ten feet and then plummeted straight back down and landed with a smack!
“Excuse me, Senator,” Leslie said to the holograph of Roosevelt. “Still not enough draw into the engines,” she yelled over to the others, who nodded in exasperation. It looked like something they’d been working on for a while. “Sorry about that. We’re testing the Vortex engines today,” she said to Roosevelt and continued the conversation.
The main floor of the HQ was one big open space. Half devoted to office desks, and half to a large laboratory. On the other side of the lab was a closed door that led to the equally huge Hangar where they stored, among other things, Stealthhawk-1 and 2.
Ward caught Leslie’s eyes as he strolled into the lab. She beamed a big smile at him and waved him toward the Situation Room: the main meeting place of the Suns of Liberty. Leslie broke off her conversation with Roosevelt and headed off to join Ward.
Leslie was tall, elegant, African-American, and in her midfifties. Ward had gained a tremendous amount of respect and compassion for the woman. Not only was she the head scientist, she was also the smartest. She was the civilian leader of the Resistance with, in many ways, just as much authority as the Revolution himself. And she had accomplished all of this and held it together after she lost her husband and two sons in a car crash during the Purge. A crash that almost certainly was no accident but instead an assassination attempt aimed at her.
The Council had always recognized the threat that the nation’s top minds (the ones who were not on their side, anyway) could pose to them. Leslie was at the very top of that list.
They hugged their hellos at the Sit Room’s door, and she ushered him in.
“So, you just couldn’t stay away, could you?” she said as they sat at the large oval table in the center of the room.
“Very funny. I have no idea what I am getting myself into.”
“Didn’t stop you before,” Leslie laughed.
So did Ward. She was right. He’d really not known.
“It’s not like I haven’t been around.” Ward smirked. “Maybe you’ve read about there being no more gangs left in Boston?”
“Well,” Leslie said, pursing her lips, “there’s at least one more.”
He knew who she meant. The Freedom Council.
“My ambitions were always smaller,” Ward said. “I just wanted to make Boston safe again. We’ve done it. The power’s back on and it’s safer now than it’s ever been. Retirement sounds better and better.” Ward sat in his designated chair at the large oval table in the Suns of Liberty Situation Room. Video monitors on every wall, spitting back images of the Eastern seaboard, thanks to Lantern.
Leslie Gibbons stood at the head of the table, holding a remote that controlled the monitors on the wall. She took in a deep breath and shook her head at him. “As long as the Council exists, Boston will never be safe. You know that.”
Ward said nothing.
“And there’s another thing,” Leslie added. “The big guy. He considers you his friend.”
“Oh, don’t do that. That’s not fair.”
“Lots of things that are true are not fair. You know that as well as I do.”
“Besides, I hardly contributed anything last time. I informed you all of a lie you already knew about, got myself captured and humiliated, got my ass kicked by a giant jellyfish, and ended up getting saved from a firing squad by a bunch of soccer moms.”
Leslie snorted a laugh. She shook her head and faced him directly. “You did more than that, Paul. You kept the team together. You’re the glue.”
Ward blinked. He’d never thought of himself that way. He tried to think of something witty to say...
“He’s got a plan. He needs you,” Leslie said.
Just then Willard, Leslie’s tall, young assistant, strode into the Situation Room. “He’s ready for you now, Dr. Ward.”
Ward nodded a good-bye to Leslie and headed for the door. Just as he reached it, Leslie said, “Paul, if you really don’t want to do this anymore...then…” She peered down at the table and then back up, into his eyes. “Stick to your guns in there.”
Ward’s initial glimpse of the Revolution’s living quarters were not what he had expected. He found the Revolution sitting in what was essentially a large library. Behind him he could see a hallway that splintered off into a laboratory of some sort on one side and on the other what looked like it might be a training/workout room.
Revolution offered Ward a seat in front of his large, ornate desk. Ward made to sit, and a black-and-white blur that Ward instantly theorized might be a cat bounded across the chair, up onto Revolution’s desk, took a flying leap into the hallway, and was gone.
“Was that a cat?” Ward asked.
“Yes, it was.”
Then it clicked and Ward knew where he’d seen the feline before. “That’s Fiona’s cat, isn’t
it? Blinky, right?”
Something crashed down the hall.
“The cat is only here temporarily.”
“Fiona hasn’t come to get him yet, has she?”
“No. She. Has. Not.” Revolution said, peering back down the hallway as a second metal clanging rattled in the distance.
“Sounds like you’re already under attack, if you ask me,” Ward grinned.
He heard Revolution sigh.
“Paul, I asked you here because I need you to stay in the Suns of Liberty. You are our non-lethal force. Our soldiers that died—”
“Good to see you, too. I’m fine, by the way,” Ward deapanned. He shot Revolution the evil eye. “Let’s not forget, Alison died too.” Ward had no intention of being lectured, filibustered, or sold to.
Revolution looked at him hard for several seconds. He’d not really talked to Ward in the months since Alison’s death. They’d seen each other, but always in the context of a mission. A friendship that had seemed to be forming had been put on ice. Ward knew that was mostly his own fault.
Revolution took a deep breath.
“Alison was a soldier,” Revolution said
“She was a spy,” Ward corrected.
“Yes. But a solider too.” Revolution folded his red titanium-gloved hands on the desk in front of him. “Paul...” Revolution paused in that way he did just before he told you something important.
Ward braced for impact.
He didn’t brace hard enough.
“I knew she was spying on us.”
Ward’s forehead crinkled. “You knew? What do you mean, you knew?” Ward’s face blushed red as the idea sunk in. “You knew!” An accusation.
He was out of his chair now.
“So did Bailey,” Revolution said calmly.
“You knew?” Ward’s voice was louder than he wanted, but his anger was in control.
“We didn’t have evidence. Alison was good. She didn’t leave tracks. But we knew.”
“How could you not tell me? And how could you possibly expect me to come back? You expect me to—”
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