Desire nagged, and as she felt the absurdity of the idea gain purchase she dragged herself back to the present. Now that she was back, on Earth, among the people of her world, the very things she’d already ruled out—knew could never, ever be—teased her. Everything was so quiet right then, so peaceful. Everything was going so well. Everything they were about to do was because they’d decided to do it, not because she was reacting to something in order to survive. For once the trouble she was about to get into was her own decision and, right now, she could decide not to do it. It was easy to imagine the current peace and tranquility going on forever.
But it wouldn’t.
“Your eyes are sparkling,” he said and she pulled her attention back to him. Stared into his; ice-blue, reflecting the tiny flame on the table. She wondered how hers looked. Especially to him.
Sparkling?
He leaned forward. “They keep getting more of those little golden flecks,” he peered into them. “Maybe it’s the makeup, or the lighting, but they’re definitely changing.” He looked a little embarrassed but continued:
“You’re so beautiful, Jessica.”
She felt herself blush; couldn’t hold his gaze. “I don’t know why you think so.” It was a dumb, automatic-type response, but she couldn’t help it. Despite the fact that she did feel gorgeous in the club dress, despite the fact she knew how he felt about her, it was hard to ignore so many years of being down on herself.
He leaned back against his chair. “You don’t know why I think so?”
“I just …” She brushed some of her hair behind one ear and glanced to the other side, keeping her eyes down. “I guess I never thought of myself that way.” Then, trying to joke it off: “Girls are naturally insecure.”
“I could explain my infatuation if that would help. Maybe give you a few facts to back it up. About how your smile sends a tingle through me every time I see it.” Reflexively she smiled and he put a hand to his chest, as if to still his beating heart. Of course she tried to stop smiling, to take the attention away but she couldn’t and the smile, frustratingly, persisted. He left his hand over his heart: “How your eyes are like these otherworldly lights, like tiny stars I want to dive into. Every time I see them they’re deeper than before. About how you give off this gorgeous aura I can’t explain. It’s like you’re something else, something bigger, something amazing and I can see it almost as well as I see things with my eyes.” He leaned forward. “Did you know you have an aura?”
“Stop.” She really did want him to stop.
Kind of.
“I can’t believe I’m sitting here with you,” he sat back.
She regained some composure. “Me either. After everything we’ve been through I can’t believe we’re here, together, doing this.” She held out her hands, gesturing at the ongoing celebration all around, managing at last to fix his gaze. “I’m so happy right now.”
He smiled. “Me too.”
And he reached across the table. Tenderly he took her hands in his and held them. Then … rose from his chair, leaned all the way over the flickering candle and … gave her a kiss.
She closed her eyes with the rush of it, inhaling the moment as he lingered; tasting the beer on his breath, sensing the power in him, hidden behind the tenderness. Soft lips, like the caress of silk, an ethereal curtain behind which lurked a lion. She felt a shiver building and pushed it down.
He pulled back and sat. “I’ve got a good feeling about tonight.”
She opened her eyes and let the shiver go as he took the last bite of cheese, followed by another swig of beer.
“You know,” he chewed, onto new things, “as a Kazerai I had this goal of going down in history. Of being someone who made a difference. I wanted Horus to be a name remembered for all time. I didn’t know how, but I wanted to accomplish things. Big things. Change the world.” He fell into thought. “Now the name Horus is almost like a distant memory.” He sat that way a long time, looking beyond her, thoughts settling in his mind; then came easily back to the present. “Maybe Horus won’t be a name spoken of in the history books. Horus will just be remembered as another Kazerai that failed. They all failed, in the end.”
“You haven’t failed,” she told him.
He took another drink. “Maybe. Zac, Horus. Whichever. Maybe I can still make history. Maybe we’ll make history.”
She agreed. “I don’t doubt it for a second.”
Then he grinned, dropping the last of that deeper contemplation as he glanced pointedly at his clean plate. Cheese gone, he seemed to be saying. Tapas and bread and all the earlier “dinner” food gone. He’d been a good boy.
He rolled his eyes up to her. “Now is it time for dessert?”
She threw her napkin at him.
CHAPTER 28: IN THE CROSSHAIRS
Drake was the inside man. “So far they’re keeping the VIP area reserved,” he spoke discreetly, trying to appear natural as he looked down to adjust the buttons of his suit jacket. He smoothed out the front lapels and reached for his glass on the bar. Took a drink.
“We’ve got a better look at expectations,” Bobby’s voice came to him over his concealed earpiece. “Confidence is high. I think we can be sure that’s where Lorenzo will end up. If he has his usual compliment there should be five to six.”
Drake looked around the interior of the exclusive Spanish club. He’d had to bribe the doorman to even get in. A lot. A lot lot. “I’m gonna need a special requisition for the budget when we’re done. Damn this place is expensive!” He eyed the glass in his hand with the splash of alcohol in it. Could’ve bought three six-packs for the price of this.
“Makes you wonder why we’re risking our necks.” Bobby’s voice was clear, but barely loud enough to compete with the thumping pre-show music already blaring in the club. “We should quit and start our own secret society.”
Drake laughed. “We do it for the benefits,” he said. “God and Country.” It was after eleven local but there was hardly anyone in there. Spanish clubs were notorious for starting late and going later, many running hard well after sunrise. DJ Fujito, the act for which Lorenzo would appear tonight, was “scheduled” for midnight; all in all an early show time. Drake doubted Mister Fujito would even come out before one. Lorenzo could show up any time.
Drake had three agents in street clothes milling about outside, a half-dozen more in commando gear in the surrounding woods. The club was removed from town, out in farm country with only a few roads leading to it. The highway system connected one of the access roads, foothills just beyond that. Mostly they were remote. Which would work well as, other than the handful of untrained bouncers and club security, once shit got ugly there would be no legitimate response for many key minutes. Once things went down it would just be them and Lorenzo’s guys. The Project didn’t believe any of the Bok would be armed with anything more than pistols, if that; they were likely to arrive in sports cars, dressed flashy and making a scene—a bad habit for members of a secret society, but one which this younger breed had been getting more and more sloppy at. Allowing, of course, Drake and the Project to tighten the noose. If all went according to plan, tonight they would cinch it all the way. They might get not just their leader, Lorenzo, but several other key players as well. If the opportunity presented itself.
“Echo One moving to the south side,” came that agent’s voice. One of the three in civilian garb working the outside parking lot. By the end of the night the club would most likely have more people outside than in. Even now, though the interior was near empty, there were dozens of people in the lot, mostly kids and young adults, standing by cars or mopeds or hanging in small groups, smoking and talking and generally trying to be seen. Most of them would never get in. Most wouldn’t even try.
In truth Drake and his team couldn’t have asked for a better venue. Remote, late, trendy—they would have as good of conditions as they could to corral their targets, tranq them, stuff them into a pair of inconspicuous vans and wheel them off in
to the night. From there they had a whole system set up ready to move Lorenzo back to American shores.
The hardest part would be the capture.
They obviously didn’t want to kill anyone, though that was not out of the question. Their objective was Lorenzo, and if others got in the way they would do what they needed to secure him. They’d debated tailing him, or watching for his arrival and nabbing him then, but ultimately settled on this plan. In a situation where not much made sense, this plan made the most. Drake was in the club to watch and feed info, confirm the target then, when the show was over and Lorenzo went to leave—or if he bolted sooner—the others would be waiting outside to take him down.
Very low impact.
Right.
Nothing ever went according to plan.
* *
The taxi beeped its horn as the light turned green and was off, hugging the bumper of the car in front of it, swaying through the roundabout and racing up the next street, similar little beeps echoing all over the city. In the back of the cab Jess leaned into Zac, eyes in her lap.
They were on their way.
“I don’t know,” she spoke to Bianca’s image on the Kel tablet, keeping her voice low though the cab driver was preoccupied with his sprint out of town, listening to music on the cab’s radio and otherwise too distracted to care what the girl in the backseat was whispering into her fancy electronic gadget. He probably didn’t speak much English anyway.
Nani appeared on the screen.
“I’ve managed to locate their signals on the ground,” she said. “I’m tapping their feed directly. They’ve got one guy inside the club and more outside. Check the tablet when you’re in and we’ll give you updates. I’ll send new info as I have it.”
“Pretend to check your email or something,” offered Bianca. Jess realized doing this same thing ten or fifteen years ago would’ve been way too conspicuous. Now, thankfully, using the alien tablet looked almost normal. At least from a distance. No one would probably give her a second look.
Still, she would try to keep the screen as concealed as possible. The data Nani sent would most definitely not look like email.
“I don’t have any more info on Lorenzo and neither does the Project. They’re waiting and watching same as you will be. They think the VIP area has been set aside for him. In fact they’re pretty confident that’s the case. Lorenzo should be obvious once he and his entourage arrive. The Project expects him to be with others.”
Jess glanced up at Zac, sitting tall beside her in the shadows of the cab’s backseat. It didn’t matter how many agents or how many Bok were in Lorenzo’s entourage. The only trick—the only trick—would be getting Lorenzo out alive if things turned ugly. Hopefully Zac would be quick enough to avoid deaths.
“I think they’re planning to wait till the show is over,” Nani went on. “You might want to act then too, or right before. I think it will be the best option. Everything will be happening at once and you’ll have the best chance to get out with Lorenzo.”
“Ok.”
“And Jessica?”
Nani’s pause stretched.
Jess asked: “Yes?”
“It occurred to me that the agents in there might recognize you. That may have occurred to you too.”
It hadn’t.
“It will be dark, and they’re obviously there for something else, but we both know from looking over their records they’ve passed a lot of info on you.” Nani looked worried on the small screen. Zac perked up. “Just keep that in mind. It’s possible one of them might ID you. If so they may see you as a target of opportunity. Try to blend as best as you can. If I can point any of them out I will. Just … be careful.”
Great. Now she was even more nervous. As if it wasn’t going to be challenging enough, getting into the club and pulling this off, now she had to watch that she didn’t get spotted. Zac would never allow anything to happen to her, of course, but was her presence going to throw everything into jeopardy?
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Bianca came on the screen. “You’ll be fine, Jess,” she said and, to her surprise, Jess found it reassuring. Just words, but her friend’s genuine confidence was inspiring.
“Thanks, B.”
“Hey, guess what?”
“What?”
Bianca was looking at another screen on the bridge, off to the side. “We’re tracking you. I can see the top of the cab. Stick your arm out the window and wave.”
“Shush,” Jess looked pointedly to the front. The cabbie didn’t seem to hear.
“Just do it.”
“Bianca.” But she realized her friend would probably not relent. Best to just do it.
She stuck her arm out the window and waved. On the small tablet screen Bianca waved back, looking to the side.
“Hi. I see you.”
Jess pulled in her arm.
“I’m signing off.” And she shut off the tablet.
Beside her Zac looked ahead out the windshield at the traffic they were zipping through. Smiling in the shadows.
“She’s funny.”
* *
“I really hope she can get them in.” Bianca watched the cab from overhead, making its way through the Saturday night traffic on the Spanish streets. It was leaving the outskirts of town and heading to the hills. She watched the car weave this way and that, wishing she was down there with them.
“She’s so amazing,” she said. “I love her to death, but she can be a real dork sometimes. Those Spanish studs will see right through her. It’s all going to be up to her.”
Nani kept doing what she was doing, working at her screen. Bianca had just thrown a string of lingo at her but rather than ask questions Nani said: “You know she’s actually a bit of a legend. On Anitra.”
“Jessica?”
“I don't know how much you’ve heard, but the last time she was there she nearly brought our enemies to ruin. The Dominion are still recovering from her last visit.”
“She mentioned stuff, yeah. But she acted like it was no big deal. I mean, I could see the way people looked at her—especially those guys where we first ended up. The Conclave?”
“To them she’s an angel.”
“They were a little creepy. Otherwise I didn’t really get the idea she was a legend.”
Nani glanced up briefly. “I think they’ll be just fine. They shouldn’t have any trouble getting Lorenzo. Big question will be, what do we do with him once we have him? That’s when the real fun begins. How do we make him talk? I’ve never interrogated anyone before. Maybe we can hold him as ransom.”
Bianca wasn’t sure about that either. She had no idea exactly how strong Zac was, but from the footage of him in the park fighting the monster Kang, she knew for a fact he would find no challenge on Earth.
Which made the sneaky part all that much more important. If they couldn’t get into the club, if they made a scene and got kicked out, they might never get Lorenzo clean. If the Project guys got to him first, or if any sort of fight broke out, they risked killing or losing them and that would leave them nowhere. It was kind of like trying to catch a cat or something. You first had to get close, then you had to move fast. Zac was more than capable of snatching Lorenzo, the trick was going to be getting close and moving fast, before the Bok dude could bolt.
Idly she switched through a few controls at the console.
The Kel inputs were super versatile. From one console, with the right actions, you could move through all options. The same console that acted as a scanner could be a computer, a weapons control center, or it could bring up all the controls you needed to fly the ship. Nani showed her much of that, along with giving her permissions, which felt a lot like being handed the keys to the car. A very, very expensive, very fast, very dangerous car. From where Bianca sat she could do so much more than simply watch a tiny cab darting around corners and through traffic.
“They're arriving,” she said, noting the taxi’s progress. It was finally speeding
down the long access road to the club, no doubt eager to drop Jess and Zac and get a new fare.
In no time it was pulling into the crowded lot.
Bianca leaned back.
“Here we go.”
CHAPTER 29: DAWN OF A NEW AGE
Cold flurries flitted through the night, sticking to Kang’s unblinking eyes as he stood with Cee-Ranok atop the platform at the edge of the dreadnought berths. Cee was bundled in furs, small, steady shivers detectable to his heightened senses, he with his own fur wrap loose about his shoulders, decorative only, long white hairs of whatever Kel animal it came from blowing in the chill breeze. An affectation for him, nothing more, nothing useful in it, yet he wore it with a certain sense of pride, a mark of belonging.
The mechanical sounds of construction filled the air, buzzing electric arcs and booming blows as workers fitted out the last of the mighty warships that would travel to the stars. Spread out before them was the invasion fleet, making ready to use the information gained from his Icon. Lights shone in the berths, sparks showering here and there behind blast walls, shooting out as brilliant streamers and fading into the dark as they fell.
After days of non-stop activity the fleet would soon be prepped for departure. Cee was wasting no time. The armies that would go were ready. The Kel were always ready, staging war games constantly at the whim of their leaders. This was the way the Kel lived. Kang relished it. These were a people he could rule. And while this would be no war game, preparations for what they set out to do were no different.
Partly their rush came from Cee’s desire to follow through before minds were changed. She had the backing of the War Council and didn’t want to lose it. As well she had the minds of the populace and, like the military, risked losing that too if delayed. The Kel, as a whole, were in a state of uncertainty following what were already being called—much to Cee’s impotent rage—the Prophecy Uprisings. There was as yet no “uprising” in particular, not one that Kang saw, but there were apparently enough stirrings that had Cee in a state of panic. Any mention of the Prophecy was squashed mercilessly at every turn, a campaign Kang fully appreciated for its ruthless thoroughness, but the fear was that, now that the seed had been watered, a long dormant seed, sewn long ago, it was growing. As far as Cee was concerned the only way to handle the talk of such things was to overwhelm it. Completely blot it out with new expansion beyond the ability for any prophetic notions to overtake. To put the focus of the people back on new conquest, back to new enemies other than themselves.
Star Angel: Dawn of War (Star Angel Book 3) Page 30
