Hostile Attractions

by Raleigh Davis

  “I think she might have been trying her best too,” Anjie says.

  Ah fuck, why didn’t she just take a dagger to my conscience instead of saying that?

  Minerva did all this alone. Who am I to come along at the end of five years and demand that she trust me, that she give everything over to me? Yes, I feel…

  How do I feel about her? I can’t put a name to it. It’s intense, dark and bright all at once, the joy I had with her tightly bound to the betrayal I felt in that meeting this morning. It’s the highest highs and the lowest lows, and they all have her name on them.

  I look at the slip of paper in my hands. “I’ll call her later,” I say. “To see how she’s doing.”

  Anjie nods, pleased, then leaves me to my work. The never-ending work of tying up Dev’s scheme into a neat bow. Or noose, considering that we’re going to take down Fuchs.

  Which just might provide Emily with a path to freedom. The government is still going to be pissed at her for leaking the stuff she has, but if Fuchs is tossed out and in disgrace, they might be less likely to prosecute.

  It’s a faint hope, but I hold on to it as I keep working.

  An hour later, my phone rings. The screen says that the caller ID is blocked. Normally I’d send it straight to voice mail, but some sixth sense has me picking up.

  My pounding pulse tells me it’s Emily. Maybe she wants to talk, to work through some of the shit storm that’s hit us in the past few hours. I don’t have time to deal with it, but knowing that she wants to…

  “Elliot here.”

  “I have to make this quick.” It’s the FBI agent I know, the one I contacted asking about Emily’s situation. My heart dips when I realize it’s not Emily. “Your girl passed some stuff to a reporter, but he burned her.”

  “What?” I rise half out of my chair.

  “I’m not sure which agency—NSA or CIA—but he asked somebody there about the documents she’d given him, wanted to verify them. But the idiot let slip enough for them to figure out who she was. They’re sending a team to arrest her right now.”

  Everything around me has gone to white noise. My desk, the furniture, my laptop are all fuzzy, indistinct. The only tangible thing is that she’s in danger.

  “They know where she is?” I ask. If the team is going to her apartment, we have some time.

  “Yeah. I don’t know how, but they know she’s staying with you. You’ve got maybe twenty minutes before they’re breaking down your door. Figured I’d give you a heads-up so you can start working on her bail. If they grant it.”

  “Thanks.” But I’m feeling anything but thankful.

  The government is coming after her, just like she feared. No one will ever see what she’s risked so much to bring out.

  But the thing that turns me to ice, makes my heart stop, is the very real idea of never seeing her again. Of Emily in a true prison, locked away from everything. From me. Of how dark both our worlds would be.

  I can’t let that happen. Can’t let her go.

  I run for the door, dialing the number of the burner Anjie arranged for her. If they’re already there, she has no way to let me know. And the security detail isn’t going to hold off an FBI team.

  The phone gives me a busy signal. What the fuck?

  I try again. Another busy signal.

  The interns are staring as I tear through the offices. Finn passes me, reaching out to grab me.

  “What’s—”

  I dodge him. “No. No time.”

  I’m speeding out the front door as I dial the head of the security detail. “There’s a team of federal agents coming your way,” I say the second he picks up. “Delay them until I can get there.”

  “We can’t—”

  “I know what you can’t do.” He doesn’t need to waste time on the legal bullshit. “Just… just give me a chance to get to her first.”

  I open my car door, toss the phone onto the passenger seat without even hanging up. And then I’m off to try to save her any way I can.

  Chapter 28

  I have a laptop, my hard drive, and a cell phone. Everything I need to stay connected in the modern world.

  But there’s no one out there to reach out to. I already know Deena’s not coming, I still haven’t heard back from the reporter, and Elliot…

  He’s not going to call.

  I’ve had a lot of time to process what’s happened. Of how we came at cross-purposes to everything. How I couldn’t trust him, not with everything, and he did the same to me.

  And how he helped me when he didn’t have to. And I did the same for him.

  Maybe there are some knots that can never be untied. You can only work around them, figure out how to move forward with whatever is tied to you.

  If I could call him, I’d tell Elliot that. Not that I’m sorry I didn’t tell him about the reporter—I’m not—but that I wish there was a way I had been able to. And that there was a way for him to tell me that he was investigating me, monitoring my email. We couldn’t have stopped events, but maybe going forward, we can find a way around this knot even if we can’t escape this baggage. Maybe it just means we are, really, tied together.

  But all I can do is stare at the phone and think. And obsessively check the secure messaging app. The reporter seems to have disappeared. It shouldn’t take him this long to verify what I sent.

  Unless his publisher is too scared. Or decided the story wasn’t worth pissing off the intelligence establishment. Or just ghosted me for no reason at all.

  I also refresh all the tech-news sites, watching for a story on the takeover of Corvus. If Dev really does have everything in place, he’ll have to move quickly. It’s like grabbing a cobra by the tail—if you hesitate, the cobra will strike. You have to snatch quick and clean. And the cobra fights anyway.

  Fuchs is going to fight. I’m not entirely sure how—I know how he operates with the full might of Corvus behind him, but alone and cornered? That’s going to be an entirely different Arne Fuchs then.

  I suppose I could have helped them with the last push of the takeover. No one knows Arne better than I do. But of course they wouldn’t trust me with that. And I don’t know that I wanted to be asked. I meant it when I said I didn’t do all this for them.

  I’m still independent. And I still like it that way.

  I’m checking another website, this one filled with rumors about impending company demises and takeovers and general incompetence, when the phone rings.

  I blink at it. It could be Elliot—there’s no caller ID, not that I know his number anyway.

  My fingers curl into my palm. I want to answer, to hear his voice… but I’m also terrified. If he’s cold, uncaring like he used to be, like he was this morning…

  I grit my teeth, give myself a shake. I’m better than this, braver than this. He wants to be an ass? I can take it.

  “Hello?” My voice is everything I could have hoped for: cool, steady, almost uninterested. Perfect Minerva.

  There’s a long beat of silence that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. And then, “Minerva.” Said in the hardest, most knowing tones.

  Arne used that voice with me whenever I’d fucked up and he was going to punish me. It hardly ever happened, but I can never forget that tone.

  The phone almost drops out of my nerveless fingers. “How did you get this number?” This burner should be completely untraceable.

  “Are you really asking me that?”

  No, I’m not. I’ve worked with him for five years. I know exactly what he’s capable of unearthing when he wants to.

  “I’m not coming back.” It’s the protest of a child, pathetically defiant, sad in its uselessness. But it’s all I have.

  Facing Callie was hard. Facing Ramona was agonizing.

  Facing Arne, the puppet master behind my crimes, is unbearable.

  “I wouldn’t have you back.” Once more, he’s contemptuous. He never could stand anyone who couldn’t keep up with him.

 
“Then why the promotion?” It’s the one thing I’ve been puzzling over, the piece that never made sense.

  “Why leave?” he asks. “We were doing great things together. It wasn’t about the money for you, which I understood. I respected.”

  The earnestness in that makes me want to vomit. “I always meant to leave. The plan was always to betray you.”

  “Why? I gave you every opportunity. What went wrong?”

  Everything was wrong. Every last bit of every single thing I did at Corvus was wrong. “You do evil things. You hurt people. You help others hurt people, and on a vast scale.”

  “You did all those things with me.”

  “But only to show the world what you were doing!”

  “Minerva, stop being ridiculous. You’re trying to ruin everything.”

  He doesn’t understand. He can’t conceive of someone doing anything for the greater good, even if it hurts them in the process. And not only because it’s not in his worldview—it’s because he still sees me as Minerva.

  I’m tempted for a moment to tell him what the Bastards have planned, to revel in being the one to tell him about his impending demise. That it isn’t just me ruining everything—I’ve got others with me.

  But I don’t. That victory isn’t mine. Instead, I’ll savor what I’ve done to him all by myself.

  “I was the mole.” My voice has gone quiet. “It was me, the one you were tearing the company apart to find.”

  “Why would you willfully destroy something you worked so hard on?” He’s getting angry now, really angry.

  “If you’ve called to convince me not to leak everything else I have,” I say, “it’s too late. I’ve already contacted a reporter.”

  “Yes,” he drawls, as if he knows all about it. “You should be more careful who you send things to. But the bright side is when that idiot reporter revealed it was you who sent him those documents, it provided me the perfect opportunity to get at you.”

  “What?” I glance out the window, see the guards still there.

  “They can’t stop what’s coming,” Arne says as if he can see me.

  I don’t want to know what’s coming. Horror is already creeping over my skin. “What’s coming?” I ask, against my will.

  “Oh, you’ll understand in about fifteen minutes. The point is, everything you stole is going right back into cold storage.” He goes into lecture mode, his anger gone, replaced by cool triumph. “No one will ever see it unless I want them to. Our collaboration with the intelligence agencies will continue. All over the world. And you are going to prison. You’re not coming out again.”

  The reporter burned me. They’re coming for me. It’s like a spike through my brain, hard, devastating. Because the story Arne has spun out is my greatest fear. And he’s making it happen.

  But we’re not done yet. I’ve got him by the tail, but he hasn’t landed a final bite. “I’m not the only one who has the documents. They made a copy.”

  Somewhere, deep in that secure facility of theirs, is the copy Finn made. Maybe someday it will see the light of day. I can see Ramona releasing it. I suppose she’s earned the right to do it.

  For the first time, he doesn’t have a quick answer. “Who?”

  “The Bastards. Finn, specifically. He’s the one who planted the virus that killed the panopticon. I helped him.”

  There’s a long, hissing exhale from Arne. “You’ll die in prison,” he promises.

  I can’t tell if he means I’ll get a sentence so long I’ll have no hope of freedom or if he’ll send someone to give me a convenient accident. I suppose the distinction doesn’t really matter.

  “Maybe,” I say. “But you’ll never have complete control of those documents ever again.”

  “Ten minutes. That’s all you have left of freedom.”

  I hear feet pounding down the dock. Someone’s running and fast. This must be the thing or person he sent to deal with me. “I think it’s less than that.”

  “Then I’ll say goodbye.”

  I hate him and fear him and want only to bring him down… but I also spent so many years by his side. I might have been the only person in the world he trusted. It’s a weird sensation to end all that. To end the strangest relationship I’ve ever had.

  “Goodbye,” I say. “They’ll win in the end.”

  I don’t have to tell him who I mean. He’ll find out soon enough.

  Someone, possibly multiple someones, is climbing onto the boat. They’re not slowing down. The room shakes with their movements.

  I set the phone down. I won’t be needing it anymore.

  The door opens. There’s no knock, no announcement of who’s there. But I suppose they don’t want to warn me. I’m dangerous, after all.

  I lift my chin, put on my Minerva face, and await my fate.

  Chapter 29

  Elliot bursts through the door, his hair looking like the wind tore at it.

  My heart jumps into my throat.

  “They aren’t here yet.” He’s breathing so fast I can barely make out the words. “I made it.”

  He came for me. He’s rescuing me again. Thank God he’s here. I won’t have to—

  Oh shit. “You have to go.” I shoo him away from me. I don’t want him caught in the middle of whatever’s about to happen. If he gets hurt or even killed… “Wait. You know they’re coming?”

  “You know they’re coming?”

  “Arne called—”

  He grabs my hand. “There’s no time. We’ll talk later.”

  I have no idea what’s happening, and there’s not even a moment to think. Elliot hands me the drive, then hustles me out the door. There’s a quick nod to the security guard—“Tell them whatever they want; don’t get arrested for us”—and we’re hurrying along the dock, away from home.

  He hands me into his black Tesla, which is parked up on the curb, then shuts the door. And then we’re racing off to the 280, pushing south as fast as the car can go.

  Elliot drives like… like James Bond. There’s no other way to describe it. Spies and bruisers and death are coming up on our tail, but he’s completely in control. If I weren’t on the run from the FBI, I’d find it insanely hot.

  I clutch my seat, hanging on by my fingertips as he weaves around a BMW. The driver mouths something angry and obscene at us as we fly past him.

  “This is very illegal,” I point out to Elliot. I shouldn’t have to explain to a lawyer that this is a bad idea. “I’m pretty sure some government agents are coming after me.”

  It makes the most sense—the reporter burned me to someone at the CIA or the NSA, they went to Arne, and he told them exactly where to find me.

  “I know.” Elliot doesn’t look away from the road.

  “You could go to prison.”

  “I know.”

  “For a long time. A serious prison, not the cushy financial-crimes one.”

  “I know.”

  Argh, nothing is getting through to him. He can’t throw everything away on me. So I try the worst consequence I can think of. “You’ll be disbarred.”

  He laughs. Longer and louder than I’ve ever seen. “Yes, probably.”

  “And you’re okay with that?” I’m demanding, angry now. This is insane of him. He can’t become a fugitive with me.

  “No, I’m not.” He cuts across three lanes, passing five cars in the process, then swings right back across all those lanes. I stop breathing for a long moment. “But I’m also not okay with your going to prison.”

  “The only way I’m not going to prison is if I leave the country.” I’ve accepted that, but has he? I’ve had five long years to ponder my future. He still has one. At least he does if he kicks me out of the car now.

  “That’s why we’re going to the airport. The jet is waiting.”

  My breath catches when I glimpse a black SUV in the side mirror. I crane around for a better look. I knew they would follow us, that they’d be right on our heels.

  But the SUV fades into t
he distance, left behind by Elliot.

  “You’re still an accomplice even if you only drop me off on the tarmac.” It’s impossible that he doesn’t understand that, but it’s the only explanation for what he’s doing.

  He glances over at me, his gaze hot. “I’m coming with you. The whole way. We’re in this together. Completely.”

  My throat is closing and my eyes are burning. “If you run with me, it’s going to be chaos. My life from now on will be pure chaos.”

  He reaches over, takes my hand. Which is completely unsafe at the speed he’s going, but amazingly sweet. “I’m willing to endure some chaos to be with you.”

  Oh God. I want to cry, to simply collapse into myself and sob. But if I do, I won’t be able to hold on. And he’ll get worried and he needs his entire attention on the road.

  “I’m not sorry I contacted the reporter,” I say. If we’re going to do this, we need to clear that up.

  “I know. I’m not sorry I had Finn investigate you. Or copy your drive.” His voice is as clear as mine.

  “I know. I did what I had to and so did you.”

  He opens his mouth as if to say something, but then he has to jerk the car into another lane before he smashes into the truck in front of us.

  “We can’t talk about it now,” I say quickly. “I just wanted you to know.”

  “We have to trust each other from now on though.” His mouth is flat, but that’s because I think he’s figuring out how to thread between the three cars in front of us. “We don’t have to say anything more if we agree on that.”

  I duck my head, my heart full. We can’t undo the knot, but we can work around it. Move past it. He’s proved he’s more than ready to do that. Hell, he’s throwing away his entire life for me.

  “Sure,” I say. “Of course.”

  The words are weak, not even a match to what I’m really feeling, but it’s all I can find right now.

  He nods, then focuses on the road.

  We arrive at the San Francisco Airport in about fifteen minutes, which must have set a new land-speed record. Elliot turns off before the main terminal, taking us to the private terminal just north of the airport. I’ve been through here before—but it feels strange anyway. Perhaps because I’m not pretending to be Minerva.