“Think of them however you like.”
“Tell me if I’ve pieced this together.” She stood up and paced the length of the car and back. “You control the world’s money.”
“Seventy-nine percent of it, yes.” He smiled. “I could bankrupt whole continents with a phone call.”
“You need military power equaling your financial power.”
“That backing comes from Europe and hopefully the United States.”
“America’s not on board with you?”
“Not yet. But I hope they’ll see the light. I can’t tell you anymore about how I’ll turn the light on for them, Lovey. Neither of us can cross that line. You’re committed to protect America, and I’m committed to bring America under my—excuse me, our organization’s control.”
“So, now you know who I am and what I do. Your business will be off limits to me and mine to you.”
“That goes without saying.”
“Then I promise I will never spy on you again. I’ll tell Ursa I need assignments that don’t involve you directly.”
“Agreed,” Pendleton said. “For my part, I’ll handle Claymore. She’ll not pull this tomfoolery again.”
“If the United States foils your plans, I’ll use whatever influence I have to protect you.”
“If my plans succeed, you’ll reign with me. No questions asked.”
Should she believe him? She had to. “Once my team cleans up this mess, no one will admit it ever happened. It’s up to us to take care of matters within our own groups.”
“I think we’re both capable of that.”
She sucked in a full breath. “What do you know about Room 1515?”
“It’s the hottest hangout in Washington for politician, lobbyists, and espionage.”
“Do you know sexual favors are given and received there?”
“That’s part of the evil of the world, Lovey.”
“Did you know I run that aspect of Room 1515? Did you know that’s part of my job?”
If a man could shrivel, Pendleton grew smaller and hunched down. “You said you couldn’t promise fidelity, but I didn’t suspect.”
“I stopped participating over the last few months. I wanted to give you a child, and I wanted to be sure it was yours.”
“What!”
He tried to stand but still couldn’t put weight on his foot.
“Our time on your little island was productive, Darling. I’m pregnant.”
“Oh Lovey.” She sat back down next to him and he embraced her. “Do you know its sex yet?”
“It’s too soon to tell.” She stroked his hair. “I hope to give you many more.”
As she watched him, an expression she’d never seen in him before showed on his face—doubt. “What’s wrong, Sweetheart?”
“How will we raise the child? Our lives are so complicated.”
“I’ve given that some thought.” She tilted her head and questioned aloud. “Could we hire fulltime nannies, one on your side of the pond and one on mine? Could we ask your mom?”
“No nannies needed on my side. Mum and my brother will spoil the child when I’m not there.”
“The real problem is I’m afraid Hercules won’t let me raise the baby. Motherhood would interfere with my job.”
“What then?”
“I’ll have the staff at the Virginia mansion care for the child and I’ll visit weekly when it’s with me.”
“No, you won’t!” Ursa’s voice rang in her head.
“What?” A sick rolling emotion of betrayal filled her. She couldn’t speak. She’d been tricked. The device in her head had never been turned off!
“Tell Pendleton he and I will come to a solution.”
Chapter 33
Helicopter lights could be seen before the sound of the rotors reached her. Ursa and the rescue team were approaching by air. Peacock turned to Pendleton unable to speak.
“They tricked you.” He stroked her hair. “You don’t have to explain. I would have done the same.”
His cell phone vibrated, and he answered.
“We’re above you on the ridge. Five of us and two vehicles to transport you and Mrs. Pendleton anywhere you wish.”
“Hold position,” Pendleton whispered. “The helicopter coming in on your right will land here in a minute. Hold your fire unless I raise my hands above my head.”
“Your people?” Peacock asked. “How did they find you?”
“No time for that now. Tell your boss he and I need to talk when he arrives.”
Ursa shouted in her ear. “I heard him. I’ll be glad to talk later. Tell him after the clean-up operations, we’ll meet back at your suite in Malibu. I’ll have our doctor there to attend to his foot.”
Peacock stared at her husband after she relayed Ursa’s message. Pendleton was chuckling. What was going on here? Faced with the possibility of eliminating one side or the other, no one seemingly wanted to. Why had she killed all those people? The battle that took place in the darkness could be settled here and now, couldn’t it?
The helicopter bumped down on the beach tossing mist and sand in the air. Ursa, Magnus, and a huge man Peacock had never seen, exited. Another helicopter descended seemingly out of nowhere, and three cleaners rushed to Lytle and to his car. Pendleton’s people made no move. They stood motionless where the Herculeans could see them.
“Walk this way,” Ursa said, and motioned to Peacock to follow him.
“I’ll be right back,” she said to Pendleton and hurried after Ursa.
“Ignoring your insubordination isn’t an option.”
“What are you going to do? Shoot me?”
“No, you’re too valuable. But don’t think for a minute there isn’t a price to pay. You’ve pushed this past my attempts to protect you.”
Protect her from what? No, protect her from whom, Kolb?
#
“Let’s see about that foot,” the doctor said.
Ursa hovered over Pendleton as Dr. Berk pressed and prodded his enemy’s foot. Peacock showered and dressed in the bathroom of their suite in Malibu after undergoing her physical examination. Pendleton’s back-up team and the Herculeans maintained an uneasy distance, shooting menacing glares at one another. Better than shooting bullets, Ursa thought.
“I want an Aero equipped by you, Boss,” Dr. Berk said. “His foot needs to be wrapped. There is a hairline fracture of the metatarsus right below the first Cuneiform of the big toe. The inflammation is more serious than the fracture as relates to pain. I’ll give him some Demerol. Other than that, he’s fine.”
Ursa waited until the doctor left. Then motioned both Peacock and Pendleton on to the bed and pulled up a chair. “Shall we have a little chat?”
Pendleton slid to Peacock’s side.
“Do I have a choice?” Peacock asked.
“No.”
She crumpled forward, hands over her face, and pale. Exactly how Ursa wanted her.
“You tricked me and lied to me.” Peacock pointed a threatening finger at him as she spit out the words.
“Yes, for your own good.”
“I doubt it.”
Ursa selected his words deliberately and delivered them with skill. “If you know the implant is working, you hold your true feelings inside. You weigh each thought before you speak. True or not?”
“True.”
“My job is to protect our country and you. I can’t protect you, if I don’t know what your emotional state is. True or not?”
She bit her lower lip. “True.”
“I’m sorry I had to trick you. But I’ve accomplished my purpose. I’d been warned that your emotional state had changed. I needed to find out if it could be repaired. It can’t without retraining.”
Pendleton muttered. “You found out she can love after all.”
Ursa had no intention of responding.
“So what do you intend to do?” Pendleton asked. “You heard us discuss our feelings for one another. Will you release her from your serv
ice?”
Ursa swallowed a laugh. “She knows that’s impossible. Once you’re inside Hercules, the only way out is death. And I’m not about to kill my best agent.”
He moved his chair so he faced Pendleton. Peacock’s fate was between him and Pendleton. She had no say in any decision. “First, let me compliment you. You are alive because your death would spark an international depression and destroy national alliances in every part of the world. You’re a more than worthy adversary.”
“I suppose I should say thank you.”
Ursa ignored the sarcasm. “She is alive because I am generous and intelligent. You and I have to reach an agreement about her.”
“You mean I have no say,” Peacock asked.
“Shut up,” Ursa yelled. “I’m not talking to you.”
The team Van Meer put together snapped into protect mode. Pendleton reddened but waved them back. “Control your temper old boy, or most of us in this room will end up dead. And you’ll be the first. The only reason you’re still alive is all out war on the beach would have been impossible to control. Lovey could have been killed.”
Ursa pulled up knee-to-knee with Pendleton. “She’s pregnant,” he whispered. “She’ll develop motherly feelings for the child. She’s been seen with you enough that the English-speaking world knows a woman named Laverna Smythe is your wife. Neither you nor I can change that.”
“Give her undercover assignments that don’t take place in the English speaking world,” Pendleton said. “Let me provide the major care for our children, this one and others to come.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Agreed, but you do have options.”
“She needs to stay at the Emerald as Mrs. Laverna Smythe Pendleton, at least until the baby shows in a few months. Then, we’ll see.”
“Can I have your reassurance you won’t put her in situations where she has to use her sexual prowess to gain her objective?”
“No. You knew the rules when you married her.” Ursa enjoyed the scowl on Pendleton’s face. “And you should know how effective she is.”
“I’d love to wipe that smirk off you.” Pendleton leaned right up into Ursa’s space. “Don’t play mind games with me. Play nice and your government won’t end up bankrupt in the morning.”
Ursa relaxed. This man was caught in his own trap. The womanly wiles of Peacock clouded his judgment. He would play nice, as Pendleton so aptly put it. Play nice now. Cheat later. Ursa nodded and pulled back a bit.
“Let me offer a solution to the problem of raising the child,” Pendleton said. “I’m buying my mother a property in the British Virgin Islands, a retirement home. Let’s say Lovey buys a property on St. Johns, a United States property—one US property, one British property, with my mum as the caregiver. When Lovey’s not on assignment, my mum will fly over with the child and visit.”
“That might work on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You take the child immediately after birth. The baby doesn’t even go into her arms.”
“No,” Peacock screamed. “Give me a maternity leave. Let me have two weeks with my baby. After that we’ll work out things between assignments.”
“And risk you attaching to it as you have with Arthur Pendleton. Hercules can’t take that chance.”
Ursa reached into his pocket. “Excuse me.”
He stepped out of the room and dialed Doctor Kolb. “They’re proposing we allow Peacock two weeks with her baby.”
“They’re proposing. Are we negotiating?”
“It’s complicated. What if that happened? Could we control Peacock afterward?”
Silence followed. Ursa breathed deep and paced. Finally, Kolb let out a grunt. “Well, since what we’re trying is unexplored territory anyway. The answer is theoretically, yes.”
“I’ll agree to a week.”
“Tell them anything you want. Your boss will call the shot on this. Whatever he decides, I’ll need her on the operating table immediately after that week. Then we’ll proceed.”
Ursa reentered the room to find Peacock throwing a fit on the bed. She screamed, kicked, and flailed her arms, as Pendleton sat helpless to comfort her.
“I’m discussing the baby issue with others. Maybe she’ll get a week. Then she’ll be retrained, eventually reassigned, and unavailable for at least six months.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I’ll arrange for visits between you two at your request, Arthur, only the two of you and the baby when it comes, no business meetings. After six months, we’ll see.”
Ursa motioned to Pendleton, and the two left Peacock alone in the suite with the bodyguards. They strode down the hall out of hearing range.
“You’re in my debt.” Ursa said. “I could kill you and the hell with the world economy.”
“Or the other way around. You’re in my debt. I have power you have no inkling of. But you control the love of my life, and I’ll refrain from executing judgment for now.”
Ursa sighed. Pendleton wasn’t a bad sort. If they were on the same side, they’d more than likely be friends.
“You’re right when you say, ‘It’s the victor who will write history.’ You and I are alike. We both want to win. We both want to change the world. The problem is we both want to rule that new world.”
Pendleton nodded. “When we leave here I take it things will appear as though nothing at all has happened?”
Ursa’s cell buzzed and he answered. When he hung up, he smiled. “The clean-up is done. A policeman responding to the first accident has been neutralized. Nothing has happened. Has it? Carry on with your vacation as planned.”
#
It’s for the best.
Peacock regained her composure, opened the sliding door to her balcony, and walked out into the early morning air. Ursa was a bastard, but he was right. He’d fight to let her have a week with her baby, and that would have to do. She’d have enough time to pour her soul into the child. Given the situation, things had worked out quite well. Her marriage was intact, such as it was. Her position within Hercules was altered, but not much.
“Polaris?”
“At your service my dear Peacock.”
“Good to hear your voice again.”
“Only you could have pulled off what you did and escaped with your life.”
“I’m special.” She was special—and valuable. Weighting the pros and cons, she’d have to attempt an assassination of Ursa or Monroe to warrant death.
“We have our orders regarding you. If you thought you had no privacy before, you really don’t now.”
“Goodbye, Polaris.”
“Nope, your monitor will never be silent again.”
“Lovey?” Pendleton appeared in the balcony doorway.
She put her finger up against her lip and ran past him back into the room. She opened the drawer under the dresser table, pulled out a pad of paper, and wrote.
Everything you say will be heard. Some of what I say will be fed to me.
He nodded. “I’m proud of you. You took instruction well. We can get through this. My backup team will be with us the rest of the vacation. In case someone else wants to murder one of us, they’ll have to blast their way through The Sons of Tiw and the Herculeans.”
“They almost did yesterday,” she sighed. She wrapped her arms around her husband and discovered a tear trickling down his cheek. Arthur knew everything and still loved her.
The rest of their time together would test her abilities. Trying to communicate with Arthur with Hercules listening and instructing her every word would take skill. But she was a genius. She grinned. She’d devise a way and keep Arthur safe.
#
As Peacock rode with Pendleton up Highway 1 in his Bentley, a question popped into her head. She didn’t think he’d mind sharing the answer with those listening in. He pulled up at an Oceanside turnout and stopped to see the view.
“I’m interested in knowing something, Sweetheart.”
“And that wou
ld be?”
“Why do you use wealth and power as a means to establish a one-world government where wealth would be meaningless?”
He smiled. “You see today’s world runs on greed. The emphasis is on the wrong objectives. Human beings are descending to the state of animals. Murders, rapes, wars, are driven by the need to dominate and control wealth,” he sighed. “To change the world, I have to collapse that system of greed, and replace it with enlightenment. Sadly, things need to be done to achieve that end.”
“You bought me an island. We live in a plush estate. Let’s say you accomplish your goal. Will you move into a one bedroom apartment to be one of the people?”
“Actually, you and I will live in a modest, but spacious, three bedroom in Zurich. Our island will be property of the government and available to anyone who wants to visit.”
Peacock shook her head. “And this God of yours approves?”
Pendleton took her hands in his and looked at her. She saw his love and sadness written in his face. “If I fail, pollution will destroy our food supplies and our wildlife. Nations will attack each other intent to take what the other has. Religious fanatics will create chaos and death around the world. Finally, we will wipe ourselves off the face of the earth. Yes, my God dislikes my sins. But He understands my purpose.”
She pulled him close and kissed him. “I don’t care whose listening. I love you, Arthur Pendleton.”
She looked out at the ocean as the waves rolled in at high tide. He’s right!
Chapter 34
Pendleton daydreamed at his desk in London. The bad news: he loved a Herculean. The good news: their love affair spiced up his life. His time with her, especially in Napa Valley, endeared him to her. She loved him, no question. She wanted to protect him. In two days, she’d figured out a communications code to convey the secret things she wanted to say without the ear in her head realizing what she was doing.
But now Pendleton had only vengeance on his mind. A knock on his door elicited a gruff, “Come in.”
Thomas Reed entered with a smile and a wave.
“How’s your friend Lytle?” Pendleton asked.
Reed squinted. Pendleton watched his eyes.
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