Hero

by Robert J. Crane

  “She’s not worthy of shit,” Kat Forrest said, stepping out, perfectly primped, from somewhere in the back of the bullpen. She raised her hands … and there was a gun in them, leveled at June. “Except suspicion and maybe a few bullets.”

  “Whoa,” Friday said, turning to look at our once-placid Persephone. “Feel the rage of the dark side flowing through Kat.”

  “She’s earned it,” Kat said, not taking her eyes off June, the gun barrel wavering not a centimeter. “She shot Sienna in Florida last year. Damned near killed her.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, looking her up and down. The orange jumpsuit was an interesting fashion choice. Or not, since she was supposed to be a prisoner at the Cube, and that was, presumably, their uniform.

  “Yeah, it’s cool, I ran like twenty miles to get to you guys, don’t anybody rush to offer me a chair or a drink or anything,” she said, raising her hands, signaling surrender.

  “Would you like a drink?” Kat asked, pistol steady. “Because we could have Olivia get it for you—”

  “Kat,” I said, waving her off, imagining Olivia trying to hand June a cup of something and … propelling her into the fifth dimension in the process. “Okay. You’ve escaped the Cube. Run here. To my office. Why?”

  “Which is not easy to find now that they’ve done away with phone books and public phones,” June said. She was drawing slow breaths, and her hands were raised, her palms facing the ceiling. Her power to generate clouds of poisonous gas was hardly at bay just because she was pointing her emitters in a nominally safe direction. I side-eyed Kat and Scott. They both got it. “I need your help with something,” she said. “And I come with information. First of all … Sienna’s gone.”

  I blinked. That … was a surprise.

  “And second …” she said, just as breathless, riding right past that first point of interest, “I need you to arrest me. Now.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sienna

  I laughed.

  Then I laughed harder.

  Then I laughed some more.

  “Lemme get this straight,” I said, finishing up slapping my knees, because I’d doubled over with laughter at Vlad’s Come to my evil castle! proposal, “you’re going to tell me everything about why you’ve been trying to kill and destroy me for at least the last two years … but only if I come with you into your dank, musty, Bond-villain-lair castle over there.” I laughed once more. “Yeah. Okay.”

  Vlad took my insulting laughter unflappably. He made a show of looking at the castle, then nodded. “I suppose it is a bit … Blofeld-esque, my home.

  Sophie, once more, evinced a hint of irritation. She was good at giving off the hints. Or I was just so severely annoying she couldn’t hide her aggravation with me any longer. “This is a serious offer. We infiltrated the Cube and broke you out, saving you from death, at worst, and a lifetime in captivity at best.”

  “In exchange for what?” I asked, getting down to brass tacks. “So I can become your … new minion? Like this triad?” I pointed at Sophie, Yvonne and Arche. “Because I’m gonna tell you right now—there is no way I am having my sense of humor surgically removed and a stick implanted in my ass the way these three have.”

  “Hey, man, I don’t have a stick up my ass,” Yvonne said. “I’m cool. I’m hip. I’m sarcastic and ironic and all the things you kids nowadays are into.”

  “I retract the inference in your case, Owens,” I said. “But the other two …” I tossed a look at Sophie and Arche. Sophie rolled her eyes at me and sighed, very school-marmy. “See? She’s not even denying it.”

  “I am exasperated, that I won’t deny,” Sophie said. “Because you behave like this purposely in order to exasperate everyone. You think I don’t notice?”

  “That’s close,” I said, “but you’re way too self-centered in your assessment. It’s true, I don’t mind pissing you off, but that’s not why I do what I do.”

  Vlad stared at me. “Why, then, pray tell, do you attempt to torment and mock everyone you cross?”

  “Because if nothing else, I need to amuse myself while I wait for the other shoe to drop,” I said. “That’s the perpetual truth of being stalked, hunted, and attacked by an endless litany of villains. When you’re constantly dealing with assholes, the quickest defense is to become one yourself. My mother taught me that … though I’m not sure she intended to.”

  Vlad’s face was like stone. “Very interesting,” he said after a few moments of consideration. Sophie looked like she might be lightly grinding her teeth as she stared off into the distance. Her control was definitely slipping.

  Which was the other reason I was being so irritating to these people. I was testing them, testing their limits, like any good toddler. They’d certainly thrown enough hell my way to deserve it by now, their current, “We’re here to help you!” assertions notwithstanding.

  “I present you a choice, Ms. Nealon,” Vlad said, having apparently taken my explanation at face value. “You don’t wish to visit my Bond villain lair? That is fair. I offer you a counter-proposal. I will take you on a tour of the city, and you can see some of the sights, perhaps even interact with the local people. Gauge their satisfaction level with our governance. And when that is done, you can decide where we go next, from a menu of two choices.”

  “And they are?” I asked, because he’d paused, either to make sure I was still listening or for dramatic effect.

  “We can either bring you back here, where you will get on a plane with Arche … who will take you anywhere you wish to go,” Vlad said, Sophie still seething, now actively turned away from me so all I could see was the back of her wavy hair. “Or we will go to my lair, as you call it, and have a talk about your future.”

  “Very binary, those choices,” I said. “Not a lot of middle ground there.”

  “Life is about choice, is it not?” Vlad said, waving at a car that had been waiting a hundred feet or so away, in the shadow of the airport terminal. It started moving, sliding over to where we were standing. “Choose to surrender to prison, or continue to run. You made that choice. This one should be easier, should it not? A simple ride to allow us time to break the ice. Perhaps you will decide to leave. Seek out a ‘better deal’ somewhere else. Though I doubt you could find many countries willing to take you in at this point, yes?” He smiled. “Difficult choices, those that life hands us. But this one … hmmm … not that difficult, given your current station, I think. Either way,” he said, and walked toward the limo, “we begin … just over here.”

  I looked around. Arche was not standing in my blind spot, which … she could have been. There were three of these ladies, and every one of them was keeping their distance. Every single one had powers. Arche was a Thor. Yvonne was a matter transmuter. Sophie was … hell if I knew what Sophie was.

  And Vlad had his own powers, though I hadn’t seen them yet.

  Arche alone could have zapped me into unconsciousness. True, I was watching her, and the rest of them, very hawk-like, but all it would take was a moment. Her raising her hand and lightning flashing. Zap, Sienna down.

  They’d flown me halfway across the world to be here.

  Vlad was standing next to his limo, holding the door himself, like my own personal European, slightly vampiric (he was definitely not a meta vampire, though) chauffeur.

  “You’re not going to learn anything standing out here,” Sophie said, and she shuffled away toward the limo. Arche and Yvonne followed, each casting me a look that was mostly curiosity. And not all that serious, either. They were paid. Whatever Vlad was up to, they were mercenaries, not staunch loyalists. Which told me a little something about him.

  Either he wasn’t an ideologue, or he couldn’t attract anyone to his ideas. Other than maybe Sophie. It eliminated a key motive from my normal line up. Yeah, I was applying my limited investigative skills here.

  And if I got back on the plane, my investigation was over. Probably along with my life, because … I had n
owhere else to go at this point.

  “All right,” I said, taking the slow walk over to where Vlad was waiting, holding the door. Credit to him—he must have either been prepared to hold it awhile, or he’d known I’d cave quickly.

  “Excellent,” he said as I climbed in with the ladies, and he got in after us. He moved reasonably quickly, not meta-speed, but well for a man of his age. Once in, he closed the door and knocked on the glass partition to the driver. The limo lurched into motion.

  I sat there, on the back bench, the others spread out around the compartment, Vlad up by the glass divider to the driver, Sophie sitting just to his right, Arche and Yvonne on the long bench to the left—and looked at my new … warden?

  Employer?

  Enemy?

  I didn’t know yet what Vlad was, or what he was to me. But as the limo rolled along the tarmac toward the exit, the city of Bredoccia rising into the distance ahead, I had a feeling it was going to be that last one.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Passerini

  Washington DC

  Now the Situation Room was quiet. A little background chatter came from the speakers overhead, where he was hooked in with the Pentagon, and his various analysts and commanders were doing their thing in real time over there, while he sat here, feeling about as useless as the operator of a surveillance drone watching when the shit hit the fan for men below.

  “I’m not predicting a good ending for this.” Like him, SecState Ngo was riveted to the screen. There were only a couple other observers now, both tucked into their own work, scrawling on paper or reading reports.

  “It is looking a little dismal,” Passerini said. “It looks like a dry hole to me, too. If the president won’t see the light …” He shook his head. He hadn’t voted for Harmon or Gondry, but he’d been stuck with them both for the better part of a decade now. “Well, we just keep on keeping on.”

  “So inspiring.” Ngo had a half-smile. “Like you’ve been under this particular gun before.”

  Passerini smiled, too, lifting his cold coffee to his lips and taking a sip. “Not a big secret … Harmon wasn’t a fan of the military, either. But he’d at least listen. Gondry …” He shook his head, looking at the two men scattered around the table that weren’t partaking in their conversation. One shot him a tight smile. He had short, dark hair and was wearing an army uniform, with the bird that indicated he was a full colonel. He looked a touch young to be a full-bird colonel.

  “He seems to be thoroughly trapped inside his own conclusions and priorities,” Ngo said. “Like he came into the office with a fully-formed worldview, and nothing he’s learned since has made a dent in it.”

  “You should, uh …” Passerini nodded at the other two. The colonel worked for him, probably his new adjutant, though he must have filtered in during the night. But who was the guy at the end of the table? Secretary of Transportation, wasn’t it? Passerini wasn’t about to trash talk his boss, even on his way out the door, in front of peers.

  Ngo picked up on what he was trying to get across and picked up her sheaf of papers. “I doubt I’m long for this gig, either,” she said. “Which is funny, because I’ve spent a lifetime in the State Department. Got the nod to move up under Harmon and … then Harmon’s gone. I believed in him. He listened. Tried to take it all in, and sometimes … he’d go his own way, but mostly he listened and let us run our shop. Gondry, though?” She lowered her voice. “Good God.”

  Passerini chuckled. “You and I are at odds, then, up till now. I didn’t like Harmon at all, but I didn’t work directly for him. He was Commander-in-Chief, I was just an admiral. Getting orders you don’t like is part of the service. But Gondry … I don’t know who he’s going to replace me with, but I doubt they’ll have a worthwhile background.” He shook his head. “Probably going to be a heck of a reduction in force if he carries forward even half of what he’s talked about.”

  “You think peace is a bad idea?” Ngo’s smirk suggested her tongue was fully in her cheek.

  “Hey, if you want to orchestrate some peace here, I’m very open to it,” he said, pointing at the satellite display of Revelen, “I’m just not sure they are.”

  “Trust me,” she said, “I know the importance of the stick in diplomacy. I like offering the carrot, but I’ve been doing this a long enough time not to be naïve.” She shifted her gaze to the overhead view of Bredoccia and the outlying area. “I see the value in having a big stick, as TR said.”

  “Yeah, no one ever complains about having it when a lion comes along,” Passerini said, glancing at the screen again. Movement had caught his eye. “They only ever complain about the cost.” There was a lot of movement, it being mid-morning in Bredoccia, but …

  What was that?

  “I think there might be more to the argument than that,” Ngo said. “But I’m not unsympathetic.”

  Passerini reached for the nearest control and flicked the button to activate his mic. “Pentagon … zoom in on Grid H-4, please.”

  “What is it?” Ngo asked.

  “Private plane at the airport,” Passerini said, pointing at a newer model Gulfstream. What was that, a G6? He didn’t know civilian planes as well as he perhaps should, but the air force had a few Gulfstreams in their inventory. The overhead satellite zoomed, the resolution increased.

  “That’s … interesting,” Ngo said. Someone was coming off the plane. Several someones, all female as near as Passerini could tell, and being met by a male someone with a hell of a widow’s peak at the summit of his dark hair. “That the main airport?”

  Passerini shook his head. He’d read the briefings on the local geography before a series of planning meetings where his subordinates suggested targets for air strikes, should things come down to war. “No, Bredoccia’s main airport is on the other side of the city. This is the one that services the big wigs. CIA has it under orbital surveillance 24/7 right now, in fact.”

  Bzzzzt.

  “Priority message,” Ngo said, lifting her phone to look at the screen. “CIA is taking an interest in the plane, too—and the passengers.” She looked up. “Got a color display option here?”

  “Hm? Yeah,” Passerini said, and then flicked the mic button for the Pentagon again. “This is Hammer. Give me the photo lens option, please.”

  A moment later, the satellite view flipped out of the black and white it had been left on when night had ended and they’d switched out of thermal mode. Now it was full color.

  “That woman’s wearing an orange jumpsuit,” Ngo said. “CIA flagged it. They’re tracing the plane to the flight’s point of origin now.”

  Passerini stared at the woman in orange. It looked a lot like a prison jumpsuit. And she was dark-haired … He flicked the mic again. “Pentagon, Hammer. Can you get me a closer view of the female subject in orange? I want to see what’s on the back of her jumpsuit. Looks like lettering.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  Passerini stared. He was getting the back of her head pretty clear, and could see her forearms—pale was all he could discern from that. The camera zoomed again, on the back of her jumpsuit, which said—

  BUREAU OF PRISONS

  Passerini almost smiled. Almost.

  “Well, well, well,” Ngo said, “looks like we found a little something here that might pique the president’s interest.”

  “Indeed, we seem to have found a hobby horse he might just want to ride,” Passerini said, and hit the button on the mic again. “Patch me through to President Gondry.” Now, he smiled. “Tell him we’ve found Sienna Nealon.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sienna

  “So this is Revelen,” I said under my breath as we rode along. I stole glances out the window while keeping most of my attention focused on the people sharing the limo with me, because …

  Well, duh. Because I couldn’t trust a one of them.

  “Indeed,” Vlad said, smiling thinly. I wondered if he’d ever smiled sincerely and fully in his life. It would probably be a
fearsome thing if he did. “From the wreckage of the Second World War to the devastation left in the wake of the Soviet Occupation, we have arisen like a phoenix—”

  “Readying yourself to burn all of Europe and everyone standing close by,” I said.

  Sophie clicked her teeth together. Then ground them slightly. “You don’t know us. Stop jumping to conclusions about our intentions.”

  “I’m sure you’re establishing a very honest, open state here in the hinterlands of Europe,” I said, nodding along. “Say … when was the last time Revelen had free elections?”

  “Is that the sole measure of a country’s worth in your view?” Vlad asked, still with that thin smile.

  “The people having some say in their governance?” I asked. “Yeah, I rate that as kinda important.”

  “How free and fair has your country treated you of late?” Vlad asked, and … yeah, now he was probably smiling sincerely, and it was, as I expected, terrible. “Surely with all those elections you have gotten a … fair shake.”

  “Low blow, Vlad,” I said, stealing a sideways glance at Yvonne. She’d been there at my trial. She was suppressing a smile at the dunk he’d scored on me.

  “Ah, but the truth is a high and noble thing, is it not?” Vlad asked.

  “That’s a chocolate delicacy of richness, considering my current company,” I said. “I don’t know the real names of any of you. Lies, all, and I doubt it stops with just your name, which is the first thing you exchange when you meet with someone.”

  “I thought it was phone numbers these days,” Vlad mused. “For hookups and whatnot?” He glanced at Sophie, who shrugged, rolling her eyes.

  “I don’t hook up, and I don’t know,” she said.

  “I don’t know who any of you people actually are,” I said.

  “I told you, I’m Yvonne,” the woman formerly known as Owens said. “Real name.”