The Cardinal Rule

by Cate Dermody

  Fire spat high into the air, acrid smoke burning her lungs. The bitter taste woke thought in her, breaking her from the silence of chaos. With waking came thought, and with thought, speech.

  “Reichart.” There was almost nothing to her own voice, little more than the shape of the word and a hard click. He couldn’t have gotten out; her own escape had taken so little time, and she hadn’t been forced to climb up awkward ventilation shafts to make it good. It was the heat and the sting of smoke making her vision blur with tears, she told herself without believing. There was nothing inside her, just a cool empty place waiting to be filled.

  Brandon. Greg.

  That empty place twisted and filled with bile, horror cramping her belly as she rolled, barely able to hold her head up as she heaved a few bitter mouthfuls. Her forearms lay against the ground, stomach stretched long on the littered streets. She couldn’t remember having been knocked down a second time, nor could she bear to hold the weight of her head up. New tears gritted through her eyelashes, catching on her cheeks with an infuriating tickle. Alisha slapped her hand against them, sagging with her own weight. More than her own weight: it felt as if the fire pressed down on her shoulders, trying to pin her to the earth.

  She didn’t need to look to know the fire had faces. Brandon’s face, Greg’s face. Reichart’s and even Cristina’s. All the dead, weighing her down. Joining them might be a blessing. It had to hurt less than the pain in her lungs that wouldn’t let her draw breath. That kept thick tears etching their way down her cheeks. It would be so much easier to lie down and die, instead of losing anyone else.

  Alisha shoved to her hands and knees, swaying in the fire-lit darkness. Easier. Not acceptable. Just easier. Her head dangled between her arms, gaze unfocused on the ground beneath her as she worked her toes under her feet. Curled her lip and pushed into downward dog, struggling to stabilize herself.

  There. She could breathe now, a long shuddering breath that loosened, but didn’t unbind, the knots caught in her lungs. Pain, purely physical and therefore welcome, shot up through her toes, the cuts on her feet making themselves known. Alisha gritted her teeth and walked her hands in, bent double. It took her breath again, but gave her the ability to bend her knees, to push herself upright through the thighs. Agony lanced through the soles of her feet all the way to her stomach, threatening to force another coughing mouthful of bile from her.

  She had a detonator. She was dressed for infiltration. She could not afford to be found in the warehouse district, a thing growing more likely with every passing minute.

  Second, some part of her mind disagreed. Each passing second. She could see a timer in her mind’s eye, red numbers flipping by, counting the seconds from the explosion. A subconscious failsafe, like counting the hourly bells ringing at a church. Most people did it, finding themselves at the count of six without having consciously begun at one. Alisha’s clock was more refined than that, out of training and need, but the principle was the same.

  And less than a minute had passed. A few more seconds and her world would be irrevocably changed for a full minute. And then it would be two, then ten, and then minutes would turn to hours and months and years, going on without regard for the frailties of human life. Without care for emotional trauma, time inexorably healing wounds, as it was meant to do.

  At sixty seconds, Alisha took a step away from her shattered life, and crumpled as her damaged foot refused to take her weight.

  Strong and certain arms caught her around the waist as she fell, then scooped her up. “Let’s get out of here,” Frank Reichart murmured. “This one’s my rescue.”

  A different sort of silence reigned, Alisha’s ears no longer refusing to hear explosions in the midst of chaos. There was expectation in this silence, put off by efficient action. Reichart knelt at her feet, an ankle grasped firmly in his hand as he swabbed hydrogen peroxide over the cuts on her sole. Calluses from yoga had protected her from some damage, but not nearly enough, and Alisha twitched violently at the hiss and bubble of disinfectant burning the injuries. Reichart only tightened his grasp and lifted her foot, taking tweezers to bits of debris still lodged in the cuts. Alisha ground her teeth and clenched her fingers in the mattress, staring at Reichart so hard she thought he might light on fire from it.

  He’d carried her a dozen blocks, neither of them speaking, Alisha too angry and embarrassed, Reichart too intent on his burden and finding a hansom. He slid her rubber-soled shoes back over her feet once in it, and carried her into the hotel as well, Alisha’s face half-hidden against his shoulder. Let the few viewers think she was drunk; better that than the truth. He’d gone back out again for the peroxide and bandages, still without saying a word.

  Silences, Alisha thought, were his best communication.

  “They’re alive.” His deep voice was as startling as the change in his grasp, switching one ankle for the other. Alisha flinched again, staring at him with renewed intensity. “The Parkers,” he said to her feet. “They got out. I think everyone did. I pulled a fire alarm on my way out.”

  Cold swept over her, beginning in the abused soles of her feet with such a shock that Alisha cried out. Reichart’s hand tightened around her ankle and he looked up for the first time. Only the bedside lamp was on, casting shadows across the bruises on his face, but even in its light his eyes darkened, showing concern. The chill ran through Alisha, lifting hairs all over her body until she shuddered and shook her head. “I’m okay.” Her voice was as rough as Reichart’s. “You didn’t hurt me. They’re—?”

  Reichart lowered his eyes again, returning to tending her feet. “Alive. I saw them.”

  “You blew up the factory.” Alisha could hear the lack of emotion in her voice, knew it covered the hammering of her heart and the cold relief that now brought a sweat out on her body. “How?”

  Reichart breathed laughter, ducking his head over her foot. “How’d you know to rescue me? I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

  “And I’m not dead despite you.”

  Reichart’s shoulders tightened, though his ministrations to her foot remained gentle. Alisha pressed her lips together and turned her face away, staring at the lamp. It colored the wall behind it a yellowed beige, as if the paint had given up its own color in a fight, and acquiesced to the superior shade offered by the light. “I saw you go in last night,” Alisha said to the lamp. “I went in to set C4 and overheard them talking about you. They wanted you alive, so I couldn’t exactly let you get blown to hell and back.” The truth, as far as it went. As far, Alisha admitted, as she was going to let it go.

  “I set charges myself, before they snagged me.”

  Alisha looked back at him incredulously. “And they didn’t find them?” Reichart let out another breath of laughter.

  “Not all of them. But since you were there I figured I’d try some of the CIA frequencies and see if you’d left anything to explode, too.” He lifted his eyes, shadow of a grin crooking the bruises on his face. “Turns out you did.”

  Alisha felt an answering smile curve her lips, and bit the lower one to ward it off. “You look like hell, Reichart.”

  “You’re not looking so hot yourself.” He patted her ankle, nodding at her feet. “I’d tell you to stay off ’em, but you won’t.”

  Alisha lifted them, wiggling them slightly. They were bandaged now, wrapped loosely in soft white gauze, and the faint giddiness of survival was beginning to set in. She deliberately put her feet down again, refusing the impulse to wiggle them another time or two. “Thank you. Now all I need is a fifth of vodka to take the edge off and everything’ll be all right.”

  “I’ll look at them again in the morning,” Reichart said at the same time, and for a moment silence cropped up again, potent and loud.

  “Morning?” Alisha asked, as Reichart said, “Vodka?”

  “No,” Alisha said firmly. Reichart grinned, cocky and self-assured. Bravado, Alisha thought. He, too, had to be shaken by capture and the explosions that could’ve end
ed his life.

  “To which?”

  “Any combination that involves vodka and my feet being here in the morning.”

  Reichart’s eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. “You planning on walking out?”

  Alisha took a deep breath and put her feet on the floor, using Reichart’s shoulder to push herself into a standing position. Knives of pain rolled up through her feet, making her knees and the small of her back ache with it. Her nostrils flared and she could feel her cheeks whitening as she sat back down, stiff with pain. “Not right now.” Her voice was hoarse. “Although it’s probably not going to be a lot better in the morning.”

  “Alisha.” Reichart put his hand on her ankle again, light touch. “I’ll get vodka, if you want it. I’ll get aspirin, which is probably better for you. And your honor,” he said with only the faintest smirk, “is safe with me. You need some rest.”

  An entirely different sort of shiver ran through Alisha at Reichart’s touch. Warmth spread after that chill, the strength of his hand a reassurance and a reminder. Years of separation hadn’t reduced the sensuality of the man now kneeling at her feet. It would be so easy, Alisha thought, to let the past go for a night, and just be glad to be alive.

  Reichart looked tired, the bruises on his cheek emphasizing that. Alisha reached out to brush her fingers against the air, not touching the injury. He turned his face away, avoiding even the intimation of closeness, and Alisha closed her fist loosely, thinking, for no particular reason, Emma.

  “You should get some ice,” she said quietly. “And some aspirin. For those bruises, and I’ll take a look at the burns.”

  Reichart unfolded in one graceful motion, looking down at her without expression for long moments. Then he nodded and left Alisha alone in the hotel room.

  Not until he was gone did Alisha reach for the bud in her ear, faintest pressure activating it. “Kremlin?” Cardinal and Kremlin. It had amused her at the time the code names had been assigned. Now laughter felt centuries away as she waited with a heavy heart, the beats sounding too far apart, for a response. “Kremlin, come in.” Her voice was cracked, old. She ought to have asked for water, not vodka.

  “Cardinal?” Greg’s voice came through the radio, full of disbelieving relief. “Cardinal, respond, is that you?”

  Alisha slumped on the bed, pulling her feet up and wrapping herself around a pillow, exhaustion settling into her bones. “Christ, Cardinal, what happened? I told you to abort, and then there was a fire plume big enough to register on satellite!”

  A peculiar clarity cut through Alisha’s exhaustion, a memory that almost made no sense: Greg didn’t know she knew he was in Beijing. “I did abort.” Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, as if it wasn’t made to shape words. “I don’t know what happened. The explosion knocked me for a loop.” She listened to her own lies with detached astonishment, wondering why.

  No. Not really. The why was simple: she might never get another chance to ask Frank Reichart what exactly he was doing. The fact that he almost certainly wouldn’t answer was beside the point. Letting him go a third time with no resolution was more than Alisha intended to handle.

  “I’ve holed up at a hotel for the night to warm up and get clean,” she went on. “I’ll come in in the morning.” That would give Greg time to get back to Langley. Time to—

  —to what, Leesh? Build his cover story? A curl of dismayed laughter tightened Alisha’s throat. She didn’t know who to trust anymore, and that, for a spy, was deadly.

  “I’ll arrange for a convoy,” Greg was saying, “at 6:00 a.m. local.”

  “God, Kremlin.” Alisha groaned. “Can’t it be like ten? It’s already two. I’d like some sleep.”

  She could hear the frown that colored his voice. “Are you sure you’re all right, Cardinal?”

  “Just tired. A little beat up.” Alisha hugged the pillow tighter to herself. “I’ll get a commercial flight. Don’t worry about it, Kremlin. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Long silence, before Greg said, “Take care.” Alisha fished the bud out of her ear and deactivated it with a fingernail, then curled it in her palm.

  “Leesh,” Reichart said from behind her. She turned her head up, shrugging one shoulder. He sat down on the edge of the bed, his weight shifting her back a few centimeters. “They’re alive?”

  “Just like you said. Greg is, anyway. He doesn’t know I know he’s here.” The shadows on the ceiling wove a dance in her vision, seeming to fall toward her and then scoop themselves back up. “Are you working for the Sicarii, Frank?”

  “No,” he said, so easily that Alisha turned onto her back, still clutching the pillow, to look up at him. There was no guile in his dark eyes, only a patience she didn’t expect, and weariness that she did. “I brought aspirin,” he said. “And water.” He slid a hand under her shoulder, offering help she didn’t think she needed in sitting, then handed her a travel packet of the drug and a bottle of water. “Already took mine,” he said, digging a torn-open packet out of his pocket to show her. “No nagging.”

  “I don’t nag.” Alisha popped the aspirin and drank most of the bottle’s content in one long chug. “Thanks. Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I’m telling the truth.” Reichart got up to fetch a towel, dumping ice from a bucket into it and snarling without sound as he held it to his face.

  “Come here.” The water’d made her feel better; Alisha could hear the imperiousness in her tone as she pointed at the bed again. Reichart shot an eyebrow up and walked over, a saunter that would have been considerably more impressive had he not been bruised, burned and blackened from smoke on almost every visible inch of skin. Alisha reached for his hand and the hydrogen peroxide at the same time, managing not to smile as the faint light of wicked delight faded from his eyes to be replaced with resignation. “I told you I’d clean these.”

  “I never knew you had a Florence Nightingale streak.”

  “I didn’t know you had one either.” Alisha turned her attention to his burns, concentrating on them so she didn’t have to look at his face. “Did you shoot me?”

  “No.” He didn’t sound surprised at the question. Alisha wondered if she could ever surprise him. “Cristina did.” The quality of his voice was the same as before, steady and without guile. He drew in a breath as she swabbed the round burn on his hand, but said nothing else. She could feel his gaze on her.

  “Did you love Emma?”

  Reichart drew in another breath, this one sharp enough to make her look up. There was pain in his brown eyes, more than just physical, and a question. But no deception, as he exhaled and answered, “Yes. But not before you.”

  Alisha bent over his hand again without speaking, tending to the burn and inspecting bruises.

  Maybe, just maybe, Frank Reichart was finally telling her the truth.

  Chapter 19

  “We make a fine pair, don’t we,” Alisha murmured a while later, the first words spoken since Reichart’d answered her question. He cast a wry grin at his swaddled hand and nodded at her equally well-wrapped feet.

  “Between the two of us we might make one whole person.” He lifted his arm, prodding carefully at the bruising his ribs had taken. Alisha moved his hand out of the way and put her palm against the damaged muscle, ignoring his sharp inhalation.

  “I don’t think anything’s broken. Not displaced, anyway.” She pulled her hand back, eyeing the soot and grime that she’d collected off his skin. “You need a shower.”

  “That an invitation?”

  The look Alisha gave him wasn’t as flat as she wanted it to be. She could feel the edges of a smile crinkling her eyes, and Reichart gave her a full-out grin in return. “It was worth asking. You’re not exactly Ms. Clean yourself.” He nodded at the pillow she’d clutched earlier. Alisha glanced at it, lifted eyebrows turning into a grimace of disgust. She’d left a fine layer of oily dirt on the white casing, and the bedclothes where she sat weren’t much better.

  “I probably s
houldn’t get my feet wet.” The protest sounded feeble to her own ears.

  “Probably not. Spit bath, then, while I take a shower.” Reichart stood, scooping her into his arms before she had a chance to object. Alisha reached to poke him in the ribs in offense, then splayed her fingers to rid herself of the impulse.

  “What are you—” The question didn’t need answering; by the time she had the first words out, Reichart had carried her into the bathroom and put her down on the toilet, letting out a grunt of pain she was certain she wasn’t meant to hear.

  “You can’t stand and there’s no point in me carting you back and forth if one of us is clean and the other’s filthy.” Reichart pulled a towel and a washcloth off the rack and tossed them to her, nodding at the sink. “You wash, I’ll shower.” He turned his back with great deliberation, reaching for the tub faucet. Alisha watched the waistband of his pants loosen as he undid the button, and was caught staring as he shot a glance over his shoulder at her. She laughed and blushed, both more from surprise than guilt, and looked away.

  For a moment, anyway. She slid another look over her shoulder as Reichart shucked his pants. No underwear. It was his philosophy that going commando made strip poker much more interesting. His skin paled abruptly at the hips, partly from the tan fading away, mostly from the protection from grime that pants had offered.

  “You’re peeking,” he said without looking at her again, and stepped into the shower, pulling the curtain closed. Alisha’s grin broadened and she really turned away, stripping her hooded shirt off. Getting the pants off required more wriggling, her nostrils flaring as she put pressure on her damaged feet.

  “Are you really a Tudor?” she asked to distract herself, pitching her voice to carry over the shower. She heard the pattern of water falling change as Reichart shifted.