The Cardinal Rule

by Cate Dermody

  Reichart moved in that instant of her own self-doubt. Launched himself forward as quickly and easily as a striking snake, the action so fluid Alisha barely thought to react. She twitched to the side, not enough to avoid him; the impact caught her in the ribs and sent her stumbling. Reichart rolled with it, coming to his feet. Alisha slid the purse off her torso, wrapping the strap around her hand twice. It made for a good weapon, weighty and solid, and she and Reichart both thought of his gun at the same time.

  He dove for it, making a long lean shadow across the rooftop. Alisha went after him, ignoring his weapon in favor of swinging her own. An underhand swing: bringing it overhand from above his head would kill the man.

  It connected just as he curled his fingers around the gun’s butt, and even underhand on its upward arc, even with the padding offered by the purse’s fabric, it split his temple. Reichart went down without a sound and Alisha waited for her own internal wince of sympathy.

  It never came.

  Cold all over, Alisha glanced at the sun, then her watch. It was nearly six: no time to get an unconscious man to the safe house. No way to do it, she admitted as well, without drawing attention. She could certainly carry him, but—she shook her head and simply ripped the lining from her purse, tearing the fabric into strips that she knotted around Reichart’s ankles and wrists.

  There was still nothing in her, as she looked down at the bound man at her feet. No regret, no anger, no pain. I wanted it to hurt, she remembered thinking as she faced Brandon Parker. She’d broken through the coolness then, but it seemed to fill her now, a scar over her emotions. There wasn’t even the lingering glee of battle, just blank resolve.

  Alisha shrugged, and went to finish the mission that had cost her her soul.

  Chapter 28

  Almost nothing else could go wrong. Alisha sat in what had once been the safe house’s study, watching the screen for the single surveillance camera she’d installed over the door. She’d made no attempt to hide it, nor was it attached to any kind of video recording system. Anyone who shied away from the camera wasn’t a serious enough contender for the software to worry about. The rest would ignore it or smirk at it, as suited them.

  With Reichart out of the picture, she promised herself again, almost nothing else could go wrong.

  Almost. Boyer hadn’t answered her calls when she’d tried putting them through. Erika had; she’d promised the corrupted copy of the software had gone directly into Greg’s hands. Whether he’d passed it on to Boyer, copied or not, Erika didn’t know. Alisha picked up her phone again, dialing Langley one last time in hopes of catching Boyer and learning whether or not they knew which side Gregory Parker was on. It was morning in Virginia; Boyer should be in. But Alisha only reached a pleasant-voiced secretary who told her the director was unavailable and offered to take a message. Alisha folded her phone closed without leaving one.

  The first arrival, just minutes before six, was Greg. Even in the grainy camera feed he looked thinner and more worn than he had the last time Alisha’d seen him, only a handful of days previously. Maybe serving two masters, if indeed he did, was wearing on him, she thought. She hoped so.

  A trio of men she didn’t know, not even by reputation, followed Greg. They were thick-shouldered and dapper at the same time. Mafia, Alisha thought, either Russian or Italian. It was a good sign to have them there. It meant outsiders were taking the auction notification on the boards seriously.

  On the other hand, it would have been easier to lay the investigation to rest had no one beyond the Sicarii and the CIA responded. Alisha shrugged one shoulder, folding her leg up to massage the tender sole of her foot. Easier was not in the job description. At least the Mafia’s arrival—and that of the next trio that followed, this time an Asian woman flanked by two men—couldn’t be construed as something actually going wrong. Alisha leaned in, frowning at the woman.

  No: it wasn’t the one Reichart had sent after her, the woman she’d shared an airplane ride with. Alisha leaned back again, switching feet. The energized blood flow made her soles ache, but also warmed her whole body. She still felt removed from her own emotions, but the warmth began to energize her. She would need to be at the top of her game in just a few minutes.

  Brandon and Rafe arrived separately, the latter with a sneer of confidence that she imagined would go poorly with the contingents already waiting. She wouldn’t be so fortunate as to have them decide to eliminate the competition, but Rafe’s cocky stride might set someone against him enough to make the bidding interesting.

  The thought jarred her, sending a spike of cold over her body. Interesting? A matter of life and death—her own life and death—had been relegated to merely interesting inside her mind? The idea that accompanied it jolted her further: it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to simply make the sale and disappear with the cash. Overlooking the minor detail of the explosive set into the base of her skull, Alisha reminded herself, but she’d never before been tempted to sell out.

  Maybe more could go wrong than she’d anticipated.

  A group of Middle Easterners arrived, clearly bickering amongst themselves even with the audio turned off on the video feed. They could have been Elisa Moon’s employers, Alisha thought wryly, had Elisa really existed.

  She turned her wrist up, glancing at her watch. Several minutes after six: anyone who wanted to be taken seriously in the bidding had arrived by now. She stood, pulling her shoulders back in a grounding tree pose, and drew in a few deep breaths. It seemed less necessary than she thought it should be: she already felt calmer and more uninvolved than she was accustomed to being.

  That’s good, Alisha, she told herself without believing it. A glance in the mirror said her makeup was professional, her hair well-kept. The suit jacket and slacks she wore were too bulky, with Boyer’s gift—the flack jacket—worn beneath them, but she wasn’t willing to forego the protection in order for a better fit. The shoes she stepped into were flats, vanity and an extra inch or two of height giving way to practicality. Her gun was tucked into her waistband already, and she wasn’t fool enough to carry the drone schematics on her. That would leave her vulnerable, and with the growing number of bidders, the auction already had the possibility of turning into a blood bath, should anything go wrong.

  Nothing would, she told herself again. She turned away from her video monitor, then glanced back again at a motion on the screen.

  CIA Director Richard Boyer entered the safe house under the camera’s watchful guard. Alisha’s hands grew cold despite her breathing exercises.

  Nothing would go wrong, she corrected herself. But everything might.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” There was only one woman present besides herself; the honorific applied regardless. “Some of you may have heard that the United States government recently acquired new military technology in the form of artificially intelligent combat robots.” Alisha handed out folders as she spoke, satellite pictures of the Attengee at the top of the materials inside them. Beneath that were a few pages of the drone schematics, and several of the software code printed out. It was an almost embarrassingly low-tech way to provide her buyers with the data they’d need to make a decision, but while the raw wires of the safe house still conducted electricity, Alisha had neither the time nor desire to rig a computer for her presentation.

  “You’re CIA,” one of the Mafia trio said. He was a big man, no real tapering from shoulder to waist. His English was tinged with a Russian accent, and his voice unexpectedly good-natured. Alisha turned a thin smile on him.

  “I’ve given it up in favor of being rich.” The idea sounded unbelievably appealing, and got a snort of laughter out of the speaker. Brandon, standing behind him, looked increasingly sullen. Alisha felt as if she was standing in the middle of a powder keg. “I don’t have a computer with the processing power to prove to you what I’m selling,” she admitted freely. The shortest man of the Middle Eastern contingent sneered and took a step back.

  “You expect us to make
a purchase in blind faith? You’re an amateur and you insult us.”

  Alisha lifted her hands, slow movement of acquiescence. “No. My proposal would be to accompany the winning bidder to a supercomputer of his or her own choice in order for the software to be loaded and proven. A Cray would probably be sufficient.” She watched Brandon’s lips thin in irritation and knew she’d guessed correctly. “For combat purposes the software needs to be run on a computer with quantum processing power. Nothing else is both small and powerful enough. But a Cray’s processing capabilities will at least prove to the buyer that the software can respond creatively in a real-time fashion to any military situation presented to it.”

  “We have one of those already,” the Mafia speaker said dryly. “We call him Deep Blue, and he plays chess.”

  “And sometimes it even wins,” Brandon muttered. Alisha stepped forward, raising her voice sharply as the trio as a whole rumbled dangerously and began turning toward Brandon.

  “Gentlemen! Please. This is not a time for petty political sniping. If you can’t behave yourself, sir, I’m quite certain some of these gentlemen would be glad to remove you on my behalf.” She stared Brandon down, until he thrust out his jaw and turned his head to the side, gesture of submission. Alisha nodded slightly and took a step back again. “As much detail as I have available is in the folders you’ve been given, ladies and gentlemen. Take a few minutes to look it over, and then, if my terms are acceptable, we’ll begin the bidding.”

  “Ten million,” Brandon said without hesitation. Alisha wondered if it was the amount he had available to him from his personal accounts; it was almost impossible that he was bidding on behalf of the Sicarii.

  “Twenty.” Greg swept his own folder closed and watched Alisha, not Brandon. His expression was inscrutable; not even she could tell if he believed that she’d sold out. Both the Asian and the Mafia contingents glanced back and forth between the two early bidders, then at Alisha. The short Middle Eastern man swore in Arabic and turned on his heel, stalking out of the safe house. The men with him followed silently.

  “You have your believers and your skeptics,” the Mafia speaker said to Alisha, voice still pleasant. “Did you plant them?”

  “I’d have had them start the bidding higher if I had,” Alisha muttered. She wished she had a name for the big Russian, but couldn’t so much as think of one to assign him. Russian names didn’t tend to connote good cheer, and a dour Dmitri or Ivan seemed inappropriate, even for her own convenience. The big man chuckled and nodded, making caution creep down Alisha’s spine. There was too much uncontrolled in the room, and she didn’t like it.

  At least she knew why Boyer hadn’t answered her calls in the last few hours. She wished he hadn’t come, though a throb at the back of her neck reminded her that she’d set the bait for him, and he’d only taken it. Rafe, all but hidden in a corner, watched first Alisha, then Boyer, with avid interest, and turned his wrist over to ostentatiously examine his watch when Alisha caught his glance. Three hours, fifty-two minutes, she thought. She didn’t need the reminder.

  “You.” The Mafia speaker nodded to Brandon. “Why do you believe?”

  “Because he’s the one she stole the software from,” Rafe said lightly. Everyone, including Brandon, turned to stare at the Englishman, who shrugged his thin shoulders.

  Alisha felt the tenor in the air change, the three Mafia gentlemen exchanging glances. They didn’t need to speak for her to guess what they thought: why bother bidding, if they could simply take the creator away with them? “You are a bidder like the rest of us,” the Mafia speaker said cautiously. “Why should I believe you any more than I believe her?”

  Rafe shook his head. “I have no intention of bidding.”

  “Really. Then why are you here?”

  “To take back that which we’ve already paid for.”

  Alisha thought, oh hell, and flung herself at the Russian.

  Chapter 29

  She managed to move before Rafe did, driven by instinct and suspicion rather than concrete knowledge. She hit the jovial Russian in the back of the knees, bringing him down with an outraged shout that was lost beneath the whine of weapons fire and the roar of a wall exploding inward. Alisha somersaulted over his back, coming out of the roll to lunge at Rafe, an instant too late. He dodged to the side and she turned with him, heat sizzling by her cheek as a laser bolt burned close enough to singe her hair. Too close.

  Only one, she heard herself praying, and wasn’t certain if she spoke the words aloud or not. She could feel the play of every muscle in her neck as she continued to turn, toward the source of weapons firing and roiling dust from the demolished wall. Let there be only one.

  She twitched her head to the side again, eyes closed this time against the brilliance of laser fire. Only one. Only one that she saw, she corrected herself, the part of her that was a trained warrior too cautious to trust only what her eyes could see. A single Attengee drone, gleaming silver amidst the rubble it had created. When had Rafe brought it in? Maybe in the minutes she’d been distracted by Reichart. Maybe only after all the players were in place within the safe house. It hardly mattered.

  Gunfire spattered, not her own. Alisha yelled a useless warning, the sound hollow beneath the hiss and spit of laser fire. The Attengee swept a circle, firing continuously. One of the Russian Mafia men dropped, cut in half, the wounds cauterized even as they were made. The scent of burning linen and flesh mixed with dust in the air. Alisha drew her gun from the small of her back and knelt on top of the man she’d knocked to the floor, shoving the weapon against the back of his head. “Stay,” she growled, “the fuck down.”

  She looked up again to chaos. The drone stepped farther into the room, feet clanking against the ruined floor, smoke billowing behind it. Wires in the walls spat sparks, as if the drone was encouraging them to life. She could hear voices raised behind her: the Asian contingent, shrieking in fury and fear as they scrambled for the door. The third Russian, bellowing rage at his compatriot’s death. None of the Americans. Alisha didn’t dare look to see if they’d already fallen. She would be the drone’s primary target; she was the one with the software. The others, assuming they chose not to be fools, might survive.

  She came to her feet, feeling the sudden absurd wish to be carrying six-shooters, so she might draw them crosswise and go out in a blaze of idiotic glory. Instead she fired one shot, low, aiming for the drone’s feet, as she had in Kazakhstan. It skittered to the side with startling grace, blasting back at her even as she flung herself to the side and rolled across the floor.

  She came to a stop at Brandon’s feet, exchanging one frantic, furious glance with him. “How do I stop it?” She could barely hear herself over the cacophony in the room, pieces of subflooring breaking away, the walls creaking alarmingly as the third Russian fired again. The drone whipped its attention away from Alisha, blasting at the Russian with a volley of blasts that lit the walls beyond him on fire when he fell.

  “You can’t.” Brandon’s voice was peculiarly calm in the roaring firefight. “We’re dead.”

  “Wrong answer.” Alisha slammed her hand, wrapped around her gun butt, into Brandon’s crotch. He went white and doubled, and she cracked the revolver butt against his temple. He collapsed, Alisha rolling out from under him just before he crashed on top of her.

  “Alisha?” Greg asked incredulously. Alisha looked up from the crouch she’d rolled into and brought her gun up again.

  “Don’t ask. And get out of the way.” She could hear every action in the room as if it were carried on thin wires implanted under her skin, making her itch and tingle. Greg started to protest and she stood in one easy motion, her gun pressed between his eyes. Confusion and injury washed over his face and he stepped back, hands lifted. “Get down, or I swear to fucking God, I’ll shoot you right fucking now.” Alisha, Alisha, Alisha, she thought. Your language has gone to hell. Shame on you.

  She saw the warning in Greg’s eyes the instant before he droppe
d to the floor, and collapsed with him, rolling onto her back to shoot uselessly at the drone. Bullets spanged off the silver plating, more than just hers: Greg was firing, too. Score one for the good guys, Alisha hoped. She twitched to the side, angling her next shot beneath the laser arm that protruded from the drone’s smooth surface. A satisfying clang accompanied a brief shower of sparks. It wasn’t quite indestructible. Not quite undefeatable. Laser fire shattered so near to her shoulder she lost feeling for a moment, the concussion enough to numb her. The drone whirred and then twisted to fire at her with the other laser. A surge of doomed triumph slammed through Alisha’s belly: she’d knocked out one of its weapons. It was going to kill her anyway, but she’d damaged it.

  Hands as big as meat hooks clamped on her shoulders and hauled her to her feet in one smooth motion, laser fire shooting between her legs to set the floor on fire. Alisha shot one astonished look over her shoulder to find the speaker for the Russians grinning down at her with an enthusiasm that bordered on violence. “I see you were telling the truth!” he bellowed. “Seventy million Euros!”

  A hundred million dollars. Fuck this jazz, Alisha found herself thinking. I could walk out of here rich. If she walked out of there at all. “I hear a hundred million from the gentleman in the Armani suit,” she yelled to the room at large. “Anybody wanna top that? Going once!” It was possible no one was left alive to answer. Alisha didn’t wait for one, diving forward between the drone’s legs to grab the closest and pull it with her, hauling with all her strength. The drone toppled with a gratifying smash, firing erratically at the ceiling and walls as it went. Alisha heard a cry of pain, but didn’t stop to see who’d made it. Electrical sparks fell from the walls, making a brief fireworks display before fading out. There was wet on the floor, a ruptured pipe spraying the already swollen floorboards with more water.