“He’s made that very clear, sir.”
“And you have no idea why this Boss wants the information revealed?”
“No.”
He leaned toward her. “It’s all right, Nix. You can confide in me.”
It was far more difficult to lie to Shepherd’s face than Phoenix had imagined. Almost as hard as when she’d lied to Chan.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“I know you are. But what doesn’t make sense to me is why any Boss would want Patterson ruined. The people in the Fringe hate the government, and with good reason. Patterson would maintain the status quo. But if I win and deportation ends, they’ll have nothing more to fear. We’ll integrate them back into society. The Bosses will find it much more difficult to operate so profitably after that.”
“That would be the ideal result, sir.”
“On the other hand, Patterson may gain something out of this, even if his reputation is put on trial. Many citizens probably agree with Patterson’s former actions as commissioner, and he may look better to them because of his willingness to share the files to save his son.” He leaned back again. “In any case, this sets a very bad precedent. If any Boss thinks he can kidnap an influential man’s loved ones and use threats to expose Enclave secrets...this is obviously something we can’t have repeated.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Then any future attempts will have to be strongly discouraged. And this business of demanding a week...my security is having fits over it.” He searched Phoenix’s eyes. “Did this Boss of yours think it would take so long to access Patterson’s old files?”
“He didn’t say, Your Honor.”
“But I’ve been told you’ve established some kind of rapport with him.”
“That’s why I think I can get more out of him.”
“At the risk of my life?”
“If I suspected you were at immediate risk, sir...”
“I was told it was necessary to instigate these false sweeps in the Fringe to allow you to find information that might lead to the assassin. But we’ve obviously given the Fringers a little too much leeway by leaving them alone to plot. Surely you can find a way to bring this Sammael in before the meeting. I’ll see that you get all the help you need.”
“Sir...” Phoenix shifted, wondering how she would get out of this one. “Aegis believes it would be unwise to move too quickly.”
“Then my advisers may have to take a little more time to explain the situation to Aegis. You understand, don’t you, Nix?”
“And if Matthew Patterson suffers because of this?” Phoenix got to her feet, wondering what would happen if she spat on his nice, clean suit. “I have an appointment with the director. If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Mayor...”
“Wait.” Shepherd waved his hand, and with obvious reluctance his guards left him and Phoenix alone. Suddenly Aaron was very close, gazing into her eyes, his own bright blue and shining with passion she hadn’t anticipated.
“We were good together, weren’t we?” he asked. “We always understood each other.”
“For a while,” Phoenix said, turning her face aside. He caught her chin in his hand and forced her to look back at him.
“It took me a few years,” he said with a wry twist of his lips, “but I finally realized what a mistake I’d made. I see it more clearly now than I ever have before.” He stroked her cheek with his fingertips. “Don’t you know, Nix? I’d never let any harm come to you. I still love you.”
His words were like Nightsider fangs sinking into her throat, not merely to feed but to kill in the ugliest possible way. They ripped at her flesh and tore at her heart. The heart he had broken.
Phoenix jerked away. “I don’t believe you. You want something else from me.”
He sighed. “Then let me be completely honest, Nix. You do realize that Patterson would trade my life for his son’s in a heartbeat. It would be very convenient for him if I were to meet with an...accident.”
“You think he could be working with the Opiri?” she asked, startled by the idea. “Why would they help him?”
“To keep the goods—our human convicts—flowing,” Shepherd said. “It has always seemed strange that these rumors of assassination coincide so closely with the approach of the election.”
Because it wasn’t a coincidence, Phoenix thought. But the idea that Patterson was involved was ludicrous. Drakon would never work with the man responsible for the death of his family.
“I need you to help me, Phoenix,” Shepherd said, cutting across her thoughts. “Whatever he says to Aegis, Patterson will be glad to give the assassin a chance to kill me, even if his son pays the price.” Aaron tapped his heel against the carpet in a nervous, staccato beat. “My security won’t let me go anywhere but the Capitol building or Aegis. I sleep in the suite next to my office. I don’t want to sit around waiting for someone to take a pot-shot at me, high security or not.”
“And what would you like me to do about that, sir?” Phoenix asked, disgusted by the self-pity in his voice.
“Work for me, Nix. Not for Aegis, not for the committee. For me. Report anything suspicious, no matter how trivial, directly to this office. My Chief of Security will send you to me any time you need me, at any hour.”
Immediately, Phoenix understood the very real danger of refusing. Aaron could have her completely removed from the mission if she stood against him. The mayor didn’t trust anyone—not Aegis, not the Bureau, not the Senate.
And yet he trusted her. That was how sure he was of her loyalty, of her undying love, no matter what she’d said to him.
“I understand, Your Honor,” she said, backing toward the door.
“Then you agree?”
“I promise to do my best.”
“Of course.” He rose. “And I know, Agent Stryker, that you will do whatever is necessary to protect our city from enemies within or without. Take great care.” He offered his hand, and she took it as briefly as possible. “I hope to have another, perhaps more intimate discussion with you as soon as your work is complete.” He spoke into his wristcom. “Behr, will you escort Agent Stryker to her destination?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Phoenix said. “I’m very familiar with this building.”
She met Behr as she was leaving the room, and he automatically stepped aside to let her pass. She strode through the door and closed it behind her, deliberately repressing her deep sense of betrayal.
Of one thing she was certain: Shepherd had something more up his sleeve than wanting his own private Aegis operative, who happened to be standing in the thick of a very volatile situation.
But she couldn’t report this to anyone. Not until it was all clear to her.
Shaking her head, she decided to skip the mess hall and continued to the debriefing room. Chan was already there to meet her. Once Phoenix was inside, Chan spoke to four security personnel outside and made certain all the doors were locked.
“Here are the files,” the director said, slapping a locked case of hard copies down on the table between them. “And some new intelligence you’ll need when you go back in.” Her expression soured, as if she’d tasted something intolerably bitter. “I only just learned myself. There’s another Aegis operative deeply embedded in the Fringe, working for one of the Bosses. Even I don’t have the clearance to access the details of the operation, but he or she was sent in to monitor Fringe activity long before the assassin showed up. Word’s been sent to them through some channel unavailable to me, ordering them to assist you in any way possible without blowing their cover. It’ll be up to them whether to risk contact. Be on the lookout.”
“I will, ma’am,” Phoenix said, working past her shock at the new information. One image came immediately to mind.
Brita. The trusted lieutenant of on
e of the most powerful Bosses in the Fringe, so deep undercover that she hadn’t been permitted to tell Phoenix who she was.
After they’d first confronted each other at the Hold, Phoenix had assumed that Brita knew what and who Sammael was, and vice versa. That the two were working together to facilitate the assassination.
Now she had reason to believe that everything Brita had told her had been in Aegis’s service. If Brita were the undercover agent and was everything Chan claimed, had she always known Sammael was the assassin? Had she deliberately kept that information from Phoenix, either because she hadn’t recognized her as a fellow operative or because she didn’t want any interference?
Suddenly Phoenix remembered what had happened when she’d tried to take Matthew Patterson to the Enforcers, after she’d escaped from Drakon and the Scrappers. Brita had shown up out of nowhere and helped rescue Matthew just as The Preacher’s men had arrived. Leaving Phoenix to fight those men by herself.
Maybe Brita, surely knowing who Matthew was, had realized she had to protect him from the Boss’s men and felt more capable of doing it than Phoenix. But why had she appeared at exactly the right time? And why hadn’t she taken Matthew back to the Enforcers, or tried to get him out since then? Because it would have blown her cover at a crucial moment?
It all seemed too perfect. Maybe she wasn’t what Chan claimed. Maybe Phoenix had been right all along. Had Brita been playing such a deep game that even Aegis couldn’t detect her real motives?
No matter what Chan had said, Phoenix knew she could never trust Brita. Not until she was certain where the woman’s loyalties lay.
That would be the most dangerous game of all. And she was the only one who could play it.
* * *
Phoenix had been ready for The Preacher’s men when she returned to the Fringe. She’d been ready for any other Boss who might have heard about her, either from someone in Drakon’s crew or by some other method of communication that made secrets so hard to keep in the Fringe.
She was even ready for the possibility that one of Drakon’s fellow Opir spies might be watching for her, aware of “Sammael’s” recent actions and intending to defy his decision to negotiate with the enemy.
Even so, she wasn’t prepared when Brita stepped from behind an abandoned office building with three of Drakon’s crew, including Repo.
Immediately Phoenix was on her guard, but there was no indication that Brita was anything but what she’d always seemed to be, no sign of any special recognition or acknowledgment on the lieutenant’s face, no change in her vaguely hostile greeting.
But then again there wouldn’t be. Not openly.
“Do you have the files?” Brita asked.
“Yes,” Phoenix said, touching the bulge under her jacket.
“Then let’s get undercover. I don’t like standing out here, even in daylight.”
They jogged back into the office building, where the three crew members crouched against the wall and shared a contraband cigarette.
“What’s going on?” Phoenix whispered, her neck prickling as if they were being observed by someone she couldn’t hear or smell or see. “I thought you were disbanding the crew for safety and moving the Hold. Why are you all together? Where’s Sammael?”
“He can’t meet you as planned. The Preacher has men watching your rendezvous, so Sammael asked me to take you to the new location.”
“Why are The Preacher’s men watching?” Phoenix asked, observing Brita’s face carefully. “Hoping for revenge?”
“If something else is going on, we won’t have time to figure it out now.”
“It couldn’t have anything to do with your meeting with his rep?” Phoenix said, too softly for the humans to hear.
Brita lifted one eyebrow a fraction of an inch, a signal Aegis operatives used only when they were in close proximity. “It’s complicated. Look, we don’t have any time to waste.”
Unless Brita had learned the signal from a captured agent, she had to be Aegis’s operative. Phoenix glanced to the west, where the sun was sinking toward the Pacific. Brita’s night vision, like Phoenix’s, would enable them to move freely in darkness. Not so the humans with them.
“Why did you bring them?” she asked, nodding toward the crew members.
“They’ll fall back and keep an eye out behind us,” Brita said. “If anyone follows us, they’ll lead them away.”
“That’s quite a risk.”
“They’re willing to take it, for the Boss.”
The explanation felt wrong somehow, but Phoenix had no way of knowing if that feeling was because Brita really wasn’t the deep-cover agent, or that she had other motives in mind.
There was only one way to find out.
“Lead on,” she said.
Brita nodded, signaled to the men and moved as any Fringer did, darting from cover to cover and gradually working her way south. After about a quarter of a mile she stopped again.
“He’s just around that corner, by the Wall,” Brita said. “I’ll leave you here. I have things I have to take care of for Sammael, and I may be gone a while.”
The small hairs on her neck standing erect in warning, Phoenix nodded and waited until Brita was out of sight. The sun was almost down, and Phoenix’s night vision was just kicking in as she made her way cautiously in the direction Brita had indicated.
But Brita hadn’t misled her. Drakon—dressed in heavy day clothing and standing among the long shadows—was in conference with a small group of humans, looking much as he had the first time Brita had taken Phoenix to witness her Boss performing one of his “good deeds.”
Now that she knew him so well, Phoenix had no reason to doubt Drakon’s purpose. He spoke to each of the people in turn, shook the hands of the adults and helped them pass through a hole in the Wall—new or old, Phoenix couldn’t tell—as a couple of tough-looking Fringers kept watch. One of them spotted Phoenix just as dusk gave way to night.
He whistled sharply, and Drakon spun around as the last human disappeared through the passage. He smiled, his capped teeth catching some final reflection of the dying sun, and ran straight for her.
She met him halfway. They crashed together, breathless, Phoenix laughing, Drakon cupping her head between his hands and kissing her hair, her forehead, her lips.
“You wanna get a room?” asked the male observer. “There’re plenty around here to choose from.”
Chapter 17
Drawing back to search Phoenix’s eyes, Drakon waved them away. “Thank you, my friends. If you’re still willing to help with the next group—”
“Sure,” the woman said. “These’re our people. And we can always get out ourselves before the Enforcers come back.” She nodded to her companion, who helped her stack up the usual camouflage of boxes, crates, garbage, metal and other detritus in front of the hole. Then they melted into the darkness, leaving Phoenix and Drakon alone.
In seconds he had pulled her into the nearest building and had her up against a wall, urgently working at her zipper. Suddenly, they were both devoid of their pants and shoes, Drakon had lifted her against him with her thighs spread to either side of his hips and he was thrusting into her, hard and fast. It was as if he was trying to make her a part of himself.
Moaning with joy and excitement, Phoenix closed her eyes as Drakon had his very thorough way with her. She clawed at his back, heedless of the roughness of the wall, as she gripped him more tightly with her legs and gasped as he drove himself even more deeply inside her. She was dimly aware when he removed his caps over his teeth and tossed them aside, but every sensation of pleasure and ecstasy spun to its height as he pierced her neck with his incisors, taking her blood as he took the rest of her.
It wasn’t long before she was crying out, and he shuddered with his own release. He withdrew from her neck, and she
dropped her face into the hollow of his shoulder. He stayed inside her for some time, and then gradually eased her down to her feet.
She didn’t let him go. She kissed the hollow of his neck just above his collar, his chin, his jaw, his lips. He accepted her caresses, eyes closed, and simply held her.
A gust of cool wind blew through the broken door, and Phoenix laughed. “I’m cold,” she said. “I think I’d like to put my pants back on now.”
He chuckled, though the sound seemed strained to her, almost uneasy. She grabbed her pants from the floor and pulled them on while he did the same. He retrieved his caps, cleaning them with his sleeve, and replaced them. Once they’d put on their shoes, they both sat against the wall side by side, bodies touching. Drakon was very quiet.
“Didn’t you feel it?” Phoenix asked, trying to break through his strange mood.
“What, in particular?” he asked, flashing her a brief smile.
She relaxed and pulled the case containing the files from inside her jacket. “I can’t believe this wasn’t sticking into your chest the whole time.”
He glanced at the case almost as if it no longer mattered to him. “You were able to get them?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t have come back so soon if I hadn’t,” she said. “The plan is set, just as you wanted. Though I wish there was some other way to expose Patterson for what he is.”
“I know.” He sighed and took her hand, cradling it between his own. “Show me the files.”
“Is it safe here?” she asked, glancing toward the door.
“As safe as anywhere. I’ve got watchers, some of my crew, patrolling and keeping an eye on the entire area.”
“Brita had Repo and a couple of the other guys with her.”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Brita.”
His tone seemed completely neutral, Phoenix thought, and yet...
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