by Rachel Caine
"So we are trading big favors, I see. Very, very big."
"I need it fast."
"In terms of trading, we are in the blue chips, yes? What could you possibly do for me later that would equal this?"
"I don't know. And the point is, neither do you, until you need it But you have my word, and you know what it's worth. It's why you call me dorogaya. You can take it to the bank."
"Hmmmm." He drew it out into a musical thread. She could hear the smile. "Very well. I can secure one for you. It will not be very large and it will not be very portable. There will be only one charge in its circuits, so you must fire it exactly where you want it. The radius is less than a thousand feet. You understand?"
"I do."
"Where shall I have it delivered?" Manny would kill her if she had former Soviet agents drop-shipping weapons to his doorstep. Worse, he would quit. "My apartment. I'll pick it up later."
"You're sure you want such a trail?"
"I trust you can avoid leaving one."
"Always. You will have it tomorrow." He hung up without a goodbye. I'm going to regret that, she thought. It wasn't even a question.
Chapter Sixteen
“This," McCarthy said as they sat around the worktable four hours later, eating frozen dinners and staring at computer-printed floor plans, "is a really stupid idea, Jazz. I mean, you've had some stupid ideas before, and God bless you, you've pulled them off, but I don't know about this one. If these guys are as all-knowing as you say—"
"They're not all-knowing," Simms said.
"But you don't know what they do know, or when, right?"
Simms shrugged. "Eidolon has more than twenty psychics feeding them predictions. Some of those may sense what you're about to do. But I think they'd likely discount this because it is so stupidly confrontational."
"Hey!" Jazz cried.
Lucia patted her on the shoulder. "Stupid is good. Clever would get us killed."
McCarthy smiled, briefly. "Not you, apparently."
"Shut up."
He cocked an eyebrow. "You and Borden, wanting a piece of me today. What's that about?"
"I have better reasons."
The color drained out of his face when she said that, and she wished she hadn't; it wasn't like her to rub it in. The shock of those obscene photographs was still vivid. She'd taken them to Manny's shredder and reduced them to a pile of thin crosscut strips, then run them through an acid wash to destroy any chance of reconstruction. Manny's idea, when he'd finally rejoined them, although he hadn't asked what was on the photos. It seemed likely her expression had told him enough.
McCarthy was mutely waiting.
"Work first." She had more than enough to think about. She wondered if she dared ask Manny to run a pregnancy test for her, or if she wanted to wait until later, until this was over and she was free to walk into a store and have nothing but a normal woman's anxieties. "I'm sorry. Cheap shot."
"It's not like I don't deserve it."
"Guys, wallow in whatever you're wallowing in later," Jazz snapped. "Focus, already. This is serious."
Lucia sucked in a deep breath. "We go in through the front door, take the device to the server room and position it. Meanwhile, Manny's guy—" Manny knew guys who could do just about anything " — hacks into the off-site data storage facility and arranges for a system crash there. They may have redundant backup systems—we have to watch out for that. Manny's guy will be monitoring and will kill any off-site systems they try to bring online. Meanwhile, we set off the EMP in their server room. In and out, fast, in the general confusion."
"You're going to get yourselves killed," Borden said. He was sitting at the far end of the table, with his hands handcuffed in front now, not behind. "Jazz, don't do this. You have no idea what you're getting into, you don't. Really."
"You have no idea what we're getting into, either, Borden," Lucia said without looking up. "We've tried it your way. It hasn't worked. Time for a new approach."
He was rubbing his head furiously now, handcuffs clinking together. "Jazz, I'm begging you. Please."
Jazz said, "Manny, you're going to keep him secured, right?"
"Absolutely," he agreed. He sounded depressed. "But I don't like it. I don't like any of this."
"You think I do?" she snapped back, and covered her eyes with her hands, pressing. "I'm sorry. Tired. I want this over, dammit."
"And I want everybody out of my house," Manny said. "So yeah, I'll watch him. I'll do what you need me to do. But when this is over, everybody gets out. And you pay me for my time. And we go back to the way things were."
"Fine," Lucia said. Jazz started to protest, but Lucia overrode her. "Fine. I have no objection to that. Jazz, you'll be okay here for a while? I need to go home."
Jazz immediately looked alarmed. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Everything. "I just need a shower and clean clothes and a nap. Plus, the item's being delivered to me there. I'll bring it here once it arrives."
"I don't like you going out," she replied.
"She's perfectly safe," Simms said.
"See?" Lucia pushed back from the table and had to brace herself. She felt light-headed from too much caffeine, not nearly enough rest. God only knew how much abuse her body had taken in the past few weeks, but it was starting to make its displeasure with the situation very clear. "A nap is all I need."
"Take it here," Jazz said. "We have an unbelievable bathroom, too. Seven showerheads. Marble tiles. Whirlpool." It sounded, literally, like heaven, but she needed something that she couldn't get here. Silence. Peace. Solitude.
She shook her head. "I'll go," she said. "Everybody else stays." Jazz opened her mouth. "I mean it, damn you. Follow orders, for once in your life." McCarthy snorted. "Manny, can I—"
He tossed her the keys to the Hummer before she'd even gotten the words out. She nodded in gratitude.
"Gas it up," he called after her. "And wash it while you're at it!"
Because, of course, saving the world wasn't work enough.
She was at the steel door when she felt someone behind her, and turned to see McCarthy. He leaned a hand on the metal, another on the wall, boxing her in. "You really going?" he asked. "Yes. I really am."
He lowered his voice. "You want to take a test?" She nodded mutely. "Can I come with you?"
"It isn't safe. You heard Simms."
"Sweetheart, I've been in danger my whole life. I survived some nights in Ellsworth that you wouldn't believe. I think I can survive a day in your company." He was slowly leaning closer, as if her gravity was pulling him in. "Let me come with you. Please."
She looked over his shoulder. Jazz was studying floor plans and ignoring Borden, and he was staring at her with naked suffering on his face.
"Let me." Ben's breath was warm against her face, his voice an intimate whisper in her ear. He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. "You told me to make a choice based on what I want, not what you want. Well, this is it."
She turned away, opened the door and went down the stairs. She looked back. He was standing at the top, watching her, holding the door open.
"Coming?" she asked.
The door boomed shut behind him as he ran down the steps toward her.
It seemed oddly normal, shopping at the drugstore— picking up a few odds and ends she knew she was running short of. McCarthy silently followed her as she strolled the aisles, and she finally turned to the shelves filled with feminine products.
Pregnancy tests were at the top. She stared at the choices blindly for a moment, then reached up and took one at random. It looked simple enough. As she was reading the back, she said, "This could all be a lie, you know."
"Yeah. And if it isn't, it probably didn't even work, what they were—doing to you. It doesn't, right? Not all the time"
She added the test to her basket and went to the checkout counter. The clerk didn't make any comments, and neither did she. She wondered idly which was more uncomfortable, buying intimate things l
ike this or seeing a steady progression of them all day. Teenage boys with boxes of condoms. Hell, middle-aged matrons with boxes of condoms. Pregnancy tests.
The clerk met her eyes briefly and smiled. "Good luck." She led the way back to the vehicle, climbed in and piloted the thing to her apartment.
The apartment was undisturbed. The upgraded security monitors—Jazz's doing—showed no intrusions, but then, if Gregory decided to pay another visit, they probably wouldn't. He'd been the one to come and get her; she knew it beyond any doubt. That first night, when she'd woken on the couch and found him in the apartment, had been his dry run, to test the system. He'd almost warned her then, she realized. Almost.
She locked the door and reset the alarms, and exchanged a silent look with McCarthy.
"You do what you need to do," he said, and went into the kitchen. He pulled a beer from the fridge. "I'll be here."
She went into the bathroom with the box, took off her clothes and grimaced at the state of her hair and general hygiene. She stepped into the shower and let herself fall into a kind of trance, lulled by the warm water, the floral scents of the shampoo and soaps.
Maybe it isn't true. Maybe none of this is true.
She finished and stepped out of the shower, damp and glowing, and decisively ripped open the package to find the test kit.
Ten minutes later, she stared at the single blue line on the strip.
Oh, my God.
She found herself sliding down against the tiled wall, staring at the plastic holder and the blue line. Such a simple thing, to make so many terrible things real.
She dumped it into the trash can, then followed it with her clothes, for no better reason than she never wanted to wear them again, or see them again. She washed her hands with vicious thoroughness.
She wrapped herself in her soft fleece robe, damp hair straggling down her back, and opened the bathroom door.
McCarthy stood there, holding out two choices—beer and soft drink.
She took the soft drink.
He let out his breath in a long, low sigh and turned away. She thought he was all right for a second, and then he let out a harsh yell, punched the wall with his right hand, then leaned his forehead against the plaster.
"Feel better?" she asked neutrally. She sipped the cola, grateful for the sweetness, grateful for something that felt normal in this increasingly alien world.
"My hand hurts," he said. "Define better."
"Why did you want to be here?"
"Why did you want me to be here?"
"Turn around," she said.
He did, setting his beer down on the table untouched. She put her drink down as well, and crossed the small distance between them. Neither of them reached out.
"So how does it feel," she asked, "knowing you're going to be a father?"
He laughed. It was a wild kind of laugh, on the edge of fury, and she stopped it cold by putting her hands on his shoulders, then cupping his face. He needed a shave. His beard scraped warm across her palms.
"They took away our choices," she said. "But only for a moment, Ben. Only for a moment. Because it would have come to this, sooner or later, and you know it."
She let go of him, and took hold of the sash that held her robe closed. She untied it with slow, deliberate motions and let the fabric move away, revealing the gap between her breasts, then the inner slopes.
His breath caught, and he reached out to slowly slide the robe across her shoulders, fingers lightly skimming skin, and then down over her arms. She let the robe fall to the floor.
She led him to the bed and put her hands on his shoulders. "Don't move." She'd never seen him this way before, so quiet and yet so tense. It wasn't passivity, it was intensity waiting to break free, and it made her breath grow short, her cheeks burn, her fingers shake. The buttons on his shirt surrendered, and underneath that his chest was defined, not muscular, and covered by a mat of graying dark hair. She ran her fingers possessively through its coarse texture, then down to hook into the waistband of his blue jeans.
He stopped breathing and closed his eyes. Fighting to stay still.
She popped the button loose, and ran her fingernail slowly down the zipper. Teasing. Felt him shudder… He had more control than she could imagine. She remembered him turning away from her, knowing there would be a price for his refusal. Maybe a fatal one.
He'd never expected that they'd abduct her and force a medical rape on her. She had to believe that.
She took hold of the zipper tab and dragged it down, one slow click at a time. He let out his breath in a rushing moan as she put her palms flat on his hips, then pulled on the loosened jeans, sending them tumbling in a heap over his feet.
Well, that answered the questions she'd briefly entertained about his preferences in underwear…not that it mattered now. The briefs followed the pants to the floor. She ran her hands slowly from his collarbone across his chest, down the fluttering muscles of his stomach.
Down.
"Ben," she whispered. "You can move now."
He opened his eyes and she burned in the fire of them, and then that intensity was loose. His mouth was everywhere, finding every untouched place to draw a gasp or a moan, those clever fingers knowing exactly where to press, how to move.
The things he was saying flowed through her, thick and sweet as honey, words shaped on skin. He drove her mad with words, and then they left the hobbles of language behind, and it was only intensity, and passion, and love spoken in flesh.
In the moment of white-hot transcendence she felt herself embrace that spark of life buried deep inside, and wrap the whirlwind around it.
Giving it not just life, but purpose.
Ben collapsed against her, gasping for air, and she ran her hands through his graying curls.
"That," he finally managed to growl, "was not what I expected."
"Not as good?"
"Idiot," he murmured, and put his head back down.
She laughed. After a few seconds, so did he, deep rumbles from his stomach, subsonic waves through her skin.
If Simms could see us now, she thought, and was momentarily chilled by the idea that, just perhaps, he could.
And so could Eidolon.
There was no way to understand right and wrong anymore. There was only good, and she had to seek it.
She turned toward McCarthy's warmth, his love, his sense of safety.
Toward the good.
She woke up fast to a loud buzzing sound, and catapulted out of bed naked, reaching for her gun, before she realized two things. One, the sound was the intercom calling for attention. Two, Ben McCarthy had rolled out of bed on the opposite side, and he had a gun in his hand as well.
They shared rueful smiles, and she kept the weapon in her hand on the way to the keypad, to press the call button. "Yes?"
"Sorry to buzz you so early, Ms. Garza, but there was a special delivery for you. The guy said to tell you that it's a package from back East. That make any sense? I can't read the label."
"No, that's fine, I'm expecting it. I'll be down in a minute, thanks." She turned back to find McCarthy pulling on his briefs, then his jeans. She walked to him without hesitation and stepped into the circle of his arms, her bare skin pressed against his from the waist up. The luxury of it nearly overwhelmed her. His left hand moved lightly up the curve of her arm, and in the morning light she saw a fine lacework of lines around his eyes when he smiled at her. They deepened when she stroked her fingers through the warm mat of hair on his chest.
"No regrets?" he asked her.
"Why in God's name would I have regrets?"
He traced the line of her cheekbone with his thumb. "I'm old, you know."
“Older," she acknowledged. "Didn't slow you down."
"Oh, it did," he said, and dropped a slow, warm Mss on the skin of her collarbone. "But that has compensations. Lets me concentrate on getting the most out of every… single…moment."
"I noticed." When had her voice taken on that part
icular low purr? You can't be distracted like this, some cold part of her brain said. You're drunk on him, Sober up. There are things to do.
She couldn't stop touching him.
His lips moved across her throat, up to the column of her neck.
"I have to…get…the package," she murmured.
"Yes, you do."
"Things to do."
"Important things."
Her fingers curled in the waistband of his pants.
"I just got those on," he murmured against her skin. His hands were wandering, too, down her back, down the smooth curve of her hips. Inward.
"Stop." She tugged at his pants, pulling him harder against her when he tried to move back for better access. "I have to go downstairs."
"Like that? They'll be thrilled."
"Dressed. I have to get dressed." She finally found some strength to put behind that statement. "Ben, no. I have to do this."
He stopped playing, and the smile slowly died. "Do you?" He searched her face intently. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure that I can't live like this. And neither can you, or Jazz, or for that matter, Simms and Borden. If Simms is right, I could be the only one left standing if I don't act. So yes. I'm sure." She read the fear in him. "I'll be all right."
"Simms sold out about twenty of his friends, so far as I could tell. Forgive me for not trusting him with your life."
She stopped him with a kiss, a long one. "I have to go."
She dressed quickly, just underwear, jeans and T-shirt, feet in a pair of flat shoes. Her hair still looked loose and tumbled, and she could smell McCarthy all over her skin.
She reset the alarm on the way out—native paranoia— and took the stairs to stretch the soreness out of her leg muscles. Marsh glanced up as she came out the fire door, took in the way she looked, and wisely said nothing beyond a polite, "Good morning, Ms. Garza." She signed the clipboard and picked up the package. It was, as Gregory had predicted, heavy; not something one could slip easily into a purse. She'd need a duffel bag, or a backpack.
