The Cardinal Rule

by C. E. Murphy

  "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. A fire alarm went off just before I got 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, its cheap bulb casting dim 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 as Alisha 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 to study the soft wrappings of white gauze, so light it would have tickled if every heartbeat didn't send a pulse of pain through her soles. The giddiness of survival prompted her to wiggle her toes. Nausea rushed her and she clutched the edge of the bed, trying not to sway with pain, and carefully put her feet down again. "Thanks. 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 ended 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 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.

  #

  As soon as he was gone, Alisha reached for the bud in her ear, the 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, every heartbeat sounding too far apart from the next, as she waited 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, finally allowing exhaustion to settle into her bones. She'd believed Reichart, but she hadn't believed him. Trust but verify.

  "Christ, Cardinal, what happened? I told you to abort, and then there was a fire plume big enough to register on satellite!"

  A peculiar memory cut through Alisha's exhaustion, one 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. Not more than she could handle, but more than she intended to.

  "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. "Look, 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 hadn't heard him come in, but didn't startle, only turned her head toward him without speaking. He sat down on the edge of the bed, his weight shifting her back. "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. "A
nd 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 had made her feel a little 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 had answered her questions. 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 pillowcases, which hadn't been the cleanest to begin with, and the bedclothes where she sat weren't much better.

  "I probably shouldn't get my feet wet." It sounded like a feeble excuse even to her, although she actually meant it.

  "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, but stopped herself.

  "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 did turn 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.

  "A what?"

  "A Tudor. Like Elizabeth the First."

  "How the hell should I know?" Reichart sounded so affronted that she laughed, leaning forward to turn the sink on and let the water run warm.

  "I thought that's what the Sicarii were. Descendants of royalty trying to get their place back in the world."

  Reichart gave an evocative snort. "What's that got to do with me?"

  "The records show you're descended from Henry Tudor. Henry the Eighth."

  The shower rod scraped as Reichart shoved the curtain open. Alisha felt his stare against her back and held herself still, refusing to turn around. "Seriously?"

  "Yeah." She shot a brief look over her shoulder, deliberately keeping her gaze high. "If you're not working for them, Reichart, who are you working for?"

  "Did you check your own name in these records?" Reichart demanded. "You're probably descended from Charlemagne, or something. Half of Europe says they are, anyway. Did Parker tell you this crap? Did you check his name?"

  "No," Alisha said, without specifying which question she answered. "You're staring, Frank."

  Reichart muttered, "I do that when there are naked women around," but the hoops scraped again as he tugged the curtain shut. "I told you, Leesh. I'm working for the Russians. Nobody more esoteric than that."

  "Why'd you lie to me about the Sicarii?"

  "How'd you know about Emma?"

  Alisha pressed her lips together, then shrugged her eyebrows, scrubbing sticky grime off her face and arms before she spoke. "I saw you in London a couple of years ago. I followed you. You and Emma and Mazie."

  "Christ. Alisha…"

  "Don't. It doesn't matter. Are you still with her?" Alisha pulled a hollow smile, shaking her head, but Reichart didn't ask the obvious: if it doesn't matter, why are you asking? Instead he only said, "No. Why didn't you say something?"

  Alisha bent to the task of washing, rinsing out the washcloth more than once before she brought herself to answer. "You looked happy."

  The shower shut off. Alisha straightened her spine defensively, but Reichart didn't pull the curtain open again. "You thought I shot you," he said quietly, "and you didn't have me arrested and brought in because I looked happy?"

  Alisha wrapped her towel around herself, still sitting very straight. "Yeah."

  Reichart said nothing for so long Alisha thought he might never speak again. The silence was a pressure, broken only by the burble of sink water. She could almost feel her own determined bubble of withheld explanations bumping against Reichart's, catching them together in an endless vortex of secrecy. No wonder it hadn't worked, she thought, admitting her own fault for the first time. Maybe people like them weren't supposed to be together.

  "The CIA, the FSB, MI-5 and 6, all of them, they're all governmental agencies. Whether or not you agree with them, their fundamental job is to hold to an ideal, and to help that ideal be perpetuated in the world at large." Reichart spoke so suddenly that Alisha turned, watching the blur of his shape through the shower curtain. He'd braced himself beneath the shower
head, arms stiff, head dropped between them. His nearer leg was cocked forward, making long clean lines of his body even through the plastic curtain.

  "The Sicarii have no ideals, Leesh. They're functioning from a Dark Ages mentality, might makes right. They believe God speaks to them and through them, and that any action they take is divinely favored. It permits them to act without conscience."

  "Jihad," Alisha said. "Kamikaze. Crusaders."

  "Exactly." Reichart lifted his head, staring at the shower wall. "Those kinds of people don't try to protect their assets. They just discard them when they outlive their usefulness. They're insane, Alisha, and they're dangerous. And that's why I lied to you. I didn't want you to get tangled up in anything they had a hand in."

  "You could have told me."

  Reichart barked a sarcastic laugh. "Sure," he said, and turned a grin on Alisha that she could see even through the curtain's blur. "Because that's in my nature." He reached for the curtain and Alisha turned around hastily, pointing a reluctant grin at the countertop.

  "So how do you know about them? The Sicarii Brotherhood."

  "Brotherhood." Alisha could all but hear Reichart's eyebrows rising. "Catchy. I like it. What the hell do you think I was investigating when I showed up at your boyfriend's camp? I'm decent," he added, which was just as well, because Alisha turned on him, offended. He'd wrapped his towel around his hips, attractively low, but Alisha's focus was on his face and the challenge in his gaze.

  "Boyfriend?"

  "You and Parker seemed to be hitting it off pretty good."

  "You've got to be kidding me." Alisha put a hand on the counter, setting her teeth in preparation for standing. "Jealousy doesn't look good on you, Reichart." A bare chest and an unfairly low towel, on the other hand….

  "Maybe not. Don't squirm." He lifted her into his arms before she put more than a fraction of her weight on her feet. Alisha didn't object as he carried her back to the bedroom, his skin warm against hers. The purpling bruises on his ribs were more visible now that he was clean. "What do you mean, you were there about the Sicarii?"