The Cardinal Rule

by C. E. Murphy

  "How efficient," Alisha said without a trace of the irritation she felt. A well-insulated cold suit could get past the cold; the alarms, she was certain, were silent, and she'd already counted dozens of security cameras covering every angle of the storage acreage. Pity she couldn't just drop several blocks of explosives around the building, but would have unwanted ramifications, to say the least. "And redundancies?"

  "We are the redundancy, Ms. Green," the guide said with a stern note of reprimand in his voice. "Our clients keep their files on location. We merely provide backups, which are updated as regularly as our clients send new material, usually once a month. More than monthly," he added darkly, "is of course increasingly expensive."

  "Of course." Alisha had the impression he didn't like her, and put a little extra swing in her step as they strode around a corner into a new set of arrays.

  "These are the servers your data would be stored in." The guide looked increasingly like he'd sucked on a lemon, making Alisha want to beam at him. "From the outside, I'm afraid, they don't look terribly impressive."

  "But internally, with each hard drive capable of holding a hundred exabytes of information and those drives being clustered together in groups of ten or more, they start lookin' a little more showy." Alisha gave him another bright smile that entirely soured his expression.

  "Yes. It seems you know your equipment, Ms. Green."

  "That's my job." Alisha let ice water splash through her voice, and watched the guide's chin come up as he reassessed her, then inclined his head in what might have been apology.

  "Of course. If you'd like to return with me, Ms. Green, we'd be pleased to begin your paperwork."

  "Don't bother," Alisha said. "We'll be going with your competitors in San Jose. My company has a strict policy of never working with condescendin' assholes." She smiled brilliantly and let him lead her out.

  Chapter 22

  "I love it when you call me for the illegal stuff." Erika's voice came through the line as if she sat next door, full of good humor.

  "How do you know it's illegal?" Alisha turned her wrist up, glancing at the time: almost noon. It wouldn't be full dark for nearly twelve hours, not in the midst of a Swiss July. Plenty of time to do reconnaissance and preparation for invading the secure server business she'd left just long enough ago to pick up a burner phone to call Erika with. "This is legit." Mostly.

  "Greg about popped a blood vessel in his eye when you didn't call in from San Jose and nobody can track your phone, which means you took the battery out, which means you're off-book. Besides, you're using a burner. Where are you?"

  "If I tell you that, you might feel obliged to tell someone else. Which means, yeah, okay, I'm guilty. I need to corrupt a whole lot of data on about a dozen unlinked high-security servers."

  "Dude," Erika said with all sincerity, "you shoulda called me to set this up like last week."

  Dismay coiled in Alisha's stomach and she took a deep breath to dispel it. "Does that mean you can't do it?"

  Erika's voice took on a note of offense. "'course I can do it. When do you need it done by?"

  "Forty-eight hours. I can go in and adjust the hardware however you need."

  "I'm gonna need an outside line to each of the boxes. How total do you want the destruction?"

  "Totally total would rock," Alisha admitted, "but I'll take anything above, say, twenty percent."

  "Greg know about this?"

  "…in a manner of speaking."

  "Awesome," Erika said, happy again. "How about Brandon? You bang him yet?"

  "No," Alisha muttered, "but I almost blew him up." Technically, Reichart had almost blown him up, but she was almost certain Brandon wouldn't care about the details. "Look, E," she said, interrupting Erika's cheerful flow of chatter. "I won't be able to get an outside line for ten or twelve hours, and there's a lot of stuff I need to pick up. I'll call you when it's set up, all right?"

  "It's a date."

  #

  Only a spy would think infiltrating security-heavy warehouses constituted a date. Alisha flashed a grin at the floor she dangled thirty feet above, upside down, a skylight above her feet. Well, she thought, spies and thieves, probably.

  The cold suit she wore constricted her ribs, making deep breaths difficult, but it did provide excellent traction for the leg she had wound around a taut line, reaching back up to the skylight. Seven or eight feet below her, the massive servers put off enough heat to be felt against the bare centimeter of skin that was exposed between the suit's mask and the rim of the infrared goggles she wore. Even those were cold, making thin chilly lines against her cheeks.

  Directly beneath her lay a latticework of lasers, eighteen inches in depth. They scattered above the servers, intended to prevent exactly the assault Alisha was attempting now. For an irrational moment she was tempted to simply drop through them and move fast, testing her own skills against the speed of the warehouse's security and Zurich's police. The impulse passed almost as soon as it arrived, though it left lingering vestiges of delight in her system.

  Pay attention, Alisha. The lasers weren't on a sweeping pattern, making caution the key.

  Caution and luck. There was a patch big enough for her to slide through, except for one gleaming line that cut through it, just left of center. Alisha lowered herself centimeter by centimeter, approaching that problematic beam of light. A thousand movies showed a trick of using a mirror to fool a laser, but even if that worked, the thing that needed stealing was always under a glass case that could then be lifted, the laser uninterrupted. Films never addressed the problem of having to get a hundred-and-thirty-pound body through the area that the laser passed, at least not from a skyward approach.

  Maybe she should have hired an actor to slink through the security network for her. They'd have gotten caught, of course, but it would have been a great distraction. Alisha, amused, reversed herself on the wire she hung from and carefully released the hook in her belt, suspending herself by one arm wrapped in the line.

  Pointed toes, muscles stretched as long and thin as she could make them. Butt tucked tight, watching the traitorous laser over her shoulder, her smile gone. The pulley system that lowered her was thankfully silent: a single creak and Alisha thought she'd shatter and smash into the thin lines that would betray her presence. Hips past, so nearly brushing the line that she sucked in her belly, trying to eke another millimeter of slimness out of her body. Breathe, she reminded herself, but even with the reminder she exhaled what felt like the last of her air, making tiny modifications to her pose as she crept by the laser. Midriff. Shoulders. Head. Only the line and her right arm, trembling a little from the strain, remained to pass.

  As Alisha's toes touched the ground, the dangling line lay so close to the laser that it took her over a minute to release it, afraid a single tremor would send it bumping into the thin red light. Her feet throbbed, unhappy with the rapidly changing pressure their injuries had been subjected to. Alisha promised herself a long soak in a bathtub when this was all over.

  She could see the security camera lights, red dots making small arcs, but no alerts went up. The warehouse's darkness and her black, all-encompassing suit complemented one another as well as she'd hoped, making her one shadow among many. Alisha allowed herself a tiny nod of congratulations and slipped to the floor, edging forward along the servers quietly.

  Quick puffs of liquid nitrogen from a small bottle opened breaches in the server casings without the heat signature a soldering iron would produce. Alisha muffled her work as best she could, clipping wires just inside each of the servers and twisting delicate tiny modems into place. She even fit the broken pieces of metal back into the breaches she'd made: not a perfect fit, but better than leaving small gaping holes in each server. The work was efficient, almost without thought. Later, she knew, she would find herself suddenly weary, adrenaline and endorphins that she wasn't really aware of leaving her system.

  But that was later. For now the natural drugs made her hands
quick and steady, and her heartbeat regular. Only if she focused could she feel the nervous burn of acid in her stomach. Only if she deliberately paid attention did she notice the subconscious counting of seconds that told her how long she'd been inside the server warehouse.

  Long enough. She slipped the last pieces of metal back into place and pushed up from the floor, deliberately stretching her back muscles long. They released with a sigh and she resisted the urge to crack her spine. Being noisy and getting caught now would simply be embarrassing.

  She curled her arm into the filament wire that she'd lowered herself into the warehouse with, letting herself stretch out entirely. It lengthened her body, making her feel more slender and as if she'd fit through the laser network better in the escape than she had in the entrance. Her stomach remained tight with nerves as she watched the pulley system braced in the skylight begin to reel her back. The wire seemed closer to the off-center laser now, and Alisha held her breath as she caved her shoulders back, trying to avoid both brushing the beam in front of her with her breasts or the ones behind her with her shoulders. Only when she'd cleared the lattice entirely did she allow herself a soft breath of relief and turn her gaze upward.

  The pulley winched her in and she swung up into the skylight, closing it and crouching to rewire the perfunctory security alarm that had been attached to it. She pulled her night goggles off, dropping her chin to her chest with another, more exaggerated sigh, and sent a quick grin at the servers below.

  A shadow reflected in the skylight window. Alisha whipped around, hands lifted defensively. The lovely Chinese woman from the Beijing flight spread her hands in a mock-apologetic shrug, then kicked Alisha in the jaw, sending her staggering backward toward the skylight. An instant later the woman's hand caught in Alisha's close-fitting jacket, hauling her forward again. "Sorry, honey," she murmured without the trace accent she'd had on the plane. "No point in going to all that trouble and letting you blow it by falling right back through again. I'm sure I approve of whatever you did down there."

  Alisha smashed a hand up, trying to break the woman's grip, and got a dark-eyed smirk for her troubles. "Uh-uh. Sorry, honey," she repeated. "Reichart's orders."

  Surprise burned away under the white heat of rage, every shred of Alisha's impartiality disintegrating. She dug her feet into the roof, ignoring the pain in her soles, and dropped her center low so she could bring a shoulder forward and drive it into the Asian woman's stomach. She lost her grip and Alisha charged forward, temporarily willing to fling herself off the roof, just as long as she took Reichart's woman with her.

  The other woman dug her hands into the back of Alisha's jacket, pulling herself forward with enough strength to squirm out of Alisha's grip. She hit the roof in a roll and Alisha turned, crouching, to face her again as she came to her feet. Neither moved, not even feinting, until Alisha bolted forward, grazing deliberately wide of the woman's torso. The woman spun out of the way and Alisha lashed out with a powerhouse kick that caught the woman in the ribs, lifting her several inches and knocking her across the roof. Alisha's hands hit the roof and she sprang back up, ignoring safety and the roof's angle to bunch her legs and pounce toward the other woman.

  The other woman flipped onto her back, raising her legs. Alisha hit belly-first, like a child 'flying' on its parents' feet. The woman let momentum do most of the work for her, but added her own surge of strength to send Alisha tumbling ass-over-teakettle toward the edge of the roof.

  Rage left her as she skidded to a halt, fingertips dug against the metal. The Chinese woman got to her feet, looking both breathless and pleased. "He said you were a spitfire. I'm glad this didn't turn out boring. Look, honey, all he wants is to have you out of the picture. You could make this a lot easier on yourself by just calming down."

  Alisha put kicking Reichart's ass back on her list of things to do and scuttled backward, searching for the roof's edge. It didn't matter why Reichart wanted to stop—or capture—her. The only thing that mattered was that he did, and so the only thing that mattered more was not letting it happen.

  The drop was over twenty feet onto asphalt and concrete. Too far, if she wanted to be able to walk away. Too far, especially onto already injured feet. She could see the Chinese woman's smugness, radiated in the way she sauntered across the roof toward her, in no hurry at all. She knew as well as Alisha did that the fall was too much to risk.

  Alisha gave the woman a brief smile, muttered a prayer, and slid off the roof.

  #

  The pulley brought her up short six feet above the ground with a jolt hard enough to send a headache spiking through the back of her neck. The plummet had sent her stomach into her mouth; the relief of stopping before she splattered against concrete was almost enough to send the contents of her stomach out of her mouth. Alisha unclipped the hook from her belt and dropped the remaining few feet, going cross-eyed as the impact ricocheted through her damaged feet.

  A soft curse sounded from the rooftop. Alisha bolted for the street, listening to the rattle of the line against the roof and wall as the Asian woman scrambled down after her. Sore feet or not, Alisha had enough of a head start that when she glanced back, there was no sign of pursuit. She ducked through a few alleyways anyway, finding her way back toward Zurich city center, and passed up the first few cheap hotels she saw to check in to the fourth or fifth. There, her jaw set against curses, she abandoned every article of clothing she'd worn around Reichart, and scrubbed thoroughly, in case he'd bugged her rather than her belongings. Barely an hour later, still damp from the shower, she rented a car and left Zurich. Not until she was in the mountains did she remember that she was supposed to call Erika. Swearing in German—the guttural tones suited her mood—she dialed the tech's number with her burner phone, leaving a terse, "Go for it," on voice mail. Then she rolled the window down and threw the phone out, the futility of the gesture going a long way to restoring her equilibrium.

  Once on the road it was safe—safe! Alisha barked laughter at the thought, aware she was already driving much too fast for safety. She ground her teeth and slowed, putting the vehicle into cruise control to prevent her speed from climbing again.

  Still, the road was a comparatively safe place to give in to the livid fury she'd had to cut through to escape Reichart's flunky. The worst of it—by far the worst—was she'd let herself trust him again, despite everything. Despite having seen Cristina in the square, in a place she couldn't possibly have shot Alisha from. Despite having given him enough information about Greg and Brandon's activities to allow him to concoct a reasonable story. Alisha banged the heel of her hand against the steering wheel and pressed her foot against the gas pedal, accelerating again, as if speed could outrun her anger.

  Anger that was almost wholly directed at herself. There would be no escaping it, no matter how fast she drove, no matter how far. Well, if she couldn't escape her rage, perhaps she could use it. With a glance at the road signs, Alisha turned south, heading for Rome.

  Chapter 23

  "I've been an idiot."

  It was mildly gratifying, at least, to watch Brandon Parker all but startle out of his skin at the sound of her voice. Alisha saw him reach for a weapon and check the impulse all in the same brief action as he twisted toward her. She stood in the doorway of the little room across from the Vatican, the door pushed open just far enough to let herself be seen.

  Proceed as if Brandon were telling God's own truth.

  Boyer hadn't said anything about telling the truth herself, though.

  "I hoped you'd be here." She took a breath. "I bet on it." The little room had been tidied since she'd overturned the table, and now glowed in the white light of day instead of the golden burnish of sunset. She'd interrupted him at some writing task, and he now splayed his hands on the table on either side of his laptop, slumping like a man releasing surprise. "Sorry for startling you."

  She wasn't, and didn't expect him to buy the perfunctory apology. Nor did he, but after a few seconds he closed t
he computer and tilted his head, an invitation. Alisha stepped far enough into the room to close the door behind her, gaze lowered and shoulders caved forward. The very picture of contriteness, she thought.

  "Apparently I'm going to have to find a new safe house," he said after a moment. Alisha looked up, dogged guilt coloring her expression and her words.

  "Only if you don't trust me."

  "Alisha," he said, gentle mocking in his voice. "You blew up my factory."

  "I swear I didn't." She came forward with her wrist upturned. "I know I'm trained to beat lie detectors, but you can test me anyway."

  Brandon pressed his lips together, then curled warm fingers around her wrist, two of them on the pulse point. Her pulse jumped at the touch, physical betrayal of a different sort. She wanted Parker to be on the side of right; wanted the flirtatious game she played to have the chance to develop into something real. He cocked his head, smiling faintly at the change in her heart rate.

  "Did you blow up my factory?" he asked. Alisha made no attempt to control her heartbeat through breathing, and felt it bump a little as he put the question to her.

  "No," she repeated. "I didn't." Her pulse remained a little high, the consistency hopefully more telling than the rate itself. Brandon studied her, frowning, then let her wrist go as he exhaled a laugh.

  "I don't know whether to believe you."

  "It's true," Alisha said softly, but left it at that, knowing there was danger in protesting too much. "Brandon…"

  "What've you been an idiot about?"

  A thousand things, and most probably this. Alisha shook the thought away. "I didn't trust you," she said in a low voice. "I've been digging through your CIA files."

  Nothing in his expression changed. "And?"

  "And I can't find solid evidence you're still working for the CIA." Alisha sat down at the table, letting weariness show in the slowness of her movements. "Everything ends in a snarl of red tape. That's more than there was last time I looked."