Then, of course, he realized that this, too, was some sort of test. Perhaps they’d have let him walk out of the cell, only to be tranquilized or even shot in the halls. Another test, another game.
This time seemed different, though. This German was either a canny player or deadly serious. And so when the doors opened and this “Vanda” appeared, Alexei would listen. And then find his advantage.
Maybe, when all was said and done, he would let the German live. He found the man’s intensity … intriguing.
* * *
“The microphones get fixed?” Master Sergeant Stephen Piscatelli asked the men on duty that night.
“Yes, Master Sergeant,” the young airman replied. “Not sure what happened, but seems like they’re picking up just fine now. Seems like the prisoner’s whispering to himself tonight.”
Piscatelli frowned. He’d just looked in on the sleeping prisoner a few minutes ago. There was nobody else in there, and all was quiet. “That’s new. You getting any of it?”
The airman picked up the headphones from his console and listened in. “Not really, Master Sergeant. A few words here and there.”
Taking a seat next to the airman, Piscatelli slipped on another set of headphones and tried to make something out.
“… release … pull … home … brothers … tall man …”
“Who do you suppose ‘Vanda’ is, Master Sergeant?” the airman asked.
“Probably the poor bastard’s girl back home. Maybe his mom. He’s been in there a long time. Hell, I give him points for not going cuckoo until now.” Piscatelli stood up and tossed the headphones back on the console. “Write it all down and put it in your duty report. Be sure to flag it for the higher-ups.”
“Anybody in particular to flag it to, Master Sergeant?”
Piscatelli smiled. “Son, you’re at Area 51. You’re not even cleared to take a piss next to half these people, let alone know who they are. Just flag it for the next watch.”
March 9, 1949
Maggie put her feet up on the chair across from her, enjoying the cool night and the burbling of the courtyard fountain. She had to admit Copeland was doing all right for himself here in Damascus. Back in Washington, a government salary would get you a tiny house in Arlington or a closet-sized apartment in D.C. itself. In Syria, it apparently landed you four bedrooms, a study, formal living and dining, and a couple of locals for the housekeeping, cooking, and nannying.
“Maybe I should be a diplomat,” Maggie said absently to Cal, who was sitting next to her, nursing a cup of tea. “I mean, you get to live in a place like this, somewhere exotic. And you know I’d be good at it. I could get ’em to agree to anything. Peace in our time.”
Cal smiled and raised his teacup to her. “Ain’t no doubt you could, Miss Maggie. You could get old Uncle Joe himself to surrender if you put your mind to it. But that ain’t how this game is played.”
Maggie regarded Cal coolly. “Maybe it should be.”
“No, can’t be going around like that. You know it well as I do. Folks get crazy when they see something they don’t understand. If average folks get a whiff of us, well, I can’t see how that ends well. And if we start taking charge like that, getting folks to do what we want, even for the right reasons? They’re gonna be mighty angry.”
Cal was right, of course. Maggie often forgot he was a good thirty years older than she was—lately he’d been absorbing enough life energy to stay looking like a hale and hearty twenty-eight or so. Sure, it meant killing a cow once every other week or so to top off with; without any further energy, he would eventually resume his normal age and health. The benefits were worth a trip to the slaughterhouse outside of town every few weeks.
The best part was that Cal wasn’t passing judgement, unlike Danny or Frank. Sometimes, Maggie would just say things like that to get a reaction, and she could see the threads of genuine fear in both men as she spoke. Fear for their lives, maybe, or fear of what she could do. Hers was a powerful Enhancement, she knew. Not as long-lasting or versatile as Frank’s, not as critical as Danny’s, but she could pack a pretty good wallop.
So could Cal. Maybe that was why he wasn’t afraid, why they’d had this conversation a dozen times, and each time he saw it as nothing more than what it was—letting off steam. When you can kill someone with a touch, it puts things in perspective. And he wore the responsibility well, too.
“How the hell are you so even-keeled after all this?” she asked. “Seriously. How do you do it?”
Cal shrugged. “I never wanted much, Miss Maggie. I got a woman who loves me and a son I’m proud of—he’s decided to be a lawyer. Did I tell you that?”
“No, you didn’t. That’s wonderful.” Maggie could feel the pride pouring off him like a wave.
“My son, the lawyer. Ain’t that something. So, I got a family. I got love. We’re setting down in Adams Morgan, got a nice little church we go to now. Some nice suppers with the neighbors. Starting to get out into the community, you know? That’s always good. Keeps you grounded. Family, faith, and community. Maybe that’s the secret.”
Maggie felt like crying but instead gave him a smile. “Sounds so simple.”
“I always found life’s simpler than you think. Of course, ain’t nobody talking down to me anymore like they did at the Firestone plant. Washington’s different that way, for sure. That helps. Still some stupid crackers here and there, but a whole lot less of ’em than in Tennessee.”
Maggie had never given black people much thought before—there weren’t that many of them in the tiny Chicago suburb where she grew up, not that many in Mill Valley, either. But knowing Cal made her realize that, despite what she’d been through with her Enhancement, she still had it a lot better than he did 99 percent of the time.
“Maggie, check in,” came Frank’s voice over the Handie-Talkie on the table. She could sense his annoyance from across the house.
She picked up the radio and keyed it. “Nothing yet. I told you, I’ll know when they’re in range.” Indeed, that was why she and Cal were stationed in the courtyard, in the exact center of Copeland’s house—so that she could sense new emotions from anybody approaching the building. She did another little sweep of the area, to the farthest extent of her senses, just to be sure.
“Roger. Out.”
This was their third night of sentry duty, and it was getting to be pretty damn dull. Copeland was all nervous energy, to the point where Danny had threatened to tie him to a chair lest he be seen moving around the house. He ended up sitting in his study, in the dark, looking out the window. Danny, Frank, and Zippy were stationed near other windows and doors, quietly monitoring the empty streets around the house, which stood on a corner and abutted two other homes. In a few minutes, Cal would head up to replace Zippy for a spell, and she would come down for tea and more conversation.
Maggie was honestly running out of polite things to say. Maybe she’d start getting impolite and see what happened.
“Maybe there’s a knitting circle or something you can join up with,” Cal suggested helpfully. “You know, get to know some folks in the area.”
Maggie grimaced and resisted the urge to make Cal weep like a little girl. “Not really my thing. I—” She suddenly caught the wave of amusement from Cal and couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, you jerk!”
“Maybe there’s a knife-skills circle instead.” He chuckled. “Target-practice circle? Ladies’ boxing?”
Maggie was about to reply with something particularly colorful when something crept into the edge of her perception. She quickly grabbed the radio. “I got two nervous nellies on the street, approaching the intersection from different angles.”
Zippy replied first. “Eyes on target. Male, early twenties. Wearing … a military uniform?”
Cal sat up straight. “That ain’t no burglar.”
“And he’s got no good reason to be nervous walking down the street,” Maggie said.
“Eyes on target two. Male, mid-twenties, army fatigue
s,” Danny said. “Just walking down the street and … shit, scoping out the house with binoculars.”
Maggie and Cal got up and rushed toward the front of the house, where Danny was stationed in the ground-floor parlor. “He’s just standing there? Out in the open?”
Danny shook his head in amazement. “Like a walk in the park. No craft to it at all. What kind of nervous are they?”
Maggie reached out again with her mind, the puce-colored threads of anxiousness visible from afar. “Like … the kind of nervous you get before a race or a big game. Like when you’re at the top of a diving board about to dive in. Nervous but … ready.”
The radio crackled again. “Guys, I got three guys in the alley,” Frank reported. “Repeat. Three targets in the alley. Fatigues and rifles, heading for the back door.”
Danny swore. “Counter-op. Five bucks says they’ll plant something incriminating on Copeland. Ten says the Russians are in on it.”
Zippy’s voice came next. “Three more on my side, total of four. Armed and advancing toward the side door.”
Maggie ventured a look out the window and saw that the binoculars guy had been joined by three other soldiers, all similarly armed. “That makes eleven. Squad and leader,” she said.
“Pincer move. No way out,” Danny said before keying the radio. “Zippy, grab Miles and get him to the courtyard. Frank, meet us there. Move out!”
They quickly dashed through the empty, dark house to the courtyard. Frank had gotten there first and had already shut down the water to the fountain so they could hear better. “Mags, I think you’re up. How many can you handle and how close do they need to be?” he asked.
“Maybe all but they’d have to be real close,” she said. “Everybody would have to be in the courtyard. And one or two will probably freak out and try something dumb.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?” Copeland said. “They brought a goddamn army! We need to get out of here!”
Frank looked over to Cal, who gave a deep sigh before reaching over to put a hand on Copeland’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be OK, Mr. Copeland.”
Copeland collapsed into Cal’s arms, drained of just enough life energy to render him completely unconscious. “Now what?” Cal asked as he propped Copeland in the chair next to the fountain.
Frank and Danny traded a look, Danny acquiescing to Frank’s expertise, backed up as it was by the memories of several highly decorated soldiers. “Maggie: you, Miles, and Zippy in the center. Cal and Dan: get over there behind the vines along those columns and stay out of sight. When Maggie switches on, you two need to neutralize any stragglers. Nonlethal. Mags, try not to affect our guys.”
“And you?” Maggie asked.
Frank smiled. “I’ll take care of whoever doesn’t show up here.”
With that, Frank jogged off back into the house, while Danny and Cal took their assigned positions. Zippy chambered a round in her pistol.
“Easy there, Calamity Jane,” Maggie said, reaching out to assuage Zippy’s nervousness. Unlike the rest of the team, Zippy hadn’t been in combat before. “Remember your training and let me take care of these guys, OK?”
The younger woman nodded, but the grip on her pistol remained tight. “Right. Just so long as—”
Maggie felt the bullet enter her right calf almost before she heard the shot.
“Fuck!” she yelled as her leg gave out, sending her crashing to the cobblestones. Zippy immediately returned fire, and a soldier fell from the second-floor balcony into the courtyard with a sickening thump.
“La tatlaquu alnnara!” came an angry voice from inside the house. Immediately, soldiers started swarming the courtyard, weapons at the ready. Wisely opting for discretion, Zippy gently lowered her pistol to the ground.
Maggie wanted nothing more than to transfer all her pain and anger to the men around her, but knew she had to wait until she could get as many of them as possible. Cal, meanwhile, knelt down over her. “Here, Miss Maggie, let me take care of that for you.”
“No, Cal!” she said through gritted teeth. “Witnesses. They saw me go down. They can’t see me get up. It can wait. You should’ve stayed put.”
A young man with an imperial bearing and the epaulets of an officer strode into the courtyard, barking out something that sounded angry. A couple of the men pointed to the injured man on the cobblestones, and the officer’s face grew darker as he turned to Maggie and the others.
“Who did this?” he demanded in heavily accented English.
Cal stood up and stared the man down. “Who shoots a woman? Where I come from, only criminals and cowards do that. Which was he?”
The officer looked like he was about to chew through his own teeth. “We are here on matters of state security, and we will search these premises until we find what we’re looking for.”
“You mean these?” Frank shouted from the balcony above. Maggie and the others looked up to see a manila folder in his hands. The fact that his hair was slightly disheveled was the only sign he’d probably taken the folder by force. “Funny thing is,” he continued, “I found this on one of your men as he was coming in. The safe’s still closed, and the only guy who knows the combination fainted dead away the moment you showed up. So, how do you explain that?”
The officer pointed up at Frank and barked something else in Arabic, and Maggie decided she was done with waiting.
Six men immediately collapsed to the ground, their faces twisted in horror. Three others covered their eyes and began to scream. And the officer turned and made a beeline for the exit, only to be met by Danny, whose crude hand-to-hand made short work of him. Even through her pain and the use of her Enhancement, Maggie could see there were still a few holes in his technique—it was a good thing his opponent wasn’t thinking straight.
“Frank?” Danny called out. “Got everyone?”
“Clear,” he replied as he came down the stairs. “Two in the study, one in the bedroom. Thought he was going to go through Mrs. Copeland’s unmentionables.”
One by one, Cal put the still-conscious soldiers to sleep with a touch, and as he did, his appearance changed. He was getting younger, almost as if he were barely twenty-one again. Maggie assumed he was storing up so he could take care of her leg, which couldn’t happen soon enough—it hurt like hell.
Her heart sank, though, when she heard Copeland’s voice. “What … what the … what the hell happened here?” Maggie saw the OPC man stagger to his feet and look around the courtyard, now strewn with unconscious and injured soldiers. “Oh, my God. Are any of them dead?”
“Well, we have one injured,” Frank retorted. “Maggie took one in the leg from a trigger-happy idiot. Great plan you had there, Miles.”
Copeland went pale and ran over to Maggie. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry! I’ll call for a doctor immediately! Let me go and I’ll get you some help.”
Frank brushed past him roughly, dragging the tablecloth off the tea table as he went. “No need,” Frank said as he started ripping the cloth into strips. “I’m a doctor.”
“You’re a doctor?” Copeland asked incredulously.
“I’m a lot of things,” Frank replied, kneeling down to attend to Maggie’s wound. “We’ll get this taken care of, at least for now. We can do more later, OK?”
Maggie nodded but started suddenly as she heard another door in the house being broken down—and the clatter of boots on tile. “Now what?” she asked, preparing to harness her abilities once more. But she relaxed as soon as she saw the face from her mission briefings, Col. Husni al-Za’im, enter the courtyard.
“What has happened here?” he demanded loudly. “Is this not the home of an American diplomat?”
Copeland, who had been standing slack-jawed in the middle of the courtyard, suddenly rushed forward. “It was an entire squadron of troops!” he sputtered. “Soldiers! Not just a burglary, but a dozen goddamn soldiers! I—”
Za’im held up his hand to silence Copeland. “You say that these men br
oke into your home, Mr. Copeland?”
It took a moment, but Copeland finally got the gist; they were to act along for the benefit of the people Za’im had brought with him—a number of officers as well as three or four guys in suits and fezzes who, to Maggie, looked like either government bureaucrats or newspapermen. Maybe both. “Yes, Colonel. These men broke into my home.”
Frank finished tying off Maggie’s tourniquet, stood up, and walked toward Za’im with the papers he’d found. “I think they were trying to plant these, Colonel,” he said. “I imagine the guy over by the door by my C.O., Commander Wallace, could tell you all about it.”
Za’im nodded and took the papers from Frank. “Thank you, sir. I assume you and your fellows saw service in the war, which is why you were able to defeat these men, who were not following lawful orders, I can assure you!”
Frank nodded, hoping they all sounded convincing enough. It didn’t have to be perfect; it just had to work. “Most of us saw action in the war, Colonel. It was a struggle, but we managed to stop them. I’m sure they heard you coming and panicked as well.”
To Maggie’s surprise, Za’im gave Frank the barest flutter of a wink before continuing. “Mr. Copeland, I promise you, I will get to the bottom of this travesty. I can only pray to God that elements of the Syrian government were not involved in this; otherwise, severe repercussions will echo throughout the halls of power. I—wait, is that woman shot?”
Shit, Maggie thought. “I’m fine, sir. Really. Just grazed me.” Actually, it had punctured a hole clean through, but Maggie wasn’t in the mood. She wanted to be back on her feet as soon as she could, and that meant clearing the house and getting a moment alone with Cal to heal her up.
Za’im turned to another officer. “Get a doctor at once! Now! This is horrible! I am so sorry, miss. We will discover who is responsible for this, I promise you!”
Maggie rolled her eyes as Danny came over to help her sit up. “We may have to send you home, Miss Jones, if we can’t clear things up quickly,” Danny said.
“God damn it, Danny, you need me here,” she hissed.
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