Saben and I exchange a quick glance, but then Andros returns, still smiling. “The prisoner is on his way up. If you’ll just sign these three forms?”
“Always paperwork to do, isn’t there, Andros?” Saben says with a headshake, taking the offered stylus and signing the first form the lieutenant offers on a data pad. “Think of what we could accomplish in a day without all the blasted paperwork.” He signs the next two forms.
Andros’ smile broadens to a grin. “You are so right. I’ve said that myself more than once, haven’t I, Griffin?” The guard at the console nods. Then, he appears to listen to something coming through his earbud, pushes a button, and the doors start to open with a mechanical whir. I stare at the space between them as it widens, waiting for the first glimpse of Idris. This is it, the moment of truth. Will Idris keep his mouth shut when he recognizes us, and go with us quietly, or will he shout the truth?
Chapter Nineteen
Saben and I had discussed Idris’s possible reactions on the way to the prison. He would recognize Saben at once, of course, and figure out who I was only moments later, despite my altered appearance. He would know we weren’t there to help him escape and then set him free to go on his merry way. He is too smart. He’d know we were after the bombs’ locations, that we would dig the information out of him any way we could. We were counting on him deciding that he should take his chances with us, that it would be easier to get away from us, or even from a squad of Defiers, than escape from the prison without help.
The doors are fully open now. Idris appears, hands secured behind him, bracketed by two guards. He droops between them, his head bowed, and his bare scalp is a shock. Even though they’d shaved my hair when I first arrived, somehow my mental image of Idris hadn’t been bald. His beautiful black hair gone. Knicks and a dribble of dried blood show that the guards hadn’t been any too careful during the shaving process. While I am still processing his baldness, he raises his head. It looks like it takes an effort and I guess he’s already been interrogated, that they might even have brought him straight from the interrogation cell.
Bruises bloom on his cheeks, one eye is blackened and swollen almost shut, and a deep cut at the corner of his mouth oozes blood. His expression seems foggy, but I think I catch a moment of clarity when he spots Saben and me. I can’t be certain, though, because he sags forward again almost immediately, and stumbles. That brings my attention to his ankle, encased in a bomb cuff just like mine had been. He can’t exit the building through a door or window with it on, or it will explode.
“Is this him?” Saben asks, as if he’s never met Idris before. “Ford?”
“Prisoner 62341,” Andros affirms.
“Doesn’t look like much.” Saben crosses to Idris and raises his chin. The two men stare at each other and I get the feeling that Idris is not as out of it as he appears. When Saben takes his hand away, Idris’s head falls forward again.
“He was a Defiance big shot, one of their top commanders,” Andros says, and I get the impression his sense of his status is tied to how dangerous and valuable his prisoners are. “Killed hundreds of our soldiers, tortured and killed civilians—including children, starved the population of Jacksonville by taking over a dome and denying them food.”
It wasn’t all true, and I wonder at the power of the Prag propaganda machine, run by my old nemesis, Minister Fonner.
“You should administer the new drug before we release him,” Andros says. “He won’t give you any trouble with us here to control him.”
I look at Saben and he nods. I step toward Idris and stop only eighteen inches away. He smells rank, of fear sweat and the stink of the interrogation rooms. He raises his head just enough to look me in the eyes. His are dark, alert, and I know that most of his beaten down attitude is an act as good as Saben’s.
“Is it an injection, a pill?” Andros asks. He starts to move closer, but Saben bars him with an arm across the chest. “I know, I know,” Andros says with a forced laugh. “It’s classified.”
“That’s right,” I say coolly, “but I can tell you it’s absorbed into the bloodstream through the skin.” I unscrew the tin’s lid, and dip my middle and forefingers into the salve. “It stings,” I say warningly.
“Only stings?” Andros sounds disappointed.
“Until combined with the interrogation procedure,” Saben assures him. “Then . . .” His voice trails off as if the horror of the effect is too much for him to think about.
My eyes fixed on Idris’s, I lay my fingers along the pulsing artery at his throat and slick the salve down his neck. His skin is warm under my fingers, his pulse hammering. Beard stubble pricks my fingers. It’s frighteningly intimate. He shrinks away with a stifled “Unh,” and I give him credit for picking up on my comment. I do the same thing to the other side, and say, “I need access to his wrists.”
Looking to their commander for permission, the two guards deactivate the maglock cuffs and each of them grabs one of Idris’s arms. He fights them, or pretends to, but they overpower him and hold his arms out straight. I smooth more salve up the vein at each wrist, staring into his eyes as I do so. His eyes drop for a moment, as if he’s trying to get back into the character of the cowed prisoner, but then his chin comes up and his gaze drills into my eyes. He can’t make himself appear meek and beaten in front of me. I read the challenge in his expression, and know at once that it’s the same look I used on Vestor, the one he tried to train out of me for the trial. It’s the first time I’ve felt a true sibling connection with Idris. He’s my brother. I knew it before, but now I feel it.
“That should do it,” I say, taking a step back. I’m shaking.
“Cuff him again,” Saben barks, “and take off that anklet. We’re running behind schedule.”
As one guard bends, a crackle of voices comes through the console, and headlights rake the room. A six-seater ACV has pulled up out front, escorted fore and aft by IPF scooters. The breaking dawn washes them with incongruous pink. Lieutenant Andros joins the guard at the console and barks something at the sentry in the kiosk out front. I suck in a breath and catch Saben’s eye. What the hell do we do now?
“Show us a rear exit,” Saben commands Rute. “This may be the prisoner’s comrades, coming to rescue him. If he escapes, Minister O’Connell will have your privates fried with eggs for his breakfast.”
Rute blanches and jerks on Idris’s arm hard enough to pull him off-balance. “This way.” He gestures with his head. Saben and I start to hustle after him, but Lieutenant Andros stops us.
“Stay.” His geniality is gone, and his hand rests on the butt of his pistol. “It’s your boss.”
He’s looking at me, and I try to keep the confusion off my face. “Why would Minister Alden be here?” I ask.
“Perhaps she’s checking up on you,” he says, eyes slitted. “Or maybe it’s something else.”
We all stare through the windows, watching Minister Alden approach. She’s alone, having left her escort at the curb. The doors V inward as they did for us and she steps into the vestibule. I haven’t seen my mother in months. Last time we met, her blond hair was windblown and she moved crisply, eager to get me out of Atlanta and beyond the reach of the IPF troops who were searching for me. I had wanted to believe that mother love had prompted her to help me, but it was her desire to keep herself safe by hiding our connection, and her belief in my ability to rid Amerada of the locusts that had pushed her to risk herself by bundling me out of the capital city.
Now, her blond hair has more silver in it and it’s pulled severely back from her face, revealing wrinkles that I’m sure she didn’t have five months ago. Her lips are a tight line, as if she’s gotten so used to keeping secrets that she can’t ever relax. I know that feeling. She holds herself erect, but despite her posture I get a sense that she’s tired. Her marine blue eyes, so like mine, spark with intelligence and alertness and she does no more than blink when she spots Saben and me standing in front of Idris.
She
assesses us. She doesn’t recognize me. I no longer look like myself, or like Derrika Ealy, the alias she knew me under. I forestall anything she might say.
“Minister Alden,” I say, hurrying into speech and sounding like a subordinate who is terrified of the boss several rungs up the ladder. “It is not necessary for you to be here for the prisoner’s transfer. I know we’re behind schedule, but we are headed to the facility right now. AC Ealy is waiting for us there. I’ve already applied the interrogation enhancement preparation.”
“AC Budd has done an exemplary job, as has the staff here,” Saben says, supplying Minister Alden with my alias and placating Lieutenant Andros whose eyes are darting from us to Idris to the minister and back; he’s clearly uncomfortable with the break in routine. “The delays were unavoidable.”
I hold my breath, hoping the minister catches on, and that she won’t betray us.
She blinks once, slowly, and takes a step forward. She appears to be addressing me, but her gaze keeps flitting over my shoulder to where Idris stands between his two guards. “Well done, all of you. I have no doubt that the transfer is going smoothly.” She’s rubbing her thumb in a circle against her second and third fingers, and I realize she’s nervous. Trying to appear deferential, I study her, my senses on full alert, trying to suss out why she’s really here.
It’s Idris, of course. She wants to see him. He’s her son. She hasn’t seen or talked to him since he was four or five. She must know what will happen to him here, the types of torture he’ll undergo as a Defiance leader. I got off lightly since my interrogators never suspected me of being associated with the Defiance, or, really, of knowing anything very useful. And they were right on all counts. It’ll be different for Idris. When they’re done with him, he’ll be unrecognizable, physically, mentally and in every other way.
I wonder what she was planning to say to him. Was she going to tell him the truth? If she thinks Idris will be touched by a sentimental reunion with her, she has another think coming. What was I thinking? Minister Alden doesn’t have a sentimental bone in her body. She isn’t here for a maudlin reunion and immediate farewell with her long-lost son. What, then? My eyes widen slightly. Does she have a plan to effect his release? I can’t believe that, not with the stability of Amerada at stake. Amerada was and is her true priority, the passion for which she sacrificed husband and children.
As if aware that the silence has grown too long, and prodded by Andros’ deepening frown, she takes command of the room in her usual way. It’s a relief to see the mantle of power settle over her again. The rising sun adds to the effect with a beam of light that sparks pale fire from her hair and highlights the sharpness of her cheekbones, the straight line of her nose, and the resolute curve of her chin. “I’m here with an offer from Premier Dubonnet,” she announces, taking us all by surprise. “For the prisoner.”
“This is highly irregular,” Andros mutters, fingers tapping against his holstered weapon.
A sidelong look from Alden shuts him up. “To paraphrase a great statesman,” she says, ‘we live in irregular times.’ I need hardly add that all of you witnessing this are sworn to secrecy and subject to execution if you disseminate what I’m about to say beyond this room.” She makes eye contact with each guard, and then with Saben who nods, and me. I give her back stare for stare, convinced without any evidence that she’s lying.
Her gaze slides past me and settles on Idris. “Bring him.”
Rute says, “I’ve already—”
Her impatient gesture shuts him up and the guards hustle to obey, marching Idris forward until he stands two feet in front of her. She nods and the guards step back hesitantly, looking to Andros for guidance. He shrugs, apparently having decided that if anything goes wrong, it’ll be Alden’s head that rolls and not his.
“Let’s hear it,” Idris says. They’re the first words he’s spoken since we got here. His voice is gravelly, hoarsened by screaming I imagine, but the words are clipped as usual and sound more like a command than a request. Vintage Idris. He tosses his head, and I realize with a pang that it’s the gesture he uses to flick his hair out of his face. Only he has no hair.
Alden takes his tone calmly. “Very well. The Premier has authorized me to offer you full immunity for an immediate and complete list of the viro-bomb locations.”
In my peripheral vision, I catch Andros and one of the other guards startle at the mention of bombs. They’re geneborn. Even though they don’t know it, they’ll die ugly deaths if infected by the bombs’ spray of virus. Doubt twitches my brows together. Could this be real? Is the Premier really offering to free Idris is he gives up the bomb locations? For a brief moment the air is spiky with hope and doubt and it hurts to breathe. We must all be holding our breaths because the silence is absolute.
“I don’t think so, Mother.”
Idris’s harsh voice shatters everything. Andros and the guards freeze, shocked into immobility by the last word. Alden jerks her chin up likes she’s been slapped. Saben moves toward Idris, brushing against me. I don’t understand what he’s doing until Idris launches himself at Alden. Before Saben can reach him, he’s got Alden clamped against his chest, one large hand immobilizing her forehead, the other gripping her jaw. Apparently, the guards didn’t get the maglock cuffs back on properly before Alden arrived and disrupted the process. I’m the one who made them take the cuffs off.
The guard at the console, acting on instinct or years of training, slams his hand down. An alarm begins to wail—whee-ah, whee-ah—and iron bars slide across the doors. They lock into place with a heavy clunk. We’re in lockdown, trapped in the vestibule. IPF reinforcements will be on their way from the nearest barracks in moments, bringing with them advanced weapons, negotiators, and a mentality that won’t make the hostages’ survival, our survival, a priority.
“Anyone moves, I break her neck.” Idris speaks loudly to be heard over the alarm. His gaze pins Saben. If he had a weapon, Saben would be dead. Saben stills, but I can see his hands flexing and I imagine he wants to wring Idris’s neck.
Without turning his head, Idris barks, “Hands in the air. You want to be responsible for the minister’s death?” as Andros starts to free his weapon.
“Do what he says. Do not shoot,” Alden says, the continuing whee-ah almost drowning her out. Her voice is slightly strangled by her head’s awkward position, but calm, pouring cool rationality on the heated situation.
I know she’s not worried about herself; she realizes that if one of the guards kills Idris, we lose the only chance we have of discovering the bombs in time. Not that it’s much of a chance. Idris’s face is a mask of elation and contempt. We comply with Idris’s order, raising our hands to shoulder height.
“Better.” His grip on Alden’s chin slackens and she is able to pull her head into a more normal position. “Shut that alarm off!”
Keeping his eyes on Idris, the guard by the console uses one finger to press a button. The silence is a physical and psychological relief. My shoulders, which had drawn up as close to my ears as possible, notch downward.
Using Alden as a shield, Idris begins to edge toward the door. “From what I’d heard about you, I thought you were smarter.” He gives Alden a little shake. “You can’t really have thought I’d give up my plan because you asked me to? Not even if you begged me. Not even if you and your geneborn minions tortured me until I screamed for death.”
Everyone in the room can hear the truth in his voice.
“It was worth a try,” Alden says.
“Did Dubonnet send you because you’re my mother?”
“How did you find out?” she asks.
“Everly, of course. I didn’t believe her at first, but when I thought back to some things Alexander said, I knew it was true. It doesn’t change a damn thing.” He drags her another foot toward the door. I tense, tinglingly aware of the bomb on his ankle and its proximity fuse. If he gets too close to a door or window, it will explode, tearing off his leg and probably killing Ald
en, too. Is he suicidal? Does he think the only way to ensure the success of his genocidal plan is to kill himself? Does he want to take Alden with him?
Ridiculous. That’s not Idris. He’s too arrogant to be suicidal, too convinced that the Defiance’s success depends on him. That doesn’t mean Alden is safe, though. I lock eyes with her. The intensity of her gaze is trying to tell me something. She slides along another two feet with Idris. In another yard or so, the anklet will detonate. The muscles around her eyes go taut as she focuses on me. She doesn’t know Idris the way I do, even though she bore him. She doesn’t know he’s practically the last man on earth to kill himself. She wants me to try something, anything, to stop him, even if it means her death. It has to be me, because I understand we can’t kill him. If she struggles, distracts him, the guards might have a chance to grab their weapons and fire at him. I shift my weight onto my back leg, preparing myself for—what? I have no plan that doesn’t end with Idris and maybe Alden and me getting killed.
“Don’t even think about it, Everly.” Idris mocking gaze locks on me. He’s sparred with me enough to recognize my readiness postures and I curse myself for being so transparent. Then he says something strange and it takes me a moment to realize he’s talking to Alden, not me. “I’d kill you, but then you might think you matter to me, and you fucking don’t.”
In the split second I spend trying to decipher his meaning, he shoves Alden toward me with all his might. I stagger as she plows into me and we both knock against Saben. With reflexes honed by lifelong training and years of combat, Idris bends, detaches the anklet and slings it at the window. Time seems to slow as the bomb flies through the air. Andros flinches away in slow motion. Saben throws himself atop me and Alden, flattening us to the ground with his weight. I fold my arms over my head as a sizzling sound precedes the explosion. I don’t hear anything then, but I feel the shards of polyglass raining down on us. I’m afraid to breathe for fear of inhaling tiny splinters that would shred my lungs.
Regeneration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 3) Page 20
