by Jess Lourey
Salem shook her head. “Quantum computing is like an engine, or more accurately, a whole new roadway. Gaea will be a vehicle on that road, that’s all.”
Charlie sat forward. “You’re being modest.” He looked at Nina. “Once Salem has Gaea working, it’ll be a constant fishing line trolling the internet, updating itself real-time as the bad guys create new code.”
Salem frowned. “Not until I figure out the missing algorithms.”
Stone flashed her a look. He seemed angry, his drink untouched and his shoulders stiff. The bombing had him tense, surely.
Nina held up her drink for a toast. “Cheers to bureaucracy standing in the way of progress. The FBI is the same all over, eh?” She glanced at Stone for agreement, but he was staring at Salem.
It sent a thrill like a kiss down Salem’s neck. She was terrible at reading people, she accepted that, but there was something in his eyes. She clinked her beer with Nina’s drink, a smile on her face.
Charlie touched his glass to theirs. “It sounds like the FBI is the same as MI5, as well.” He downed his own pint. “They want to make enthusiastic bureaucrats out of all of us.”
Salem found herself unexpectedly filled with the desire to talk. “Some days I think we might be heading in the wrong direction with Gaea,” she said, swallowing the last of her beer and holding it up for a refill. “The latest hidden is not hidden. Message s written on paper, delivered by couriers, burned or swallowed once they’ve been received. I’d like to see all agents taught old-school cryptanalysis for security’s sake.”
“I agree!” Nina said. She was going to add more when a scuffle broke out to her left, followed by an ape of a man flying onto their table, scattering their drinks. All four agents jumped to their feet. Stone took a step toward Salem, but he didn’t intervene when the man stood, dripping beer, and turned toward her, glaring at Salem’s open-mouthed gape.
“What’re you staring at?” The man was at least six and a half feet tall but hunched over, his knuckles all but dragging on the ground.
Salem closed her mouth, opened it, and closed it again. A dark-eyed woman stood behind the giant, hair pulled up in a dark pony tail, her stance lean and confident. She appeared to be judging Salem, curious about her next move. She also looked familiar. Salem found both points equally distracting. Was the sloe-eyed woman with the guy who’d toppled their table?
“She’s just having a pint, mate.” Charlie inserted himself between the man and Salem, his hands palm out. “You should cool down.” He glanced at the table, glasses knocked over, beer dribbling off the edge. “And you owe all of us a beer.”
The man swung at Charlie. Charlie blocked the first hit but the second caught him square in the jaw, sending him to the ground. Salem stepped in, her body acting before her brain could talk her out of it. She grabbed the man’s wrist, turning into the arc of his swing so her back was to his chest. She kept the momentum of his punch going, leaning forward and thrusting her butt backward to throw him off balance. He didn’t have time to right himself. He fell over her bent back and toward Charlie, who rolled out of the way in the nick of time.
The assailant hit the ground.
Salem blinked so loudly she was sure everyone in the pub could hear it. It was a move she’d practiced a hundred times in Krav Maga training with Bel, and fifty more at Quantico, but she couldn’t believe it had actually worked in real life. Her first bar fight, and she’d won. She hooted and pumped a fist into the air before she could stop herself.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stone smile. She guessed that’s why he’d stepped aside. He’d banked on her being able to take care of herself. That confidence felt good. She looked for the dark-eyed woman, but she’d disappeared.
Another guy stepped forward and helped up his friend. “Sorry. He’s had too much to drink.”
“Get him out earlier next time,” Charlie said, standing with Nina’s help.
They nodded and scurried out.
Charlie turned on her, an angry, cherry-red welt growing on his chin but a grin lighting up his face. “Not poor in a pinch, are you?”
He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, Salem realized. Small, pasty, but when he smiled like that, he appeared younger. “It must have been all my training kicking in. Muscle memory.” She laughed too loud. Adrenaline.
“Our shots have arrived!” Nina said, motioning to the waitress who was ferrying the drinks they’d ordered before the kerfuffle. She handed Charlie and Salem a shot glass each while she and Stone righted the table and another waitress swept up the broken glass.
The minty liquor burned Salem’s throat, warming her belly. She was reaching for another glass when her stomach pitched and the room shifted. If she didn’t get fresh air, she would be sick. “I need to go.”
Agent Stone nodded, his jaw set. Had he appeared that angry all night long? “I’ll see you to a cab.”
Salem glanced at Charlie, who was watching her, expressionless, his own second shot paused halfway to his mouth.
“I’m fine,” she said. A burp was pushing up her throat.
“I’ll see you out,” Agent Stone repeated.
Salem commanded her legs to walk toward the door. The adrenaline backlash combined with the shot made her feel like she was walking on the moon, though she did not stumble. She hoped she wasn’t lifting her feet too high. Once outside, the cool drizzle cleared her head, marginally. She gulped deeply of the London air, its mist curling into her stomach and settling it. When she felt like herself again, she turned. Agent Stone was watching her with his ageless eyes.
“I think the bomb was a distraction,” she said. She had no intel to back it up, and she didn’t want to believe in hunches, but the thought had been nagging at her. She’d planned to sit on it until she had data, but being outside, alone with Stone, made it feel like an idea worth sharing.
He cocked his head. Salem thought he was auditing for listeners, practicing discretion, being a spy, doing everything she should be doing. “How so?”
“Because no group has credibly claimed responsibility for it. The only logical explanation is that it’s a set-up for something bigger.”
“Connected to the president or the accord?”
“I’m not sure.” The bomb was set off near enough to the president, but it had virtually no chance of harming her. It was the first strike. Salem didn’t know what the second would be or who it would be targeting.
“We need hard intel. Use Gaea.”
It was a command, and she discovered she liked it when Stone issued orders. He was strong and confident. His spicy cologne, clear eyes, and full lips all seemed to be whispering to her, reminding her of the erotic dream, filling her with something like courage. If she reached out and laid her hand on his chiseled cheek, would bright sparks fly from her fingertips? Would he wrap his arms around her, holding her tightly, safely, keeping the confusing world at bay? She suddenly, urgently, needed to know.
She leaned toward him, anticipating the hardness of his body, staring up and into his eyes. “I think it’s time for me to trust someone,” she said softly, offering her heart and mouth.
He moved quickly, putting distance between his body and hers before she even had time to register mortification. His face was shadowed by the entryway overhang. “I think you’ve had too much to drink.”
Her mouth formed an O. She’d read the situation 100 percent wrong. Stone did not want her. He’d simply walked her out so she wouldn’t embarrass the Bureau anymore.
“Of course. Sorry. No cab. Some exercise will do me good.” She strode off into the night.
Lucan Stone watched her go.
And Charlie Thackeray watched him watching her.
Thursday
September 20
13
Russia Dock Woodland, London
A steady drizzle fell.
The air smelled like the
color gray, like rock dust and damp and cold, like rejection.
Salem walked, her shoulders clenched up around her ears, hands shoved deep in her pockets, shivering. The Campus was four kilometers from the pub; Charlie had assured her of it on the ride over. She could walk four kilometers.
It was a chance to walk off the shame.
Ooh boy.
What was she, a horny teenager? Who lunges at a colleague outside a bar? Especially when he had something going on with Nina. The farther she walked from the Mayflower, the clearer that became. Little looks they’d tossed each other. How Stone had been mad when Salem had monopolized the conversation. She may not be good at reading people, but she wasn’t blind.
Well, there was one more reason to leave the FBI.
Quitting would mean living with her mother, and her mother’s disappointment that Salem hadn’t taken up the mantle, but Salem could survive that if it meant being safe at home with Bel and Mercy.
Mercy.
The mercy stone.
The mystery of it scraped at the edges of her attention like an annoying child.
She ignored it.
Her wet hair clung to her cheeks. She wished she had a cap to yank snug over her cherry ears, and mittens to tug onto her cold-swollen fingers. Could she see her breath? She stopped, swiveling to study her surroundings, a nudge of worry worming its way into her chest. She’d been walking for almost an hour. Her surroundings should look familiar by now as she neared the Campus. The streets had started out well-lit, crowded, but the farther from the river she walked, the sparser humanity became. She was the only person on her current street, the front of the businesses all leaden and wet, her world painted black and white by the predawn rain.
She mentally retraced her steps.
Dammit.
She’d covered at least two miles, but she hadn’t crossed the Thames, which was what she would need to do to reach the Campus. She must be walking the exact wrong direction. Her eyes burned, but she wouldn’t let the tears fall. She wouldn’t be warm anytime soon, and there was no use crying over it. She had no choice but walk back the way she’d came.
She’d left the B&C in Charlie’s car, but the reassuring weight of her phone pushed against her chest. She was tempted to pull it out and call a cab, but a woman staring at her phone in an isolated street in the middle of the night was a target. She’d get somewhere more populated, and then she’d call.
London was one of the world’s largest cities, she reassured herself. There were people around, even at two in the morning, even if she couldn’t see them. It couldn’t be more than forty-five minutes that she’d been out here, far less than that since she’d seen people. In fact, hadn’t she passed a quiet neighborhood bar several blocks back? She could tuck in, use her phone to call a cab, and be in her toasty bed inside of an hour.
Shoulders set, she started back down the street.
A dark alley was ahead and to her right. She hadn’t noticed it the first time she’d passed, but now that she realized she was lost, the whole world seemed a danger. The sliver of darkness, ink against charcoal, was narrow, maybe four feet across. Surely no one was hiding in there. Still, she stepped in the middle of the street to put distance between herself and the unknown.
She stumbled on the uneven terrain.
She was nearly abreast of the alley when she heard the whimper creep out of it.
Her skin rippled down her spine. She wanted to keep walking, no, she wanted to run, but what if someone was hurt?
“Hello?”
No answer.
“Is anybody in there?”
Still nothing. The whimper had stopped. She must have imagined it. Her hands felt powerless in her pockets, so she tugged them out despite the cold.
“Help.”
The baby hairs on her neck stood up. There was no mistaking the plea. It was soft, a breath formed around a word, and it had come from the alley.
She stepped toward it, reaching for her phone.
“Hold up, love.”
An average-sized man stepped out from the alley and into the dim ambient light of a London evening. He walked toward the center of the street, not glancing her direction. He wore his collar up, his trench coat open at the waist to reveal hands deep in his pants pockets. He approached close enough that she could smell his drugstore cologne, sweet and chemical-based. His slow pace, his refusal to look her way, was darkly soothing, hypnotizing, in the way it must be to encounter an apex predator. This will be over soon, his movements whispered.
When he stood dead center in the street, ten feet in front of her, a second man, this one a giant, loped out of the alley. She recognized him immediately as the ape who’d slammed into their table at the Mayflower, the one Salem had brought to his knees with her little Krav Maga move. He had more curiosity or less intelligence than the first man because he stared straight at her.
Now it was she who was whimpering.
A third man emerged from the shadows immediately behind the second, this one lean and dry-looking, his furtive movements reminding Salem of a lizard darting out from beneath a rock. He couldn’t decide who to look at, his eyes scurrying between the leader, the ape, and Salem. A dirty little smile flickered across his mouth.
A scream jerked up from Salem’s brainstem. Her prefrontal lobe immediately knocked it down, but not before it turned into a grunt that leaked out her mouth. Yelling would not help her now. She looked around for escape, for help, and saw neither. She would need to get herself out of here, and that didn’t seem possible. Her front jacket pocket held her single room key on its plastic band. Threaded through her fingers, it would be the weakest of weapons. She still clutched her phone. She was trembling too much to type, but she could yell a command for her cell to call 999, London’s version of 911, and hope the order got out and was answered before the men were on her.
The leader still hadn’t glanced her way, the ape couldn’t stop staring at her, and the third man kept playing eyeball ping pong.
Salem heard the clacking of castanets. With a start, she realized it was her teeth chattering. Or her bones. This fear was one that every girl, every woman had experienced—a metallic, powerless certainty that she was about to have something fundamental ripped from her. The helpless terror tasted like warm silver poured down her throat, slicing through her blood with the high-pitched wail of a funeral keen, finally settling in her bones, hard and inevitable.
She found herself growing impossibly tired. This was not a fight she could win.
The leader finally spoke, his eyes still pinned to the ground, hands deep in his pockets. His accent was surprisingly smooth, aristocratic. “Out late?”
The ape chuckled. “I think she is. You shouldn’t have touched me, lassie. Hurts a man to be shamed like that, yeah?”
The leaden torpor she felt was the wrong response, but she just wanted to sleep. A soft whooshing sound, almost like water, cut through the chilly air, growing steadily louder. She thought only she could hear it, but when the light changed at the far end of the street, she realized it was a car approaching. The three men stiffened. Salem felt hope for the first time since the men had appeared. If the vehicle drove this direction, she would run toward it, no matter how those men tried to stop her. She would yell at her phone as she ran.
Her pulse soared with hope.
The light grew brighter.
The car was driving this way.
Headlights played across the trees.
The sound of its engine, its tires crunching, grew louder. Salem imagined she could even hear the radio inside that toasty, safe car. Was it playing Bob Dylan?
The leader didn’t look toward the car. He studied his shoes.
It’s going to save me! Salem wanted to yell. She clenched her leg muscles, preparing to run. The front of the vehicle came into view. It was a dark, four-door sedan with only the driv
er. Those were the only details she could make out because it sped by, not even slowing for the intersection.
No!
All three men stared at Salem now, openly leering, as if the nearness of escape had been a twist they’d planned.
Salem’s bones turned soft. She knew she had strength in her arms, steel in her thighs, that she had to fight, always fight, but it would be no use, not with three against one.
“Who gets her first?” the third man asked.
“Can’t leave any evidence,” the leader said.
“All right, that,” the ape said, “we’ll wear our rain jackets, yeah?” He held out his hand toward Salem, rubbing his thumb against his pointer and middle finger. “Here, pussy, here here, little pussy. Come to daddy.”
The third man laughed, the sound high and creepy.
Salem’s right leg slid back to fighting position without consulting her brain. Muscle memory. The movement recalled more of her Quantico training. The parts that hurt in you, hurt in them, no matter how big they are: eyes, base of throat, genitals. That memory triggered an image of Bel showing her how to punch someone in the throat with her right hand and scoop their eyeballs out with her left, using the weight of one swinging arm as ballast for the other. Stay solid in your center and gouge the fuck out of them.
A heat low in her belly began to burn off the silver fear. She would lose this fight, but they would not walk away in the same shape they’d arrived. The heat was solidifying into a war cry that was pushing its way up her throat. She opened her mouth to release it when a projectile whizzed past her ear, halting the yell on her tongue.
The missile carved a tunnel through the air, tracking directly to the crotch of the third man, the one with the restless eyes of a lizard. It plunged into his groin with a juicy whisk, its hilt protruding, vibrating in the air like a curious antenna. The man fell to his knees groaning and then tumbled onto his side, his hands pawing at the knife like a fishing frog trying to work a hook out of its throat.
