Mercy's Chase

by Jess Lourey

  He hadn’t done that. He’d waited. He’d watched them. When it became clear they weren’t going to speak, he did. “All cards on the table.” He’d loosened his tie and scanned the room. “Your mothers were leaders in an organization called the Underground. Their job was to take down the Hermitage. The Hermitage got sick of their interference and started taking them out.” He’d studied both women. “Ah, I was right. I wasn’t sure about that last part.”

  Salem was too exhausted to wait any longer for the other shoe to drop. “Are you going to arrest us?”

  His glance had landed on her. “You’re up against the Hermitage? You probably want me to arrest you. While following you here, I called in some favors to find out what the organization has been up to. Safest place for you is in jail.”

  Still, neither Bel nor Salem offered anything.

  “Dammit.” Stone sat back and rubbed the tops of his thighs, clearly weighing something.

  Salem found herself able to study him dispassionately. He was handsome, his features strong, his skin smooth and dark. Normally, she’d be terrified to sit this close to him, to talk to him.

  She’d been through too much to care anymore.

  “Help us,” she demanded. “Or let us go.”

  He stared at her, eyes lingering on her face. “Your cat is fine.”

  She’d laughed. She didn’t know where the sound came from. “What?”

  “I asked the Minneapolis field office to check on him when they searched your apartment. Your neighbor across the hall has him, and he’s fine.”

  That’s when it first occurred to Salem to trust Lucan Stone.

  Bel must have shared that thought. “Salem’s right. We need you to help us, or to at least let us go. You know we haven’t done anything wrong or you would have already arrested us. Let us finish what we’re doing. Give us until Monday.”

  Stone shook his head. Salem thought he was coughing but realized it was soft laughter.

  “You two are going to rescue whichever of your mothers is alive and dismantle the Hermitage, one of the best-funded and well-connected organizations in the world?”

  “In that order,” Bel had said fiercely, leaning forward.

  Stone’s expression grew serious. “You know what? I believe you can. Because you two are some combination of lucky, strong, and smart that I’ve never seen before. But I can’t just let you go. It’s a million to one that you’ve even survived this long. Plus, Senator Gina Hayes is going to be speaking on Alcatraz in less than two days. No way can you roam San Francisco. Your faces are too hot, even with those disguises.”

  Salem’s brain had raced. “Thirty-six hours.”

  “What?”

  “Give our luck thirty-six hours. And then we’ll bring you what you need to take down the Hermitage.”

  “Will you tell me what it is that you’re after?”

  “We can’t,” Salem said, “because we don’t know. Thirty-six hours.”

  Still, he hesitated. He would be risking his career letting two fugitives go.

  “If you want to save Hayes, you can’t do it without us.” Bel pointed to Salem. “You can’t do it without her. In five days, she’s blown through codes that have been hidden for over a century.”

  Stone stared at Salem. The fear of being seen and coming up short raged inside of her, burning muscle off bone, but for the first time in years, she didn’t stare at her feet, didn’t hide from the attention.

  She held his gaze.

  It was Stone who finally looked away after something passed between them. She didn’t know what, but it felt good.

  He rubbed his chin and laughed again, this time more of a growl of amazement. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’ve got it. Thirty-six hours.”

  And he’d let them go. She didn’t know who he was working for, if it was more than the FBI, but for those thirty-six hours, he’d been a man of his word. Good or bad, he also kept his secrets. He had no romantic interest in her, and sure that stung, but he was a good agent. She had to rely on someone other than Charlie, who was in as much danger as her, maybe more. With Bel out of the picture, it would be Lucan Stone.

  Mind made up, she ran a deceptively simple encryption on the email from Linder’s office and as an afterthought, did the same on the Moscow to London email Gaea had flagged. Salem had developed the encryption program at the Campus. She’d also created a sequencer to crack it. As of yesterday, at least, the code was still airtight to anyone outside of the FBI.

  Once the email was encrypted, she forwarded it via her computer to Agent Stone’s cell. The B&C whirred and buzzed, cleaning and compressing the text so it could move efficiently through the ether.

  Sent.

  She sat back, surprised at the relief she felt at sharing the data with Stone, at the thought of it arriving on his phone in mere seconds.

  Ding ding.

  Her relief was short-lived.

  The sound had originated in the front passenger seat. The hitchhiker had just received a text.

  30

  London Offices of the Order

  at Kensington Palace Gardens

  They didn’t make you Speaker of the United States House of Representatives if you were a fool. That should go without saying, but it didn’t. Not in Vit Linder’s experience, in any case. Between the opposition party, members of his own party, and the damn press, defending himself had become a full-time job. He told himself he was used to it. He’d been born an underdog, the third-favorite of the three children born to Ronald Linder and his wife, Mrs. Ronald Linder.

  Vit had had to beg and scrabble for every loan his father had given him, and even when he transformed those beans into fame and fortune, Ronald had still preferred his sisters over Vit, threatening to leave all his money to his grandchildren, of which Vit had contributed none.

  Vit told himself he didn’t need the money, and he supposed it

  was true. He’d built his own empire. And when his father had said

  offhandedly that the only real power in the United States fell in the hands of politicians, Vit ran successfully for the House seat of the 1st Congressional District of New York. He’d been nominated to the Speaker position his third term.

  His father had lived to see his only son elected 54th Speaker of the House. His congratulations? “That’s all well and good, but you’re still not the president.”

  Ronald Linder had suffered a fatal heart attack one month later, a full decade after his wife had passed. True to word, he’d left the entirety of his wealth to his grandchildren. The only way Vit could get even was to become president of the United States of America.

  He was third in line. That would all change in two days.

  He thought having his people send the email to the Secret Service was a nice touch. Sometimes reporters liked to dig, and his constituents seemed to believe emails were extra meaty evidence. He played the future interview in his head as he left the Order’s London offices.

  Reporter: How tragic that the president and vice president have been killed. Thank god you weren’t there too.

  Vit Linder, wearing a suitably sad/capable face that he’d have to schedule time to practice: I almost was. The environmental summit leaders had requested my attendance. Almost like they wanted all three of us there, though I don’t want to suggest there was a conspiracy against the United States. No, I would have been there if not for the Secret Service’s monetary concerns. I didn’t want to further weigh down our already bloated budget. Trimming the DC fat will be one of my first priorities as president.

  Reporter: Wait, you were supposed to be at the summit?

  Vit Linder: You bet. I even communicated with the Secret Service about it. Jeannie, can you round up that email? I’m sure we have a copy somewhere.

  Even if a single reporter never saw the email, it was a beautiful smokescreen for the requis
ite investigation into his involvement in the assassination, a record establishing that it was no less than the Secret Service who presented him his alibi.

  While Vit would not attend the summit, he couldn’t help popping into London on his return trip from Moscow. There’d be so many reporters there. He wouldn’t have time to hire a model to wear on his arm, but he could stop by the Order’s London offices. He wanted photos out there of him entering one of the priciest pieces of real estate in London, next to Buckingham and Kensington Palaces. The creamy white mansion was registered as the private residence of a Saudi. Simply being seen entering it would drive up the price of his stock.

  Besides, he wanted to see the girl.

  The ancient conspiracy shit still hadn’t gotten ahold of him, but he had natural curiosity. She was just a kid, yet the world’s wealthiest men believed she could take them down. What did a girl that powerful look like?

  Pretty much like any other blond eight-year-old, it turned out, except this one was scared as fuck. They had her locked up in a basement room behind two-way glass with theater seating on the viewing side of it. Linder wondered who else they’d had locked up in there before. He made a note to ask about getting on the list to watch. He bet there’d been some really interesting women in that room.

  The kid didn’t do much, just alternated between shivering in a ball in the corner and launching herself at the glass, spitting and hissing like a feral cat, too slight to make any impact. Vit thought they should at least get her some street clothes. Those fuzzy bunny pajamas she wore made a guy feel bad staring at her.

  He stayed as long as he thought necessary so he didn’t look like a coward, nodding brusquely at the other men watching before he took the elevator back to the main floor. He’d hoped to meet the Grimalkin while he was here, but he’d been informed that the assassin was on the road, tailing Salem Wiley. He’d tried to force Clancy Johnson to tell him something, anything about the Grimalkin, but Clancy had been too dumb to know what Vit was fishing for. Vit wanted to be friends with the Grimalkin. He thought someone so respected by the Order would be worth having on his side.

  But nope, the Grimalkin was out following Wiley as she solved the secret of Stonehenge. Talk about another load of bunk. If they couldn’t go public once it was solved and there was no serious money in it, who cared?

  The Order, that’s who.

  Vit knew the twelve of them thought he was a buffoon. That worked swell for him. Kept everyone off balance. He’d surprise them with how well he managed the double assassination and stoked the fires of division in the United States. He’d deliver for them, deliver his whole country, and then they’d respect him.

  Once he was president, the whole world would bow at his feet.

  It was nice how smoothly the Order’s interests dovetailed with his own—other than them having a Muslim and an African on the board, which he’d discovered on his way out of the Moscow meeting. Vit assumed that was for show. He had no problem personally with blacks, in fact had found them quite useful when it came to upsetting the voters who made up his base, but he didn’t think they belonged at the table of power any more than women did. It wasn’t a global conspiracy. It was the order of things.

  Vit paused as he reached the mansion’s front door. I wonder if that’s where they got their name? The Order. Hunh. Made sense.

  Together, Vit Linder and the Order would return the world to the way it had always been, with men ruling and women cooking and cleaning and getting fucked. Once he was President of the United States of America, maybe he’d volunteer his time to restructure the Order, modernize them, get the coloreds out. He’d been told the group was originally founded by St. Peter. Certainly there were now better ways to do business. Time for an update.

  He was smiling as he stepped outside the mansion, but he quickly swapped out the expression when he saw that the reporters he’d had tipped off were out there. He looked goofy when he smiled—that’s one thing his dad had been right about. He adopted a gruff mien instead, one that clearly conveyed his displeasure at being caught leaving an important business meeting.

  It was difficult to keep the serious face. He was so happy.

  Friday

  September 22

  31

  Journey to Orkney Islands, Scotland

  The hitchhiker’s text had come from his wife, its timing coinciding with Salem texting Lucan a fluke. The text had prompted the hitchhiker to make a call, speaking in Gaelic, his voice rising in what sounded like an argument, but may only have been an animated conversation. He’d ridden all the way to the car rental return with Charlie and Salem, caught the same shuttle as them to the airport, then parted ways at the airport bus stop.

  Agent Lucan Stone had not responded to the encrypted text.

  Salem and Charlie had to run to catch their plane to Edinburgh. They made their flight, just, and slid into their seats. At the Edinburgh airport, they had a two-hour wait for a private puddle jumper that would take them to Kirkwall, the only airport in the Orkneys, an archipelago of seventy islands off the north coast of Scotland. They’d wolfed down sandwiches then found a quiet spot to catch some sleep, their heads bobbing against each other. It was the middle of the night when they finally boarded the four-seater. Salem was too exhausted to be scared by the plane’s size. She fished around her bag for a sweatshirt to turn into a pillow and came out with Mercy’s rag doll.

  She held the doll to her face, inhaling the sweet scent of Mercy’s shampoo. The force of the tears surprised her. The child hadn’t asked for any of this. Like Salem, she’d been forced into a dangerous world, her path decided for her, her life always at risk. But Salem had been allowed a fairly normal childhood, at least until her father’s death. Mercy had never known stability, and now was being held by the most violent men Salem had ever encountered. A wail grew inside of her when she imagined what they were doing to the little girl right at this moment. They had to hurry. They had to save Mercy.

  She fell asleep with the tears still on her cheeks, holding the doll as if it were her own child. She was jarred awake when the plane’s wheels grabbed the Kirkwall tarmac. She stretched. Her eyes and mouth were gritty, her hair and clothes disheveled. Surely the last two days had lasted longer than forty-eight hours. The world had taken on a surreal, foggy quality, the light oddly violet, her thoughts liquid.

  The pilot didn’t leave his seat as they deplaned. “Your guide will be here soon. Lad’s roommate needed to wake him.”

  “Thanks, mate,” Charlie said. “I owe you one.”

  “That’s right,” the pilot said. “Except I’ll be home in bed in another two hours, and I don’t think that’s true for you, so let’s call it even.”

  Salem grabbed her duffel and the B&C. Charlie had only his overnight bag. They trudged toward the small airport. Its single public structure was a cross between a pole barn and a naval training building, made all the smaller by the vastness of the sky

  “Have you ever been to Kirkwall?” Salem asked. She was trying to blink the gunk out of her eyes, but she couldn’t. The weird eternal twilight effect lingered. Maybe someone had left the light on in the Orkneys? She began to laugh at her internal joke but stopped when she realized she was delirious.

  “Never.” Charlie held the terminal door for her. He glanced over the flat terrain as she entered. “This is my first simmer dim, as well.”

  Salem stopped and stared in the direction he was looking. She didn’t see anything except flat green fields under the lavender-tinted sky. “What?”

  “This time of year, this far north, the sun only sets for a few hours. It’s called simmer dim. We’re on the far end of it—the phenomenon peaks midsummer—but the change in light and color is enough to unsettle you.”

  Salem blinked. The sandpaper of her eyelids scraped against her cornea, but at least she now knew why everything appeared surreal. “Might make it easier to find what we’r
e looking for.”

  His gaze landed on her, deep and intense, like he’d discovered something new about her. It was the same way Lucan Stone had looked at her in her dream, before he began kissing her. “I like your optimism. Thank you.”

  Salem didn’t know why she blushed. “Do you know the guide who’s meeting us?”

  “Not a bit.” Charlie smiled, breaking the mood. “We might as well get comfortable.”

  The inside of the airport was much more welcoming than the exterior, featuring rows of comfortable chairs, televisions turned to twenty-four-hour news, and a restaurant that wouldn’t open for two more hours.

  “I’m going to use the loo,” Charlie said. “Shall we take these chairs?”

  They looked as good as any. Salem dropped into one, keeping her eye on their bags while Charlie went, and then grabbing her toiletries and taking her turn. The bathroom was simple and clean. She washed her face in the sink and wiped it clean with scratchy paper towels. Digging around in her pouch, she found her toothpaste and toothbrush. She felt a million times better after scrubbing her teeth.

  When she returned to her seat, Charlie had purchased a couple bags of what he called crisps along with two colas from a vending machine. “Fine Scottish dining.” He smiled his lopsided smile.

  She took the food gratefully. “I’ve never had salt and vinegar potato chips.”

  “Well then, my darling, you have not yet lived.”

  She dug into her bag. The crisps were so tangy they puckered her lips. The icy cold cola provided a perfect contrast. They munched in companionable silence. They were the only people in the airport besides a janitor and a security guard who were talking over a garbage can on the far side of the terminal, and near them, a man sleeping on a bench.

  Still, when a thought occurred to her, Salem pitched her voice low. “The plan at Stenness is the same as Stonehenge, right? We look for a code on, around, or as the stones.”

  “Sounds about right.” Charlie crunched thoughtfully. “I’ve never been here.”