“Would you care to join me in a dance?”
Not even sparing a glance towards the voice, Carole shoved the empty bowl in that direction.
“Of course not,” she snapped, moving closer to the Ambassador. She had to assume the dress, or the shocking lack of it caught his eye, because he looked right at her. Moving quickly behind a stone pillar, Carole hid, knowing she’d never be able to approach him unnoticed now. There was something very knowing in his look, interested and inviting. Conversation would definitely be required. Mentally she changed tactics. Her orders were to exchange the disc. Going to the man’s hotel room was impossible; she couldn’t go against the voices. Not like that.
Carole started towards the Ambassador only to be accosted by another man.
“Would you do me the honor?” He offered a handsomely tuxedoed arm and a friendly smile.
“I don’t dance,” Carole opted for polite refusal.
“That is a tragedy.” The finely tuxedoed gentleman reached into an ornate display of tropical flowers and pulled a simple bloom with bright green petals tinged in peacock blue. It matched Carole’s dress perfectly. He offered it to her. “It’s your eyes in a flower.”
Carole rolled those eyes and marched away, wondering if any woman had ever bought that line. Keeping to the outskirts of the room, she rebuffed both aggressive fools and polite gentlemen as she circled. Keeping an eye constantly on Ambassador Balto Nelson, several times she saw his eyes glance her way expectantly. He danced with beautiful women in exquisite dresses. He drank champagne and ate from plates of hors d’oeuvres. Throughout her wait, Carole realized the man had become aware of her every move too. She sensed it as well as she sensed time ticking away, and she beckoned to him with her eyes and her body, hoping to lure him away from witnesses. She only needed a moment, and if he fell for it, she’d use brute force. She simply didn’t have the skills to do anything else. The voices were furious.
CAROLE TOOK A post in an alcove near the men’s room, her mind ticking through the remaining time and narrowing options. Finally she saw the Ambassador approaching. He kept eye contact as he walked, stopping a bit too close.
“You are old-fashioned, yes? You wait for the man to make the move. I like that.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it. The voices didn’t like it. “What are you drinking?” he questioned, raising handsome brows over very blue eyes.
Swallowing to combat her dry mouth, where bits of nuts still resided, she paused only long enough for her mind to move over the crowd just out of view. Placing one hand on the back of Balto Nelson’s head, Carole slid her fingers through dark hair, getting a good grip. He smiled with perfectly straight teeth, and she quickly cracked her skull against his as hard as she could. She felt it, but Balto’s eyes rolled up until only whites were visible and his entire body crumpled.
Carole caught him under the arms and dragged him into the empty men’s room. Her skull throbbed and she staggered in her heels while sliding the Ambassador across ceramic tile. She shoved open the handicapped stall with her backside and slowly tugged the Ambassador up and onto the toilet. Her floppy disc rested securely, wedged beneath a breast, and held safely in place by the far too tight dress. She fished it out. Balto’s had been taped against his hairy stomach, and yanking the tape loose left a bald spot. Carole swapped the discs and considered her dilemma. When he woke, his mind would surely go straight to the mystery woman. She needed enough time to get off the grounds.
One of his bodyguards wandered into the bathroom.
“Ambassador? Are you in here?”
Carole sensed him bend to look beneath the stalls, so he already knew the answer. She took a deep breath, shimmying the tight dress up and over her thighs, ignoring what the voices had to say. She straddled Balto’s lap and dropped right onto his gut, hard. He grunted, and a long groan followed. The bodyguard didn’t say another word. He scurried out of the room and stood guard outside the entrance. Carole sensed him standing there with her inexplicable radar. Balto groaned again, of his own accord, and attempted to open his blue eyes, eyelids fluttering. Grabbing a handful of his dark hair, Carole knocked his head against the tile wall but the voices’ protests reached such a fever pitch she didn’t dare do it again. Balto’s head lolled limply, so it seemed sufficient.
There were fifteen minutes left to make the drop point, and part of her mind could sense all the way to the far side of hotel and her team already leaving the parking garage. They don’t think I’ll make it! The thought made her narrow her eyes stubbornly. They don’t know me! Unbuckling the Ambassador’s belt, she ignored the shouted protests of the voices in her head. Tugging his pants down to his ankles, she left him sitting in a semi-coma state on the toilet. Then she moved like she’d never allowed herself to move in a public place, estimating forty-five seconds to cover her tracks.
The guard waiting outside the restroom was big, thick like Lieutenant Wright. Planning to take him down at any cost, Carole approached on the toes of her high heels. The voices shouted with renewed protest. He turned just a second before she reached him, his eyes sad, almost hurt. Carole read his expression a split second before her attack, suddenly reluctant to harm him. One brutal strike against his carotid and he faltered. Carole squinted through emerging black dreams, the voices punishment for disobedience and hurting people. She focused, roughly massaging his artery as he weakly tried to escape her stranglehold. The bodyguard lost consciousness and she helped him to the floor.
In seconds she dragged him into the men’s room, ignoring images of divine punishment flitting through her head. Tugging the big man into the stall with the Ambassador, she paused only long enough to adjust the men’s positions, suspecting that the bodyguard wouldn’t mind this at all when he woke. Carole yanked her heels off and ran. Even racing away, far out of earshot when the two men were discovered, she sensed it. The part of her brain that saw far watched a group of men turn right around and exit the restroom without raising alarm. Apparently they didn’t want to be the first to discover what she’d left behind. The voices were furious with her, spouting words like “lies, dishonor, untruth.” Carole flew down the stairs, jumping entire flights in her rush. The Ambassador’s reputation was collateral damage she was comfortable with. She just hoped he didn’t have a wife to answer to.
LINCOLN CROUCHED AT the edge of the golf course with the other four members of the Pact, swearing very unlike a Captain. Carole approached between thin palm trees, toes digging silently in sand. Slowing and approaching with caution, Carole heard the Marines talking.
“How could they expect success—they sent us a girl! That is a Marine? She looks like she should be in high school!” A deep voice said.
“She does,” another voice agreed, it sounded like the one called Horne.
“Never saw nothing like that in my high school, Imars.” Carole recognized Wright’s voice, goose-bumps rose over her flesh despite the humid night. He shouldn’t say that.
Lincoln joined in the rant. “And you’re not likely to see nothing like that again! Do you think that kid has a snowball’s chance in—”
“Sir,” Carole interrupted. “Mission accomplished.”
Stepping from behind perfectly manicured tropical trees into the open of the golf course, she watched their faces change to various expressions of disbelief.
“How the—” Lincoln was interrupted again, this time by Wright.
“Sir? I see the lights of our ride. We’re going to have to make a run for it.” Wright glanced at Carole’s dress and swallowed. “I have your clothes in my pack, if you need help changing.”
“Never mind! She can run in that,” Lincoln snapped. Carole noticed Lieutenant Brown grimace, and he smacked Wright reproachfully in the back of his head. Thankfully they weren’t all going to act like the boys in foster care.
“What I’d like to know,” Lincoln whispered almost under his breath, “is how she knew where we were?”
Carole pretended not to have heard.
TH
E HEAVY HUMIDITY affected her breathing, that and the bullet. Carole vaulted over a metal fence and bent low, running in a crouch. The gunshot had caught her just below the shoulder and laid her flat. It had probably saved her life, but it was difficult to be thankful at the moment. Likely the Pact had been expecting this all along, failure from the girl, as they had taken to calling her. She hated proving them right. Two months of successful missions would mean nothing now. The girl had failed as expected. A misty drizzle began to obscure visibility. Thank God. Even at night there were too many eyes in Singapore, and it was difficult to go unnoticed, especially a tall blonde leaving a blood trail. Asia had changed compared to what the black dreams showed her. Singapore at night teamed with life, non-stop activity, and bright light.
Dark Mitsubishi Lancers appeared to be the most popular car in Singapore, but in the sea of nearly identical vehicles, her sharp eyes found the license plate she wanted. On hands and knees, Carole scrambled over damp blacktop, past a row of cars. She slid into the one designated as her drop point. The driver twisted to look at her. It took some effort. The heavyset American appeared stuffed into the small car like a slug in a metal shell. Something in his body language registered as surprise but he blinked wide-eyed, as though feigning innocence. It triggered suspicion. How could he have known my pick-up was a set-up? He acts like he didn’t think I’d show up! She almost hadn’t survived to show up here or anywhere ever again. The voices whispered and warned. They sensed something off, danger.
“Hide. Do not engage. Retreat.”
With only dashboard lights illuminating the car, the driver’s eyes were dark and she couldn’t read them. His head moved as he looked for injury. Even in the half-light, the exit wound in her armpit revealed she’d been shot. Her left arm looked useless in her blood soaked shirt. It wasn’t. “Run,” the voices urged. Carole didn’t feel very cooperative.
“How did it go?” his eyes furtively darted to a leather packet shoved into her waistband. “You actually got the code!” He sounded incredulous, angry, and the reason why hit her. He was a traitor. The tilt of his head, the expectation of injury, and the condemnation of the voices convicted him, but it was the subtle reach for his weapon that sentenced him. Carole reacted without hesitation. Four innocent people had died that night, and she would not suffer a guilty one to live. Not bothering to pretend, and refusing to be shot twice in one day, she attacked. With her left hand she slammed his head against the driver window. It bought needed seconds. By the time he brought his gun around his belly, her right hand caught it in an iron grip and pressed the muzzle against his stomach. She forced him to pull the trigger. Inside the car it sounded deafening. She shook from the violence of the act, hating guns and intrigue and traitors. While her ears rang painfully, her gaze fell on the car keys dangling in the ignition. In scroll letters on a pewter key fob she saw the word Grandpa. She’d killed a man, a traitor, a Grandpa. Carole opened the door and vomited into the street.
“YOU’RE LUCKY TO be alive. Good instincts,” the Pact’s Captain told Carole while they huddled in the hold of a cargo ship. She barely heard the comments of the other men as she rolled that compliment around in her head. Lincoln turned his dark fine-boned profile towards the others and repeated it.
Good instincts. That is what she had. Grandpa had been a traitor to his country and she had killed him. Somewhere grandchildren would mourn, and she would have to learn to live with that. The words good instincts helped. Despite the voices, she was good at working off the grid because she had good instincts. Affirmation from another human being helped, and Lincoln gave her talent a name, a normal name. Not psychic schizophrenic like she’d been leaning toward, just good instincts.
“You are one lucky bitch. I’d bet there isn’t even going to be a reprimand or a suspension.” Corporal Horne, busy scrubbing her wound clean, smiled at her as though he’d congratulated her rather than used his derogatory nickname for her in front of the whole team. Apparently he considered it an endearment. “You were damned lucky Lincoln witnessed everything. When you kill one of your own, the outcome isn’t usually very positive. You might want to consider that, next opportunity.”
Horne picked up another bit of cotton batting, put salve on it and continued to rub vigorously. Carole sat on the table in her sports bra, the remains of her T-shirt beside her. Across the room Lieutenant Wright examined her with a bit too much interest. After his glance finally wandered to her hostile face, he busied himself checking the group’s weapons. Ever since their tandem skydive the man watched her too closely. She’d have to do something about it soon. Imars, the weapons expert, stepped into Carole’s line of vision, glaring at her.
“If you had a gun, you might not have gotten shot.”
“Almost killed,” Brown clarified across the hold, dropping a box of M16s onto the cargo floor with an echoing thump. He settled next to Wright, who quit shooting sidelong looks her way to pick through the weapons.
“Another inch to the left and you would be dead.” Imars tried to stare her down. Carole didn’t care, she stared back. She wasn’t using guns. It was her risk to take. If she had to kill someone, she’d look into their eyes and know whether or not it needed to be done. The voices didn’t approve either way, but Carole wasn’t listening to them about it either.
Lincoln stopped beside her, defending. “Let it go, Imars. She could aim into the sea for a fish and hit a seagull in the sky. You don’t want to be near Private Blank when she’s armed. At least I sure don’t.”
It was true. She wasn’t any good at it either. Not that she tried.
Imars huffed, but squatted beside the other men to help clean and load their weapons. Carole touched the knife at her belt. It was sufficient. When she looked up, Lincoln winked at her.
“It’s not that knife anyone should worry about, Private.” He patted her left hand, resting on the table. “It’s these hands; they should be licensed to kill. In fact—” he paused to pour alcohol over her wound, ignoring her grimace, “I think they are. Unofficially of course, if you even existed, which you don’t.”
Imars chimed in from his spot on the floor, “It’s easier to kill when you don’t have to get so close.”
The men all agreed with that statement, but Carole fought off a shiver. It shouldn’t be easy to kill. Ever. Even the voices agreed with that.
THE WORLD FROM her black dreams was a familiar place to Carole. Over the next four months the real world became familiar too. Just like on her bus journey in the states, everyplace from Singapore to the Sudan, even Afghanistan and Colombia were all eerily similar to the places black dreams had paraded through her mind all her life.
Carole celebrated her eighteenth birthday in the cargo hold of an airplane somewhere over South America. Perched on top sacks of cocaine, with a pile of bananas in her lap, she ate her way through the fruit. Lincoln took a seat next to her and slapped the commandeered haul beneath him. It raised a puff of white powder.
“We’ll be tossing our latest acquisition into the ocean shortly. Quite a way to spend Christmas, eh, boys?”
It did Carole’s heart good to be included with the boys. She offered Lincoln one of her bananas and he grimaced, but told her proudly, “You’re the only woman on any Black Ops team. I mean if you really existed you would be, which you don’t, so never mind, but Happy Birthday. Your non-existent paperwork says you’re eighteen today, which would be insane if you were real.”
The rest of the team had stopped paying attention around the word “woman”. Despite the growing list of successful missions they hadn’t warmed to her. That included Lincoln, though he said all the right things, and sometimes, like today, seemed to mean them. Instead of truly being part of the team, Carole fit in more like a useful gadget they’d been issued but didn’t quite trust. After a brief but annoying infatuation with her, Wright had finally given up when she’d knocked him unconscious one night at base camp. Horne hated all women, a fact which he proved anytime they were on break. The man wooed an
d dumped a new girlfriend in the space of a weekend. He had only one rule when it came to women, they couldn’t be taller than his five foot ten inch height. Carole had almost a half inch of safety. Horne called Carole bitch anytime he had to address her for any reason, including at debriefings in front of superior officers, although he always said it in a polite tone on those occasions. It might have bothered her if she didn’t have her own derogatory name for him, but she never said it out loud. Brown didn’t pay much attention to anyone except to correct them for deviating even one iota from his plans. Imars had apparently dismissed Carole back in Singapore. He seemed to have no use for anyone who didn’t employ his top of the line weapons, and the only time he talked to her was using hand signals during missions.
Carole rarely spoke to any of the five men unless protocol demanded it. She followed orders. She followed her instincts. She almost belonged with the Pact, and despite the condemnation of the voices and her outsider status, she was determined to be content.
“DAMMIT, THAT’S DISGUSTING. You’re leaving bloody footprints. Why the hell can’t you use a gun?” Imars glared at her from inside the ambulance. Carole grabbed onto the van’s door to pull herself up and he shoved her back down with a wet boot to the chest. It took restraint she barely had to keep from pulling the jerk out of the van and throwing him into the snow. Exhausted and wounded she didn’t need grief. The mission had not gone well.
Lincoln hurried to the rear of the ambulance, staring down at her. “It was supposed to look like an accident! What did you use, your teeth?”
Heartless A Shieldmaiden's Voice: A Covenant Keeper Novel Page 5
