by Meli Raine
This is weird.
Or maybe I'm elevating and am too tired to realize it.
“Both of you need sleep,” Duff says kindly. “The kids are all set up in rooms in the lodge. Everyone's together to keep it safer. Tomorrow morning we work on solidifying the cover story and we go to press at noon Eastern time. You need your sleep.”
“I won't sleep. Not knowing Debbie might be dead.”
“That was her name?”
I nod, my head a block of concrete. A lump in my throat makes it hard to swallow. If I close my eyes, I'll see her face all night.
Yet if I don't try to rest, I'll help no one.
“Fine,” I murmur, moving away from the chair I’m clinging to. “Where is there a bed for me?”
“I'll show you,” Duff says, moving in the dark toward the main building, two men in the shadows following us, guns in hand.
The danger is still very real.
“Until the press is contacted with our cover story tomorrow, we're in significant danger. Drew’s company has us covered,” Duff comments.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would he go to all this trouble? Who pays for all the surveillance and special ops teams?”
“I don't know. I don't care,” he adds. “Until everyone's safe and secured, we just go along for the ride.”
“That is not an acceptable answer and you know it.”
“It's the only answer that we can afford to entertain, Kina,” Callum reminds me. “I don't have money or connections to hire another private security firm. And these men and women seem to have a dog in this fight.”
“Dog?” I look around.
“Not literally. It's an expression in mass society.”
“Why would anyone fight dogs?”
“They do. It's a sport.”
“A human against a dog is not a fair fight!”
Yawns on top of yawns drown out my confused answer until the words disappear and all I care about is a bed. Staggering slightly, I continue to follow Duff and Callum until we stop in front of the building.
Duff leans in.
“Bottom line, you two were stolen from families who loved and wanted you. You were four. Stateless was in early stages then. It's much more refined now. Your training produced the three violent psychopaths who attacked Lindsay. It produced Romeo. People like El Brujo and Senator Corning and Harry Bosworth are tied up in your philosophy. I know you have prime ministers and crown princes and presidents and generals galore around the world as part of your team.” He takes a deep breath, then continues:
“But here's the deal: you have deep divisions in Stateless. Two different teams, so to speak. Maybe more. And I want you to think long and hard about who is in which camp. Who blew up the compound and wanted the kids gone? Who was against that? Who is in between? Identifying who falls into which camp is critical now.”
Callum yawns, stifling the involuntary action.
“But,” Duff says casually, pointing to a cracked-open door to the left as we enter the building, “for now, don't think. Just sleep. You need it. The world changes forever tomorrow, and REM sleep is underrated.” As he leaves, I crane my neck to look through the gap in the door. Bunk beds. Single beds.
Cribs.
“I'm going back,” Callum says, stopping in front of the door.
“He said we should sleep.”
“You should sleep. I have a mess to take care of. Those kids need you. The babies and toddlers most, but the older kids do, too.”
“How am I supposed to help them, Callum? The older ones. They're angry and they're also well trained. It's been years since I was with them full time.”
“They're loyal to you. They came to help when you needed it most. Kina, you created your own army. You did it here.” He touches the place over my heart. “I don't know how you did it, but you did.”
“That didn't save Debbie.”
“But it saved all of them.” Unexpectedly, Duff appears, cell phone in hand and a slight smile on his face.
“Thomas,” he says pointedly, giving Callum side eye I don't understand, “is improving. Steady and slow, but improvement. They've upgraded his condition.”
“I have to see him,” I blurt out, bleary but wired.
“Tomorrow,” Callum assures me. I look at Duff, who stays stoic.
“Thank you,” I say to them both, to no one, to everyone. “And Jay? Sela?”
“We'll transport them during the night. Gentian’ll have them here by dawn. Drew's taking extra care to make sure they're safe.”
“It's worse out there, isn't it? Someone could manufacture an accident that kills them.”
“We're aware. And we're on alert,” Duff clarifies.
My legs feel like rubber as I nod to him, Callum squeezing my hand before letting go. As the world spins, I stagger to an empty bed and plop down. A sleeping bag, curled up like a pill bug, is at the bottom of it. The night air is cold enough that I sit up, my abs screaming as I sink my hand into the center of the cinched-tight bag case and unfurl the sleeping bag like a ribbon, pulling it over me, too tired to do more than unzip it and make a crude blanket.
Before sleep–or something like it–descends like a dementor sucking all the light out of my world, I envision just one face.
Not Debbie's.
Not Janice's.
Not Glen's.
No. The one person I envision comes from a place so deep, I can only access her on the fringe of consciousness.
My mother.
Chapter 8
Callum
“I meant it,” Duff says gruffly as I walk into the war room where they've set up operations. It’a nothing but row after row of folding tables and chairs, ethernet and power cords twisting together like a massive electronics orgy. “You need to sleep,” he declares, picking up a to-go cup of coffee, drinking a swig, and making a face.
“You think I can sleep right now?” I let out a barky laugh. “I need stimulants, a notebook, a secure electronic device, and high-grade weapons. We have a lot of debriefing and some serious hole poking to do on this plan you're about to unleash.”
“You sound like Foster.”
“Maybe he's my real brother.”
The comment is meant in jest. He takes it like an arrow to the heart. The guy is good at concealment, but I'm even better at detection.
“What do you mean, stimulants?”
“You know. Pills.”
“We're not in combat.”
“The hell we're not.”
“You need rest, man. Sleep. You've got injuries you're not admitting, and no matter how tough we think we are, the body doesn't heal when it's never given down time. We've got this covered.”
“I have intel you need.”
“We can get it in the morning.”
“Morning might be too late.”
Drew walks in, Lindsay at his side, his hand on her back like he’ll die without contact. Eyes skimming the room, he relaxes, his hand drifting to the small of her back. “Spit it out, then.”
“Glen's mission isn't just to screw the president and learn his secrets. She told me if I didn’t infiltrate your group and take you all down, she’d kill Kina.”
All eyebrows fly up.
“And?” Drew asks.
“She's rooting out the Stateless double agents.”
“AND?”
“And she might be one of them. Svetnu wouldn't listen to me when I warned him years ago. He insisted she's clean. I know she's not.”
“How do you know this?”
“I've watched her try to kill her own sister. She sandbagged Kina. It's... it's hard to explain. You have to understand Stateless culture.”
“I've got time.” Duff yawns.
“We're trained to snuff out emotion. It's considered an impediment to being who we need to be. Glen was always good at it. Great, in fact. But Kina wasn't. Ever. She's sharp as hell and compensated for her weakness by shoring up her strengths.”
&n
bsp; “Feeling is a weakness?” Lindsay asks. “Doesn't that just turn you into sociopaths?”
“That's your term for it. Our term is different.”
“What do you call someone who has no emotional attachment to people?”
“A successful field operative.”
“You're telling me that Kina was–you said sandbagged–by her sister because she had too many feelings?”
“No. Because she knew how to use her emotional attunement and her intelligence. She's quiet. Understated.”
“And underestimated.”
“Yes. She has three kills under her belt. And those are just at the compound, before what happened with the kids.”
“Kills at the compound? Training exercises?”
“Something like that. I know it's hard to absorb the meaning behind what I'm saying, but let's just leave it at this: Kina's twin sister is threatened by her. And that insecurity is Glen's weakness.”
A long, aggrieved sigh makes us turn. Kina's standing there, hands on her hips, stretching.
“What's the phrase we were taught? My ears were buzzing? You're talking about me and Glen.”
“Caught,” Duff mutters.
“What are you doing up?” I ask with a sigh. Kina ignores my question.
“And you're right. Glen always had to be better than everyone else. It took me too long to realize that wasn't true. She just needed to feel better than everyone else,” she says through a yawn.
“That's why Glen's a double agent? She has a need to be above others? Always the smartest person in the room?” Foster asks, nodding slowly, digesting the information.
“Yes.”
“Plenty of men and women like that in the intelligence community.”
“How many of them are sleeping with the president of the United States?”
“Hopefully just one,” Lindsay whispers, then shudders.
Foster huffs. “Whatever notes and security access Glen has at the White House are going to be locked down. How does getting Kina in there help?”
“I know a back door,” I offer.
“So do I!” Lindsay says brightly.
“Not a physical door. A security loophole in all modern biometric scanners.”
“Oh. You have that?”
“Can't deploy it without access to a wireless network connected to a secure VPN. I assume the computer networks at his private home in California are connected to the systems in Washington?”
Foster shrugs. “Yeah. Of course. I'll find out the specifics. That kind of information useful to you?”
“If I can get a back door into the system, even for a few minutes, I can prevent the security systems from knowing the difference between Kina and Glen. I can also find out exactly what Glen's been doing in their systems. What she's been reading.”
“What she knows,” Lindsay says, eyes narrowing. There's a hard edge to her, more than I'd expect from someone who has lived such a privileged life. The famous attack on her nine years ago took a California beach blonde and turned her into a steely woman married to a hardcore ex-military special ops guy who is helping me.
Helping me bring down Stateless.
Is that what we're doing? Is that what I'm doing?
Guess so.
Like it or not.
The minute someone in the leadership ordered those kids to be wiped out, I changed sides. The minute I watched Kina tear her heart out in pain, I turned traitor.
Who am I betraying?
Who, specifically, am I betraying? I don't know which Stateless operatives are for or against me at this point. Everyone is a suspect.
Every damn one.
Except for Janice, who is dead. Brave as hell and a major reason so many children survived.
But dead.
And then there’s Hokes. Last guy I thought would aid us in escaping, but it's undeniable: He gave us full-throttle help when we needed it most.
Why?
Old guys like him don't last long in any organization by sticking their necks out. In fact, someone his age either rises to the top or gets eliminated. How'd he last so long? He wasn't at the compound when Kina and I were in training.
Yet he was instrumental in getting us all out.
“Callum? Hello?” Kina's shaking my arm.
“What?”
“You were lost in thought.”
“I'm wondering about Hokes.”
“Hokes?”
“I wish I had someone on the inside to feed me information. But any outreach now will compromise the person in there.”
Duff shifts in a way that is just telling enough to make me catch it. By the perk of Kina's ear, she catches it, too.
They have someone on the inside.
Someone's been leaking.
“Who is it?” I demand.
“You know I can't tell you that.”
Kina's head pulls back, a hint of surprise in her muscles.
“But you've got someone. I need to give you a list of questions to be answered.”
“You're not the one calling the shots,” Foster reminds me.
“No. I'm not. But I'm the one who knows how to interpret the information you do get.”
Uneasiness fills the room, tension between Duff, Foster, and me juxtaposed against the obvious alliance of Kina and Lindsay.
We traffic in darkness.
They offer light.
It's a waiting game. Whoever cracks first has the disadvantage.
Except Lindsay Bosworth Foster doesn't play by those rules.
“There aren't any sides anymore. We're all on the side of the truth,” she declares.
Kina looks at her like she's an alien.
“And the truth is,” her husband says in a low voice, filled with weary meaning I don't understand, “people in this room were part of the plan to set Jane's ranch on fire. Part of the movement that set John, Blaine, and Stellan on you. Part of a plan to foment chaos around the world so that opportunists could step in and gain power.”
“You know that much,” I state. It’s not a question.
“We know that Stateless was formed about thirty years ago. A group of rich men in various countries grew tired of how oil was being handled by some governments. They founded private armies and unofficial shipping lines. Worked on dismantling transportation regulations. Filled local government spots around the world with operatives. Studied psychological techniques from authoritarian goverments to make propaganda seem like news. They adhere to no political party. They have no religion. Their sole purpose back then was to win. The money was secondary.”
“It's all about power,” Kina murmurs. “Not about regional government. Not about serving people with better relationships. Not about the importance of close-knit communities or eschewing mass entertainment designed to turn people into stupid consumerist receptacles. It was never about any of that? It was only about having absolute power?”
Her questions are aimed straight at me.
I shrug.
It's all I can do.
Because I don't know, either.
“I think the leaders started with the ideology we were taught, Kina. Over time, that went out the window as the stakes got too high,” I try to explain, knowing it's weak.
“What do they want to do with that power?” Lindsay asks curiously, as if she’s an undergrad in a humanities seminar. Her voice isn't plaintive or outraged, as I would expect. She's drilling down, interested.
For someone who had every shred of power stripped from her dramatically in a brutal gang rape years ago, that she can debate the issue without emotion is a testimony to her strength.
And yet another reason to make sure she's on our side.
Our side.
“They want power because they can have it,” Foster says. “There is no rational reason that would ever explain what Stateless is doing. That's the point: It doesn't make sense to people with mainstream ideas about morality. That's what trips everyone up. You have to view their actions through the lens of right
and wrong, period. Studying their motivations to find a way to crack them open and change them is impossible. Power is the entire point.”
“How do we take their power away? They have decades of practice and implementation we don't have. Money. Connections. People to do their bidding. How can impersonating Glen and getting access to the president's inner sanctum make a difference if the powers that be–the ones outside the U.S. government and within–are so strong?” Kina matches Lindsay's voice, though I catch a tremor there.
“We don't,” I say simply. “We can't think that way. We do this one step at a time.”
A cry from the other room makes Lindsay and Kina turn. A baby shrieks, joined by a toddler shouting “Keen! Ippa!”
The women leave.
The rest of us stare at each other.
“Our best plan involves sending my damn wife and your girlfriend–”
“She's not my girlfriend.”
“–your–whatever–into the bowels of danger in order to get amorphous information that may or may not help us chip away at some deep state shit that involves global infiltration and societal destruction for people who want a new world order.”
“That about sums it up.”
“I don't like that kind of math. It’s not enough of a reason. We need something more solid.”
“We can’t get any information until we’re in. Until Kina is in. Once she’s made it in the Grove and in Glen’s office, then she can figure it out,” Duff says as I glare at him as if it’s all his fault for being right.
“This is just a fishing expedition?” Drew huffs. “Don’t like it.”
“No one does, Drew,” Duff says. “But it's our best shot.”
“Our only shot,” I add, hating the sound of the silence that comes after my words.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
So do men who care.
Chapter 9
Kina
“It’s okay, Ashton,” I murmur in his ear, bouncing the poor, terrified toddler as his eyes stare vacantly at night terrors that aren't real.
Or are they?
So many of us are in this one big room, though a second, smaller room to the right houses some of the children, the connecting door wide open. Armed men and women are outside every door and window, and I know there's a battalion's worth of munitions around the perimeter of this strange campground we're using.
