by Meli Raine
The my dad comment makes me bristle. Why am I having an emotional reaction to a man I don't remember?
“El Brujo smuggled drugs and people across the border. Senator Nolan Corning helped him do it. They invested in Harry Bosworth and promoted his rise to have someone in the White House to do their dirty work. Lindsay's attack by three children of Stateless believers sounds more and more like it was one Stateless faction using her against another,” I posit.
Foster winces. Duff shoots me a warning look made of steel.
“Look,” I protest, a flash of anger making me curl my hands into fists rather than throw them up in a gesture of supplication. “This is new to me. I'm processing it on the spot. I spent years assuming Stateless was monolithic. It's what we were trained to believe. Only in the last year or so did I start to understand there were cracks. Competing interests. And that really became clear only in the last few months. It's making me revisit everything I know.”
“That's a luxury we don't have.”
“I can’t control it–everything I know turns out to be something else. Don't lecture me on what I can and can't do with my own thoughts.”
“You're talking about my wife, about events that happened to us nine years ago, like it's some entry in a history book, or a one-pager from a briefing session.”
“And you talk about Stateless the same way. So we understand each other, then, don't we?”
His chest is rising and falling in long, strong lifts. I mirror him. We're not losing our cool here.
We're establishing an understanding.
Foster is accustomed to being in charge. Whoever holds the frame claims that position.
But when two equally significant frames collide, how do you proceed? In this case, eliminating one weakens the other.
We weren't taught anything about this in training.
The question is moot as Kina enters the room, steaming cup of coffee in hand, eyes more alert as she takes two short sips. Scanning the room, she instantly stands taller, cup moving away from her mouth.
“Whatever's going on in here, set it aside,” she insists. “We need to be on the same team.”
“We are,” Foster grinds out.
“Good. Because I've made a decision.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “About what?”
“I'm going. With Lindsay.”
All of us jerk in surprise. “You what?” I reach for her, but she stays in place. My mistake. Affection in public isn't the norm for us.
For her.
“What made you change your mind?” Drew asks, clearly conflicted.
Lindsay walks into the room, hair pulled back in a ponytail, circles under her eyes. She touches Foster's arm, whispers in his ear, and he nods and says quietly, “Paulson's there now.”
Her shoulders drop. She pats her bosom.
He nods to a small black case on the floor near one of the desks. It has a shoulder strap.
Kina watches them, rather than answering Foster's hanging question. A corner of her mouth quirks up.
What is this all about?
Lindsay catches Kina watching her and gives a small smile as she sips coffee, shouldering the black case, then departing.
“I've got Mark Paulson, one of our best guys, at the house,” Foster says, looking at Kina, ignoring the fact that she hasn't replied to the question I still want answered.
“The house?”
“We'll take you to a secure beach house near The Grove. We’ll go over everything there. Gather all the information we have from a variety of sources. It's not enough that you look like Glen and can imitate her. This is incredibly complicated. The more loose threads we weave in or snip off, the better, because I am taking you and my wife into a potentially deadly scenario.” His eyes drift to the door Lindsay just left through. “And I'm pretty sure that's how this has to go down. Lindsay and me both in there with you.”
“Why?”
“I have some ideas for getting Harry into a room without Secret Service there. One of them involves me.”
Kina clears her throat. “I'm certain Glen has access to the president without anyone else in the room.”
“Are you sure?”
“Does the president routinely have Secret Service agents watching him have sex? My sister's clearly sleeping with him.”
“Even for Harry, that would be a stretch. But I don't know about his sexual habits.” No one smiles at Drew’s mild joke.
Every muscle in my body tenses. “I don't want you in that situation,” I tell her.
“You don't have a choice. Besides, I'm trained for this. I can elevate.”
“I know you can.”
We stare at each other, thousands of words, a million feelings passing in an electric arc between us.
“It could reach that point, Kina,” Foster says softly, intently. “If he thinks you're Glen, he may expect sex.”
“I would be surprised if that didn't happen.” She drinks a big gulp of coffee, her throat long and graceful as she swallows. “But I'm prepared if it means getting information that helps us. That helps save more children at Stateless compounds.”
“You may not find that out, you know. This could, ah… could take more than one trip in.”
I cut in. “I doubt that. One time pretending to be Glen is likely all we're getting. If the president says something later to Glen about a conversation he actually had with Kina, then that's it.”
“Lindsay says Glen is supposed to be in DC tomorrow night, then goes to California. If her sources are correct, we have about a twelve-hour window before Glen appears.”
“I just want to know which side the president is on,” Kina whispers. “And to know what's happening next. We know Marshall Josephs and Glen are with Svetnu. Who does President Bosworth work with?”
The door creaks open. I look up, expecting Lindsay to be there, but it's Philippa.
“Sorry, this is private,” Drew informs her.
“I know.” Quickly, quietly, she closes the door behind her, chin up in defiance. Her face is a blank slate, no emotion. Perfectly trained, she's the embodiment of all that we were expected to be.
And more.
“I want to be part of the operation.”
“No!” Kina's response is clearly impulsive. “Of course not! You stay here, with the children. I'll be back in a few days. They need you.”
“We need you here, too. But you're going, aren't you?”
“How did you know?”
“I'm not stupid. Smith told me I was, all those years, but I'm not. Kina is Glen's double. Glen is in the White House with the president. You're going to have Kina impersonate Glen to get intelligence.”
“Yes,” Kina tells her. “But not for long. I'll be back shortly. It's for... it's for the good.”
“The good of what?”
Guilt bleeds out of Kina's pores as she talks to Philippa. “It's all more complicated than you know.”
“No, it's not.”
Irritation replaces guilt in Kina. “Yes, it is.”
“No. Kina, no. It's not more complicated than I know, because I know. I know how complicated all of this is. And I want to help.”
“What are you talking about?”
Philippa blinks, a tell, a weakening in her firm stance. She takes a slow breath in and then, eyes only on Kina, she says firmly,
“I know how byzantine this whole thing really is because Smith told me.”
“Smith?” I jump in. “Smith told you Stateless secrets?”
She nods, eyes still on Kina.
“Why would he do that?” Kina asks, brow down, then suddenly softening as she gets it.
I get it, too.
My gut clenches.
Philippa doesn't flinch.
“Because Smith made me his....” The only flicker of emotion she gives is a slight hesitation that says everything.
“His what?” Kina asks, knowing the answer, knowing Philippa needs to say it.
“I was his persona
l training body until I killed him.”
Chapter 11
Kina
I can't believe I didn't know.
Worse–knowing now can't fix it.
And showing pity or emotion for Philippa doesn't help, either.
Her use of the phrase “training body” is tongue-in-cheek. Smith wouldn't need someone to practice on to develop skills.
He just wanted someone to control. Someone he viewed as weak.
Someone he considered lesser.
“We were taught that men are at their most manipulable in the moments before orgasm, and their most talkative in the moments after,” Philippa begins, just as Lindsay opens the door and walks in.
She does a slight double take but doesn't say a word, dropping the small black case on the ground, holding a bottle of breast milk in her hand, which she puts in a tiny refrigerator on one of the tables.
“And,” Philippa continues, “Smith liked to talk. He liked to do other things, but he liked to talk, too.”
She turns twenty in a month or so. Did the bastard even wait until she turned eighteen? Strictly speaking, he didn't need to. The compound was outside mass society's rules. I can see the revulsion on Drew's face. Philippa looks younger than her age. At nineteen, she could easily pass for fifteen. She would have looked like a child when Smith started.
Callum catches my eye, angry resolve in his look, clearly thinking of that moment during the escape when Philippa calmly, cleanly shot Smith in the face. He taunted her in his final moments, so sure she wouldn't do it.
I'd assumed it was because he thought her weak.
Now that moment takes on so much more meaning.
“What did Smith tell you?” Callum asks, his voice level, devoid of emotion. If we overreact, she falls apart. Or, worse, draws further inward. Perhaps she's elevating right now. I don't think so, though.
I think she's very present, very here.
And this is a moment she desperately needs as she lays out the reality of what happened.
“It's hard to describe all of the things he told me. I never responded, because he didn't expect me to respond. To talk at all. He wanted me silent.”
Lindsay reaches for Foster's shoulder, hand on it, using more pressure than one would expect.
“But I listened. At first, he vented about things that made him angry. People who pissed him off. It could be a little thing, like having to drink overcooked coffee when he worked the overnight security shift. That kind of thing. Then he began venting about Angelica.”
“Angelica was one of our higher operatives,” Callum interjects, explaining to Drew, who nods.
“I know the name.”
“He told me Sally was a fool. An easy dupe. That Angelica and Glen were working with Svetnu on some project that was going to ruin everything. And he hated Romeo. Hated him.”
“Why?” I ask, knowing it's a safe question.
“Because Smith thought he should have that job.”
“Of course,” Callum mutters.
“Over time, he talked about the same things repeatedly, so much that it's ingrained in me. After a while, I started to wonder if it was all some sort of training exercise. He told me every trainee had to do what he did with me. We were assigned to whichever Stateless adult the leaders chose.”
“He made himself sound like a good guy for teaching you,” Foster whispers aloud, to no one and everyone.
“But it wasn't true, was it?” Philippa looks to Callum.
“No. It wasn't.”
Her shoulders drop. “I thought not. I figured it out after a while. Smith said contradictory things about me. He said I was the weakest in my class and he was giving me bedroom lessons to toughen me, to give me more skills to compensate for my overdeveloped empathy. But that's not what he said the day I turned eighteen and he took me in Woods.”
Lindsay's hand on Foster's shoulder turns to a claw, digging in.
Holding on for dear life.
“Did he ever say anything about who he was allied with?” Callum asks.
“Yes. The White House.”
“But not with Glen and...”
“Not Josephs or Svetnu.”
“You know who Josephs is?”
She mimes a man's large belly. “Oh, yes. I know him.”
Lindsay lets out a small gasp.
No one has to ask Philippa what she means by know.
“When did he stop?” I ask her.
“He never did.”
“But you live–lived–at the nursery with me.”
“I know. He came into my room sometimes.”
“The babies?”
“If one woke, he told me to let it cry itself to sleep. He said if I didn't, he'd hurt them.”
“Jesus,” Foster says under his breath. Lindsay winces, mouth turning down with sympathy.
“What else did he say about Stateless?” Callum cuts in, calm and cool, as if asking a question about the weather. He knows that emotion will only make this harder on her.
“He bragged that Stateless was changing as the real leaders got more power. When Romeo died, he was so excited. Came to me three times that day.”
“I was gone most of the time right after Romeo died,” I point out. “You were in charge of the children.”
“There weren't as many babies then. And yes, I know. You were gone. Smith was an opportunist.”
“Who were the 'real' leaders?”
She shakes her head. “He never said. Just that when they gained power, he'd be with them. That Svetnu was good for phase one of Stateless but he was old and had old-fashioned ideas. He thought Glen was a fool for following him.”
“And someone in the White House was on the same side as Smith?”
She nods.
“Why didn't you tell us this before?” Foster asks her.
“This is the first real chance I've had. We've been managing the children. The babies and toddlers woke on and off and I – ”
“I didn't hear them,” I counter.
“You were fast asleep. And needed to be,” Callum says to me.
“Callum helped,” she adds.
I look at him in shock.
“A little. Don't make more of it than it was,” he says with a side eye to her.
“He rocked Ashton to sleep,” Philippa says with a little smile, as if taunting him about his tenderness.
“Ashton woke up again?” I ask, joining in.
“Yes,” she says, looking around. “You're changing the subject.”
“I am.”
“I want to go with you. On the operation.”
“No. You're staying here. The children need one of us, and you don't look like my sister.”
Lindsay studies me, eyes narrowing. “You'll do it?”
“I am more committed than ever to doing whatever it takes to save the children. Everything Philippa told us reinforces that.”
“Kina, we need you to–”
I hold up my palm, halting Lindsay's words.
“Which is why I have to go with Lindsay and infiltrate the president's private residence. I have to be Glen. I have to be Glen–only better.”
Chapter 12
Kina
The edge of the shoreline looks like the end of the world.
The body of water is so vast, it makes my legs tingle from fear. It's as if I'll fall out of the helicopter, drawn into the sea by timeless elements that make me yearn to touch bottom.
It's seductive. Alluring. The waves ripple in the sunlight, lapping at the shore and the craggy rocks that make up small islands, far enough from shore to be refuges, close enough to be dangerous.
I can’t stop thinking about Philippa. Smith was a monster. Within Stateless culture, he would be considered bold. What he did to her wasn’t allowed, but the leaders would have found his willingness to transgress a positive feature.
He belonged in The Field more.
I’m glad he’s dead. Even better that Philippa killed him as he taunted her.
; “Ready?” Callum shouts as we drop into our descent. I know we're not landing at The Grove. That would be stupid. Instead, Drew has a small airport where we go, the landing pad simple after the limitless sky, my ability to climb out of a chopper so much better this second time.
And significantly less bloody.
No children fill my arms right now, but thoughts of their emotional and physical conditions fill my mind. Thomas, I'm assured, is improving radically, but can't be brought back to the campground. His cover story will be that he was shot in inner-city gang violence, abandoned in a meth house. Foster parents have been located, deep cover operatives who will eventually adopt and raise him.
I should feel a tender pull of sadness at that, but instead, I feel nothing but relief.
Later, I’ll feel more.
We're moved into a small building. The first room we congregate in is like a living room, doors leading off it. One is cracked open, the edge of a toilet visible. We're in an apartment of some kind.
Is this where we're staying?
“The beach house is ready,” Drew says as he sits on the edge of the couch, elbows on knees, double-thumbing a phone. “Grab a coffee and a bio break if you need it before we drive there.”
Bio break?
“That's jargon for using the toilet,” Callum whispers in my ear, sensing my confusion.
Ten minutes later, we've caffeined up, done our biological business, and we're in a large black SUV, dusk starting to layer the light with greys and pinks from the pending sunset on the water.
I can't stop looking at the ocean.
“Kina?” Callum asks.
“Mmm?”
“What do you see?”
“Water. So much water.”
“That's right–you've never seen an ocean, have you?”
“Never flew on a plane before today. I have lots of nevers, Callum.”
He reaches for my hand and squeezes it. I like the affection. I let my hand stay in his and lean against his shoulder, slowly releasing the tense air inside me.
I can't truly relax.
But I can give my heart a quick recharge.
Whoever is driving knows how to take roads at a clip. Drew is in the passenger seat, Callum and me in the back. Duff is still at the campground, putting finishing touches on the plans for all the operatives there. The three-ring circus that will begin shortly, when the “abused foster kids” in a “backwoods campground” are revealed, needs to be pitch-perfect for media attention.
