Catherine shuddered to be reminded. She asked directly, “The proof?”
“Waiting to be picked up, but our man here is a bear to reason with.”
“Is he aware of what’s going on?”
“Well,” Sable scanned the tablet in her hand, “he’s flying and I am only just seeing it.”
“Show him and make it clear the proof is damn well required at this point.”
~~~~~~
Leaving Fallon sleeping in the back of the plane, Sable came to sit sideways in the copilot’s seat. Hands out in treaty, she faced the General. “I promise, I won’t touch anything.” She bent her head to the tablet in her lap, aware he could not relax with her so near the controls. “Before we hit Alena’s blackout, there have been some developments of which you should be aware.” Holding the tablet with a picture to him, she said, “This is the salt flat taken near one of your posts on the ridge. Looks like about two thousand people to me.” Swiping her hand across the screen, “These are pictures from the International News Channel of the Palace … the Basilica … President Pavlović’s house … The embassy looks much the same. Here are shots from around Alena.”
The General lingered longer on the last photos.
“Your troops are mostly being pressed on by royalists with support. Look at this one.” She smiled. “They brought the tank crew food when there is no food to spare.” But then she turned serious. “Of course you know how Catherine would flip all of this on its head without a moment’s notice and with just one little agitator.”
Looking out the plane’s window, Sable wanted to push the yoke ever so slightly down until the tops of the old pine forest could be heard consistently against the hull. Instead, she returned her attention to the tablet, explaining the break in information while she searched. “I’m showing this to you as I find it.” She scowled and started a video. “This is headlined Sierra Sword Rattling. That can’t be good.”
The reporter spoke amidst a crowd at the edge of the Basilica: “Relations between the two countries have hit an all-time low with the attempted assassination of the religious leader of the Cloitare, the Queen Mother Sable. The attack left King Remius Clement of Erentrude seriously injured with shrapnel. This powerful video shows him covering the Queen Mother with his body while mortars hail down around them. Sierran President Pavlović condemns the violent action, but also the allegations he insists originate in Erentrude of his involvement. ‘I vehemently deny these accusations of complicity. The source of the rumors will know the full weight of our authority when it is discovered.’ But rumors continue to spread that Sierran technology was used in the attempt.
“President Pavlović was forced to deploy the military to regain control of the senate, which was overrun in the early hours of last night by Cloitare adherents. In a similar standoff, radical Cloitare followers have Pavlović’s house surrounded. Troops under the command of General Marič used teargas to clear the streets, but the protesters quickly reassembled in growing numbers. Clashes with the military have been limited to throwing bottles and rocks, but social networks from Erentrude have been encouraging their Sierran neighbors to show President Pavlović the “Mother’s wrath,” alluding to a speech made months earlier by the Queen Mother. Meanwhile, the Cloitare clergy remain silent.”
At the end of the report, the General and Sable exchanged worried expressions. Sable laid the tablet in her lap. “You are your father’s son, so I assume your strategy will be to deliver a crushing blow from which the enemy cannot recover.” Careful to keep her tone from sounding persuasive, she continued, “The Count is in Jenevuede. The proof to destroy Pavlović and Marič is with the Count. And I have the voice to acquire the truth.”
The General stared quietly ahead at the western horizon, slowly considering what adding one more infraction to the list of offenses already committed would amount to. Quite a lot if Sable stabbed someone. She truly was not stable, and, he said aloud, “You haven’t slept in two nights.”
“I can fix that.”
Not: I will go to sleep; but: I can fix that.
Fix, the word kept repeating in his mind until he laughed to himself. He thought he might very well learn his father’s ways given enough aggravation and time. To Sable, he said, “I appreciate the small gesture of respect in not lying to me. Now show me how you intend to fix it.”
She hesitated before pulling the small bag of powder from her pocket and laying it on the tablet’s glass screen. “Amphetamines,” she explained.
“Sable,” he shook his head, “why don’t you just go to sleep?”
“You really don’t want to be hurtling over these trees in this fragile metal tube with what passes for dreams in my head.” She was halfheartedly smirking to take the bite out of it, but the General had heard too much over the night to find it amusing. Ignoring his pity, she challenged the disapproval, “Are you going to tell me you went through the whole of the Five-Day Surge without stimulants? At a time when every army in the world was jacking up their soldiers to get them through the battle?”
Instead of acknowledging the question, he looked her over and asked, “Are you carrying any weapons?”
“No.” When he looked doubtful, she explained, “I considered grabbing something from the Pigeon or your father, but really, what would be the point? You’d just take it away from me, and getting choked is not so much fun as you might think.”
“I’m not a violent man, Sable, and I certainly do not want to defend against women.”
“I know that. I am sorry. I should not have made light of it.”
The General was not interested in her practiced posture of humility. “If we go get the proof,” he hardly believed he was considering it, began turning his head to deny it was possible.
“I’m aware of your concern.” She was blunt, “You think I’m going to flip ballistic. But surely you’ve noticed the focus of my fury is always wearing a Cloitare robe. I did not lie to Remy. I am safe and capable in this world. And I know the Count. He does not have any nuns in his employ to give either of us a surprise.”
The General heaved air. “If I see anything I don’t like …” He looked hard at Sable. “If I say we’re leaving …”
Sable bowed her head. “I will follow.”
Jaw set forward, he warned, “You could earn a lot of trust with me on this, Sable, and you need to because you are well into the double negatives, but if you so much as—”
“I understand,” she stopped him. “You have seen the very worst of me and can’t imagine why your father trained me, or how Catherine ever entrusted a single assignment of importance to me. I was once so explicitly, so precisely competent, it is devastating to know what people think of me now. I want desperately to prove myself reliable again, and I realize you are only offering one chance.”
“Ok, we understand each other.” But he still watched her with ready tension. “Now,” gesturing toward the bag of powder on the tablet, “cut us out some lines before Fallon wakes up and tell me what to expect from the Count.”
~~~~~~
“Wi Fry, you’re confused,” Sable’s voice had resonated gently, melodically through the cabin. “Accept as true you have not left the plane. You were deep in the darkness of sleep and unaware when we returned to my friends. I wanted once more to speak with them. We stayed all through the night while you dreamed in the dark. The visions before your eyes were the illusions of sleep and like dreams they will vanish with the light of day. Believe me, Wi, everything is fine.”
By the time she was done spinning him a new memory, the General had to remind himself none of it had happened, but still it lingered. In the glare of the setting sun, the previous night seemed unreal, and maintaining lucid details of the event became challenging, not unlike landing in the capital airport without a transponder. Every frustrated radio exchange with the control tower brought the General slightly closer to changing his mind.
“You could have just turned it off, Sable.”
“And you cou
ld have turned it right back on.”
His troops on the ground kept them from being met by aviation security. Among the plain-clothed soldiers at the Jenevuede Airport were the six Berringer had started training to counter Sable’s flipping monkey moves. He figured they might as well get accustomed to her in at least one disguise, and if everything went to hell, get a taste of what they were in for.
Introducing them, he deferred to Sable, “Queen Mother, the head of your new security detail, Captain Nathan Adams.”
She hid her discontent. She had already made it known she did not think the heavy retinue he was arranging was required, telling him, “You, me, and Wi are truly more than sufficient for the Count.”
He had asked, “Are you planning on leading or following, Sable?”
To ensure the meeting went forward, she had dipped her head, reinforcing her compliance with a flat “Following.”
But now, seeing five armored vehicles and seventeen guards, she smiled tight to suggest, “Perhaps we could tone this down.”
“I am not completely new to this.” To demonstrate, the General removed his military jacket and accepted a long, dark coat from the trunk of an open car.
Sable watched as he changed his shoes, pulled a black knit hat over his distinctly short hair and then rubbed his hand over the stubble on his face. He appeared not unlike a hired thug.
While the General gave instructions to the four team leaders, she looked over the assembled soldiers. Catherine would not approve. Even dressed as civilians, they looked too much the same, and not just their clothes, which looked like they shopped from the same catalogue of business casual. It wasn’t even they were nearly all the same age, though it was impossible for her to tell whether it was late twenties or early thirties. What made them indistinguishable was their demeanor, their disturbingly identical carriage of squared shoulders, raised chins, relaxed hands. Both male and female, the bodies were all uniformly toned, muscled, and settled with perfect confidence; and the eyes, every pair steady, serenely certain in their numbers that nothing could go wrong. Everything about them screamed trained professional, military, dangerous, united.
Sable felt an anxious fear she would not have known on her own. More than ever, she wanted to be free to go and do what she did best alone. She could have effortlessly bantered her way down the hotel hall lined with the Count’s guards. Known to them, and while not exactly trusted, it would not have roused the slightest suspicion for her to be seeking entrance to the Count’s suite. She would have taken the accountant aside and whispered for the proof he would then have happily provided. But instead of softly-softly, they were by all appearances going in heavy.
Seated in the back of a sedan with the General, she gave him such a withering look of contempt when all the vehicles entered the hotel’s underground parking garage together, he again knew the humor of his father. And he understood the amusement further as she cringed, sinking toward the floor, at the boisterous exit of the soldiers from the cars. Every door that slammed, every shout across the bonnets, and then the loud handling of bags from the trunks, shrank her smaller until she could not stop from sneering, “A little louder and they’ll be heard on the sixth floor.”
“I wouldn’t have thought so myself,” but he calmly radioed, “A little louder, please.”
In response to his request, two trunks clapped closed, echoing around the concrete structure. The voice of Captain Adams rose distinct above the din of several conversations, “We were halfway down the one-way street when the cop stopped us to ask, ‘Didn’t you see the signs?’ and Lilly says, ‘Signs? Hell man, do I look like a prophet?’”
“Cop should have told her she sure drives like one.”
They were revelers. Sable sat back to look out the windows and watch the show play across the concrete stage. Parked against the opposite wall, Lilly shouted through the doorman shuttling more dignified guests through the rowdy gathering, “Says the man who flipped on dead man’s curve. I don’t remember you having a problem with my driving when I winched you out.” Lilly fiddled with the hair combs that held her brown hair in a twist. “Tell us, Wilson, why couldn’t you read the signs?”
“Too hard to see when it’s plastered to the front of his grill.”
“No, that wasn’t it.” Wilson let the porter take his bag, settling it at the top of a growing heap of designer luggage on the trolley. “The problem started with two little iridescent eyes staring dumb into the headlights and my girlfriend banging out hysterical in the passenger seat. But I was undone by the damn power steering. I’m not used to it. I turned her little car like it had eight wheels, and I’m suddenly driving on two in a whole new direction.”
Sable could well imagine how much the valets had been paid to be so content with them taking over the entire waiting bay, even going forward with the doormen to keep the circular hub clear. Positioned outside the glass doors, she recognized another armored car that had already been present securing the garage for their arrival, and with it, four more soldiers added to the commotion. As though he didn’t know, Sable counted it for the General, “Twenty-four. The Count has six guards maximum. Are we seriously going up there four to one?”
“Not at all.” Though the image would have made him laugh if her lack of understanding were simply ignorance and not preference. “I don’t like to think about the places Catherine has sent you solo, but I don’t mind telling you those days are over.” He gestured across the garage, “The military moves big and cumbersome because no one’s left without help. There is safety in a team. When we come back down here, we’re going to know these cars are still secure because four soldiers will have been guarding both them and the garage access. And your image isn’t going to be played all over the media because Lieutenant Parker, in that car over there, is hacked into the security cameras. Our backs are going to be covered by four soldiers watching over the ground floor and there will be another three in the stairwell. Six are on the floor with the Count in two rooms and three are riding up in the elevator with us. Also your total is wrong. It’s twenty-six. I’ve got two on the roof.”
The tally made Sable slightly giddy. “And to think, I was going to do this alone.”
“And in that thought you were also alone.”
~~~~~~
The numbers in the garage were thinning as the soldiers took their positions. Convinced the meeting was going forward, Sable settled, becoming calm, tamping down the most recent line of speed, looking inward to move out into the distance.
No longer animated, the General felt the cool company of a nun beside him. When he told her it was time to move, she followed with eyes that didn’t see. Exiting another vehicle, Fallon fell in beside him, whispering, “I hate when they do that.”
Berringer quietly returned, “Where’s your attention, Lieutenant?”
Corrected, Fallon slid to the other side of Sable. As much as the remaining team looked like they belonged to the same trading firm on holiday, the three of them appeared to have come straight out of the Alenan winter. He and the General looked like unshaven criminals and Sable a soft-footed pickpocket, and they were entering the marble vaulted domes of the Palms. With two hundred years committed to the discrete indulgences of the rich, Fallon wondered how they would make it past security.
But moving into the lobby, Sable raised her face to acknowledge a suited man at reception. With just a nod to the lift operator, the suit’s cue was received by the surrounding staff, and the three poor Alenans walked under scrutiny, but unimpeded, into the elevator.
Sable was gone again, eyes searching vacant into the distance, but the General and Fallon watched the suit pick up a phone.
In the center of the lavish dome, a riotous exchange of levity resounded across the polished stones. Calling out, “Hold the doors,” three from the group broke apart to enter the antique brass cage.
Looking like they were protecting the little woman from the careless backslapping, shoulder-shaking, and laughing-everywhere elbows of t
he men, the criminals pushed her to the back against the paneled wall.
The lift operator confirmed, “Everyone’s going to the sixth floor.”
Before the scroll doors were level with the floor, the sound of uncontrolled hilarity filled the box. Sighting the three new arrivals, the hall erupted with cheer. From the elevator, two men surged forward into a party spilling out of adjoining suites into the hall, but the last was met by a woman and embraced, keeping the lift blocked. Before the operator could coax them out, Fallon stopped him, saying, “It’s fine. We’re in no hurry.”
The General studied the scene at the end of the hall. Two harassed guards were positioned outside the Count’s door and the party had them under pressure to join in drinking.
“One shot so we know you’re alive.” Lilly stood before them extending two glasses in her left hand.
“That’s very kind of you, but again, ma’am, we can’t accept.”
“They’re being polite because you’re offering them pink sick. Give them a proper drink.” Captain Adams joined her with two more glasses.
“Of course, you’re right,” she agreed and exchanged glasses with Adams while the General moved forward, taking the embracing couple, Fallon, and Sable into the hall. “This is far superior and you simply can’t refuse.” She held the amber liquid to the guards.
“No, ma’am, but thank you. Now, for the last time, if you could just step back.” He looked to where he hoped she would go and caught Marlow’s commiserating sucks-to-be-you grin. He returned an eye-rolling expression of No shit, but then he lingered, almost frowned—Sable could feel it—a warning before his focus went to the carpet, though he wanted to stray to the door, then a barely perceptible jerk to throw it off and he settled into—Sable pushed for it—collaborating regret.
Sister Sable (The Mad Queen Book 1) Page 30
