Fiery Surrender

by Mari Carr

  Rich’s phone chimed, and a disconcertingly cute little 8-bit graphic of a cartoon cat fist-pumping appeared. The tablet screen flashed black once, and then the unencrypted document was revealed.

  As one, they bent over the tablet. It looked like a technical diagram for a piece of equipment.

  “What are we looking at?” Rich asked.

  “Blueprints?” Mina asked. “Or maybe an electrical schematic of a building? Those look like notes for wiring.” Mina glanced at Langston for confirmation.

  Langston looked drawn. His complexion didn’t do pale, but he looked like he’d seen a ghost.

  “Langston?” Rich asked.

  Langston reached out and scrolled the screen, studying or maybe reading what he saw in a way Rich couldn’t.

  “Langston, say something.” Mina’s voice was laced with a slight edge of panic.

  A knock at the door made Rich jump like a startled cat. He and Mina exchanged a glance.

  The door was dead bolted and the secondary security latch in place. That didn’t feel like enough. If the owner of the tablet had come back ready to escalate from sneaking and swiping to assault, they were in trouble.

  The knock came again, but this time a pattern. Knock, knock, knock, pause, knock, knock, knock, pause.

  “They’re knocking in patterns of three,” Mina said. “It’s someone from the Trinity Masters.”

  “Or the Masters’ Admiralty. They’re trinities,” Langston reminded them.

  Mina was already headed for the door. She glanced through the peephole just as Rich grabbed her, pulling her back, his imagination showing him a vivid image of her being shot through the peephole. Mina didn’t resist when he pulled her against his chest. She turned in his arms, and the animosity that had been there was briefly gone as she looked up at him.

  Then she stepped out of his arms and opened the door.

  “Mina, wait, who is it—”

  The Grand Master stood in the hall. She wore a knee-length cape-coat with a deep hood. The hood was up, shadowing her face, though in the bright lights of the hotel hallway he could see enough of her features to confirm that the Grand Master was Juliette Adams.

  She stepped into the room, Sebastian and a man he didn’t know trailing behind her. The man looked like he would fuck someone up. The stranger, who dropped a duffel bag by the entrance, turned and locked the door, standing sentry. No one bothered with introductions.

  The Grand Master—and with her hood up like that, it was clear he was looking at the Grand Master, and not Juliette, the fellow legacy he’d partied with when they were younger—looked around the room, taking a moment to stare at each of them.

  Finally, her gaze landed on Mina. “Start talking.”

  Mina’s shoulders pulled back, and with an efficiency of language that made Rich envious—and he was pretty good at corporate bullshit—she summed up. “We believe that when we were in Italy, Langston’s tablet was accidentally switched with a nearly identical one. Subsequently, my tablet, which is the same brand and model as Langston’s, was stolen, and last night Rich’s—again, same brand and model—was taken. These were most likely attempts by the tablet’s owner to recover their property.”

  “You stole a tablet from the Masters’ Admiralty?” Sebastian ran a hand through his hair and started to curse.

  “Accidentally switched,” Mina corrected. “And it may belong to their bomb expert, Luca, who is not a member. He was clearly a civilian.”

  “Clearly the person you stole it from doesn’t believe it was an accident, otherwise they wouldn’t be attempting to steal it back.” The Grand Master sounded like she was ready to kill someone, but repressing it with annoying New England civility. “Our relationship with the Europeans is tenuous, but was improving. Before you three.”

  Rich winced. He was a billionaire CEO. There were very few people who could scold him, and the Grand Master was one of them.

  “You idiots didn’t even lock the door,” Sebastian added. “When we got your message, we reviewed the security tape from the hall. A guy in a hood used a phone to unlock the door. He had a bag of what we assume were tools to break in. He didn’t even have to use them because you dumbasses didn’t lock the dead bolt.”

  Rich repressed the urge to snap back at Sebastian.

  “Levi will be guarding you from now on.” The Grand Master gestured to the stranger. “Perhaps babysitting would be a better term. You are to stay here. Once I’ve made arrangements to speak to the Masters’ Admiralty, and clear up this mess, you will join me at—”

  “I know why they wanted it back so badly,” Langston said quietly. Despite the low volume, his voice cut through the room. It was the fear—no, horror—in his tone that made the rest of them turn to him.

  He stood, the tablet in his hands. “What’s on here is…it’s schematics for a bomb.” Langston looked up and swallowed. “I don’t understand it all, there’s chemical notations I can’t figure out, but if what I’m seeing is right…”

  “Langston?” Mina asked.

  “This is a backpack bomb,” he said quietly. “Portable. Massive output. Too big…I mean how could something this size…the explosive material is what I don’t understand.”

  “A terrorist weapon,” Levi said. It was the first time he’d spoken.

  “How much damage?” Sebastian asked.

  “A lot. An entire city block, at least.” The words fell heavily.

  City block. That means dozens of buildings. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people, depending on where and time of day.

  Langston looked down at the tablet, then back up. “At least that. Maybe more.”

  “My God,” Mina breathed.

  “But it’s not possible to do that much damage with something this size.” Langston’s tone was almost desperate.

  “It’s not possible…until it is,” the Grand Master said quietly.

  Chapter Twenty

  Juliette was shaking. She flexed her fingers, hoping that would get rid of the tremble. She was, uncharacteristically, alone in her office. She’d left Levi guarding Mina, Rich, and Langston in one of the small lounges off the branching secret hallways. She would send them, all four of them, back to the suite soon.

  Levi was a former Green Beret and now in grad school. He was one of her new Boston-based on-call security guys, and this was the first time she’d had to call on one of the team. A team her dork of a brother, Harrison, insisted on calling the Warrior Scholars.

  Each of the Warrior Scholars was a current member who’d just recently completed military service and was in Boston to attend school. Military service and impeccable scholarly credentials were the kinds of things that laid the foundation for people becoming senators, judges, or any other number of well-placed, powerful positions. For now, their grad school schedules, which Harrison helped to keep light by making sure they didn’t have to teach as part of their package, meant they were available to put their military training to use when she needed them.

  And now Levi was going to babysit Rich, Mina, and Langston while she dealt with this brand-new crisis.

  Rich’s phone and the stolen tablet were on the conference table, decryption software working on the second of the three items that seemed to be the sole content of the tablet.

  She dropped into her desk chair, color printouts of the already-decoded bomb schematics in front of her. She had no idea what she was looking at, but she wanted something to reference. Langston had briefly shown her where the bomb output information was noted as between one and twenty kilotons. He’d shakily told her that the Hiroshima atomic bomb had an output of fifteen kilotons, but had one hundred and forty pounds of enriched uranium. Hardly travel size.

  This was, as far as Langston could tell, a bomb that would fit in a backpack and do some substantial damage, possibly destroying a city block…maybe more. She’d asked if it was a nuclear bomb, and he’d said something she hadn’t fully understood about fusion versus fission. What she had understood was that Langston, who
was brilliant, but not a chemist, hadn’t been able to understand the chemical equations in the center part of the schematic.

  She’d call Preston Kim and have him look at it, but first, she needed to talk to the Masters’ Admiralty.

  The phone rang for several minutes, long after voice mail should have picked up. Eventually, the call was answered.

  “Grand Master,” Sophia said in her elegant, smooth voice. “What a pleasant surprise to hear from you.”

  “Sophia,” she replied, forcing herself to smile, in hopes that it would make her tone more cheerful, hiding the fear and rage she felt. “I hope you’re well?”

  “I am, and you?’

  “I’m fine. Arthur?”

  “He’s doing well.”

  Juliette let the silence stretch between them.

  Sophia broke first, a hint of irritation in her tone as she said, “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “I just wanted to tell you that there might have been a mix-up.”

  “Oh?”

  “It seems that when Langston, Mina, and Rich were visiting you, one of them left their tablet, mistakenly picking up one that belonged to you.”

  “Oh.” Sophia’s tone had turned wary.

  “A simple mistake,” Juliette said. “They only recently realized that they had the wrong tablet.”

  “Then we will exchange them,” Sophia said slowly.

  “I thought so.” Juliette let a hint of the anger she was feeling leach into her tone. “I’m calling to tell you that next time you need something back, just ask; don’t follow my people into my territory and then terrorize them by stealing from them.”

  There was a long silence. “Of course, Grand Master.”

  Juliette waited for the other woman to say more, but Sophia was silent. She fought the urge to scream at her, to ask why they were making something so horrible as a backpack bomb that could take out an entire city block. A weapon that was so immoral, so unethical, Juliette was struggling to believe this could be real.

  She’d trusted the Masters’ Admiralty, but what did she really know about them?

  And where the hell was Eric?

  “I have other things I need to attend to.” Juliette needed to get off this call before she said something she shouldn’t.

  “Of course. I will locate your tablet and then we can arrange the exchange.”

  “Excellent.” Juliette bit off the last consonant. “Good day, Sophia.”

  “Good morning, Grand Master.”

  Juliette gently pressed the button to end the call, and then smashed the phone back into the cradle. She was still shaking.

  Five minutes of pacing around her office later, she was calm enough to make the next call. Going to the member files, she pulled out the file on the Kenan-Glassco-Kim trinity. Carly had just been here, back when her biggest problems had been her never-ending to-do list and the Hayden triplets, not a secret bomb and lying Europeans.

  “Preston Kim,” a calm voice answered.

  “Preston,” she sank authority into her words. “This is the Grand Master.”

  “Grand Master.” Preston, a legacy, was appropriately deferential. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need you to look at something. Some chemical reaction notations.”

  “This sounds…like I need to have Lance encrypt a call for me.”

  “No call. I will place it in your email draft folder.” Sebastian walked in at that moment, and she passed him the papers. “You will need to decrypt it.”

  Every member had a specific Trinity Masters email. One of the simplest ways to give and receive information securely without actually emailing it was to put it in the drafts folder of an email account that two people could access. She had an admin password that allowed her access to everyone’s email.

  “Of course, Grand Master. How do you want me to give you results?”

  “Call me at this number.” The landline in her office was set up using the same security protocols as were used at Langley.

  “I’ll do it immediately, Grand Master.”

  “Thank you.” She ended the call and watched as Sebastian grabbed her laptop and uploaded the screenshots to Preston’s email.

  “Seb?”

  “Yeah?” He looked over, and then frowned. “Jules?”

  “If they’re planning a bombing…”

  Sebastian’s face hardened. “Then we’ll stop them.”

  Suddenly the fate she had planned for Morrison seemed positively mild compared to what she might have to do to stop the Masters’ Admiralty.

  Sophia stared at the phone, and then looked at Arthur. She’d raced through the house with her cell to find him when she’d seen the U.S. number pop up on her phone. Her husband looked pale. He’d been relaxing in the small sitting room where they all liked to cozy up and read together, his prosthetic off since he didn’t need both hands to read a book.

  Grimly, he pushed up his sleeve before grabbing his prosthetic arm and fitting it on.

  “We need to call my brother.”

  “No, the admiral of England needs to call the admiral of Rome.” Arthur paused. “Either way, I want the arm on.”

  Sophia grabbed Arthur’s phone and together they walked out of the sitting room and into their office. She dialed then set his phone on Arthur’s desk. She was about to take her own chair when he wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her onto his lap.

  “I thought this was official admiral business.”

  “It is. As your admiral, I’m ordering you to sit on my lap.”

  Sophia snorted in amusement, though it was short-lived.

  “Arthur,” her brother said in greeting.

  “Admiral,” Arthur said in reply.

  Antonio cursed in Italian. She always got a little homesick hearing her native language. She was fluent in English, but having to speak it all day, every day could be wearying.

  “This is official business,” Arthur said.

  “I guessed.” Antonio was not nearly as formal as her husband. “But I was just about to drink a bottle of wine with my spouses.”

  “It can’t wait.”

  Antonio cursed some more.

  “The Americans called,” Sophia said. “They said one of their people left their tablet in Italy.”

  “They didn’t just leave it,” Arthur amended. “They accidentally switched it with a tablet belonging to one of our people.”

  “This is why I am not drinking with my husband and wife? I’m not lost and found.”

  “They implied that we had their people followed and have been attempting to steal back the tablet.”

  “What?” Now Antonio’s voice was hard. “I’m not having anyone followed. Are you?”

  “No. Are any of your people missing a tablet?”

  “Why the fuck would I know that?” Antonio demanded. “The only place they went was to the forensic facility we use for analysis, and Milo’s house.”

  “We need to figure this out. The Grand Master was pissed. There’s more going on here than she said.” Arthur looked up at Sophia.

  She twisted on his lap to wrap an arm around his shoulders, then bent and kissed his head.

  “Get your hands off my sister,” Antonio said in Italian.

  She’d been teaching it to James and Arthur, and clearly her husband understood because he grinned at the phone.

  “Find out what’s going on,” Sophia said in the same language. “Because there was too much she didn’t say. We don’t have all the information, and I don’t like it.”

  “Merda.”

  Antonio called Milo. The fucker didn’t answer the first time, so Antonio called him back four times in a row. Karl brought him a glass of wine. He set it on the desk and stared at it.

  By the time Milo answered, Antonio was ready to skin him.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”

  Milo was breathing hard. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “I’m your admiral.”

  “And?”


  “I’m going to punch you in the face.”

  “And break my nose? It would be a crime against art. My face is a masterpiece.”

  Antonio’s eye twitched. “Did one of the Americans leave a tablet at your house?”

  “What? No. This is why you call me in the middle of…what I was doing?”

  Fucking models. Milo had been fucking models. Idiot.

  “The Americans claim they accidentally switched tablets with you, well, with someone, while they were here.”

  “Wasn’t me. And Cicely doesn’t have a tablet.”

  “Where else were they?”

  “I took them to see Luca.”

  “Call him and see if he’s got it.”

  “I’ll call you back, Admiral.”

  Milo hung up, and Antonio carried his wine out onto the terrace. They were at Villa Degli Dei, which was still under renovation after the mastermind had blown it up. It was the same blast that had nearly killed his father and left Antonio as the acting admiral of Rome. His father was still alive, and technically the admiral, but it was only a matter of time.

  He looked over at Karl and Leila, his beautiful family. One of the darkest moments of his life was when he thought he’d lost them.

  He was midway into his second glass of wine when Milo called back.

  “Admiral.” All hint of teasing disrespect was gone from his voice.

  Antonio sat up. “What’s wrong?”

  Karl and Leila exchanged a glance and then came over to him. He put the call on speaker. Karl was a far better politician than him, Leila a better strategist. If they were about to be in a crisis—and Milo’s grim tone had every hair on the back of his neck standing on end—he needed his spouses’ support and guidance.

  “Luca is gone.”

  “What do you mean gone?”

  “I mean I can’t find him. Work, home.”

  “Maybe he’s at a bar.”

  “It looks like he left, and in a hurry. But I found a tablet in his apartment. Maybe it’s the Americans’. If we give it back…”

  “If he has their tablet, they have his. What’s on it?”