Control: Out of the Box (The Girl in the Box Book 38)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Then what do we do?” Gondry asked, swallowing. It seemed to me he was composing himself right there, and sincerely asking what was next of the person leading him.

  Leading the president.

  I was leading the president.

  Shit.

  I paused, listening. Just on the other side of the trees, I heard the low, rumbling thump of a car. “Wait here for a second,” I said, sirens starting to wail somewhere in the distance.

  Breaking out of the trees, I found myself on the edge of a rough, barely paved road. A car was coming; small, black, four- door Geo Metro.

  I stood in the middle of the road and pulled my badge and my gun. Both were dripping, but I only pointed the FBI ID at the car, which started to coast to a stop.

  Before it fully halted, I was already at the driver's side window. Staring back at me with wide, wild eyes was a teenager with long black hair and slack jaw.

  “I'm an agent with the FBI,” I said, motioning to where the president was hiding in the trees, “This is an emergency and I am requisitioning your vehicle.” I popped his door lock and opened it up, motioning for him to get out.

  “You're, uh...” he said, still sitting there. “...Aren't you...?”

  “Yes. Get out of the car,” I said. President Gondry emerged from the woods at a brisk run, limping slightly.

  The teenager turned and did a double take at the president. “Hey, isn't that–?”

  “I'm sorry about this,” I said, reaching in and unfastening his seatbelt, then bodily exiting him from the vehicle. The car started to roll as he landed on the shoulder of the road. “Back seat, Mr. President.” I slid into the front and heard the back door open and close.

  “Hey, that's my car!” the teenager said, sitting up in the dirt, stray grass caught in his hair.

  “I'll make it up to you!” I shouted, then floored it, bringing the little auto around in a 180 to head west. I had only the vaguest idea of where I was going, but I could see the Freeway Bridge ahead now, with the 11th Street Bridge just behind it. “Buckle up and stay low, Mr. President,” I said, turning around to visually check on him before turning back to the road ahead. “I'm going to get you out of here.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Chapman

  “Is the job done or not?” Chapman asked coolly, limo thrumming along through the streets of DC. The driver had found one of the less crowded thoroughfares and they were moving along quite nicely now.

  “Well, the chopper's down,” Veronika said tightly over the open line.

  Chapman rolled his eyes. “Hang on.” He turned his phone sideways, then opened an app on the dashboard. It came alive in a second, loading the tracking program built into Nealon's phone. Popping to life with a full map, it showed a red dot in southeast DC, near the Anacostia River.

  And it was moving, dammit.

  “You failed,” he said coldly, then tapped another button. He had a live view of a pocket, and the camera view was muddled with wetness. Chapman let out a little breath of frustration; she'd dragged herself out of the river, then? “She's at Water Street, about to turn north on 11th Street Southeast.” He listened, flipping the sound on for her.

  “–and stay low, Mr. President. I'm going to get you out of here.”

  He flipped back to the audio of the call with Veronika, watching Chase's eyes nearly bug out across from him. Whatever. He didn't have time to deal with her just now. “She's got the president with her.” He bailed back to the desktop and hit the share button on his phone, sending her the app. “I'm linking you the tracking program. Get it installed on your phone and use it to get the job done.”

  Then he hung up.

  Chase didn't say anything, but she was looking at him.

  “Come on,” he said, sighing contemptuously. “You had to know something was going on. I didn't just dismiss everyone else and keep you because I'd had enough of their shit.” Though he was bordering on it now. “I had a job for them.” He straightened in his seat. “You going to be okay with that?”

  She looked past him for a second, getting a glazed look in her eyes. “I...I don't know.”

  “Well, that's honest, at least,” he said. “Let me ask you this – what's your beef with Nealon?”

  That brought the hate back into her eyes. She blinked a couple times, jaw set in determination. “I – I come from nothing, okay? My dad was a coal miner in Kentucky, and his mine shut down years ago.”

  “Tough upbringing,” Chapman said.

  Chase glared at him, but then it softened. “You have no idea. I've looked for ways to make it on my own using my powers all my life, because a girl like me? Doesn't have anything else to fall back on. No education, no connections, nothing. So I did a government service spec ops thing – didn't work out. Tried bodyguarding, and finally found a guy, a connected guy, who could make things happen for me. Sienna Nealon killed him. So I bum around doing other stuff for a bit, then I get a job with her brother until he chucks me out. Find another bodyguard gig – heads of Inquest – that's going well until she shows up. Again. Every time I get a step up, she drags me back down. There. Now you have my story.” She sat back.

  Chapman nodded. “Let me tell you something you already know. Anyone...connected? Who can help you get whatever you want? Beachfront mansion in Malibu, maybe?” That softened Chase's look. “They're going to want you to do more than bodyguard, okay? Especially if you've got times in the past when you've failed to guard bodies. Extraordinary reward requires extraordinary commitment. Or to put it another way – Veronika and Phinneus are getting paid enough right now to retire. Same with Tyler, Kristina and Frost, assuming they make it to the party in time to help.”

  “I've only ever failed against Sienna Nealon,” Chase said, and boy was there a fire burning in her eyes. “You want to start a fight with her? Try to kill the president? Yeah, okay. Fine. I don't care. You want to deal me in?” She hesitated. “I think that's probably where I draw the line. But I'll keep you safe while the others are doing that. And I won't say anything because ratting on you isn't my job.”

  Chapman thought about it for a second. “It's good to know yourself. Your boundaries. That seems very acceptable to me. I think we have an understanding here, Chase. Now if you'll excuse me...I've got a little more work to do.” And he dove back into his phone, opening the Escapade app.

  CHAPMAN: Progress ongoing. Nealon made it out of the chopper alive – with the president.

  CHALKE: WHAT

  JOHANNSEN: How does she always do this?

  BYRD: wow

  CHALKE: She's a human hemorrhoid.

  KORY: She really is the Slay Queen.

  Chapman frowned at that.

  CHAPMAN: She's going to be the Slayed Queen soon. I've got my people converging on her position. They're armed, deadly, and they've got powers she can't counter.

  KORY: Isn't that kind of always the case, though? I mean, what can she really counter at this point?

  JOHANNSEN: She does show remarkable resilience for someone who's lost her unique powers.

  CHAPMAN: Yes, she's completely invincible until she's not. I predict we're about to see the cracks in the facade become canyons.

  CHALKE: I hope you're right. FBI and DC PD haven't received word she's alive yet.

  JOHANNSEN: That's interesting. You think it's because she's trying to keep the assassins from piggybacking the radio traffic and locating her that way?

  CHALKE: Probably. She's paranoid as hell.

  KORY: She's not paranoid. There really are people out to get her, lol, like ALL the time.

  CHAPMAN: Point is, these people are going to get her. I have them following the tracking signal in her phone.

  He looked up from his typing. In the distance, he could hear sirens.

  CHAPMAN: They're going to track her down, and finish the job. And then we can move on with our lives – and our plans – with Barbour as the president.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Sienna

  “
What's your plan?” President Gondry asked me from the backseat. He was fastened in, but I had him bent over so no one could see him. He sounded a little muffled, keeping his head down like that.

  “11th Street to 695, follow the surface roads next to the freeway until I find a clear route north up to Independence Avenue. Take that up to 14th Street, and ride it straight to Pennsylvania Avenue.” I was gripping the wheel tightly, my sodden hair still wet and slick, strands of it having escaped my ponytail to sit on my forehead.

  “That seems sound,” Gondry said. “What if we run into trouble along the way?”

  “We improvise,” I said.

  “But you don't call for help?”

  I tightened my grip on the wheel. “I'm not sure where this trouble is coming from, but I have a suspicion there's at least some element in the government that's got a piece of it. They're connected enough that if we call in help from the DC PD or the FBI, it might bird dog them straight to us – and before help can get to us. So no...right now I trust me to get you to a safe location, given that twice now you've been shot at while in government 'custody.'”

  “That does make sense,” Gondry said. “You think this is the...the 'Network,' then?”

  “Probably,” I said tautly. “I don't think they liked you calling them out.”

  “Who are they, Agent Nealon?” Gondry asked.

  I kept my eyes firmly on the road, the cloud cover overhead casting Washington with a gray tinge. There was little traffic to speak of, given that it was the middle of the workday and lunch hour hadn't really kicked off yet. “I can't entirely prove it, sir, and we can't share names until I can. You understand that, right?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “Did I cause this? By talking about them?”

  “It's entirely possible they were pissed at you about China before this,” I said, “but I suspect calling them out gave them a push, sir.”

  “You know who they are?” Gondry asked. “But you can't prove it?”

  “I think so,” I said. “Some of them, anyway. And the problem isn't just proving who they are – it's rooting them all out. These are powerful people. They have their ideas about the way things should be, they're sure that they're right. They won't just give up, not after going this far.”

  “Can you at least tell me who they are?”

  I pulled up to a red traffic light, looking around for any threat. No signs of trouble. The cars around me were inhabited by a skinny guy who was talking to the phone in his hand, and a woman who was using a flat iron on her hair while staring at herself in the rearview. While driving. I felt safer already. “You promise to keep the names to yourself until I give you the go ahead to release them?” I looked back at his crouching figure in the rearview.

  “Yes,” the president said, sounding somewhat chastened. “I suppose I acted impetuously. I do that sometimes, and I'm sorry. I hope I haven't jeopardized your case.”

  “I'm a little more worried about you jeopardizing your life at this point,” I said dryly. “But I do want to nail these clowns to the wall. Here are the names I have so far – Dave Kory–”

  “Who?”

  “Publisher of that trash website Flashforce.”

  “Oh. Oh! I've met him. God, what a horrid little man.”

  I hesitated. “Jaime Chapman.”

  The president sat up in the back seat. “Why, I had a meeting with him this morning.”

  I stared at the president's wide eyes in the rearview. “What did you talk about?”

  Gondry leaned back over. “He came to argue against my about face on China. He was quite insistent.” He paused, thinking. “I didn't notice it in his eyes at that point, but looking back now...I wonder if he was deciding to kill me right then.”

  “Well,” I said, trying to answer judiciously, “the attempt certainly came together quickly after the meeting. What did you tell him that pissed him off enough to do...well, this?”

  “I told him I wasn't moving,” Gondry said, voice falling into a quiet realm of near-introspection. “Not off this decision. He...didn't care for that.”

  “Big surprise. It's going to cost him a lot of money.” I chuckled. “Which is hilarious, because he's like...one of the richest men in the world. And he can't bring himself to criticize China. You'd think if anyone could afford to blast them, it'd be someone who was richer than shit, but no...all these rich people will take the PRC government's side while they concentration camp their way through the Uighur population.” I shook my head. “Sorry. Just thought that was strange.”

  “It's not the money, Agent Nealon,” the president said softly. “It's the power the money brings – or the power outright. There's a feeling that comes from it, from having the connections. For Chapman, it may be that he's truly bought into the idea that he can change the world, change China, if he just has access to their markets with his products. There's a consensus of the powerful about this issue, about other issues – that strangely coincides with the interests of the powerful. I'm not sure they're even fully aware of the staggering amount of cognitive dissonance in their thinking around this issue and others. I've only opened my eyes to it recently myself, with your case. I didn't really see China for what it was before that.” He chuckled, but there was no amusement in it. “Funny to think it might cost me my life.”

  “I wouldn't worry about it just yet,” I said, trying to get hope back in him. The light went green, and I started to accelerate. “Oh, and Mr. President?” He caught my eye in the mirror. “Since we're running from death together, you can drop the 'Agent Nealon' and call me Sienna.”

  He straightened up as much as he could in the back without actually sitting upright. “Thank you...Sienna. You can call me Richard.”

  “Since we're being honest...I've been calling you a variation of Richard for years.”

  He laughed thunderously. “You're surely not the only one. Very well, then: Sienna. Thank you.”

  I sped us up to slightly above the speed limit. I didn't want to get too crazy, after all. Getting stopped by the cops could either help us get back faster, or result in us becoming sitting ducks. Taking the chance didn't seem worth it, and besides, every cop in the district was probably on their way to the crash site of Marine One right now.

  “Let me ask you something,” the president said. “Why...why do you do all this?”

  “Huh, what?” I couldn't look back because I was moving up to an intersection and preparing to turn north. The traffic was getting heavier. “Not sure what you mean there.”

  “You're always throwing yourself into possible death,” Gondry said. “I see this behavior from – you know, cops, the military. But they have the sanction of state. You fought for us even when you didn't. Flew into Las Vegas while you were wanted by every agency known to man and stopped that casino robbery on the Strip. Stopped Caden Sims from eliminating all privacy on the internet. Helped your old boyfriend bring those two kids to justice down in Florida. Do I need to go on?”

  “Should it worry me you can list my accomplishments chronologically while I was an outlaw?” I asked, finally squeezing through a gap in oncoming traffic to make my turn. It was tight, and I definitely used my meta reflexes, but I made it. “I mean, knowing them is one thing, but listing them like that...?”

  “Why keep fighting?” Gondry asked. “What drove you to keep going on even when everyone was against you? I'm curious.”

  Pure spite.

  I didn't say that, though, because it was definitely probably not true.

  “I don't know,” I said. “Something about...duty. Honor. Helping people. It's a gut level thing.” I was sorta mumbling, almost as much to myself as to the president.

  “Duty and honor,” he said quietly. “That sounds about right.”

  “If I don't do the 'right thing,'” I made air quotes for him, “when it's tough...why do it when it's easy? Yeah, I've occasionally had to cross a continent or throw myself into the line of fire, both when I was legally operating and not so much, in orde
r to right a wrong or fight an enemy. But if I were the kind of person who would quit when it was easy, then it seems like I'm also the kind of person who'd get in a fight, take a hit, and decide, 'Ya know...that's enough for today.' Right?”

  “Too stubborn to quit at any time, then,” Gondry said with quiet amusement.

  “Something like that, yea–”

  I stopped mid-sentence as something caught my eye. We were coming up on an intersection, and there was a Buick sedan parked, waiting behind the stop bar. That, by itself, wouldn't have been so strange.

  What made it weird was that the people in the driver and passenger seats were wearing black ski masks.

  “Stay down,” I said, gunning the engine to make the light, which had just turned yellow.

  The Buick's driver gunned the engine, and came at me with a squeal of tires, aiming right for my car.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Phinneus

  “There she is,” Veronika said, and sure enough, there Nealon was in a little Geo Metro. “You see the president?”

  “No,” Phinneus said, hands planted firmly on the steering wheel. They were waiting behind a red light, first in the line. They'd gotten held up by a damned city bus that had slowed their passage through the intersection, blocking them utterly and then squeezing through just after the light went red, leaving Phinneus high and dry, unwilling to risk the attention while he was already wearing a ski mask. Rousing suspicion before they'd acquired their target and were ready to make a move, well...that was unwise, even with the DC cops all scrambling for the river. Better safe than sorry.

  “He's probably crouched in back,” Veronika said, staring at the little Geo. “What say we get in behind the target and–”

  But that plan went out the window immediately. Nealon turned her head and looked right at them, dark, wet locks hanging twisty over her forehead. Her eyes still fixed right on them, though, and she started to accelerate through the intersection.