Zira let go of Jared’s arm and reached out for the van door. He put a hand on it to stop her before she could get inside “I wasn’t trying to undermine your authority back there. You know that, right?”
She turned around to face him. Anger flashed in her eyes again for a moment, then she sighed and released some of the tension in her posture. “I know.”
“You want to tell me what that was really about?”
She gave him a weak shrug and looked down at her feet. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just…I’m sorry I made you upset.”
She shook her head, and seconds ticked by before she said anything else. “You could have died. For a few minutes, I thought you probably were dead. Or hurt. And I can’t—” She paused, and a soft crease formed between her eyebrows. Her next words were so quiet he barely heard them. “I don’t want to lose you.”
The sentiment caught him off guard. Despite their rekindled friendship, it hadn’t really occurred to him that she even cared that much about what might happen to him. It was certainly more than he deserved.
He took a step towards her and reached out to take her hand. His fingertips brushed against hers, and when she didn’t pull away, he clasped her palm in his. “You’re not going to lose me. I’m here, for as long as you want me to be here.”
Zira tugged on his hand ever so slightly, pulling him in just a little bit closer. He shifted his grasp so that his fingers wound between hers. The sensation was familiar, comforting, and terrifying all at once. He could sense the last of his defenses crumbling inch by inch and hated to think of what it would do to him if he dropped them all and she decided to bolt.
She looked up at him. Her eyes seemed to reflect the clear blue of the noon sky above them, and Jared wanted to reach up and brush her hair aside so he could see them better. He also wanted to make sure he wasn’t pushing his boundaries. So he waited, and in the moments that passed, it took everything in him to bite back all the things he wanted to say to her.
Zira let go of his hand and cleared her throat. “We should get back to the others,” she said quietly.
Jared nodded and let out a shaky breath. “Right. Let’s go then.”
They got into the van and sat side by side, and the inches of empty space between them felt like miles.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
For the first half-hour of the journey back to Liberation, no one said anything. A sullen mood filled the van as the miles stretched on behind them, and Zira was as lost in her own thoughts as the rest of her team. Her detached prosthetic leg lay across Tripp’s knees as he attempted to repair it, but whatever he did was probably just going to be a temporary fix. A long crack and a deep dent near the bottom had eliminated all resistance in the ankle joint, which left the foot limp and unable to support her weight. She’d have to get it replaced when they got home.
Her mind drifted as she watched him work. Not for the first time, she had to force herself to stop thinking about whatever had happened between her and Jared back at the school. It wouldn’t complicate things unless she let it, and right now, she needed to focus on the mission. Or more importantly, why it had gone wrong.
It wasn’t a very encouraging train of thought. For one thing, it reminded her of her previous attempts to kill Ryku during her time in the rebellion. She’d failed on two separate occasions then, and this mission felt like just another episode in that saga. Worse yet, they had no idea where the former chairman was or if he’d even been at the school in the first place. The entire thing had clearly been a setup, which meant someone in the PRM knew where they were going before they even got there.
They’d been deliberately sent into a trap.
Cedric had been the one to give them the intel, but that didn’t necessarily mean he’d had any knowledge of what would happen once they acted upon it. The PRM could have discovered he was an undercover agent and used him to set up the ambush. That was one possibility, and Zira didn’t even want to think of what might become of him if the PRM knew he was a mole.
The other possibility was that he’d set it up himself. She could hardly imagine him being capable of something like that, but she had to consider all scenarios, even the ones she didn’t like. And Cedric had been somewhat dismissive when she’d asked him how he got the information on Ryku’s whereabouts.
Dodge cleared his throat. The noise sounded harsh in the silence of the van. “Are we going to talk about what happened back there? Or are we all just going to sit here and mope until we get home?”
Zira looked around at the expectant faces watching her for an answer. “Okay, let’s talk. Does anyone have ideas they want to share with the rest of the team?”
For a few moments, no one said anything. She suspected they’d all pieced together the same information she had, but no one wanted to take responsibility for bringing it up. She couldn’t blame them for that. Finally, Dodge spoke again. “All right, then. I guess I’ll just say it. Someone set us up.”
The others nodded their agreement.
“But who?” asked Salim.
“Whoever it was, they had access to our communications channel,” Tripp said, now wrapping a bandage around Zira’s prosthesis as if he were splinting a real limb. “And whatever they used to disrupt our signals was specifically targeted to each person’s CL, so they would have had to have those codes, too.”
“What about their drone?” Zira asked. The remains of both the PRM’s drone and the one Tripp had used to take it down now sat in a tangled heap in the back of the van.
“From what I can tell, it served two purposes. One, to keep an eye on things so they’d know when everyone was inside the school. And two, it was supposed to stay within range to transmit a signal that would detonate the explosives. Our comms went offline for no apparent reason right before you all went inside. I immediately suspected something was wrong, and that’s when I found their drone.”
“So when you crashed it, it wasn’t able to send the detonation signal.”
“Right,” Tripp said. “They had to work around that and figure something else out. The signal they ended up using was rerouted through Jared’s CL. By that time, their plan had already backfired, but some of you were still inside or close to the building. Maybe they hoped to salvage part of their mission by taking out at least a few of us.”
“How would they have even accessed our comms, though?” Salim asked.
No one responded to the question, but Zira knew she wasn’t the only one to come up with the most obvious answer. Someone from SIO could have easily given the PRM that information.
“It could have been Cedric,” Josefina said quietly.
Nova’s head snapped up. “It wasn’t Cedric.”
“It could have been. He knows our CL codes. He knows how our communications work.”
If they hadn’t been sitting inside a cramped, moving vehicle, Nova might have stood up and punched the older woman. The muscles in her face tensed with rage, and for once, she seemed unafraid to say exactly what was on her mind. “Are you kidding me? He’s been out there risking his life to get us information for weeks. You know they’d kill him if they found out he was working for SIO, right? And you want to accuse him of this? I should throw you out of this van for even thinking something like that. All of you.”
“That’s enough!” Zira yelled. Josefina hadn’t moved and looked completely unruffled, but Nova was still fuming. “Look, I don’t want to think Cedric was behind this either, but we have to consider every possibility.”
Nova immediately turned her rage on Zira. “All right then, let’s do that. Let’s consider every possibility. There’s someone sitting in here right now who’s just as good a suspect as Cedric.”
Salim put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s just calm down and—”
She shrugged away from him and stared pointedly at Jared. “Tripp said the detonation signal came from your CL. What was it they used to call you? The Chairman’s d
og?”
Jared clasped his hands together and squared his shoulders. “They did,” he said evenly. “Before Ryku locked me up and tortured me for betraying him.”
Zira winced as images of what he must have endured conjured themselves up in her mind. “He didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“How do you know? Maybe he secretly made peace with his old master. Maybe he’s been working with Ryku and the PRM this entire time.”
Zira bit back the fury on the tip of her tongue and waited a few seconds to collect herself before responding. Nova was upset, and understandably so. Arguing with her was just going to make things worse. “Jared was the last person out of the school. Why would he have stayed in there if he knew it was going to blow up?”
“That’s exactly my point. You think it’s crazy to accuse Jared of doing this? It’s just as crazy to say it was Cedric. It wasn’t. I’d bet my life on it.”
Zira still wasn’t entirely convinced, but she nodded anyway. “Okay, then. But he is the one who gave us the information, and we can’t overlook that. If the PRM used him to set us up, they know he’s working undercover. We need to have Alma bring him in.” Assuming it wasn’t already too late.
The young woman’s posture relaxed a little as she let out a long breath. “Right. For his safety. That makes sense.”
“I’m going to ask her to put him somewhere secure until we get back. Not because I think he did it, but because someone else at SIO might be working with the PRM. If they set Cedric up, we don’t want to let them know we’re looking at other suspects.”
“Won’t bringing him in make them suspicious anyway?” Salim asked.
Zira pulled up Alma’s contact information on her CL. “Maybe, but we can’t just leave him out there.”
And if Cedric was somehow responsible for this, bringing him into custody immediately would prevent him from having time to escape before they could get answers.
* * *
The van pulled up to a side entrance when they returned to SIO headquarters several hours later. It was just past six o’clock, and nearly everyone in the office would have already gone home for the night, but Alma was waiting for them at the door. She held it open to let Zira in while the others unloaded their equipment.
Nova ducked inside on Zira’s heels. “Is he here yet?”
“No,” Alma said. “I sent one of our people to pick him up, no explanation. His plane just landed, but they won’t be back until later tonight.”
“We can wait for him.”
Zira shook her head and kept walking—without the limp, thanks to Tripp’s temporary fix for her prosthesis. “I will wait for him. You’ll go home with the others and get some rest.”
“You can’t just—”
“Go home, Nova.” She didn’t wait for her response.
“What happened to your leg?” Alma asked as they stepped onto the elevator.
Zira gave her a quizzical look as she hit the button for the seventh floor. “I think it just got hit with something in the blast. How did you know?”
“Jared sent a message, said I needed to look for someone to make you a new one. You have an appointment tomorrow morning, by the way. They need to take measurements and look at your current prosthesis, but it shouldn’t take them more than a day or two to make a replacement.”
That was thoughtful. Of both of them. She made a mental note to express her gratitude when she saw Jared again. “Thank you.”
The elevator doors opened onto an empty floor. Out of habit, Zira walked to her desk, but it took her a few seconds to figure out what to do once she was there. She eventually decided to use the time to write up her mission report. Alma settled into the chair at Salim’s workstation and spun it in slow circles. The chair emitted a soft creak that would have been unnoticeable in the usual hubbub of the office. Now, it added gentle, rhythmic background noise to Zira’s focus on her work.
She was just finishing up the last few sentences of her report when the chair’s creaking stopped. “Do you really think he did this?”
Alma’s question barely percolated through Zira’s concentration. She kept writing without looking up. “I think he played some part in it, whether he was aware of it or not.”
Alma muttered something under her breath in Spanish. It was only then that Zira remembered her saying she and Cedric had joined the rebellion together. He wasn’t just another one of her subordinates. He was her friend—a friend she’d known for years.
She submitted her report for review, then looked up at Alma with what she hoped was reassurance. “Maybe it wasn’t him.”
Alma ran a hand over her face like she was trying to rub away some of the stress and fatigue that lay there. “Even if it wasn’t, it’s going to kill him when he finds out they used him.”
They waited. The sky outside turned gold, then pink, then orange, and finally a deep velvet blue. Zira’s CL chimed with an incoming message from Jared.
Just a heads up, Nova took the car. I think she’s headed back to the office.
Zira sighed and showed the message to Alma, who only shrugged. “I guess we should have expected that.”
She wrote back to Jared. Thanks for letting me know. Before he even had time to respond, she followed it up with a second message. And thanks for telling Alma about my leg. I’ll have a replacement soon.
No problem. That’s good to hear.
She considered sending him another message, but the elevator doors in the center of the office slid open before she could decide what to write. Cedric stepped off with a man Zira had seen around but didn’t know by name.
Alma stood and went to meet them. “Thanks, Clint. We’ve got this from here.”
The man stepped back onto the elevator.
Cedric waved and kept walking towards them. “Oh, good. Someone who can finally tell me what’s happening.”
He sounded so earnest, and his eyes held all their usual boyish naiveté. It was hard for Zira to imagine him betraying them, but she’d been blindsided by the things she thought people were incapable of before. Either Cedric was innocent, or he was an excellent liar. They had to scrutinize everything, and she couldn’t afford to let her personal opinion of him get in the way.
Alma gestured to a cluster of chairs at a nearby workstation. “Let’s just talk, okay?”
They all sat down. Cedric tried to maintain his decorum, but his foot bounced up and down against the floor as he looked between the two women. Was he nervous because he didn’t know what this was about? Or because he was surprised to see Zira still alive?
“I thought you’d be in the Mid Pacific region by now,” he said to her.
“We just got back.”
“That was quick. How did it go?”
“Not good.” She pulled up an image on her CL, one of the aerial photos Tripp’s drone had captured of the school’s remains. She projected it over her wrist and showed it to Cedric, watching his reaction closely. Had he known this was going to happen?
He looked confused for a moment, then his eyes widened in surprised realization. “That’s the school. Did you guys do that? Is everyone else okay?”
“No one was at the school,” Zira said. “The place was completely empty. We walked around for a while, started checking things out, then realized someone was screwing with our comms. I found an explosive device in one of the rooms. We managed to get word to the others before the whole place blew up, so everyone’s fine, but it was a close call.”
He looked relieved rather than disappointed, but that relief only lasted for a second. One hand went to his mouth as he shook his head. “That’s what this is about. I sent you in there, and you think I had something to do with it. Zira, I swear I didn’t know anything. I would never—you have to believe me.”
She wanted to. It certainly would have been easier than believing he’d knowingly sent them into an ambush.
“Why don’t you just tell us what you do know, then,” Alma said.
“I did just what you
said,” he began. “I was trying to find out where Ryku might have gone after his escape, but no one seemed to have any idea where he was. The people in charge don’t tell us much if they don’t have to. I guess Mallory likes to keep things secret as much as possible. But one of my friends…” He paused to correct himself. “One of the guys I spent more time with, I guess. He helped deliver some of the bots used in the hostage crisis. There was a problem at the last minute, and he handled it. Mallory was impressed, so she’s been giving him some extra responsibilities lately. She asked him to find someplace for Ryku to hide out in the Mid Pacific region and then help Mallory get him there.”
“And how did you find out about all that?” Zira asked.
“He told me. Like I said, we hung out a lot. He seemed really excited about something a few days ago, and when I asked him what was going on, he said he’d met with Mallory. It took a little more work and a lot of alcohol to get the rest of it out of him, but little by little, he dropped more details. That’s when I called you.”
Zira scrunched her mouth to one side. She believed him. Nothing in his story rang false, but something about it still nagged at her. She just couldn’t quite pin it down.
“This colleague of yours,” Alma said. “Has Mallory or anyone else trusted him with anything like this before? Anything big?”
Cedric thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. He only joined the PRM about a week before I got there. They usually give the really important jobs to the people who’ve been there longest, since right after the rebellion.”
“And Mallory just suddenly decided to trust him with finding somewhere secure for Ryku to stay.”
That was it. That was the source of the unsettling feeling gnawing at the back of Zira’s mind. Mallory had remained fiercely loyal to Ryku through everything, even going so far as to deliver messages for him and kill a former inmate on his orders. And she was secretive, presumably to protect both Ryku and herself. So why would she trust something so important to a low-ranking member of the PRM whose only real accomplishment had been taking care of a minor logistical problem during the hostage crisis? If Mallory really cared about protecting Ryku, she wouldn’t have asked just anyone to help her find a safe place for him to stay. No, that was something she would have taken care of herself.
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