Allie's War Season Four (58 page)

“Yes, sir.”

Pausing more meaningfully that time, Balidor added, “...The densest of these structures are housed in the sub-basement, sir. We’re now estimating that this same sub-basement extends a good ten stories underground.”

Revik glanced at Wreg, knowing he was hearing this.

The Chinese-looking seer clicked in irritation, staring at the street, as if to try and see through it to the basement levels below.

“The basement,” Revik muttered. “Perfect.”

“Yes,
laoban,”
Balidor said, startling Revik slightly by using the more informal moniker for ‘boss’ that Wreg normally used. “...I am guessing that is not an accident.”

Revik’s frown turned into something closer to a scowl.

The others knew of his dislike of enclosed, underground spaces. Balidor definitely knew...so did Wreg. The only ones to ever tease him about it openly had been Wreg and Allie, and even they had been careful how they broached jokes on that subject.

Revik hadn’t even liked traveling the sewers with Allie before and after their bank heist, although he’d been the one to suggest that approach, knowing it made the most sense. He kept the entry point short for that reason. When they ended up wandering in those tunnels for hours afterwards, avoiding NYPD and SCARB and whoever else after he’d been forced to blow his way through the safe walls, Revik nearly blanked out on her a few times, even apart from his lack of light and overall disorientation from being wounded. Like a rabbit caught in headlights, his mind just...stopped working. Or stopped working
well,
anyway.

Revik knew at least part of that came from being underground too long.

He’d been with
her
that time, too, and immersed in her light. He never would have been able to do that on his own. He would have been forced to surface a lot sooner, even if it meant calling for backup from Wreg or Balidor or whoever else...or fighting his way back to the hotel.

He’d never told her that, but he wondered if she knew.

Guessed, anyway.

He’d deliberately given Wreg that part of the op in São Paulo, too, when they went after the Registry mainframe. Just like with the bank job, he’d known after looking at the blueprints that their main access point had to be underground. He didn’t talk about it, but anyone who’d worked with him for any amount of time knew this about him.

Menlim knew it better than anyone. He’d been the one to create that phobia, as well as the one to turn it into something nearly debilitating when it grew prolonged.

“Recommendation for approach?” Revik said, his voice toneless.

“You’re going to have to go down, Nenz.”

Revik felt his fingers tighten around the gun he held. “No shit. Sewers? Front door? Side entrance? Can you tell anything from the construct?”

“The OBE is stronger underground.” Balidor hesitated. “...My recommendation at this point, given the small amount we know, would be the front door. I am basing that on the overall construct layout and design, which seems to have been fortified to ensure much more limited access from below. But Nenz,” Balidor said, his voice holding more emotion. “You’re going to hit some mazes in there. It looks like the same hall of mirrors we saw in that house in Patagonia. Perhaps even worse, since there seems to be an additional layer of construct over the downstairs alone, one that’s potentially geared towards hiding any departures.”

“They’ve got their own access point down there you mean?” Revik said, to clarify.

“Yes.”

“Fuck. What? Water? Some kind of amphibious vehicle?”

“Unknown.”

Balidor paused again, obviously looking at something, either on a screen or in the Barrier. Revik found himself biting back impatience by the time the other man next spoke.

“...I’m not seeing any evidence of us getting cut off in there, Nenz,” Balidor added. “Not yet. But it’s a distinct possibility. You’d better take whatever imprints we have now...”

“Send it to everyone on the team,” Revik said at once.

Immediately, several multi-dimensional and non-dimensional maps of the Barrier structures around the Tower reached him in a rapid-fire, highly detailed series of snapshots.

As he looked them over with the higher structures in his aleimi, Revik couldn’t entirely squelch a denser pain that rose in his gut. He knew the reaction to be pure emotion, not related to logic in any way, but he couldn’t suppress it entirely, either. He knew both Balidor and Wreg felt it, the latter of whom gave him a worried glance.

Even Jon turned to stare at him. Revik could see Jon’s pale face aimed at his through the waving shadows of the tree branches, which filtered the lone streetlight that must be running on the same set of generators powering the Tower itself.

Revik forced himself to focus on the area of the map where he knew he’d likely find Cass and Terian...and his child, too, potentially. Something told him not to expect Menlim in the same place as the other two, meaning Terian and Cass. Based on what Jon said and theorized about Cass’s motives, Cass would want to handle a lot of this herself.

Revik suspected Menlim would indulge her in that regard. Or, more likely, that he would let her think he was indulging her, as he worked his own machinations behind the scenes. Revik didn’t know if Terian would be with Cass or not, but he suspected yes.

They might possibly give the child to Menlim to guard, but Revik found himself doubting that, too. Cass would want the child with her.

Revik’s light found the densest configuration of construct points.

His first thought was, Jesus. Balidor really hadn’t been exaggerating about the basement.

Staring at the revolving, thread-laden and hyper-detailed diagrams, Revik grunted again.

“What about personnel?” he subvocalized. “I’m not seeing many.”

“We’re assuming most of them must be cloaked,” Balidor said.

Revik glanced at Wreg, who answered his frown with one of his own.

“We thought that in South America, too,” Wreg observed, clicking again softly. “Is it possible it will be an empty nest again, Adhipan?”

“Anything is possible,” Balidor said. “...But I am thinking not. This feels different, even from the small glimpses we’ve gotten. They must know you wouldn’t go in, not unless you had good reason to believe them to be in there.”

Revik exchanged another look with Wreg, who answered him with a scowl. Sighing a bit, Revik nodded, letting Balidor see it.

“So we won’t know for sure until we get inside,” he said.

Balidor’s voice held regret. “Likely not. I only hope you will know for sure then, given the complexity of some of these construct elements...”

There was another silence. Revik tried to think through it, but again got distracted by something he could feel in the less-obvious flares from Balidor’s light. Honing in on that ripple deliberately that time, he smacked the other seer sharply with his light. He felt Balidor’s reaction even through the relative distance of the link.

“What the fuck, ‘Dori?” Revik growled. “What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”

There was a silence. Then the Adhipan leader sighed.

“You’re not going to like it,” he said.

“I don’t have time for this...” Revik began, his voice a low warning.

“All right,” Balidor said, cutting him off with a virtual wave. His voice turned businesslike. “We’ve had some issues on our end.”

“Issues,” Revik said.

“Yes,” Balidor said. His voice grew clipped, once more sounding like a military report. “We’re looking into it, but Tarsi is missing. So is Anale. It seems that human hacker recruit of Jon’s, Dante-whatever...she has disappeared, too.” Hesitating, he added, “...So did Surli. That Chinese infiltrator your wife knew in Beijing.”

“Surli?” Revik’s voice sharpened. “They still had that fucker
Surli
in custody?”

“He was on the Displacement list,
laoban,”
Balidor said, his voice holding a faint warning. “Deklan and the others freed him during the tsunami...it seemed pointless to keep him prisoner, and Ditrini had left Surli behind when he escaped. Raven disappeared when Ditrini took you from the cell with Maygar, remember? We always figured Ditrini freed her, likely as a favor to Voi Pai. He left Surli with us.”

“What makes you think that’s any kind of indication of his reliability?” Revik growled.

He fought a sharper thread of irritation that no one had talked to him about this, but maybe even more so that he’d never thought to ask. He’d just assumed Surli disappeared with Ditrini...or maybe even that he’d been killed in the floods.

“So...what?” Revik growled. “He’s just been walking around the hotel all this time? Drinking coffee at the Third Jewel?”

Balidor made a vague gesture with one hand. “He had no security clearance, of course, to reach any of the higher floors or interact with intelligence, but yes.”

Revik felt his jaw harden. “And you didn’t think to tell me...why? Because he used to fuck my wife? Or was there some other reason?”

Balidor didn’t answer.

Rubbing his face with a gloved hand, Revik forced the emotions back, realizing he was treading on dangerous ground to even go there right now. Further, he knew why they wouldn’t have told him any of this. He wouldn’t have been capable of addressing it rationally, not at any point in the period after they found Allie in San Francisco.

Hell, he still wasn’t capable of looking at it rationally. Clearly.

“Fine,” he said. “Well, are you looking for him now?”

“Yes.” Balidor took another breath, then added in a harsher voice, “There is another thing,
laoban.
Your wife’s body is missing too...”

“What?” Wreg said, breaking into the communication. “What the fuck does that mean? Missing how?”

Revik could only stand there, though, unmoving. Wreg’s voice grew harsher, holding enough emotion that Revik flinched.

“When? How did you find out?” Wreg demanded.

Balidor let out a clicking sigh. “The imaging systems in the halls and elevators showed Dante to have gone to the sixtieth floor after she went missing,” Balidor explained. “Tarsi, too. We were looking for her. Holo checked the room. The body’s gone.”

The silence deepened.

Wreg’s voice sounded almost lost that time, despite the anger that overlay his words. “What the fuck is this?” he said in Mandarin. “Are they trying to screw with his head, or what? Is it a cloning thing? Some kind of fucking trophy?”

Revik winced, but didn’t look over at the other man.

Balidor sighed through the transmitter, his voice holding an overt grief.

“I honestly don’t know, brothers. We’ve recorded no breaches. It is possible Tarsi took Alyson’s body for her own reasons...for some ritualistic or protective reason of her own.”

He paused, then his voice grew more blunt, almost cold.

“...It’s equally possible Surli took her, and kidnapped Tarsi. It’s also possible that Anale was another mole, a plant of Shadow’s, like Dorje. If that is true, if Anale worked for Shadow, along with Surli, then this is likely a psychological attack on our brother, the Sword. That, and likely an attempt to take Tarsi from us, as the highest ranked infiltrator we have. There is the possibility that they wanted the Bridge’s biological matter too, of course. Any combination of those is possible...but we are as without answers as you are.”

Balidor stopped talking, as abruptly as he had begun.

His voice grew quieter, but suddenly carrying so much emotion Revik winced.

“I am deeply sorry, Nenz,” Balidor said, his words thick. “I do not have an answer for you at this time. I wish I did. I am sorry that I let this happen, and right under my eyes, my very light. I will tell you the instant we find out anything at all about this...I promise,
laoban
. I promise. And if Surli is indeed behind it, I’ll kill him myself.”

Revik stared into the dark of the nearby trees, trying to wrap his head around the other man’s words. He couldn’t. He couldn’t make himself understand them in any way that made sense to his conscious mind. Tarsi gone, possibly dead. Anale a traitor. Surli. Dante. Even the loss of Dante hurt. She’d been the most senior name on that human Displacement list after Jon. More than that, Revik liked her. He’d liked her light...the glimpses of her mind, her humor.