Allie's War Season One (145 page)

Around us stood gray metal and cement, an open, empty space.

We were in a warehouse...or, as I looked around and up at the high ceiling, maybe some kind of airplane hangar.

A group of humans sat on bleacher-like seats behind what looked like a plexiglas shield. The faces I saw flashed white, round-eyed. I saw the guards hustling a few of the uniformed men and women off the platform, into armored vehicles parked behind the bleacher-like area. The vehicles roared to life, taking off down the middle of the hangar to what must be the doors on the other end. It might have been comical if I’d had time to understand what just occurred.

Nenzi didn’t seem to care about them, though.

Light from the urele flashed out once more, reaching the metal walls. More glass shards rained down around us, this time from above, too.

I threw up my arms, but fragments still nicked my face and shoulders. Fear rippled through me, a sudden realization that what I’d suspected...what I’d
known,
somehow, all along...was really true.

Nenzi wasn’t a young Syrimne. He wasn’t his offspring, a clone, an experiment, or even a confused reincarnation of one kind or another.

Somehow, in some way, Nenzi actually
was
Syrimne.

And he was broken, just like Tarsi said he was.

25

INFILTRATOR

HE LAY BESIDE, propped on his side, resting his head on one arm as he looked at her. Caressing the hair back from her face, he kissed her, fighting a swell of feeling that still hurt. She smiled as she took in his expression, looking tired but heartbreakingly happy, and he wondered if she knew...

She was telling him about her brother, something Jon said when they were kids, and all he could think about was that glimpse he’d gotten when he pushed her to confess everything, the lingering jealousy he felt, and he felt like a bastard for wondering if...

She kissed him again, smiling. Her eyes turned liquid and the feeling there clutched at his heart...he still didn’t quite believe it.

“I love you,” she whispered, caressing his face. “I love you...”

HE JERKED AWAKE. Fighting to breathe, he stared up at a black ceiling in a dim motel room. His whole body hurt. Tears coursed down his cheeks and he had a hard on; the pain in his light vibrated every layer of his skin.

He couldn’t move.

He fought out a thick sob, an attempt to express some part of it, but couldn’t. Turning to his side, he clutched his stomach with an arm instead, willing it back, willing it to pass through or away from him...somehow.

Gradually, he could breathe.

He lay there awhile longer, fighting his way back to some semblance of normal...or level at least. His mind only worked when he kept it going in straight lines.

He scanned for her, reflexive, but there was nothing there.

Nothing. Not even her in pain.

When he looked up, he saw Jon watching him, his eyes shining faintly from the orange lights showing through the motel window’s curtains. Revik saw the sympathy there, but couldn’t deal with that either.

Rolling to his back, he closed his eyes, holding a hand over his face as he deliberately slowed his breathing. Eventually, he got his heart moving slower, contracting slower, pumping blood slower.

He didn’t have time for this, he told himself.

He didn’t have time.

HE STARED AT the virtual map of the main and secondary structures.

Primarily, he was memorizing foundational details...mapping entrances and exits, security tech, rooms with external walls, reinforced barriers, underground spaces uncategorized on the plans, or simply empty spaces that might not actually be empty. He looked for air ducts, server storage, sewage lines...

Anything that might provide ventilation or access below ground.

He knew Terian. He knew Galaith, for that matter.

He could expect back doors. Likely half as many again existed in reality as what appeared on the plans, despite the fact that these were supposedly the “real” plans, meaning the version protected by the Secret Service. He had no idea if he’d be able to access any of those other doors, either, but he knew how to begin looking for them, at least. The plans were mainly just a place to start. Using them, he could look for the holes, make a few educated guesses.

The truth was, Revik didn’t have a lot of options, in terms of breaking into the White House. That would have been true even if Terian wasn’t president.

As it was, the usual problems had multiplied.

Still, politicians were politicians. They didn’t change much over the years. Revik had observed at close hand hierarchies spanning countries in half the continents in the globe. The human ones always shared certain traits in common.

When he’d proposed his plan to Wreg, the older seer laughed.

“Dignity still isn’t high on your list of attributes, is it, runt?” he’d said.

Revik hadn’t bothered to react. He watched the other infiltrator instead, knowing he was thinking through the logistics. He waited for Wreg to find some detail he had missed, some reason it wouldn’t work. When the Asian seer with the thick arms adjusted his weight, eyes blurring as he retraced the steps of the plan a second time...then a third...Revik found himself relaxing.

After another pause, Wreg nodded.

“It might work, at that,” he said. “I assume you have some different idea for yourself?” He motioned towards Revik’s face.

Revik shook his head, then gestured in negative when the other didn’t react.

“I want to go in the front door,” he said.

Wreg frowned. “I don’t know—”

“That’s non-negotiable.”

Hesitating, Wreg conceded with a tilted palm. “Fine, fine...it’s your show. We’ll need a cover. Better than the usual blood-patch and prosthetics.”

Revik gestured affirmative. “Yes. I have some ideas...but what do you think, assuming that end is covered?”

“That is not a small detail,” Wreg said.

“It is a detail,” Revik said. “What do you
think?”

Wreg jerked his chin, smiling faintly. “It is good. It will work, runt...but we need to find a reputable house to affiliate with, and...”

They began discussing details in earnest.

That had been a few days ago. Wreg’s formality with him may have slipped, but his ability to take and carry out orders had not. Revik even wondered if it was a sign of the other’s trust in him, that he was no longer using the formal version of every response when he made a request.

Revik hadn’t wanted to waste time; yet, he wasn’t about to blow what would likely be his only chance by being sloppy, either. He’d run several dozen scenarios with the best infiltrators he could find among the seers he’d been given. After two days on a cargo plane, he’d come to the conclusion that Salinse was right; Wreg was the best of all of them. In his way, he reminded him of Balidor a little, although without the degree of subtlety in his sight.

Bringing Balidor himself had been out of the question. The last thing he needed was someone preaching Code to him from over his shoulder, no matter how valuable they might be in other respects.

The hardest thing upon entry would be disguising his light. Everything else had been worked down to the finest details since that initial conversation. Money didn’t appear to be a limiting factor, either...even before Revik contemplated plundering his own primary stores. Salinse insisted on covering all of it.

He had to admit, it was nice having access to real equipment for a change, not the dilapidated hunks of crap that usually fell to the Seven’s guard for operations of this kind. Even the Adhipan could have used a serious upgrade in their gear, at least if the work he’d done in Sikkim was any indication.

Revik knew he was skirting a dangerous edge, but found it harder and harder to care. Strictly speaking, the parts of himself he was drawing on to perform this op weren’t the ones he should be using, from the perspective of the monks who’d taken him through his rehabilitation. Or of Vash, for that matter.

To some extent, that was even deliberate. Beyond what he was getting off Salinse and his people in terms of support and intelligence, he was going out of his way to remember every detail he could of being a Rook. He needed to resonate with them while inside the op. In fact, Revik himself needed to do this more than anyone, since it was his light they would be expecting.

That included diving into memories stirred by Terian in his months of captivity, even deliberately putting himself back in that space with the help of Wreg and his team. The security construct Salinse’s people used, tied to organics in their headgear and to the aleimi of their infiltrators, helped that along more than perhaps it should have.

Revik didn’t question that too closely either.

He knew it was wrong, strictly speaking...or at the very least, damned risky. He would deal with that later, too. Allie would help him.

In any case, he’d pretty well thrown the idea of following Code out the window as soon as Terian dragged his naked wife away in chains.

The plan as a whole was relatively simple, but played on the blind spots of the Rooks’ standard security protocols...and even a few of the nonstandard ones Revik remembered. The majority of the group would wait nearby in the area of the safe house they’d essentially built in shifts...and from scratch...while none of the infiltrators slept. The first eight and Revik would breach the perimeter while half of the rest worked solely from the Barrier. The other half would be wave two of the direct assault on the physical structure.

He, himself, would go after Allie. That part, he wasn’t willing to discuss.