Powerless (16 page)

Conspicuously absent were Franx Heseltine—the bald and bulbous prime minister of the UU—and Shio Pearce, the man who had been a chancellor in Singapore at the time of the former premiere’s assassination but was in no way tied to the Opposition or the Revolution. The current premiere of Singapore was an unknown factor in the war, even after the initial Council meeting. As I understood it, he neither supported the war nor dissuaded it. Waiting instead for the winds to propel him in whatever direction would be the triumphant one.

Honestly, I could see why both of them had refused to attend, regardless of their position on the war. This whole public spectacle was a mistake. I couldn’t see the point of any of them being here. The summit between the five heads of state had been held a month ago, resulting in no definitive action. But the three presidents—Wensen Kersch, Isida Agri, and Kariabba Tivy—had been able to carry a vote, because of their majority, that the Council needed to appear publicly to reassure the citizenry that they had the average citizen’s best interests in mind. To assert that there was transparency even in war.

The whole thing was ludicrous. We were tempting luck we didn’t have.

I stood behind Neveed as he pulled up a BC5 with a live aircomm of the city square, which only belayed my concerns.

The mile-long plaza was already packed, a dull roar coming from the gathering crowd.

The President came up beside me. “How does it look out there?”

I chuffed. “Like barely restrained anarchy.”

The President ran his thumb down his jaw line as he studied the screen. “Good.”

I winced. Chaos was the last thing we needed today.

“He’s got a point, Merq,” Neveed chimed in. “It’s not bullets or sonic weapons that will bring power back to the people. They have to believe their voices are being heard. It’s whoever is able to scream the loudest and the longest, until they’ve lost their voice ensuring that every plea for change is heard… That is what will turn the tide for us.”

“You are making all of yourselves vulnerable today,” I grumbled, including Neveed in the sweep of my hands.

“Which is the point, too,” the President stated, affirming my deepest concern. “The people are fighting for their freedom and we can’t be locked into underground barracks while they battle on the streets. They have to know that we are willing to take the same risks they are. If we don’t stand with them, making ourselves just as vulnerable as they are, then how can they possibly begin to believe we want to see the power shift back to them?”

“There has to be another way,” I gritted out.

The President frowned. The deep creases around his mouth betrayed the physical toll of the years he’d been a part of this fight. “If you know what it is, then tell me.”

I couldn’t see any other way and he knew it. While I could strategize my way out of a firefight, the political manoeuvrings the President and Neveed were orchestrating were beyond my scope of skills.

“I’ve got the security teams running another sweep of the periphery,” Neveed stated, changing the subject. “There’s even more people out there than we anticipated the space being able to hold at overflowing capacity.”

I snapped my head around to the President, Neveed’s mention of security making me remember the breach earlier. “Who the fuck let you come out into the hallway anyway?”

“I walked out.”

I spoke through clenched teeth. “You can’t.”

“What? I can’t what?”

I got close enough to him that I could poke a finger into his chest without anyone else in the room seeing. “That’s it. End of sentence. You, sir, cannot. You are a target. A very prominent, disliked target who I am supposed to keep alive for you to make your speech.”

“You’ll be standing next to me,” the President stated, dismissing my concern. He waved a hand between our bodies, only inches away from each other. “Much like this. But perhaps a little farther back.”

“How close or far I am, sir, isn’t going to matter if you put yourself in a situation I haven’t vetted first.”

He tipped his head, maintaining that same forceful eye contact with me that never failed to set me off guard. Almost like a father putting a rebellious teenager in his place. “And how was the vetting of the plaza?”

“I’m with Simion on this one. It’s a bad idea. You and the other two leaders are in the open, susceptible to harm. We’re not talking about the Olympics, when it was only our people that had their hands on real guns. We’ve got the shields up, but you know just as well as I do that anyone coming for you is not going to be doing it with sonic weapons. Or even a fucking reverb. Think about what you would do if it was Ahriman on that dais.”

“I would send you and your Winchester.”

“Exactly my point.”

The President backed up a step and put a hand on my shoulder. “Come. Sit with me, Merq.”

Neveed glanced at me—a ripple of uncertainty flashing across his features that he immediately wiped away—then turned his back to both of us, flipping through the BC5 screens in front of him.

The President moved to the back of the windowless room, sitting in an ornately cloth covered chair and motioning to the one across from him.

“It’s time we had that talk I alluded to in the DCR,” he started.

I adjusted the weapon at my side and sat down, trying to remember of what he spoke. “The one about me killing myself?” I snidely replied.

The President sighed. “It was a harsh tactic, but I didn’t know how else to get through to you. You see yourself as disposable. But that will never be the truth. And not just because of your legacy. Of the name you bear as a heavy weight and a responsibility. You, Merq Grayson, are not your great-grandfather. You’re not your parents. I’ve watched you grow from an unsure child into a man that cannot be swayed or broken. You’ve been repeatedly tested. You’ve lived a life of discomfort and never once complained about it. When I look at you, I see the strength of every citizen reflected back to me. You are the reason I continue with this often maddening endeavour. You make me believe peace is possible.”

“I come to you with blood on my hands and you see peace?”

“You come to me with blood on your hands and I see sacrifice. I see a life that is wilfully being handed over for a greater cause. I’m proud of the man you’ve become. As proud as I would be as if you were my own son. I’ve asked much more of you than any father should ever ask of his son, and you’ve never told me no.” He scrubbed his hand over his bald head and sat back, keeping that soul-stripping gaze locked to mine. “Even when I ordered you to kill the only man you’ve ever loved.”

“Armise is not…” But I didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

“I was wrong to order you to kill him. I’m not wrong often, but I’m not infallible. There is information that has come to my attention in the last month to indicate I’m not nearly in control as much as I want to believe I am.”

“Sir, you have to tell me,” I pleaded with him. “If I don’t know I can’t protect you.”

“All of those answers will come in time. You will always have a place next to me, no matter where I go.”

My stomach clenched. What the hell was he talking about? The finality of his statement tore at me in a way it never would have even months ago. I’d always seen the President as a father figure. As a voice of reason and stability in my ever-shifting world. But the way he spoke was as if that time was coming to an end. I swallowed the bile building at the back of my throat.

“I don’t like where this is going. You have to talk to me. Give me something here I can work with.”

The President looked away, steeling himself. I could see a sadness in his demeanour that wasn’t just uncharacteristic, it was foreign. He took a deep breath and leant forward. He appeared years older, worn down. A man, and not an icon.

“I have something for you. Armise gave this to me before the two of you left on your mission to eliminate the Committee members.”

He dug into his pocket and extracted a shiny, copper object that he laid in my palm. A bullet casing.

I twirled the shell in my hands, not understanding what it was or why Armise would have bothered. Or why the President was choosing to give it to me now. That had been almost two years ago.

He tipped his head at the object, studying it. “It’s the casing from the bullet you used to assassinate the Premiere. One of the other Peacemakers picked it up and gave it to me in the bunker. A souvenir of sorts. A piece of history that this soldier thought was too important to be left behind. I gave that casing to Armise when the two of you arrived in the bunker. I left its care up to him, to do with as he would. To give it to you or not. And before you left on that first hunt, Armise gave it back to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know if I do either. Not fully at least. That bullet made today possible. Armise understood that the weight of that bullet had nothing to do with formed copper or the steel that took the Premiere’s life. When he gave it back to me he told me that this was a burden you didn’t need to carry with you. That I had lost sight of just how human you are. He was right. But it’s taken me until today to realise that truth. I’ve been carrying that casing for almost two years now, and I can’t bear the weight of it either. I’ve asked enough of you, Merq. And I won’t ask any more.”

I was furious. “I will follow you through the gates of hell. There is nothing you can ask of me that I won’t do.”

The President shook his head. “Hopefully, it won’t come to that. Now, I have a citizenry to usher back into the light.” The President stood, offering his hand to me. “Will you stand with me?”

I grasped his hand and stood. He pulled me close, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and embracing me.

I couldn’t give voice to the fear clawing through me.

I watched, completely detached, as Neveed approached us and stated that it was time. We moved as a group through the doors and to the stage.

The President chatted serenely with Isida and Kariabba as we walked, an easy, affable, confident peace radiating from him.

This was not a man that had abandoned his people, as Jegs had asserted.

This was not a man that would use the PsychHAgs to manipulate some conspiratorial agenda.

I stepped out into the daylight, blinded for a moment by the harsh rays of the sun, and the plaza filled with cries and exclamations of a populace emboldened by hope. Kariabba and Isida waved to the jubilant crowd, the clamour of voices echoing off the tall buildings that surrounded the plaza. But I barely registered any of it as I watched the President take his spot at the microphone.

The President turned towards me and smiled.

I scanned the crowd, my dread building into its own dull roar.

This was not a man I would allow to die, no matter if he was resigned to that fate.

Chapter Eleven

I took up position two metres behind the President and spoke into my comm. “You there, Simion?”

“Stationed in the southwest corner just below the ivory stone building to your left,” he answered, his accent shifting over the words.

I surveyed the plaza, but even though I could see where he was talking about, there was no way for me to discern his exact location with the sheer volume of people packed into every available bit of space.

“How we looking?”

“Chaotic,” was his one word answer.

No shit.

“Anything coming up on Armise’s tracker?”

A female voice came over the comm that I recognised immediately, “Nothing yet.”

“Keep at it, Chen. He’s here.”

Even if I hadn’t been sure, I and the rest of the team had to operate as if he was. But I was sure Armise was on the ground in the AF. I couldn’t put a name to the feeling—had never been able to—but I could feel Armise’s eyes on me. That unseen presence had left me unsettled for more years than I cared to count. I’d never been afraid of it—or him—but all I felt in the moment was fear.

I scanned the buildings surrounding the plaza to ascertain the optimal placement of a sniper shot. There were more possibilities than I was able to catalogue, and with needing to keep my eyes on the citizens in the crowd as well, I felt frustration building at the apparent futility of the situation.

It didn’t matter how many men and women I had on the ground or in some distant operations room, there weren’t enough eyes to spot the threat I was now sure was coming.

The windows to the buildings were thrown open, citizens draped over sills in groups, utilising high ground to get the best view. I searched for the telltale glint of a scope, but the sun sat low in the sky to the south of the plaza, throwing most of the buildings that could offer a clear shot into shade.

The President raised his arms and made a motion for them to quiet. Isida stood to his left, Kariabba to his right. Their security teams hung back and I motioned for them to move closer.

“We have eyes on Grimshaw yet?” I asked anyone willing to answer.

“He’s in the middle of the plaza,” Chen offered.

“He was searched,” Simion added. “No weapons on him. I doubt he came alone, but there’s no one with him. And he’s unshielded.”

Maybe he had come as an observer, but it was more likely as a witness.

“Keep monitoring him. Let me know if he tries to move.”

The crowd stilled, expectant.

“Greetings, citizens of the American Federation and those of you watching from around the globe,” the President said into the microphone.

A triumphant cry ushered from the crowd in reply.

“It’s been years since I last set foot on your soil. But I hadn’t forgotten your hospitality, your unassailable thirst for life and joy. I’d like to thank your president, Isida Agri, for bringing us together here today. These are dark times we exist in today, my friends. When the Consign Treaty was agreed to over a decade ago, we all hoped we had seen the end of war. But those of you living on the fringes of our inequitable society—struggling to survive as you watched others of higher position take more and more—you never saw the end to strife. It is this wrong that brings us to war again.

“Let’s speak frankly, my friends. For too many years, power over the five countries has been distributed amongst the most wealthy. Those who could buy influence. But it was you who were paying the real price. In your starvation, the loss of your children. In being forced into abandoning your homes to seek out work, food, and water. Searching for safety that didn’t exist. And while Presidents Agri, Tivy, and I were always working towards a different future, to most of you it appeared as if we had washed our hands of you long ago.