Shadow Ops 3: Breach Zone (18 page)

Bookbinder nodded. ‘Sometimes, you win.’

Marks’s radio crackled into life, Rodriguez’s voice sounded worried. ‘Are you seeing this, sir? Starboard quarter.’

Marks craned his head. ‘Negative, smokestack’s in the way. What’s up?’

‘Come to the bridge, sir. You can see from here. You might want to hurry.’

Marks double-timed it back down the ladder, his sailors in tow. Bookbinder followed suit, shutting his eyes tight and trying to avoid looking down. He noticed the ship straightening as he went, which made the going easier, righting out the bad list to port faster than he expected.

By the time he hit the passageway outside the bridge hatch, he realized it was too fast. The deck was starting to cant in the other direction.

Rodriguez and Bonhomme stood by the farthest starboard window, looking out over the water, eyes wide with concern.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ Rodriguez said.

‘Another problem,’ Bonhomme added.

‘Let’s call it a challenge,’ Bookbinder said as he reached the window and looked out. ‘What’s up?’

But neither Bonhomme nor Rodriguez needed to answer. The dark bulk of the leviathan was closer to the surface now, its truck-sized tail waving gently under the water. Bookbinder could see a few goblins crawling over its surface, holding on to tangles of seaweed, and clumps of the limpetlike creatures clustering on its skin.

The water above it whirled, sucked down into the huge creature’s opening maw. Bookbinder could see its shadow expanding as its sides ballooned, pregnant with seawater.

He could feel the
Breakwater
listing to starboard, leaning into the slope created by the inhalation. They’d been saved by the boomer last time, but its magic was expended now.

The
Breakwater
’s single engine moved them ahead at a snail’s pace, the monster keeping up with them easily, pushing patches of mottled corpses, goblin and human, beneath it.

Bookbinder wracked his brain for a solution.
Go ahead, whine about how unfair it is. Maybe someone gives a damn.
‘We can’t outrun it,’ Bookbinder said. ‘Maybe get farther away so the wave attenuates.’

It was a statement, but Bonhomme answered anyway. ‘Those navy ships were at least a half nautical mile farther off, and you saw what it did to them.

‘We can’t outrun it. No way.’

Interlude Four

Business Proposition

The question is one of resources. This ‘Source’ as people are calling it, is the opposite of what we were led to believe. Not only can we survive there, but it’s pristine. Here is a potential solution to our crisis in timber, in oil and natural gas deposits, without having to resort to Terramancy. Here is a place to jettison hazardous wastes the likes of which are unsafe to store anywhere else. Nuclear and chemical weapons stockpile disposal has been a thorn in the side of arms reduction advocates since the seventies. Sure, it’s not our world. But with our own survival at stake, who the hell cares?

– Howard van Dalthrop appearing on WQXR radio while campaigning for the congressional seat for Illinois’ Sixth District

Six Years Earlier

Crucible left him at the building’s entrance, heading back to the cramped liaison office they occupied in Midtown Manhattan, there to contact Gatanas’s staff for further instructions – the content of which they both already knew.

A breeze blew up the corridor created by the tall buildings, scattering leaves and trash strewn about the cobbled square. In the middle of it stood the statue of a bronze bull, snorting, hunched to charge. Harlequin stared at it and tried to collect his thoughts.

He didn’t write the rules, and it wasn’t his job to interpret them. He was a junior officer. His job was to carry out the intent of his chain of command, and, ultimately, their civilian masters. It felt wrong, but did that really matter? What he felt wasn’t at issue here, only what he did.

He thought of his instructor’s words. Before that night in the Bronx, they had seemed foolish, condescending. But they hadn’t selected his teachers because they were stupid.

Regs. That was what made him a sheepdog. Without them, what was he?

‘Well, hello, handsome,’ Grace’s voice sounded behind him.

He whirled to find her standing there, ironic smile back in place, eyes dancing with humor, as if the whole exchange upstairs had never happened. She still stirred him, made his clothes feel tight. Maybe it was that very nonchalance. The world ticked by, and she didn’t care. Whatever it was, it worked.

‘Ma’am,’ he said, trying to bite back on his embarrassment.

‘Oh, cut the crap.’ She kicked her toe against his. ‘You don’t get to stare at my tits, then ma’am me because you didn’t like the way a business meeting turned out.’

‘Grace,’ he corrected, smiling against his will.

‘You do follow orders, don’t you? That could work out really well for us. Where were you heading?’

He pulled his smartphone from his pocket and glanced at the screen. No messages. There were no calls to run. The truth was that he had no friends in the city other than Crucible. He could go to the gym, or go back to the office and answer e-mail. Or go home and watch TV.

Grace ducked her head and caught his eyes, standing just a hair closer to him than was appropriate. ‘That looks like nothing.’

He laughed. ‘Yes, ma . . . Grace. Nothing.’

‘Well, it looks like we’re going to be working together, so how about we take a walk?’

‘Don’t you have work to do?’

‘Always. Endless. But this is the advantage of being the boss. It gets done when I say. Tonight, I say Weiss has to do it. I’m feeling like ice cream.’

‘Ice cream?’

‘Dude. Come off it. I know you haul more Selfers off to prison before breakfast than most people do all day, but nobody, and I mean
nobody
, is above ice cream. Let’s go.’

‘I don’t know if that’s a good idea. We’re going to be working together on a project, and there are ethical concerns . . .’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell is the point of being CEO of a major corporation if you can’t get ice cream with a hot boy once in a while? I’m not going to influence you. Well, not as regards to business, anyway.’

Harlequin paused. Power had always been a heavy thing to him, pregnant with responsibility, bound by process. He tried to reconcile the playful smile and dancing eyes with the incredible wealth he knew she commanded. His eyes traveled up the enormous building behind her until he would have had to strain his neck to see the top. Hers. All of it, hers.

‘So, your boss shut you down,’ she said. ‘That happens. I don’t give a fuck about that. Lock it up and get over it. Let’s have some ice cream and talk about other stuff.’

He tensed, forced himself to relax. Once he’d accomplished that, the smile came easily. ‘Okay,’ he said.

She grinned. ‘Okay.’ She stepped over to him, linking her arm through his. ‘I’ve changed my mind. We’ll grab gelato instead, then maybe I’ll show you my other office.’

He held fast as she steered him down the street, forcing her to pull closer, her hand sliding up over his biceps. ‘Who says you get to be in charge?’

‘As you will doubtless learn, sonny boy,’ she said, ‘the one with the bigger dick is in charge’ – she gave a tug, moving him a few steps – ‘and in any given scenario, that’s me.’

Ice cream turned into drinks. Drinks turned into walking, and that took up most of the night. She chatted with instant ease, as if he were an old friend. Harlequin had a tough time sorting through how she made him feel so easy with her, but he finally settled on the simple lack of fear or admiration. Women expressed interest, but whatever romance bloomed always did so in the shadow of his Latency. Grace couldn’t care less. She liked his looks and his earnestness, it seemed. They walked close enough for the backs of their hands, their shoulders, to occasionally touch, leaning into one another unconsciously. It reminded Harlequin that sometimes two people just had chemistry. It didn’t have to make sense.

They strolled up a bustling avenue, the noise and color surrounding them. New York was the most varied, diverse city Harlequin had ever seen, but its frantic variety saturated the senses, blending together until one vista looked much like another.

‘How much farther is it?’ he asked.

‘Another couple of blocks.’

‘I could just fly us there,’ he said. The truth was that he wasn’t supposed to, would need to file a flight plan anyway, but he wanted to see how she’d react. He hadn’t been with a woman since he Manifested who didn’t ask him to take her up in the air by the third date. Most didn’t make it past the first.

She snorted. ‘Sounds like a great way to get a mouthful of bugs. Besides, unless Aeromancy gives you super strength, your arms would just get tired.’

He laughed. ‘I can use the wind to carry you. What do you weigh anyway? A buck ten soaking wet?’

She shook her head. ‘Wasted potential.’

‘I think I’m doing all right.’

‘That’s the problem,’ she went on. ‘SOC is still government, and the government screws up everything it touches. You’re flitting around like a miniature airplane and occasionally shooting lightning bolts? You’re shutting down Selfers? Fly-schmy. You have the ability to summon and channel electricity, Christ, you could be a walking battery with the right technology. What about that?’

Harlequin frowned. ‘I’m not even sure it could be used that way.’

‘Yet,’ she said. ‘Who knows what you could do with the energy applications of magic if the SOC would allow for testing and development of supporting technology.’

‘We don’t have time for that.’

‘Because you’re busy enforcing the McGauer-Linden Act and running down Selfers. That’s a problem you created. If there weren’t a law prohibiting “unauthorized” magic use, you wouldn’t need to take them down.’

‘Taking down Selfers is what’s likely to get you a subject for your clinical trials.’

‘If it weren’t illegal for people to use magic privately, we could just put out a call for volunteers.’

‘Grace, you have the luxury of saying that. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. Without those laws, a lot of people would die.’

‘That’s the thing,’ she said. ‘That’s what’s so tricky about these systems. You’re
right
, of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that you use being right to seize and hoard power. And when you concentrate that power in the hands of a few bureaucrats, they get stingy with it.’

‘Nobody appointed me Latent, Grace. I was faced with the same choice everyone who Manifests is. I’m not seizing power over anyone, I’m trying to help here.’ He was getting angry, and that made him want her even more. Conflict was an intimate act. With most people, he didn’t feel comfortable enough to argue.

‘I know you are,’ Grace said. ‘That’s my point. You want to do good, you are doing good. But you’re honestly going to look me in the eye and tell me that when you “take down” a Selfer, when you kill them, or pound them into the pavement and lock them up, that there’s not a power exchange there?’ She gestured to the tall buildings around them, each small apartment worth at least as much as Harlequin would earn in his entire career. ‘I’ve been part of the elite of this city since my twenties. I know a thing or two about power and how it works. It’s all business, babe. The government is just the biggest player on the block.’

‘That makes you better?’ he asked her, his cheeks reddening. He felt the tide of his magic pulse. She’d touched a nerve.

‘No way,’ she said, her voice suddenly serious. She sidled close, their hips brushing, and took his hand. Her touch was cool, and he felt his own heat fade as quickly as it had come. ‘It makes us the same. We’re both trying to work our respective systems. Make some good come out of them.’ She squeezed his hand and let it drop, and he struggled not to reach out and take hers again.

She playfully called it her ‘satellite office’, a giant, glasswalled space that overlooked Union Square.

‘Is this where you bring all your boys?’ he asked. The nervousness was a memory now, and Harlequin was able to appreciate her curves under her tight suit, the closeness of her, the slight citrus tang of her perfume. He could not remember the last time he’d been this turned on in his life.
Not since you
came up Latent,
he thought.
Not since the world started treating you like a zoo animal.
He’d had liaisons. Sweaty, awkward fumblings with other SOC officers, reaching out to one another in desperate need, then quitting the bedroom with hesitant promises to call.

‘When I want a man,’ Grace said, ‘I go get a man. I don’t bring most of them here, but I figured you’d appreciate it.’

‘Why?’

She turned, bracing herself against her low desk, pulling her blouse taut across her flat abdomen. God, she was gorgeous. ‘Because I’ve got you pegged as a Boy Scout.’

He cocked an eyebrow. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Why do you do it?’

‘What?’

‘The SOC. The Army.’

‘I’m Latent. The law’s pretty clear on what you have to do.’

‘Bullshit,’ she said. ‘You could have gone to the NIH. You could have joined the Marines. You could have run.’

The very thought of going Selfer made his hackles rise, but there was something in her tone that made him think. From the moment they’d met, she’d wiped away his assumptions with an easy grace that matched her name. She left him exposed. He hadn’t felt that way since he’d come up Latent. It was exhilarating.

He’d never thought of running, not for an instant. But it wasn’t because he was afraid.

‘I . . . wanted to do some good,’ he said slowly. ‘I wanted to help. I’ve always wanted that.’

‘See? Boy Scout.’ She grinned.

He frowned.

‘Don’t get your panties in a bunch,’ she said. ‘We’re birds of a feather. I want to do some good, too. I think that’s why we get along.’

That wasn’t the only reason. He felt the electricity sizzle between them.

She turned, gesturing at three computer monitors on the desk behind her. ‘I’ve had a very . . . rewarding career.’

Harlequin looked around at the huge, well-appointed office, at her expensive suit, her gym-hard body and perfect makeup. He didn’t doubt it.

‘It’s been rewarding enough that it pretty much runs itself at this point. Affords me time and energy to engage in my pet projects here.’ She clicked away at the computer, brought up pictures.

The first showed a dried-up field, probably once devoted to agriculture. Now it sprouted miniature solar panels like crosshatched black cabbages. Rows and rows of them stretched off the screen. A smiling young woman was wrapped in an orange cloth that covered even her head, with three more men standing around her. A white man stood beside him, kitted out with the kind of high-end military hardware that only the highest-priced mercenaries could afford.

‘That’s Ligoua,’ she said, ‘about twenty miles southeast of what politicians call the “African Pole of Inaccessibility.” Supposedly, nobody can get there. It’s a wilderness stuck in the Dark Ages. But Ligoua has electricity and those photovoltaics are generating enough to light the next three villages over. Best part?’ She tapped the young woman’s face. ‘Esther built them. And now she knows how to build more. We provided the training. Now we provide the supplies.’

‘Who’s he?’ Harlequin tapped the mercenary.

‘That’s Depaul. Of Executive Staffing Solutions. He keeps the Lord’s Resistance Army from taking over the power plantation.’

‘He can’t come cheap.’

She smiled. ‘That operation costs me millions every year. It’s worth every penny.’ She looked back up at him, their gazes locking again. ‘There’s more if you want to see it. Microloan programs, wind farms. Sustainable livestock seminars.’

He couldn’t stand it any longer. He caught her wrist, pulled it up from the keyboard, stepped closer to her. She pulled back momentarily, but only from the sudden movement. She let him move in, kept her arm tense, surprisingly strong. He could smell her breath, the light hint of the alcohol she’d been drinking.

‘Why are you showing me all this?’

She shrugged, her breath coming in close gasps now. Her hands found his biceps, squeezed. ‘You think you’re the only one who gets treated like an outsider? You think in my line of work the stuff I do is popular? The people I run with like to make money, Jan. They’re not big fans of bleeding-heart moves like these.’

‘So you’re the Boy Scout,’ he husked, his hand moving to the small of her back, pulling her into him. The Scylla charm flashed, and now he let himself look down, unabashedly, glorying in the curve of her breasts, in the shadows pooling in the hollow of her throat. God, but it was so good to be close, really close to someone. He almost couldn’t remember what it felt like. Maybe it was because he’d never truly known.