Shadow Ops 3: Breach Zone (31 page)

‘So what can we do?’ Bookbinder asked.

‘We can fucking kill them,’ Cormack said. ‘We’ve held out thus far. Now that we’ve got your . . . abilities, on our side, sir, we’re going to do better.’

‘We can kill them,’ Bookbinder agreed, ‘but I guess it depends on how many come.’

‘All of them will come,’ Harlequin said. ‘I’d bet you the first ones are on their way now. And each and every one we kill will wind up on an Internet video feed that brings more. We’re already at our limit. We can’t fight our way out of every twist and turn. We need an advantage that sticks.’

Bookbinder thought. ‘Can we offer them amnesty? Some kind of changed legal status?’ He didn’t look like he believed his own words.

Harlequin confirmed it out loud. ‘Our government has long since worn out its welcome with Selfers. They’ll never trust us.’

‘So we’re screwed,’ Bookbinder said.

‘Maybe not. This is message warfare. We have to counter with a message of our own,’ Harlequin said. ‘We can’t trust this to Gatanas and the idiots in DC. That will be the end before the beginning. We need to hit back right now, and we need to talk directly to them, Latent to Latent.’

‘Show them that they aren’t the only ones with a dog in the fight,’ Bookbinder agreed. ‘This is about how people want to live with their magic. We live inside the system. They can, too.’

‘We’ll have to offer them something,’ Harlequin mused.

‘Why would they trust anything we offered them? We’re wearing uniforms,’ Bookbinder said.

‘Scylla is playing to be the spokesperson for the Selfer movement, to be their new hero. But they already have one.

‘Any offer we present to them has to come from someone they trust more than her.’

‘Oscar Britton,’ Bookbinder said.

Harlequin smiled at the irony. ‘Oscar Britton.

‘Again.’

Interlude Eight

Takedown

Why the military? The world has an interest in magic’s being applied in a hundred more important causes. Hydromancers could single-handedly restore dwindling polar ice caps. Aeromancers could clear the smog in Beijing overnight. Terramancers could feed starving populations the world over. We have been handed the power to fix this world, and what do we do? We use it as a weapon.

– Loretta Kiwan
Council on Latent-American Rights

Six Years Earlier

Harlequin walked Grace back to her office on the building’s top floor. She burned with excitement, practically skipping into the room. ‘It works, Jan. It really works. This is going to be amazing.’

‘Grace,’ Harlequin said.

‘I mean, not just the magic, but her
mind
, Jan! She’s a completely different person! I wish I’d thought to have a psychopathological assessment done before we got her so we could track the improvement. I was so focused on the magic . . .’

‘Grace!’

She stopped in midsentence, hands clasped together in front of her skirt. Her face froze, the smile slowly fading.

Harlequin sighed. ‘You can’t hide this forever.’

She looked down. ‘I . . .’

‘What’s your plan, Grace? Do you honestly think you can go your entire life keeping something like this a secret?’

‘I’ve done fine so far.’

‘So far. Do you plan to dose yourself on Limbic Dampener three times a day for the rest of your life? Sooner or later, you’re going to slip up. You’ll make a mistake, or someone will find out somehow. When that happens, you’ll have no protection.’

‘Jan, this drug works . . .’

‘So what? That doesn’t change the law. It doesn’t change what they’ll do to you if they find out.’

‘What will they do, Jan? You saw what they did with Morelli. There’s the law, and there’s reality.’

‘Morelli’s different. Pyromancy is a legal school.’

‘And that’s it for Probes? They just kill us?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never taken down a Probe before. You’re the only thing rarer than coming up Latent in the first place.’

She sat down in her office chair, webbing contouring to her slim back and buttocks, the individual threads ingeniously made to look like stainless steel.

‘I just thought that . . . I thought that, if Latent people could demonstrate control. If we could show people that we’re not a threat, then . . . maybe then the law will change.’

Harlequin considered this. ‘Maybe,’ he said slowly, ‘but it’ll take time, and during that time, you’re . . . exposed.’

‘What do you suggest I do?’

‘America has the most restrictive magic legislation outside of Saudi Arabia. You’ve got unlimited resources, Grace. Take a vacation. Go somewhere you can be safe. Run your project in Ligoua.’

‘And what about Channel? What about everything I’ve built here? I’m not letting Entertech take it!’

‘Entertech’s not taking anything. You don’t need to be in New York to run Channel. You can do it over video teleconference. And with the project moving to a pilot phase, it’s going to be as much in our hands as it is in yours.’

She looked at her hands for a long time. Then she looked up, her eyes wide. ‘And us? Do you want to get rid of me so badly?’

His heart surged, tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as he knelt before the chair, taking her hands. ‘The opposite. I want to protect you.’

‘I can protect myself.’

‘From anything else in the world, yes. But not from us, Grace. Not from the SOC.’

‘You were with me for days, Jan. Intimately. Sleeping beside me. You never knew.’

‘Until I did. Life works like that. Sooner or later, things come out.’

‘I’ll be more careful.’

‘And fill yourself up with that drug? What is it doing to you? What if it’s hurting you?’

‘It’s not hurting me. I’m fine.’

‘What about the nosebleed?’

‘What about it? I told you that was from mistakes I made when I was young and stupid.’

‘Bullshit. You haven’t tested the effects of such large doses on yourself, have you? How the hell could you without letting everyone else at the company know you were on it?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Grace, just consider . . .’ Harlequin’s smartphone vibrated, and his hand shot into his cargo pocket instinctively. A text from Crucible flashed across the screen.
MEET ME OUT FRONT OF CHANNEL
. A little red flag indicated the message was sent with high importance.

‘Crap, I’ll be right back,’ he said, racing out the double doors, past the guard on duty. ‘The boss wants to talk to me.’

He took the elevator down the thirty-nine floors, the ride so smooth and silent that he had to watch the digital readout to ensure he was moving. There was no doubting Grace’s control, and the truth was that apart from a slipup, he would never have found out. But what if she had another slipup? What if she was stuck in an elevator and couldn’t get to her supply of Dampener? What if she was in a meeting with Crucible that ran long?

The car slid to a stop at the lobby, and the stainless-steel doors slid open with a ringing of chimes.

He stepped out into the atrium, boots thumping on the marble floor. He swallowed his worry. He had time. There was no imminent danger of Grace’s being discovered, no emergency. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. Think it through, come up with a plan. Maybe they could . . .

Harlequin froze midstride.

Crucible was entering the lobby from the front entrance, kitted out for war. Rampart came with him, along with another man in a bulky suit that poorly disguised the body armor he wore beneath. Harlequin recognized his buzz cut, his square chin, his arrogant aviator glasses.

Hicks.

‘What’s going . . .’

‘Where’s Grace?’ Crucible cut him off.

‘Grace? Why do you . . .’

‘No time,’ Crucible said. ‘She’s Latent, Jan. We’re sealing the building off now.’

Harlequin’s stomach fell, ice made its way up his spine. He fell in beside Crucible, trailing him to the elevator, ignoring Hicks’s smug expression. ‘That’s . . . that can’t be right.’

‘It is,’ Crucible said. He gestured to Hicks, who gave no indication of their past meeting. ‘This is Tom Hicks, one of our customer-relations officers at Entertech. He has some relationships with Channel employees, who brought it to his attention.’

‘Corporate spies?’ Harlequin spit out the words.

‘That’s what the bad guys call us,’ Hicks answered, as they got into the elevator, ‘but I must admit I’m surprised to hear it coming from you.’
How much does he know?
But neither Crucible’s expression nor his tone held any accusation. Hicks stared at him suspiciously, but he didn’t know the man well enough to tell if that was unusual for him or not.

‘It’s impossible, sir,’ Harlequin said, as the elevator climbed, his panic rising with it. ‘I would have known. We’ve been . . .’

‘I know you’re fucking her, Jan,’ Crucible said. ‘Christ, I practically ordered you to do it.’

‘Then let me go up there first and talk to her.’
Maybe I can find some way to let her escape.
Ridiculous. Even without her magic, she was half his size and had no military training.

Crucible shook his head. ‘Between us four, I don’t think we need to negotiate. We’ve got the jump on her, too.’

‘If she were Latent, I would have felt the current,’ Harlequin said.

‘She’s been funneling her own experimental drug,’ Hicks said. ‘Massively overdosing on the stuff. One of her researchers has noticed certain symptoms that are consistent with an overdose. It’s slowly giving her brain damage.’

‘What, you mean . . .’
I almost said ‘the nosebleeds’.
‘What do you mean?’

‘We also got a hit on her current,’ Hicks finished.

‘A hit on her . . .’ He turned to Crucible. ‘Does Entertech have . . .’

‘Leave it, Jan,’ Crucible said, as the doors chimed, and they stepped out into the wide chamber outside the building’s top floor, where Grace kept her office.

‘But, sir. Latent contractors?’

Crucible spun on him while Rampart raised his submachine gun and sighted down the barrel. ‘Jan, I have already told you that there are aspects to how the SOC does business that you are not yet privy to. I promise you that after this is all over, I will have you read on to those programs where you have a specific need to know. Until then, I need you to do your job.’ He unsnapped his drop holster, pulled out the pistol, and pressed it into Harlequin’s hands. ‘Now, get in the stack.’

Like every other room in the Channel building, there was a minimum amount of furniture. The walls were covered in brass-rimmed panels of golden-colored expensive wood, the light sconces recessed and understated. The entire room spoke of impeccable taste, a deliberate attempt to underplay the height of opulence.

A desk stood outside the huge double doors that led into Grace’s office. A man in an immaculate suit stood behind it, big as a linebacker. He was coming out from around his desk, one hand outstretched, the other reaching into the small of his back. ‘Gentlemen, you can’t just . . .’

‘Gun,’ Rampart said before his wrist cleared his jacket. His submachine gun barked, and the guard staggered backward. The body armor beneath his suit had stopped the first two rounds. The third punched a tiny hole in his throat. He went to his knees, clawing at his neck. A dull clatter on the floor told Harlequin that Rampart was right. He did indeed have a gun.

Harlequin went to the man’s side as he collapsed, the gasping snaking out into a death rattle just as Rampart kicked open the doors and Crucible led the way in, shouting. ‘Get down! Get down right now!’

Harlequin leapt to his feet and followed behind in time to see three other people dropping to their knees, hands raised. Grace must have called some kind of meeting once he’d left.

Grace, on the other hand, stood defiant behind her desk. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘I need you to show me your hands,’ Crucible said. ‘Rampart, get her Suppressed.’

Rampart lowered his weapon and reached a hand out, his brow furrowing in concentration. ‘There’s no current, sir.’

‘There’s a current,’ Hicks answered. ‘You just can’t feel it. We need to keep her under guard and wait until the dose wears off.’

Her face went dark at the sight of Hicks. She pointed a shaking finger. ‘What is that doing in my building?’

‘He’s with us, Grace,’ Crucible said. ‘Now, let me see your hands.’

She held them up, two middle fingers. ‘What crime have I committed that has you firing guns in my own fucking building? Is Larry hurt?’ She leaned around the door, trying to see the guard. Harlequin stepped between her and the slowly spreading stain darkening the floor.

At last she noticed Harlequin.
I’m sorry
, he wanted to say.
This caught me by surprise.
He could see Hicks watching him from the corner of his eye. He couldn’t even risk a hand gesture. Instead, he tried to pour those words into his eyes, hoping against hope the message would reach her.

If it did, he couldn’t tell. The same feral anger she’d shown Hicks was still there, it dominated her face, never reaching above the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were narrowed, calculating.

‘Sir?’ Rampart said again. ‘There’s no current.’

‘You heard your own Suppressor,’ Grace said. ‘Now, if you’d be so kind as to put your weapons down, I’ve committed no crime, and there is no evidence of magic here.’

‘What’s that?’ Hicks asked, pointing at the crumpled, red-spotted tissue on her desk.

‘I have a nosebleed,’ Grace said. ‘Allergies.’

‘Sir,’ Hicks said to Crucible, ‘I promise you that if we just keep her under guard for a few hours, your man will be able to feel a current.’

Harlequin felt a thin trickle of hope. He raised his pistol, tried to look stern. ‘I’ll stay with her.’
And then what the hell will you do?

‘We’ll all stay with her,’ Crucible said, motioning to the three people at the back of the room. ‘You three, go.’

They went, erupting into screams as they moved past the guard’s still body.

‘You killed him,’ Grace hissed.

‘He pulled a gun on us,’ Crucible said. ‘Doesn’t allow for a lot of room to maneuver. Now, if you’ll just take a se . . .’

Harlequin knew she’d decided to chance it before she even moved.

Time slowed down. He lunged toward her, trying to tell her not to do it, that she had no chance against the four of them, that they’d find another way, but he already felt her current rise, saw Crucible’s eyes widen as he felt it, too, a powerful eddy of magic materializing from out of nowhere.

She could have killed Crucible, could have left a thick, rotten smear where his body used to be. Instead, she went for his gun. It came apart in his hands, the receiver shriveling and dripping down his knuckles, the magazine falling out of the well, the follower spring jangling a crazy dance across the floor.

She kicked the desk hard, sending it spinning on its wheels across the floor, the corner connecting sharply with Rampart’s crotch. The Suppressor grunted, sucked in his breath, doubled over.

Crucible hesitated, staring in shock at the stinking fragments that used to be his gun, settling in his hands.
He knows she’s a Probe now. All bets are off.

Hicks drew his pistol and aimed it at her. Harlequin shouted and sprang at him, catching him with his shoulder and carrying him to the ground as he fired, his shot going wild.

Grace’s eyes darted like a frightened animal’s. Her enemies blocked the only exit to the room.

So she spun to make a new one.

Harlequin felt her magic focus, and the room’s back wall began to bubble. Rampart dropped to his knees, and Crucible finally shook his hands and gathered his own current as the expensive fabric wallpaper turned to slime, running down the crumbling wall. The massive iron girders behind it turned to dust, revealing the hallway beyond.

Grace was a talented Sorcerer, but she was no architect. Harlequin could see the wall was load-bearing even before the ceiling collapsed.

It bowed inward, screams sounding from above them, then Grace was staggering back, cinder blocks shivering with pops as loud as gunshots, showering them with masonry turned powder, not by magic now, but by the massive force of the building above them, suddenly without crucial support.