The Dragons of Heaven (19 page)

The hotel had been kind enough to cordon off a small section of the restaurant for our use alone, but that only drew more eyes. We were clearly visible – on display, even – to the other patrons enjoying their afternoon tea. I pried my arm out from under Sylvia's grasp to pull out her chair. The guards tensed as I leaned close to murmur in her ear.

“I presume there's more purpose to your invitation than that little PR junket?”

She smiled up at me, response equally cool. “Please. Argent hardly needs you. If I cared to have you back on our rosters, you'd be back.”

She laid her serviette across one knee, waited for me to take my seat, and then lifted the teapot. She poured like a master, or at least one to the manor born. My irritation built as she prepared my tea. She stirred in milk and sugar with nary the clink of a spoon, then handed me the cup and saucer. I took a sip, but it did little to soothe my foul mood at being played.

“What do you want?”

“China.”

“I think the Chinese might object.”

The corner of her mouth twitched, a tiny crack in her façade. “Rumor has it that you're responsible for Oakland being free, and possibly San Francisco as well?”

That little rise at the end. She was fishing. Her information network wasn't all it was rumored to be, then. “So you do get your intel from YouTube.”

“We're not the only ones. You've gone from being a quaint bit of nostalgia to a hot commodity in the intelligence community.”

“And you called dibs?”

“You'd prefer I left you to the wolves? Argent's claim means that others won't be asserting theirs. Besides, you do owe us rather a lot.”

I couldn't argue with that. Not because it was true, but because I didn't know if it was true. Mitchell Masters's notes on Argent had been rather thin on detail. Argent's secrets remained secret. I toyed with the brim of my fedora, worn indoors despite propriety. And yet still I felt exposed to Sylvia's sharp eyes. She knew Mr Mystic, but did she know him well enough to mark me as an imposter? Why had I agreed to this meeting again?

“It might be that I have the means to end this –
if
I can get to Shanghai – but I won't allow you to jeopardize this chance. You take me and my contact in, you drop us with gear outside the New Wall, maybe one of the islands off the coast, you let me assess the situation on the ground and handle it my way. That's it.”

Sylvia's smile tightened. “I hardly think so. At the very least, I need more information. How did you get across into Oakland? How did you take down the New Wall? Is it technology or sorcery? Is the Chinese government responsible for this? That's the consensus in Turtle Bay, and I could do with some solid evidence to refute it. I don't think you comprehend just how close some fingers are to that button.”

“Is there really a button, Sylvia?”

“This isn't a laughing matter, Mitchell.”

“No. It isn't.” I sighed and pushed aside my tea. Let Sylvia be insulted. We both had something the other wanted, but my something was more valuable. “The CPC isn't behind this.”

She jumped on that. “You know who is.”

“I do. And not even Argent is strong enough to touch him.”

“Evidence?”

“My word. Just tell whoever is asking that it's an underground interest. Then get me across the Pacific and drop me off the coast of Shanghai. Preferably with a parachute and a raft of some sort. I'll find my way from there.”

Sylvia refreshed my tea for the benefit of the several reporters that crowded the archway leading to the lobby. Watching her assess, assimilate, and calculate was a tiring business, though that might have been the bruises talking.

“You can take others across with you, yes? You're taking your contact? If we brought forces along–”

“No, Sylvia.”

“But a small, tactical team. My best Aces–”

“I said ‘No'.” She had gracious doggedness down, but few could beat me for implacable when I put my mind to it. “I'll be taking one person. My go-between. I have no intention of antagonizing people who already don't look kindly on me, and I especially don't want to take more Westerners in without the Chinese government's permission. You may be confident in your ability to deal with the ramifications of that. I'm not. You send me with one pilot, and I'm not taking any of your people across with me.”

Sylvia eyed me for several moments, but I could read nothing of what she was thinking. Then her eyes raised heavenward and she gave a tiny shake of her head. “Impossible man. You always did turn up queer where China was concerned. Fine. A pilot. My best. I'll even make sure to give you a parachute that works.”

A
rgent's
private airfield was an hour southeast of the bay, surrounded by fields of spinach, strawberries, and broccoli, guessing from the stink. One would hardly think it was October, here in the middle of California's bread-basket.

I made David Tsung drive.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked, breaking our self-imposed silence as we were guided through what I hoped was the final set of security gates after our identifications had been checked and checked again. Annoying, but better than being forced to fight a dozen men to prove who we were.

No, I wasn't still a little bitter about Lao Chan's test. I winced and stretched out my knee, grown stiff during the drive.

“I am fairly certain this is a horrible idea, but I'm afraid I see no other options. We'll airdrop into one of the accessible coastal islands and take a raft across. You know how to paddle, right?”

“Shouldn't you be asking me if I know how to parachute?”

I liked David Tsung less each moment I was with him. Possibly because I suspected those glances he kept stealing were aimed at my chest, as if that were the most unbelievable element of my guise. “Perhaps your people should have considered issues of transportation before instigating this mess,” I snapped, crossing my arms.

“My people?” He returned his attention to driving, creeping down a line of silver-grey hangars tall enough to block the view of the rest of the base. I couldn't read his eyes behind his sunglasses, but his lips pursed into a flat line and his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “You seem quick to – holy shit!”

The car lurched to a stop as we rounded another corner and came out onto the airfield. Tsung's hand shot out to check my forward momentum. The seatbelt caught and jerked me back. I strained against it, craning my neck to peer up at what had startled him.

An angel in gold armor and flowing white robes rode the thermals above us on widespread wings. She led a squad of troops wearing jetpacks through a series of aerial drills.

Tsung twisted to one side as much as I did to keep the angel in sight, lowering his sunglasses even though it meant squinting against the daylight. “Is that–”

“La Reina de Los Angeles. Yes,” I said, as if it were perfectly normal to see the heavenly host at a training base in central California. I straightened when Tsung and I nearly bumped heads trying to keep the woman in sight. Releasing my restraint, I opened the car door and got out. Ostensibly to stretch my legs, but also to take in the full scope of Argent's operations, unhindered by the chassis.

It was a daunting sight.

La Reina and her jetpacked warriors were the only troops to take to the skies, but they formed only a small contingent of Argent's amassing might. Along the length of the tarmac, units in standard-issue fatigues drilled, wearing the silver-grey berets and arm-bands of Argent's ground forces. In the grassy field across the runway, a cavalry troop rode maneuvers, led by two figures in mail. To anyone else, they might have looked like reenactors from Medieval Times, but there was no mistaking those twin winged helmets of silver and gold.

“Mayhawk and Summerhawk,” I said to my companion, nodding at each rider in turn.

“Of the Round Table?” Tsung's sunglasses – and his cool – were back in place. “Doesn't that qualify as foreign operatives on American soil?”

“Camp Argent has special dispensation as the private holding of a supranational organization,” said a crisp voice behind us. I turned. Sylvia Dunbarton and her entourage had snuck up on us while we were gaping. She stood in the doorway of the hangar, flanked by two dark-suited men with earpieces, sunglasses, and blank faces, and a younger version of herself who must have been a personal assistant of some sort.

I suffered through Sylvia's cheek kisses. “I thought they spent all their time searching for their Arthur.”

“They agreed that the world's hour of greatest need trumped Brittania's.”

“Lovely.” The whole show made me more grumpy. I didn't want to become involved in things at this level. It was too big and too complicated. There were no right answers here, just making the best of a bad situation. “Please tell me you're not amassing an army for an attack on China once the New Wall goes down?”

“An Army? This is a peacekeeping force.”

“Pardon me if I can't tell the difference.”

“Stop being tiresome and introduce me to Mr Tsung.”

I shouldn't have been at all surprised that she'd discovered his identity. She'd likely known even before we hit the first security gate.

“David Tsung, Sylvia Dunbarton.” They nodded, but there were no cheek-kisses for Mr Tsung. Must be a special torture she reserved just for me.

“So these are my passengers?” drawled a young man as he emerged from the shadows of the hangar.

“And here's your pilot. You know Tom, yes?”

Clean-cut, all-American poster boy for the Aces – he'd smiled down at me from more than one box of Wheaties, but photographs muted his ineffable charm. Tom Carter was a walking campaign for the Silver Age, and he didn't disappoint. He wore a beat-up WWII bomber jacket and loose khaki pants. His sky-blue button-down, complete with crisp white undershirt peeking at the collar, echoed the blue of his eyes. A playful breeze toyed with the ends of his hair. He was leading-man pretty, and everyone knew it. Why else would Sylvia thrust him so often in the spotlight? I knew Tom. Everyone did, though most people knew him as Skyrocket.

I offered my hand, and he took it and shook it once. A man's shake.

“Not in this incarnation. It is a pleasure to finally meet you, my boy. Samuel would be proud.”

Sam. His grandfather. The original Skyrocket. Back in the day, Sam and Mr Mystic had been good friends and sometimes friendly rivals. Forums speculated more, but I'd never found any proof of it. Also, Sam Carter's homophobia had been as sincere as his racism and sexism.

Tom smiled, teeth white and straight. I pondered whether Colgate had him under contract, too. If they didn't, they were idiots. “No, he wouldn't, sir. But you're kind to say so.” His soft drawl was an echo of Shimizu's. Pure, corn-fed Oskaloosa, Iowa.

No question, Tom was the total package. The PR reason Sylvia could get away with her private army and her special dispensations. I gritted my teeth so my smile wouldn't falter.

Sylvia looked to be doing the same. “Don't believe it, Tom. Mitchell is many things, but kind isn't one of them. Sam
would
be proud of the way you've carried on his legacy. We should all be so lucky in our progeny.”

Only the fact that she didn't look at me when she said it kept me from blanching. That, and the sight of Tom's loose and easy smile tightening, just at the corner of his mouth and eyes.

Now we were all smiling, and none of us meant it.

Lovely.

“The
Kestrel
's fueled and ready to go, ma'am. Is it just Mr Masters and Mr Tsung, or will you be flying with us?”

“No, Mitchell was adamant about going alone, and I have meetings with the security council. Someone has to keep the dogs on their leashes and to make sure their tails wag properly after you boys save the world. I leave Mr Mystic in your capable hands, my dear. Good hunting, Mitchell. I expect you'll have this all sorted within a week.” She patted Tom's arm, then my cheek, like the boys she'd just called us.

She clicked across the tarmac in the direction of the control tower, trailing blank-faced bodyguards and a fresh-faced assistant in her wake.

Tom turned back to me, his smile subdued, but genial once more. He gave a rueful chuckle. “She's quite a character, isn't she? A firecracker, as my grandpap might say.” He led us around to the hangar door.

“I believe Samuel would have used more choice language, of a kind not fit for mixed company.”

Tom grimaced. “Yeah, well…” He used the excuse of punching in a security code on the door pad to hide his pause. “He may have had his flaws, but he had a good heart.”

I suffered a pang of sympathy. Poor Tom. Skyrocket had been a man of his time, for both good and ill. It had to be hard, fighting to recover the tarnished legacy of a grandfather he'd loved and respected, even as he knew Samuel had been in the wrong. At least my own legacy of prejudice was overshadowed by the rumors of Mr Mystic's presumed homosexuality. Though he shouldn't have been given a pass on the basis of that.

But then, I didn't have many illusions about the kind of bastard Mitchell Masters was.

I was?

Hell. I pulled down the brim of my fedora and fussed with the shadows, reminding myself who I was. It was Tsung's fault. His presence made me self-conscious. Even when he kept silent, I couldn't shake the feeling of being evaluated.

This was why I worked alone.

“He was a good man and a good friend, and though it guts me to admit it, Sylvia is right. He would be proud. Samuel was the last person to admit that he was wrong, but he was often the first person to realize it.”

Tom laughed and pushed open the hangar door. “Now isn't that the God's honest truth. Cussed as mules, the both of us.”

Tsung and I followed him into the hangar. My steps faltered as I took in our transportation.