Word and Breath (30 page)

He hadn’t expected this part of the plan to be so difficult.

Largan stood up when he saw Mikel approach, and he got up to shut his office door as Mikel lowered Riana’s body onto the leather loveseat, trying to be gentle without looking like he cared about her comfort.

“Here she is,” Mikel said. “But she’s not going to cooperate.”

Largan didn’t look particularly concerned. In fact, he looked more satisfied than Mikel had ever seen him. “I’m counting on you to help with that.”

Mikel shrugged and made a show of leaving the office. “Fine. Call me if you need me.”

“Stop.” Largan’s order was snapped out with more authority than normal. “Your assignment was to get information from her—not just to drop her at my feet. You’re obligations aren’t done yet.”

“You know I don’t do interrogations.”

Largan’s eyes shifted to Riana, who was breathing slowly, her chest rising and falling evenly. “I can’t use one of my normal interrogators. This is a more nuanced assignment. The information we retrieve can’t be warped in any way. I need you to get it for me.”

Mikel hesitated intentionally. All signs indicated that Largan wasn’t at all suspicious of him, but he still wasn’t entirely sure this wasn’t a trap. He had to risk it—there was no other way to get into the bunker to get Riana’s sister—but he also had to be careful to act as he would have before. “Not even I can forcefully extract information from someone—at least not with any confidence that the information is accurate. I told you that yesterday when you told me to bring her in.”

Largan shifted his eyes from Riana’s limp figure to meet Mikel’s gaze. “I have a way to deal with that.”

Mikel returned his stare without blinking. “You have her sister.”

“Yes.”

Taking a step forward, Mikel didn’t have to feign a simmering anger. “And you stood in that very spot the other day and swore to me you didn’t.”

“I lied,” Largan said with a shrug. He was more confident than normal, and Mikel wondered what had caused it, what this man’s ultimate agenda was.

Riana should be waking up soon.

“Don’t give me a dramatic scene,” Largan continued. “You aren’t cleared to know this kind of classified information.”

“And now I am.” It was a statement more than a question.

His eyes narrowing with a look of such scrutiny that Mikel felt a twinge of anxiety, Largan said, “I’ve never trusted you.”

“I know that. Are you saying you do now?”

“Only because Riana Cole is lying in my office and you brought her in. Being who you are, I can’t think of any underlying agenda you might have here. Unless you’re going to ask me for more money.”

It was like a blow, like a punch in the gut—the implied insult taking Mikel unaware and hurting him more than he could believe.

He’d never thought of himself as noble or selfless, but he’d also never considered himself totally heartless. Largan wasn’t stupid. He was decent at reading people and good at putting the pieces of situations together in a logical way. He’d used his knowledge of Mikel to draw that particular conclusion.

And it hurt. A lot.

It meant that Mikel had been a man—just a couple of weeks ago—who would deceive, use, and deliver over to her enemies a woman as brave and good as Riana. Without any guilt or hesitation.

It was also the only reason this plan of theirs might possibly work.

“Any chance of a raise?” he asked with admirable irony.

“No. This is still part of your original assignment. Your job was to retrieve information from her, and you haven’t yet done that. We’ll stick with the compensation we agreed on before.”

Mikel shaped his lips into a half-sneer, although his eyes strayed to Riana. “She should wake up soon.” She should have woken up already, he realized with a slight pang of worry. He’d knocked her unconscious before they arrived at the building but the kind of temporary unconsciousness a Breather could generate never lasted for long. “Shall I take off to save you from the inevitable scene? Or did you want me to get to work right away.”

“Right away.”

“Fine. Where’s her sister?”

“She’s close. You just take care of keeping Riana under control when she wakes up.”

“I’ve got it covered,” Mikel murmured, wondering if he really did. He knew what was coming when she woke up, but he dreaded it anyway.

Both men stood watching Riana for a few minutes. Mikel felt dirty, like they were somehow objectifying her. She looked pale and helpless and undignified, sprawled out awkwardly on the loveseat.

When they were through with this—when Riana and her sister were safe—they could get away from all this. Mikel had to start over anyway. He might as well start over with Riana—live a better life, be a better man.

It would have been laughable had it not been so real.

Riana was finally starting to move, twitching slightly as her breathing hitched and she opened her eyes. She smiled—sweet and groggy—when she saw Mikel, and his heart gave the most absurd clench.

Then her eyes shifted over to Largan. And back. Then she sat up, looking confused and disoriented. “Where am I?”

“We’re here to help,” Mikel said.

“Help?” Her expression became almost panicked as she got up and looked around the room. “Where is this? A Union office? You turned me in?”

Her voice became a screech as she turned on Mikel. Then she flew at him in a fury, pounding him on the chest.

It was beautifully acted. And, struggling with her, Mikel couldn’t help but wonder how close to real her feelings were. She’d experienced betrayal by him in the past. It might so easily have come to this.

“Would you get control of her, please?” Largan’s words sounded cool and impatient, but Mikel saw tension in the other man’s eyes.

Largan wasn’t enjoying this.

Frankly, neither was Mikel. Riana kept attacking him, and Mikel finally put his hands on her face to draw out the most extreme of her emotions. He opened the connection for real, not wanting Largan to notice any anomalies.

It was very distracting, though, breathing Riana in like that. A private act in a public place.

Mikel forced the delicious rush of Riana’s spirit—she was so scared that they would be caught, that they wouldn’t find Jannie—to the back of his mind where it wouldn’t get in the way of what he still needed to do.

When he dropped his hands, Riana’s hysteria was over and she went slightly limp, bursting into pitiful tears.

From Largan’s stiff expression, he wasn’t any more comfortable with the tears than he had been with her fit of anger. But he nodded soberly and gestured toward the door of his office.

They went out into the hall and then down a private elevator to the basement level. After walking past industrial strength shelves filled with office supplies, they reached the storage area in the back corner.

Largan scowled when he saw two construction workers pulling up the old vinyl floor. “They’re everywhere,” he muttered, with a roll of his eyes at Mikel. “Can you excuse us for a few minutes?” he said to the workers, who were dirty and sweating from the manual labor. He showed them his ID. “Classified.”

“Sure thing,” the big man said with an easy grin. “Could use a break anyway.”

When the workers left, Largan went to the wall and trigged a hidden door behind a wall of shelves. Then he keyed in a code, carefully hiding it from Mikel’s curious gaze.

After passing a guard stationed just inside the door, the three of them walked down a cool, dim hallway to the bunker Mikel had known would be there.

The bunker was small, about the size of Largan’s office, and it had a cot in the corner, a small table with a couple of chairs, and some shelves stocked with what looked like medical supplies. There was also another door that led to what must be a bathroom.

A small girl with fine brown hair and oversized blue eyes set in a delicate face was sitting up on the cot, her legs covered with a knit throw. She was way too thin and too pale, and she looked younger than sixteen, but otherwise she looked unharmed.

“Jannie!” Riana cried, regaining her energy on entering the bunker. She ran over to the cot to embrace her sister. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Jannie sniffed. “Just tired of being cooped up here, with no better company than these buffoons with no personality.” She gestured dismissively at the second guard who must be constantly stationed in the bunker. “But I was hoping they wouldn’t capture you. They wanted me to try to trick you, but I said absolutely not. And what’s the hot guy doing here?”

Blinking, Mikel realized that he must be the hot guy.

Surely it wasn’t Largan.

Half-laughing, half-sobbing, Riana hugged her sister again. Then, seated on the edge of the cot, she turned on Largan, who’d been standing in the background silently. “So you kidnapped my sister? What kind of monster are you? She’s never hurt anyone. If I find out she’s been…harmed in any way, I’ll—”

“No one has touched her. I’ve ensured that. I regret the necessity, but this was the only way I could guarantee your cooperation. I need your help.”

“You could have just asked!”

Largan gave a helpless little shrug. “I would have preferred that approach. But, with your history, I couldn’t take the risk.”

“My history?”

Mikel was getting impatient. He didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary. He could see the value in hearing some of Largan’s answers, though, so he held himself back.

“Yes, your history. The first time I learned of your existence was through your association with a known spy for the Front. I had no reason to think you’d be loyal to the Union or any of its projects. Then there is your grandfather.”

“My grandfather.”

Mikel wasn’t sure why she’d repeated the words—perhaps just to prompt Largan to continue.

“Marshall Cole was a brilliant man. A great Reader and scholar and an asset to the Union’s body of knowledge. But he was also well-known for protesting against Union values and programs. Some people think he went insane near the end of his life.”

Riana snorted. “Narrow-minded people with too small a view of the world. He wasn’t insane.”

“I didn’t say I was one of the people who thought so. But his training might have encouraged you to question authority. I couldn’t take the risk of you refusing.”

Then finally came the key question. The one they needed answered before they left this bunker. “So what did you want me to do?”

Riana looked so tired as she asked the question, as if she’d given up all resistance and resentment.

It was convincing. For good reason. Mikel knew how exhausted she must be.

It would have been so easy for circumstances to end up as they seemed to be now—Riana bullied into a corner, with no energy left to fight.

Of course, it could have ended up even worse.

Riana could be dead.

***

Riana could almost believe she was really giving up.

She watched as Captain Largan walked over to the table and picked up a thick stack of paper. She wasn’t quite sure what to think about the man. She hated him for kidnapping Jannie, but he didn’t appear to be cruel or heartless. For a moment earlier, he’d actually looked regretful.

Not that it mattered. He’d done what he’d done, and Riana was going to have a hard time forgiving him.

Largan handed the stack of paper to her. “It’s fairly simple, really. I need you to translate this book.”

Riana flipped through the pages, unable to suppress the innate stab of interest in at a text that was important enough to merit kidnapping. The language was the same as that in the paragraph Connor had showed her the morning before. Similar to the Old Language but not immediately readable.

Knowing she couldn’t study the book as much as she’d like, she tossed it aside. “I don’t know this language.”

“I know your grandfather taught it to you.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I know more about Marshall Cole’s work than anyone else in Union employment. I’ve made a point of researching his history and interests. There’s nothing about the man I’m not familiar with.”

This told her something new about Largan, but it was also vaguely offensive. As if a stranger could know more about her grandfather than she did.

Not that she knew very much.

“You still haven’t told me why you think he taught me that language. Or why you think he even
knew
that language.”

“The book those pages were copied from was his.”

The bunker fell into silence for a long moment. Riana didn’t dare look over at Mikel, although she felt drawn to share this news with him in some way.

Largan continued, “The book was important to him. He wouldn’t have left the world with no way to pass on what it said.”

“That’s an assumption,” Riana snapped back, trying to sound suitably disagreeable. “I was just a kid when he died.”