Darkness at Dawn (11 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Jennings
Tags: #Romance, #General, #Suspense, #Contemporary, #Fiction
With hindsight, of course, as an adult, Lucy realized that her parents couldn’t tell her what they were doing because it was top secret. Telling her where they were going and why would not only violate national security but would put her—and them—in danger.
But as a child, Lucy had had no clue. She only knew that her parents disappeared on a regular basis.
Uncle Babu had taught her breathing techniques to overcome the intense anxiety she felt. She grew so good at it as a girl that she could put herself right to sleep. She was sure she could dredge the techniques up out of her memory just as soon as Mike let go of her hands.
Which he wasn’t doing.
They took off, in that unmistakable moment of the lifting of gravity that made every stomach in the world swoop. Some barely noticed. Some, like Lucy, broke out in a cold sweat.
She tugged at her hands, uselessly. He wasn’t letting go.
The plane banked sharply, leaving her stomach twenty miles behind. There was a low line of red on the horizon, the approaching dawn. It looked like the entrance to hell, yawning open.
Mike leaned forward. “Lucy, look at me. You know, they briefed you on me, or rather Michael Harrington. You know who my parents were, where I went to school, my hobbies. But I don’t know anything about you. So—” The plane banked even more steeply and the four molecules of matter that still resided in her stomach crawled up her gullet. She swallowed heavily. He insisted that she look at him, and it helped, sort of. At least looking at his face was more interesting than looking at the land falling away and the imitation of hell on the horizon. “So where do your parents live?”
“They don’t.”
He had interesting eyes. Dark brown with very faint yellow streaks in them, like the eyes of some jungle predator. You had to be very close to him to see them.
His eyes were warm, the skin around them slightly crinkly with smile lines. His skin was weather-beaten, deeply tanned, with deep lines between his brows and bracketing his mouth. He should moisturize, she thought, desperately keeping her eyes on his, away from the windows.
She realized by his expression she’d said something startling.
“They don’t?”
What was he—Oh. Her parents.
“No. They, uh. They died in the Palace in Nhala.”
Was he cleared to know her parents had been agents? She had no idea what his clearance level was. Probably Top Secret or maybe even higher, but her parents’ standing as CIA operatives was still classified. Some of the agents they’d run fifteen or twenty years ago were still operational.
“There was a coup attempt. In ’97. My parents were anthropologists, studying origin myths and language development. They—we—were caught right in the middle. I managed to escape. They were murdered by soldiers loyal to the Chinese Communists. The coup was unsuccessful.”
She’d surprised him. He blinked at her, processing this. She could actually see ideas slotting into suitable holes.
She bristled with anger.
They were going
undercover
. His face was an open book. He was going to have to do better than this in the Palace. Nhalans were a lovely people, but it was a civilization well over three thousand years old, and for many of those years they’d lived under foreign rulers.
undercover
. His face was an open book. He was going to have to do better than this in the Palace. Nhalans were a lovely people, but it was a civilization well over three thousand years old, and for many of those years they’d lived under foreign rulers.
Nhalans had learned the hard way to read faces. By contrast, a Nhalan’s face and voice gave nothing away.
Mike would have to keep up.
“So that’s why you know Princess Paso. You lived there, in Nhala. I should have realized that.”
She dipped her head, watching his eyes all the time. As long as she watched his eyes, her stomach seemed to hold its place in the center of her torso. Like spotting while executing fouettés.
“Do you speak Nhalan?”
“Yes, I do.” And four Indonesian dialects, street Arabic, Spanish and Afrikaans.
He blinked again, and once more his thoughts could just as well have been tattooed on his forehead in glowing red letters:
Maybe she’ll be useful after all.
Maybe she’ll be useful after all.
“So . . . do you have siblings? Brothers, sisters?”
“No.” Lucy tried, and failed, to imagine her parents carting around a brood of kids on missions, instead of one very quiet, bookish and obedient little girl. “No siblings, I’m an only child. Only child of only children, too, so no cousins, no aunts, no uncles.”
His head reared back a little. “No family
at all
?” Lucy rarely thought of it that way. Her parents had been dead over half her life now. She was used to thinking of herself as alone in the world. Except . . . “Well,” she said, crinkling her nose a little. “Except for Uncle Edwin. But I rarely see him. He’s very busy and I’m very busy.”
at all
?” Lucy rarely thought of it that way. Her parents had been dead over half her life now. She was used to thinking of herself as alone in the world. Except . . . “Well,” she said, crinkling her nose a little. “Except for Uncle Edwin. But I rarely see him. He’s very busy and I’m very busy.”
The plane banked again and was hit by turbulence. She closed her eyes and hoped the plane’s vibrations hid her shudders. Though it was warm in the cabin, cold sweat trickled down her back. Mike let go of her hands, and she missed the strength, the warmth.
“Here.”
Lucy’s eyes opened in surprise to find him standing next to her, easily riding out the turbulence, as if standing in a meadow on a bright summer’s day. He pressed a cold glass of a golden liquid into her hand.
She bent to smell it. Whiskey. Very fine whiskey. He pressed a small white pill into her hand, too. She raised her eyebrows.
“Whiskey and a special pill. Excellent combo for resting on flights. Me and my men use it all the time. Swallow the pill with the whiskey, atta girl.”
Lucy would have objected to being called a girl if she hadn’t been on the knife’s edge. So she obediently swallowed the pill and the whiskey in a few gulps. They went down nice and smooth and easy.
She handed him back the glass. “I usually put myself out with breathing exercises. Learned meditation as a child.”
“So breathe,” Mike said easily, sitting back down across from her. He stretched his long legs out, relaxed, completely at ease. Oh, how she envied him. “Close your eyes now and breathe. Do your thing.”
The plane shuddered once more and a few minutes later reached cruising altitude, but not before pinging her panic lobe, terror prickling under her skin. It would take about fifteen minutes of breathing exercises to get her hammering heart to slow down.
Might as well start.
In.
Out.
She fell fast asleep.
F
IVE
IVE
THE PALACE CHILONGO, NHALA
GENERAL Changa knocked gently on the huge painted wooden door of the Royal Chambers. He didn’t need permission to go anywhere he wanted, but it wasn’t quite time to make that clear yet.
The servant who should have opened the door didn’t, so he pushed it open. Inside, the air was thick with incense. The king had two doctors who’d studied medicine in the West—one at Stanford and one in Munich—at his disposal, but as he felt the life ebbing from him, Jomo was reverting to the Old Ways.
It didn’t make any difference.
Old ways, new ways . . . Jomo was going to die soon. One of the brilliant by-products of the underground lab forty miles north of the Palace was a fast-acting form of untreatable leukemia, absolutely indistinguishable from the real thing, though this was induced. Supremely easy. A spray of anesthetic in the face during the night, a syringe full of mutated cells delivered intravenously, and the disease began.
It was useless as a weapon of mass destruction, of course. The disease was unpredictable and required a direct IV injection, but the fact that it was completely undetectable made it a potential gold mine for assassinations that were not time-sensitive.
Not a warrior’s weapon. It was a weapon of stealth.
The fact that the mutated cells had been injected into a formerly perfectly healthy thirty-two-year-old man meant that it was taking Jomo far too long to die, so he was being helped along the way with doses of thallium.
Dr. Deepak Dima had learned capitalist ways together with modern medicine in Stanford, and his bank account was as swollen with money as a blood-saturated tick. Still, it was cheap to kill a king. A mere half a million dollars and Jomo would soon be lying in state.
The two doctors turned to greet the general in the traditional way. One hand cupped within the other, held at heart’s height. The deep bow was carefully calibrated to show great respect with a healthy dose of fear.
Princess Paso rose, too, from her usual position at Jomo’s side. Gracefully, as she did everything. Her slender hands clasped each other and she bowed. Not at all as deeply as she should.
General Changa frowned, letting his displeasure show. The princess showed no signs of remorse at the slight or even that she’d noticed his displeasure, and yet she’d spent her entire life at court. She knew damned well how to bow to him; she just chose not to.
He ground his teeth. This was one part of the plan that was not coming together as was meant, and it was not acceptable.
Princess Paso had been born and brought up in Nhala, spending her entire life in the Palace, sworn to her royal duties. Unlike many in Nhala, she hadn’t been sent abroad to study, her parents preferring to bring in foreign tutors. And ever since Jomo became king fifteen years ago, she’d dedicated herself heart and soul to helping her brother.
That kind of upbringing should have made for a nice, subservient woman who would embrace her duty, and the general. For the good of the country, even if she couldn’t bring herself to do anything but snub that pretty nose at him as a man.
Nothing Changa did worked. Whenever he tried to engage her in conversation, she turned out to be hurrying somewhere else, out of duty, of course. At formal events, he arranged to be seated next to her only to find that she’d changed the arrangements, or skipped the event to tend to someone ill in the royal entourage.
She was unfailingly polite, always using the formal form of address. Fifteen fucking years, and he hadn’t been able to breach her defenses in any meaningful way.
She hid behind the façade of the king, but once the king was no more, this farce would end. Changa would see to it. He needed her by his side and he needed her obedient.
“General Changa,” the princess murmured, eyes downcast, as they properly should be. The princess was following the Old Ways that dictated a Nhalan woman never look into the eyes of a male who was not a family member.
Nowadays, nobody followed that rule. Young women wore Western clothes, looked men in the eye and answered back. Changa would even have approved of the princess’s modest behavior if not for the fact that she smiled at everyone and looked even the palace servants right in the eyes.
Just never into his.
Without a word, the princess turned gracefully in an invitation for him to enter the room. Changa could never reproach her for her manners, which were impeccable. Well, soon enough the princess would be by his side. With her brother dead, and no other protector, she would have to turn to him. He would enjoy making her pay for her insolence.
General Changa approached the king’s sickbed, keeping his face utterly impassive even at the sight of the bag of bones lying on the monumental royal bed.
King Jomo was the last of a line that had ruled the country for a thousand generations, ever since Nhalans had settled the small, fertile river valley. Nothing but royal blood flowed in his veins, and now it was killing him.
The royal bed dwarfed the king. He looked like a sickly child, shoulders held up by huge silk pillows. His skin was gray, falling off the underlying muscles since he’d lost so much weight. His lips were blue and his nostrils pinched tightly as he tried to pull in air.
Changa barely stopped himself from frowning. Maybe his lab rat had miscalculated the thallium dosage, because it looked like Jomo was going to die any minute. Changa needed him alive, yet incapable of any action, for just a little while more, until the moment came to strike.
If the king died now, the beautiful saffron silk canopy over the elaborate carved wooden bed would be slashed to ribbons, and each and every member of the Royal Guard bedecked with a ribbon. The city and the country would shut down for the obligatory forty days of mourning, during which only the work necessary to feed the population and keep them warm would be allowed.
Travel would be restricted as the country mourned.
The Arabs were going to test run TS-18 soon, and their plan was to unleash it on the world immediately afterward if the test was successful.
Changa would empty a useful chunk of India immediately afterward, using his Sharmas as the first shock troops, followed by the army and then Royal Guard, all stationed in Chilongo for the days of mourning.
The king had to die when Changa said so and not before.
Changa approached the royal bed slowly, head bowed, shoes making no sound on the slate floor, as the Old Ways dictated.
He studied Jomo carefully when protocol dictated he could raise his eyes.
What was it like for Jomo? Did he feel his spirit leaving him, inch by inch? Was he making his peace or raging against his fate?
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