The Fight for Peace (17 page)

Arinna’s mind froze, marking the shock of what Jared had said with a moment of silent blackness. She remembered to breathe. “You ... took him with you? On that stupid joy ride. What the hell were you thinking?” she said, rounding on him.

“He’d been to Crystal City. Having him along made sense,” Jared snapped back.

“Who did you leave as backup in case you had trouble ... you know, like fighter jets on your tail? Because I know you didn’t bother telling me or Kehm!” Arinna sucked in a breath when Jared didn’t answer. “You didn’t even tell anyone in Argentina either, did you?”

She was so furious the only way she could keep her hand from shaking was to ball it into a fist. Jared didn’t apologize, but the anger in his eyes faded as the moment stretched between them.

“You weren’t this angry when it was just me in the plane on a foolish mission. Not that I don’t think you care about me,” he said with a half smile. “But you care about him a hell of a lot more.”

Arinna sat on her desk hard, knees too weak to keep her on her feet as hot anger drained from her. “Not more, just ... differently,” she answered, voice rough. “Shit. The timing for this is awful.”

“What? In the middle of peace negotiations?” Jared asked with a laugh as he crossed the room and pulled her against his chest. Arinna snorted a laugh. “I should have told you about where I was going. Guess it is a good thing you already reprimanded Gabriella, cause doing that would taste sour to me about now.”

Arinna straightened, glancing toward the door. “People are going to get the wrong impression of us - I’ve got a bad enough reputation. You’re the married, upstanding one of the pair of us.”

Jared grinned, sitting next to her. “Exactly. You’ve become the trouble maker. I think you should tell Derrick how you feel. Hell with propriety and rules. They don’t suit you.”

“Thanks,” she said dryly. “I’ll consider it when he decides to come back to Europe. I’m a little busy here right now.”

“Excuses,” Jared told her. “You go to Argentina and meet with Raoul about joining forces against Isle Royale. I can watch Europe unravel for a bit.”

“You know, I just might take you up on that.”

Chapter 20

PRIME MINISTER BYRAN VASQUEZ

THE END OF PEACE

“You do this for your children, yes?” Sergi asked Byran.

“I want a better future for them,” Byran agreed.

“I have a daughter. Did you know?” Sergi asked. “I want her to have a good life. That is why I am here.”

Byran was as uncertain of what to do with Sergi’s confession as he was of the man’s somber mood, which ran far deeper than usual. They sat together to the side of the other delegates who debated wording on different sections of the peace agreement. The final version was taking shape. The end of the negotiations appeared mere days away. And for whatever reason, instead of optimism or relief, Sergi Novikovich appeared like he needed to send a report of failure home.

“Are you all right?” Byran asked. Despite their previous topic, it seemed the most obvious question.

“Yes,” Sergi replied, straightening in his chair. “Perhaps I am catching a cold?” Sergi offered a lukewarm chuckle. Everything about the man who claimed to be the leader of Crystal City felt off.

“Shall we continue then? The sooner we wrap this up, the sooner we can each return to warm homes.”

If anything, a look of nausea swept across Sergi’s face at Byran’s statement. “Net,” Sergi replied. “Let’s take an early break for lunch. We can finish after.”

Sergi didn’t wait for Byran’s agreement, but stood with a glance at his compatriots. They looked as surprised as Byran felt when Sergi left. The rest of the FLF delegation scrambled to join him. There had been days that Byran sorely desired Sergi’s oddly timed actio
n–
to walk away early for a break. So Byran didn’t question the action. This close to the end, an hour delay would make little difference.

Whatever Sergi did during his extended lunch seemed to renew him, if not improve his mood. He returned to the negotiations with determination if not humor. The delegates sat down at the main table giving updates on progress.

In the midst of the talk, Sergi looked over at Byran. “You know, figuring this out took so much longer than we ever expected.”

Byran’s response died on his lips as Sergi pulled out a gun. Byran froze, knowing the bullet was meant for him. But Sergi swung the muzzle beyond him before pulling the trigger. Sophia jerked, releasing a short gasp before falling sideways to the floor.

Byran remained stunned a moment longer, watching as a bullet pierced Sergi’s temple. Then the sound of gunfighting and shouting broke through the disbelief, igniting adrenaline and thought. Byran rolled sideways and dropped to the floor as a bullet struck the backrest of his chair.

Robert sheltered behind the meager refuge of the table on the floor in front of him, wide eyes holding the same surprised fear Byran felt. Before Byran’s numb mind could frame words, a soldier slid between him and Robert, shooting over the table as they kept low. Gabriella glanced at him as another Guard soldier joined her and offered covering fire. “Are you injured, Prime Minister?”

Byran had enough wit to realize she was speaking to him. “I’m fine.” He was pretty sure that was the truth.

“We need to get you out of here, sir,” Gabriella said, crouching next to him. The church echoed with continuous shots. “On my mark, I want you to move with the remaining delegates to the far side of the pews. Stay low and drop behind them as soon as you are there.”

Byran couldn’t think past the fact she’d said “remaining delegates.” He shifted to look around her. Natalia sheltered against Robert now. Beyond her, Byran glimpsed blood and a slumped form. Gabriella placed a hand on his shoulder to keep him from moving farther.

“What if they aren’t dead?” he asked.

Gabriella didn’t blink. “We will come back to check on them. I promise. But right now your safety is paramount.”

His hesitation was holding up everything. Byran nodded assent.

“I want you to run as a group, but not so close as to trip each other.” Gabriella shifted to glance at Natalia and Richard. “Anton and I will cover you. Go in three ... two ...”

Byran didn’t hear one. Gabriella standing to return fire spurred him forward like a frightened rabbit. Hunched low, he made the dash of twenty feet without breathing, fully expecting pain and blackness any second. But the bullets missed him, concentrating on the Guard soldiers around him. One fell to the floor as Byran reached the first pew.

Gabriella appeared behind Byran before he turned around. She bled from a wound in her arm, tight lines on her face reflecting pain and tension. Near the door of the church a new firefight erupted. FLF controlled the door, shooting at Gabriella’s handful of remaining soldiers that surrounded the small group of European delegates and those coming to help from the reserve in the dormitory.

A blast trembled through the stone floor, belying the muffled sounds from outside. A battle was being waged between the two wings of the monastery. Explosions and gunfire rattled church windows, wild shots breaking the stained glass. Robert flinched as a bullet tore through a wooden pew inches above his head.

“We need to be ready to move,” Gabriella said. “The Guard will give us an opening and when it does, you follow the soldier ready to guide you at the door. We’ll get you to the dactyls and out of here.”

Her comm unit was in her hand, the sight of it as well as her words sending a rush of hope through Byran. They were not as cut off as he felt, trapped behind ancient wooden benches in a firefight that indiscriminately ricocheted bullets against stone walls.

Noise along with increased gunfire made Byran risk a glance toward the door. The FLF soldiers concentrated together, forming a wall around a few men. As the fight to control access to the church teetered, a few of the FLF delegates slipped behind the protection of their soldiers and out the door. Byran glimpsed Damir, one arm clutching his stomach with a hand as he shot his way free with a handgun held in his other. The FLF soldiers taking the brunt of the Guard offensive fell back as their leaders escaped, leaving behind dead and wounded.

“To the door, now!” Lieutenant Faronelli ordered.

Byran raced along the side aisle, wishing it was Derrick there to see him through the melee yet grateful his friend was half a world away as another Guard soldier died in front of him due to an FLF bullet. What had seemed a violent calm inside the church erupted into a contained war zone in the short run through the courtyard. Bullets and heavier armaments zipped between the two dormitories in a brutal firefight. Larger explosions sprayed pulverized stone in bursts of smoke and fire.

The soldier Byran had been instructed to follow didn’t stop. He ran through the hail of destruction to the open door of the European dormitory. Byran followed, doing his best to ignore the danger and death surrounding him. Bullets striking the doorway in front of him halted his mad sprint as one soldier took a wound to his leg and another barely winced as a round slammed into his armored vest.

“Don’t stop!” Gabriella barked, pushing him forward despite the veil of ammunition.

Byran stumbled into the onslaught, finding himself through the thick of it unscathed as the shooting paused for the blink of an eye. Those behind were not as lucky. Byran caught Gabriella as two bullets hit her, the pain flashing through her brown eyes told him that at least one of the two pierced her armor. They stumbled fifty feet along the hallway before Gabriella cursed. She pulled Byran through a doorway to an outside room by physically throwing herself into it. Robert  and Natalia followed along with a handful of Guard as shots ripped down the hallway.

Gabriella supported herself against a wall. Byran remained nearby as much to learn the status of things as to offer the Lieutenant help. “Update,” she snapped into the comm.

“They came through the front connector,” a soldier reported. “We have heavy FLF fire from a small force.”

“Can we access the dactyls?” Gabriella asked.

“Negative.”

Gabriella released a slow breath. “Find me a way to the
m–
a window, anything.”

She slipped to the floor, making the action look controlled although Byran suspected she needed to sit. Blood stained her shirt both along the weeping arm wound and, more worrisome, from her shoulder blade to shirt hem.

“We’ll wait here a few minutes. Catch your breath, but be ready to move,” she said to Byran, Robert, and Natalia as if this were a planned rest break. She looked more closely at Byran. “You’re bleeding. Are you hurt badly?”

When Byran wiped his face, blood stained his palm along with the sweat. “Scratches,” he answered, feeling the sting of them now. “I’m rather surprised that is all.”

“Think of it as good news, sir. I think they want you alive,” Gabriella said, her voice holding a wheeze.

“I don’t think that is good news for Europe,” Byran said, understanding at last how bad of a situation they were in.

Until this point his worry had been to listen to Gabriella and try to stay alive. Now he considered what it meant that the FLF had opened fire at the peace negotiations and was by all signs trying to take him prisoner. What would Arinna do if the FLF captured him? The months of imagined confinement in Crystal City dissolved as he realized exactly what Arinna would do and why the FLF wanted him alive. Arinna wouldn’t wait until they took him to Crystal City. She was on her way now. Gabriella would have alerted Guard Command in the opening minutes. The FLF had one goal since the Guard began to win – kill Arinna and Captain Vries.

“You need to cancel your request for rescue,” Byran said to Gabriella, keeping his voice low. Robert and Natalia huddled against the far wall, but that wasn’t a message he wanted to share with even the soldiers who guarded the door.

Gabriella looked at him as if he was insane. “You are Europe’s Prime Minister! My duty i
s—
”

“To protect Europe,” Byran said. “This is a trap dammit. You told Damir that Arinna and I are close, that she rescued me after the last attack. They are using me as bait to lure her here. Europe doesn’t need me. It needs her. Cancel the call for help. That is an order.”

“This is my fault.” Gabriella’s dark eyes widened, a sheen of moisture crossing them before she looked away and brought the comm to her lips with a shaking hand.

Byran didn’t argue with her, even though he knew the FLF would have found some way to lure Arinna eventually. The FLF would risk pretend peace to kill her.

“Command, this is Field Command 1, come in.” No one answered. Not even static broke the line. Gabriella glanced at her comm before trying again. Still nothing. “Shit. They are scrambling our signal somehow.”

The FLF had allowed a message for extraction out, but nothing else.

“Will the dactyls be able to reach Command?” Byran asked. Panic deeper than what he’d felt when Sergi had pulled a gun pricked at him. In one day he could be responsible for the death of his friend and Europe’s final defeat. There had to be a way to stop this.

“Maybe?” Gabriella hedged. She looked tired, skin waxen with a sheen of sweat. “Command said we had interruptions on all communications, even the dactyl. But if we get to one and leave, it doesn’t matter. They will check on a moved dactyl before coming here.”

Gabriella winced as she sat up, canting to the side as she bit off a groan. “I don’t know if I can fly,” she admitted. The sound of gunfire in the hallway grew louder.

“Other pilots?” Byran asked.

Gabriella shook her head. “Killed in the chapel. I think they knew who were the pilots.” They stared at each other at an impasse for a moment. “Let me see if I can reach the computers on the dactyl. It is a subfrequency connection and whatever they are doing might not have knocked that out.” Gabriella focused on her comm unit again.

“Why?”

“There isn’t much space to move them closer without a pilot, but I should be able to program them to leave to a safe rally point a few miles away. Then we just need to get you on board. Try the video link you’ve been using to speak to Lieutenant Eldridge to warn Command if you can.”

Byran hesitated. She was saying she doubted she’d make it. Byran wanted to argue for another way. But as the retort of gunfire intensified while Gabriella typed commands madly into her comm as she leaned awkwardly sideways taking shallow breaths, he asked instead, “How will I reach the dactyl?”

Gabriella flicked him a glance that held gratitude for his lack of argument. He still felt guilty. “We’ll get you there,” she promised.

Gabriella was unsteady on her feet five minutes later when she pulled her remaining soldiers together. The planned offensive was risky, but there were few options available. Both Robert and Natalia bore scratches but they were ready to make the run for the dactyls along with Byran and five soldiers who would be their escort. The remainder would offer their lives as a distraction. That wasn’t how it was phrased, but it was the truth of it.

“Seven minutes,” Gabriella told him. “The dactyls will be airborne in seven minutes. You have to be on one of them.”

It wasn’t much time, but there wasn’t much left. Too much longer and reinforcements, including potentially Arinna and Captain Vries, were certain to arrive. Gabriella couldn’t call out nor could she receive communications, but considering flight time from Prague someone would arrive soon. Add to that fears of the FLF trying to override a dactyl and Gabriella chose to cut the window slim. Byran didn’t disagree.