The Trials (The Red Trilogy Book 2) (27 page)

“And if I don’t? If I don’t agree with what we’re doing, then what?”

“You do it anyway, just like in the army.”

That means I have to trust those above me. I came into this because of Kendrick, because I trusted him, but Kendrick is dead.

Rawlings is watching me. He doesn’t have farsights on. He doesn’t need them to read me. “An oath of service will formalize our relationship, and cement the foundation of trust we established during First Light.”

“Are you my commanding officer?”

This inspires a tight-lipped smile. “Shima’s in command of the field units. I’m her aide.”

Good.

“The organization is known to our allies as Cryptic Arrow.”

“Cryptic Arrow?”

“Yes.”

“And we have allies?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. We are not alone. Cryptic Arrow is an extraconstitutional force, but there are elements within the government and the military who will act to support our missions—even if that only means turning a blind eye.”

This is the first time I’ve been given information on the organization, so while Rawlings is in a mood to talk, I push for more. “You said Shima commands the field units. Are there others besides us?”

“We’ve put together another squad since First Light. Squad Two. But the reality is, we’ll never have a lot of boots on the ground. It’s the nature of the game we’re playing. We can’t compete on scale, so our actions will always be heavily leveraged.”

“Meaning the goal is more propaganda actions, like First Light?”

“No. First Light was not propaganda. That was an essential action. That’s what we do. Going after Vanda’s nukes is an essential action. You proposed the mission, Shelley. Do you intend to be part of it?”

“Yes, sir.”

I say it without hesitation because he’s right: I’m already in. There is no going back. This is the game I will play until my luck runs out.

“Who is in command of Squad Two, sir?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

I’ve missed something. “You’re not going to assign me to Squad Two?”

“You are the assault leader of Squad One, the Apocalypse Squad, under the command of Captain Vasquez.”

I raise my eyebrows. “
Captain
Vasquez? Sir, Captain Vasquez kicked me off her squad.”

“Vasquez gets to deal with the personnel she is assigned, Lieutenant. It’s her misfortune that she gets to deal with you.”

Rawlings summons Shima and Jaynie from the basement. They stand as witnesses while I take the oath. The words are simple enough. I will not divulge my knowledge of Cryptic Arrow or betray any loyal member.

When I’m done, I salute Jayne Vasquez, my former sergeant, now my commanding officer.

Shima dismisses us both, telling us to catch up on our sleep while we can.

Jaynie departs without comment.

I stay to ask, “Where’s Delphi?”

“Downstairs,” Shima tells me, “helping with the interrogation. But that space is off-limits except to essential personnel.”

“Fine by me. I don’t want to know what you’re doing down there.” And then I remember to add, “Ma’am.”

I return to my borrowed bed.

As always, sleep comes when I invite it.

•   •   •   •

I bolt awake at the sound of a gunshot. It repeats, the concussion muffled by walls but accompanied by a kick that vibrates through the bones of the house.

I grab my pistol and launch myself at the door, throw it open and run to the top of the stairs. Delphi is below in the living room, standing with Rawlings. She looks up at me, wide eyed.

“What the fuck just happened?”

Rawlings’s explanation is terse: “We got what we needed from Vanda.”

•   •   •   •

Shima wants us to see the confession. Not the long interrogation, just the summary, after they mapped their way around inside his head and knew exactly how to keep him talking, speaking only the truth. Everyone gathers in the media room.

The video is fixed on Vanda. He’s sitting on the floor, on what looks like a mattress, with pillows around him that prop him up as he leans back against a wall. His legs are secured together in a body wrap, with his wrists shackled at his hips. The gray T-shirt he wears is dark with sweat. There’s a brown skullcap on his head.

He stares off to the side, his gaze unfocused. He looks stoned with fatigue, dazed, at the failing edge of his strength, his head tipped back, eyes half closed, breathing elevated, sweat gleaming on his skin.

A woman’s voice, one I don’t recognize, speaks from off
camera in a kindly tone. “The nuclear terrorism that took place on Coma Day—”

“I told ya,” he interrupts, his voice a hoarse whisper, his words slurred. I see his eyes shift toward the camera though his head doesn’t turn. “I had nothin’ to do with that. Nothin’.”

“I understand that, but for the record, tell me one more time what happened, in your own words, so I can believe you.”

“Yeah? And what’s it gonna be after that? A bullet in my head?”

Delphi squeezes my hand. No one in the room says a thing.

“What happened on Coma Day?” the interrogator asks. “What was your involvement?”

He gives a little sideways shake of his head. “Tha’ was all hers. She cracked. That whole thing, it was crazy—”

“Who cracked?”

“The Queen. The one we all serve. My wife, Ms. Thelma Sheridan.” He turns his head to look beyond the camera. “It wasn’t her style to adapt to situations. If she didn’t like somethin’, she changed it. If she got hit, she hit back hard. Yeah, so she got hit: the company, the main company, Vanda-Sheridan—she put my name first but it was her baby—and it was bleedin’ money. But she didn’t know who threw the punch. It drove her crazy. Then my plane went down. Left me ninety percent dead, out of it for weeks. Somethin’ turned her head during that time. She decided her enemy was this fuckin’ invisible monster she called the Red. By the time I heard it, she’d made it her truth. I told her she was crazy. She said I didn’t know, I hadn’t seen. She said it was the Red that tried to kill me. Anyway, she had an enemy in her sights now, so she hit back.”

The interrogator waits a few seconds. When Vanda doesn’t
go on, she coaxes him. “So Coma Day was Thelma’s way to hit back?”

“Yeah. Nothin’ halfway about the Queen. I didn’ know what she was plannin’. I didn’ know she had the fuckin’ nukes. The Queen keeps her secrets, you know?”

“Did she tell you she was responsible for Coma Day?”

“Nah. Need to know, right? It was only after they took her that I found out.”

“How did you find out?”

“Enhanced interrogation of her staff.
‘Any means
.
’
That’s what they kept saying. They were justified to use any means to bring down the Red.” He shakes his head. “They’re all fuckin’ fanatics, servants of God, fightin’ the Devil, and they’re willin’ to take out civilization if they have to, to get rid of the Red.”

His chin lowers, and for the first time he looks fully awake and angry. “
Fuck that!
We’ve always lived with the Devil! So fuckin’ what? You adapt. You don’t burn your own house to the ground. My men died at Black Cross. Good men. Because the Queen went crazy.”

He breathes in a panting rhythm, staring at nothing. When it becomes obvious his tirade is over, the interrogator pushes again. “When you interrogated Thelma’s staff, were you able to learn how she obtained the nuclear material?”

“No.”

“Did you learn how many devices she had?”

“I thought she deployed them all on Coma Day. Then those kids in DC turned up another IND. Exact same design—and the fuckin’ president lost his shit.” He smiles again, bitter humor. “Yeah, he wasn’t too happy knowing he came within two hours of being blown to hell. He came after me.”

“The president of the United States?”

“That bastard, yeah. He said it had to be me behind it,
because she was in prison. I told him he didn’t understand the Queen. She has a court of loyal knights, not just me. He told me to hunt them down. So I did it.”

“You were operating under the president’s orders?”

“Direct orders. That’s right. A little extraconstitutional housecleaning.”

I wince at the use of this term, the same term Rawlings used to describe the activities of Cryptic Arrow and the Apocalypse Squad. We are the same as Carl Vanda now.

The interrogator continues her questioning: “Did you find the individuals responsible for the IND?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about it, in your own words.”

“What’s to tell? We found ’em, interrogated ’em, and eliminated ’em.”

“What did they hope to accomplish with the DC nuke?”

“We’ve talked about this,” he growls.

“For the record. What did they hope to accomplish?”

“Blow the president to hell. Payback for letting the Queen be taken. Blow the Apocalypse Squad to hell. Same crime.”

“Are there more INDs?”

“Yeah, yeah, like I said before. We recovered two more devices along with the engineer who put them together, ’cause you know, it’s not easy to put together a nuke. It takes skill and special equipment and money. Lots of money.”

“What did you do with the devices you found?”

“Locked ’em away.”

“Did you report their existence to the president?”

“That’s not something he’d want to know. Plausible deniability, right? I just told him it was over. Then I went into Manhattan to deal with unfinished business and her fucking crazies almost killed me. ‘Take care of her,’ he said. I told him I already planned to do that.”

The video ends. Silence follows it. I don’t like it that Delphi was in the basement, assisting in the interrogation. She’s been soiled by it. One of the torturers. I put my arm around her shoulder in denial of the feeling.

Jaynie breaks the silence: “So where are the nukes?”

•   •   •   •

Time is of the essence. Carl Vanda’s nukes need to be secured while our intelligence is fresh. It won’t be long until someone in his hierarchy—a senior Uther-Fen officer—decides the boss’s absence is a security threat requiring critical assets to be transferred to new facilities.

Anne Shima stands at the front of the room, her shoulders straight, gaze unflinching. “The mission is ours. Our contacts report that the tactics of suppression and cover-up that preceded First Light are in play again. There will be no official action until we force the issue by recovering Carl Vanda’s INDs. We have designated this mission Silent Firebreak. A preliminary plan is under review and will be issued shortly. You have forty-five minutes to eat and get your gear together. Shelley!”

I stand up. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I do not want to see your bare feet on this mission. You will wear boots to protect your identity.”

“Come on, Anne. Boots can’t hide what I am. First Light proved that.” I was wearing boots in the snow of the Apocalypse Forest, but Carl Vanda identified me by the temperature difference of my machine parts.

“Boots will protect you from casual identification.”

“And take away the versatility of the feet.”

“Make do.”

So I’m already in a bad mood when the newly minted Captain Vasquez intercepts me at the media room door. “Stay a minute,” she says while everyone else files out.

Delphi catches my eye. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

When we’re alone, Jaynie closes the door. I try to cut off the lecture that’s coming by speaking first. “This isn’t about you and me, Captain. It’s about the mission. I intend to do my part, and see that we succeed.”

She ignores this. “I don’t want the Red deciding the course of this mission. If it starts playing puppeteer in your head, I want to know
immediately
. And if I order you to stand down, you will do so.”

“No, ma’am, that is not going to work. If I get a feeling my head is about to be blown off I am not going to take time out to report it before I react. Given that the Red has always been on our side, supporting our missions, I advise you to consider it as a battle asset.”

“You would say that.”

“Even Kendrick—”

“I am not Kendrick.”

“Yes, ma’am. I know you’re not.”

“I want to know what’s going on in your head, Shelley. You will report to me any suspected infiltrations. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am. I will do my best.”

Assuming it doesn’t jeopardize the mission.

•   •   •   •

I say good-bye to Delphi in the room where I’ve been sleeping. She’ll stay behind with Rawlings, and maybe she’ll be safe.

I kiss her face, regretting everything. I hold her against me, silently berating myself for hooking up with her. It was a stupid, self-indulgent mistake. I knew that at the start and I did it anyway because I’m impulsive.

But she wanted it too.

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” I tell her.

She pulls back in my arms, gives me a dark look. “Don’t patronize me, Shelley. I’m a handler. I worked three years in Guidance. I knew what I was getting into.” She puts her palm against my cheek and pins me with her beautiful blue eyes. “Your pretty face is not the only reason I’m here.”

I pull her close again, thinking of the last time I left on a mission, when I said my good-byes to Lissa.

I pray:
If one of us has to die this time, let it be me.

Let it be me.

•   •   •   •

The preliminary plan for mission Silent Firebreak arrives by e-mail as we leave the safe house, but Jaynie assigns me to drive one of the SUVs, so I can’t read it—and that irritates the fuck out of me. But it’s only thirty minutes to a private airfield. We leave the vehicles in a hangar, take seats aboard a waiting commuter jet, and within fifteen minutes we’re in the air, bound for Georgia. Shima is our pilot.

I open the mission plan in my overlay and read.

The two nuclear devices have been designated Blue Devil and Gold Devil, named for the colors of the cargo vans they occupy. The vans are stored in the basement of a remote research campus belonging to a biotech firm known as Reyvik Biosystems—one of Thelma Sheridan’s hobby companies. It’s a sparkling, black-glass facility surrounded by a young, replanted forest. Only one story is above the ground, with two office floors below and then the basement. Communications within the building are limited to a private network, isolated from the Cloud. External communications are allowed only from a soundproof room at ground level, outside the perimeter of the secure area. Upon arrival, all employees are required to turn in phones, tablets, farsights, and any other personal computing devices, and everyone is scanned for implants before being admitted.