Stolen, page 12
“Not helpful,” I said, as a flash of red lit off from the front of the depot. Amanda Gustafson had shot off her eyebeams, and I heard screams and curses in Chinese as some soldiers got blasted out the door. Having been hit by those beams, I knew they hurt. Bones were probably broken, but that'd be the least of those guys' problems soon.
“Two trucks moving out next!” Renard shouted, disappearing behind the rows of vehicles.
A pop from behind me was followed by Tara's shout over the channel: “We're watching your arse, but like an impolite first date, they're trying to get in the back door, now. Without even asking first. Rude.”
“Renard, Barron...pick up the pace,” I said, debating where I should go. Another blast of red flashed, turning the depot a hellish red. Amanda and Hayling appeared to have the front door properly sealed, and the loud rattle of gunfire suggested the Chinese soldiers were having a hell of a time trying to get in. “Arche, tell me they haven't gotten a message out.”
“Comms are down, their radio channels are jammed with static,” Arche said. “But if we don't speed this up, they might find a way to sneak a message out, so...”
“Heidi,” I said.
“We are distracting and hornswaggling them,” Heidi said, sounding a little strained, “but they're very angry and it's harder to confuse people when they're agitated like this. As well you should know.” A little note of umbrage carried in her voice on that last bit.
I slipped back into Ricardo's mind for a moment, taking a look at our situation. Swarms of Chinese soldiers were flooding in our direction, the whole base on high alert and in extremely high dudgeon. Better get down here, buddy, I said, issuing the order to Ricardo to recall him to me as a blaze of red shot out the front door of the depot and bowled over a dozen uniformed Chinese soldiers.
“Skunking the back door,” June said, then, a moment later, “Madison, melt it closed.”
“Yep,” Madison said in a clipped tone. Now a flash of white-blue glowed from the rear of the building.
“They might try opening the big bay doors next,” Kat said, on a knee about ten paces from me, covering behind a tank. “Which would be bad.”
“Indeed,” I said, checking the bomb, then floating up to see how things were going for Renard and Barron. A truck was disappearing into a portal, the third if I was not much mistaken, at least judging by the holes in the parking pattern where vehicles could fit. “Renard?”
“We are golden like a calf idol,” he said.
“Let's get the hell out of here!” I shouted, watching Barron open a portal and step out next to me, Renard coming through just behind. “Back door first – David can maintain that shield from across the world.”
Barron nodded, then opened a portal beside us that made the tank sitting there disappear in favor of a rounded, white-energy circled hole in reality that opened on a view of Madison, June, and Tara, all crouched around a door that was sealed. Behind it I could hear coughing, gagging, and choking as the Chinese soldiers tried to breathe through June's toxic gas cloud.
“Everybody in,” I said, beckoning them to me. Madison and Tara were through in a snap, June followed behind a moment later, still maintaining her concentration, keeping that gas cloud coherent outside the shielded door. “Heidi, Nick – meet us at the front door. Bonner – you hear that?”
“Almost there,” Bonner said, as Ricardo swooped down and landed on my shoulder, talons clenching my trapezius so hard as his weight landed that if I hadn't been expecting it, I might have jumped.
“Gyaaaah,” Madison said, almost leaping out of her skin at the sudden burst of feathers and speed. “That's new.”
I checked the timer on the bomb – we had thirty-five seconds. “Barron, let's fetch the last of 'em and get out of here.”
“Front door, coming up,” Barron said in a clipped version of his proper accent. He was sweating, presumably from the strain of opening so many portals in quick succession. The back door portal disappeared, replaced a moment later by one that gave me a view of Hayling huddled in the shadow of a tank while Amanda Gustafson was blasting away with her eye beams out the open door, David beside her, back to the concrete wall.
“David, kindly help your sisters out and bar that door,” I said, stepping through. I directed an eyebeam of my own (nowhere near as powerful as Amanda's, whose soul I had learned it from) under hers, striking a clever, crawling Chinese soldier in the face and driving his weapon back into his eyes. A shield sprang up a second later, and Amanda and I both shut off the eyebeams.
“That only holds them for another six seconds,” Hayling said from his place behind the tank.
“We'll be gone in five,” I said, and gestured to Barron. He didn't bother to nod, just opened a portal back into the transit room of the safe house. “Go, go, go!”
Heidi and Nick were somehow the first through, even though I hadn't even seen them arrive. Madison, Amanda, and Hayling were next, followed by David and Barron. Kat slipped through, then Hays and Randall, leaving me alone on the China side with Fortune Renard and – perhaps – Kristina Bonner, wherever the hell she was.
“Arche, you out?” I asked, sending a dozen light webs against the door as David's shield began to fade.
“Taxi got me,” came ArcheGrey's voice over the comms.
“Bonner, the balloon is about to go up,” I said, casting my eyes about. We had less than ten seconds. I stepped through the portal, Renard behind me.
“Oh, I know, baby,” Bonner's voice came from behind me, and I looked to find her, gleaming with sweat, standing with the rest of the team in the plastic-wrapped transit room.
Barron swept his hand down and the portal collapsed, a flash of white on the other side heralding the detonation of the bomb. A little wisp of disembodied fire snaked out of the hole, disappearing as the portal cut it off, snake of fire fading to an afterimage of darkness, a mere spot in my vision.
“Close shave,” Renard said, wide-eyed, standing beside me as the flash faded from our eyes.
I swallowed hard, giving Ricardo, still perched on my shoulder, a scratch behind the head. “Yep,” I said, my voice croaking slightly at the realization that we'd missed being vaporized by less than a second. “But we made it.” I looked at the vehicles around us, and the people. “We made it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Then
Whoever said, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” had a poor grasp of consequences, both temporal and virological. They struck me as an overly optimistic person, the kind who relies on others being perpetually dumber than them. That strategy only worked until you got undone either by a smarter opponent or raw chance, and either way, once it happened, your goose was cooked.
Which is my way of saying I was getting my ass kicked at the slot machines. I swore under my breath as I said adieu to another five dollars lost to the Wheel of Fortune progressive slot, the best money to be made in the whole damned town. Without cheating, I mean. Which I wasn't necessarily averse to.
Don't you think you've blown enough money at the slots for today? Roberto Bastian asked in that slightly-disgusted, self-disciplined way he had. Bastian didn't pipe up too often, but when he did it was usually involving strategy. Like the strategy for not blowing through my entire purloined fortune that I was using to live on.
“Yes, which is why I'm trying to win my money back,” I said, brushing strands of bubble-gum pink hair from my wig out of my face. “I swear, if I had Magneto powers, I'd have dominated this thing by now.” The enormous sign above me indicated the current jackpot was eighteen million dollars. Of course, I couldn't win that without attracting attention, and since I was a federal fugitive, I didn't want attention, so I was playing to win at a very low level.
I felt a presence behind me, and then heard the sound of dollars being fed into the machine next to mine as a tall, broad-shouldered man slipped onto the stool next to mine.
And with the first pull of the lever, that son of a bitch won a hundred bucks.
I hid my face, trying to pretend it was in shame or disgust, while the ringing was going on beside me. When it was all done, and he'd caught his hundred dollars in a plastic cup, I looked over at him slightly venomously.
“My lucky day, huh?” Wade said. He was wearing that same leather jacket, with a battered white T-shirt beneath. “Not only did I win, but I'm sitting next to the prettiest girl in Vegas.” He winced slightly. “Though that hair color...”
“It wasn't my first choice,” I said with an annoyed sigh, pulling my own lever again. “Also, I was playing that machine until like five minutes ago, so clearly I warmed it up for you.” I lost again.
“Oh, well, thanks,” he said, not bothering to play again. Why would he? He could only lose from here. “If you'd like, I could buy you a drink–”
I lifted up the margarita in the plastic cup I was holding. “They keep bringing me free drinks for flushing my money away.”
“So they're not really 'free' then...?”
“They're the most expensive free drinks I've ever gotten, yes,” I said, and with a sigh stacked my last five bucks on one final pull of the lever. The wheels spun...and I lost again. Narrowly. Damn. I stood, sighed again, and said, “So...you made it.”
“And found you right where you said you'd be,” Wade said, rising. “I don't know whether to count that as depressing or–”
“I am a woman of wealth and leisure,” I said, watching tourists stroll by, no one taking notice of the federal fugitive in their midst. They all noticed the wig, then looked away, generally. “What else might I be doing?”
“Making a difference,” he said, plunking a token into the machine and effing winning again, but a smaller amount this time. “Crisscrossing the country intervening in situations that require your assistance.” He scooped his rattling, copper-stinking winnings into his cup. “Serving up the best damned knuckle sandwiches in the world.”
“You hear that, folks? He only likes me for my sandwiches. Isn't that just the story of my life?”
“No one's liked you for your sandwiches, knuckle or otherwise.”
“You've never had one of my non-knuckle sandwiches, how would you know?”
“...Are they any good?”
“You think I lack the basic competence to slap together two slices of bread with some meat between them?” I stared at him, and could tell he was almost writhing with discomfort at feeling like maybe he'd insulted me. “Well, you'd be right. It's like me and houseplants – we just don't get along, and someone always dies.”
“I hope it's never you.”
“Well, it came close a couple months ago, but there weren't any houseplants involved – that I know of.” I sighed. “Just a bank robber named June Randall who was in way over her head.” I looked up at Wade. “You don't like my sandwiches. You're not here to arrest me. So...why are you here?”
“I mean...Vegas,” he said, waving his hand around at me. “And I hear you're rich. Don't underestimate how much that could mean to a working stiff like me. I get so sick of doing these tours of duty, first where I had to go to miserably hot places and kill people, and now where I have to use my dreamwalk powers to make contact with people I don't even want to talk to when I'm awake, let alone when I'm sleeping–”
“Huh,” I said, feeling a little like someone had touched a cattle prod to the base of my spine. “That's...that's freaking genius. That's way smarter than I would have given anyone in our government credit for being, using dreamwalks to communicate with our spies.”
“Thank you,” he said, gleam in his eye. “I'm the one who suggested it. They originally just wanted me out in the field, pulling triggers and draining intel out of bad guys. I'm still doing some of that, but less, because when you've got the entire directory of our spies for Asia in your head, suddenly they don't want you put into situations where you can be tortured for some reason.” He shrugged. “That said, I'm never going to be a man of wealth and leisure doing this, so if you wanted to make me a kept man and retire me so that I, too, can enjoy the world's most expensive free drinks at ten in the morning on a Wednesday...not gonna lie, that sounds pretty damned good to me right now.”
“You'll be a lot less interested when you find out there's an 'aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive' felony charge that comes along with it.”
“Hey, in prison I definitely wouldn't have to make contact with the most loathsome people in the world. Because most of the people who betray their governments? Not motivated by a sense of duty, honor, and justice.”
“Yes, those people in prison are all upstanding citizens, definitely a cut above your traitors.” I stood there for a second, flexing my foot against the awful, multicolored carpeting. “So you're really just here for a vacation?”
“And the free hugs. Don't underestimate the draw of free hugs.”
“I didn't offer free hugs. And this place doesn't offer very good free drinks, so I think the best you're going to get out of this is a free bathroom to use. It's over there, by the way.” And I pointed toward the corner before I put a coin in the slot, lost again, and cursed under my breath. “Do you have Magneto powers or something? Did you absorb a Leprechaun?”
“Not unless it came in my boxes of Lucky Charms as a kid.” Wade put a hand on my arm. “You want to get out of here?”
“You're hungry, aren't you?” I asked, looking at him as I drained the last of my “free” drink.
He frowned. “How'd you know?”
“I never met a warfighter who wasn't constantly hungry. Especially if he didn't have a beer in his hand.” I stood. “Let's go; you're not getting any sandwiches here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Now
“Are we going to talk about this?” Renard asked, stalking along behind me as I paced ahead of the team out of the transit room. The long sheets of plastic curled as they swept away from my fingertips. Everyone else was following after, some softly – Heidi, who was like a mouse – some not so quietly – June Randall's footsteps were particularly loud on the plastic-covered floors.
But everyone was following, and that was something.
“We made it out alive,” I said, turning around to face them all, “and the first phase was successful. Well done.”
Renard looked like he had choked on something. Perhaps a snail. “We were un second away from being vaporized, Sienna.” Thrusting a finger at Bonner. “Because she did not communicate that she was already with us.”
I looked at Bonner, who smiled back at me, very self-satisfied. “I'm sure Kristina had her reasons for what she did,” I said. “But the important thing is...we made it.”
“And vaporized a few thousand Chinese soldiers,” June grumbled under her breath.
“Probably only a few hundred,” Hayling said, scratching the back of his bare arm. There were long marks across his forearm where he'd done a lot of this recently. Well, at least he wasn't tittering presently. “It was a small base.”
June looked like she had swallowed something unpleasant; presumably her innate reaction to all this. But her eyes were still burning, and watching me, and I pretended not to notice.
“You all did very well,” I said, clasping my hands together behind me in military posture. “I had our folks stock up on drink for the lounge. Feel free to enjoy yourselves for a bit, get a good night's sleep – we're moving on target two tomorrow.” I forced a smile, then slipped away, leaving most of them behind me.
But not all.
Renard followed hot; Barron was a few steps behind him, much more mutedly. I gave them each a cool nod, and they waited until we'd slipped into the conference room and I'd shut the door before they spoke.
Of course Renard erupted. “That shadow-melting cow almost got us all killed.”
I stared at him coolly, giving Ricardo a careful scratch. He inclined his head toward me in order to better allow me to get him where he most enjoyed it. Transferring my gaze over to Barron, who had remained stoic and silent, I waited to see what he'd say.
“A few decibels lower,” Barron said in that crisp way of his, “but I have much the same sentiment.”
“If this is the least of the things we are going to do, and we are already this close to the edge of death,” Renard said. He stopped there; the implication was clear.
“Gentlemen,” I said coolly, “your concerns are noted. I'll have a talk with her to make sure it won't happen again.”
Barron didn't stir, but Renard's thin eyebrow raised almost comically. “You'll have a talk with her? Your scout is a loose cannon, Sienna.”
“And I'll get her battened down.”
“Are you certain you can?” The Earl of Hampwick asked with just a subtle trace of reproach. “I've long been familiar with the work of Ms. Bonner. It seems to me she leans too hard on her power to cover what appears to be weaknesses of discipline and mindset.”
“She cares more about her next shopping trip than the job at hand,” Renard said, folding his arms in front of him. “Are you paying her?”
“I'm making sure she's well-motivated,” I said.
“That's not an answer,” Renard said.
“It's not a question you have the right to ask,” I said. The last thing I needed was the prisoners in my crew getting the idea that they could ask for money, or that I actually had any. The money I did have was a war budget, and I was going to need it to fight the damned war. Because I had a feeling it would be a long one, and because China's annual budget was trillions. My lowly four hundred million was a drop in the South China Sea compared to that.
“It might be better to cut her loose now,” Barron said, still treading lightly, “than to pull her along into the final mission and have her buckle therein.”
“I would not trust her to watch my back and I am shocked that you would,” Renard said. “You usually exhibit much sharper judgment than this, Sienna.”
