Word and Breath (31 page)

“Kids can learn more than people realize.” Largan looked calm and confident—strangely powerful for a plain, slightly pudgy man. “There’s also a letter I unearthed. It’s not entirely clear, but I believe in it he’s implying he taught someone how to translate the book.”

No way to argue with that. Riana had no knowledge of that letter, but she was positive Largan was telling the truth.

He pulled out a gun from his jacket pocket and pointed it at Jannie.

Terror clawed at Riana’s throat. “Please don’t hurt her.”

“I don’t want to.” Largan lowered the gun. “But I need a translation of that book.”

Riana picked up the pages again and stared down at them. “I’ll do what I can.”

Mikel walked over and rested his fingers on the back of her neck. He didn’t open a connection this time, but she closed her eyes to act like he had. “She can’t read the language right now, but she knows enough to start,” Mikel said.

“Good.”

“I’ll do it,” Riana choked out, not having to fake the animosity. “I’ll stay here and work on it. But my sister is ill. Let her go, and I’ll help you.”

Largan shook his head, looking almost reluctant. “I can’t. Then I’d have no leverage with you. Besides, she’d talk.”

“So you’re going to kill us anyway, after you get your translation?”

“No,” Largan said, his expression faintly surprised. “I’ll reward you. And we can come up with some sort of arrangement to keep you both silent about this.”

Riana wondered if he was telling her the truth. “So why is this book so important anyway? Why go to all this effort to read it? What is it about?”

“I don’t know. That’s why we need to get it read.”

“I don’t believe you. Obviously, something about it is important. I was almost killed so it wouldn’t be translated.”

“So you figured that out, did you?” Largan asked, shaking his head. “We’re working on tracking down that particularly offensive group of Zealots. They won’t succeed at killing you.”

“There must be a mole in your office,” Mikel put in, “If they knew about the book to begin with.”

“I know that.” For the first time, Largan looked genuinely annoyed. “Although I reported Riana’s language ability to the capital, so it’s possible the leak came from them.”

“If it’s so important, why isn’t this book in a research facility?” Riana tried to get them back on topic, since she wasn’t particularly interested in the loyalty of Largan’s employees.

The response was only silence.

It told her something.

Mikel too, evidently. “You’re doing this on your own,” he said, a new note in his low voice. “Union leadership doesn’t even know about this little project of yours.”

Largan gave a huff of frustration. “And your point is?” When no one answered, he continued, sounding like he was at the end of his rope. “They know about Riana and are interested in what she might know about that language. But they don’t know about the kidnapping, no. I never would have even been aware of the book had I not researched Cole so extensively. They have his book. It’s right there in the Central Archives. A book no one can translate. And no one even
cares
!”

They all stared at Largan. Riana was taken aback by his vehemence, even as a tiny part of her responded to the sentiment.

“The book was the crown of Cole’s collection. And no one has known what it says since the man died. Who knows what kind of truth it could hold?”

“Truth?” The faint, dry question was Mikel’s.

“Knowledge. History. Human experience. Answers to questions we have. Call it whatever you want.”

Riana almost gaped. She never would have expected talk like that from a Union official. It sounded like something Connor would say.

“I know this book is important,” Largan concluded. “It’s been driving me crazy for years. I tried to get the capital to pursue a translation, but they couldn’t even be bothered. They wouldn’t even let me make this copy. I had to do it on my own. We have this book full of something important—and no one even cares!”

“That’s the Union,” Riana murmured, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

Her comment seemed to deflate Largan. He looked tired suddenly, rather than vehement. “That’s not all the Union is,” he corrected, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. “And I’ll never support rebellion like your friends in the Front. But I know I’m right in this, and I’ve always believed that men who see clearly need to help the government do the right thing. That’s why I’m doing this.”

It was strangely moving, shockingly so, but Riana pushed that reaction aside in favor of the one that hit closer to home. “
This
is the right thing? Forcing me to do this? Kidnapping my sister? Look at her! She’s sick. And you’ve just been using her like…like—.”

“I had no choice. I’ve been doing this on my own, and it was the only way.”

Riana knew Largan spoke what he genuinely believed, but it didn’t matter. “And I’m supposed to be okay with that? She’s my sister. Haven’t you ever loved anyone?”

She was watching his face. And saw not just a flicker of response. His face twisted in visible pain.

Despite everything, Riana experienced a sharp stab of pity for him, as she wondered who it was he loved.

“The ironic thing is,” she said, her voice strained and hoarse, “if you’d come to me, explained the whole situation and your need to translate this book despite Union indifference, I would have helped you voluntarily.”

There wasn’t time to process the expression on Largan’s face. It went blank almost immediately, after Mikel reached out and opened enough of a connection to knock him out. Largan slumped to the floor.

Things happened quickly, after that.

Mikel made it to the first guard and knocked him out too before the man could react. But the second guard was at the end of the hall, and he started shooting.

A bullet hit Mikel in the shoulder.

Riana, helping Jannie off the cot, whimpered as she saw Mikel jerk back slightly. It reminded her so much of Jenson before he’d died.

Mikel didn’t go down, though. He grabbed the gun from the unconscious guard and used it to fire back. The second guard fell, wounded but not dead.

Without speaking, Mikel swung Jannie up with his uninjured arm. They hurried down the hall and out into the basement.

The construction workers were back again, working just in front of the hidden door. They had a small dumpster on wheels between them to hold the debris from their work.

“Let’s move,” Mikel said, propping Jannie up against the dumpster, obviously strained at having to carry her.

Tava and Donn grinned back at them from beneath their construction caps. “Who’s first?” Donn asked, gesturing toward the dumpster.

They lifted Jannie in first, while Riana stifled her slight nausea to check out Mikel’s shoulder. “Are you all right?” she asked. He looked paler than normal, and his face was covered with a sheen of sweat. His shirtfront was stained with blood, and Riana helped him put on his jacket again to cover to wound temporarily.

He gave her a bracing smile. “Just fine. You can coddle me later.” He gave her a brief, hard kiss as he helped her into the dumpster with Jannie.

“I’ll go first,” he said, as Donn and Tava started to cover Jannie and Riana with construction debris. “To make sure the way is clear. You all keep moving, no matter what.”

In the dark now, unable to see, Riana shifted until she found Jannie’s hand. She squeezed it in anxiety and excitement.

Maybe this would actually work.

***

While Mikel was being a hero and Riana was putting her life in danger, Connor had to wait in the van near the rear exit of the building.

It was enough to drive him insane.

Posen, through his position in administrative services, had arranged to get Tava and Donn into the building today under the guise of the ubiquitous construction workers. They’d been working in the basement all day, pulling up the flooring. They were probably exhausted from the manual labor, but they had to be in place to sneak Riana and Jannie out of the building when they had cleared the bunker.

Connor strummed his fingers on the steering wheel and looked at the clock for the thirtieth time in the last thirty minutes.

He was telling himself not to panic when he saw the rear door of the building burst open.

Tava and Donn appeared, running while pushing the dumpster in front of them. They opened the back doors of the van and climbed in after pulling Riana and—to Connor’s vast relief—Jannie out of the dumpster. All of them looked healthy, if rather frightened.

“They discovered us on our way out. Largan woke up prematurely and sounded the alarm,” Tava explained breathlessly.

“Mikel,” Riana mumbled, leaning out the back of the van to look.

“He was giving us cover to get out,” Donn said. “Good man in a fight. Wounded or not, he’s a force to be reckoned with.”

Connor was just about to fear for Mikel’s safety when he saw the Soul-Breather race out the back door of the building, jumping into the van just as guards exited with drawn weapons.

Connor didn’t wait for an explanation. Even before they’d gotten the door shut, he started off, his tires screeching as he hit the accelerator.

The guards from the building fired but—once the doors were closed—the bullets couldn’t penetrate the van’s bullet-proof exterior. The Front had used this carefully modified vehicle, frequently changing its color and license plate, for more than one project in the past.

They hadn’t made it halfway down the alley when Connor saw that the approaching intersection was barricaded with several of cars and trucks.

He slammed on the brakes. They wouldn’t be able to get through.

“Who is that?” Tava gasped, leaning up into the front seat to stare at the armed men at the barricade.

Mikel, pale and drawn, joined her in peering through the windshield. “Looks like our old friends the Zealots. Largan really needs to work on that mole in his office. The news must have gotten out that Riana had been brought in.”

Connor started backing up in the narrow alley. “I guess they decided this was the best time to get rid of the threat they think she poses. Were they really going to attack Union headquarters to get to her? I’ve never seen Zealots so organized and aggressive.”

It was frightening. Made him wonder what else they might try to do.

He braked again as he saw more guards pouring out of the building, blocking passage in the alley from his van.

“Keep going,” Mikel muttered. “They’ll move.”

Connor considered it for a couple of seconds but stopped when he saw a military-style vehicle turn into the alley behind the guards. There was always one stationed in the underground parking deck of the Office of Public Safety, and the guards must have gotten to it more quickly than he’d hoped.

He pulled the van to a complete stop, his eyes scouring the pavement for what he knew would be there.

“Oh no!” Tava breathed, her eyes wide and panicked. “They trapped us.”

They were trapped. Very nicely. Between murderous Zealots and angry Union guards. Neither a particularly good option.

Mikel had opened a compartment in the back of the van and was handing out a variety of guns. Even Riana took a small pistol, although she looked very uncomfortable holding it.

“What now?” she asked, her gray eyes pleading with Connor.

“Surrender now, and no one will get hurt!” It was a Union guard on a megaphone. Normal practice in a hostile situation like this.

The Union always gave people a chance to surrender before they openly attacked. Except, of course, in the case of Riana’s parents.

The Zealots had different practices. They never negotiated or gave warnings. Their purpose here was to kill, so they started firing at the van. They had automatic weapons, and the din was horrible. The van shook from the impact of so many bullets. Even protected as it was, they wouldn’t last long in the face of such an attack.

“Should we surrender to the Union?” Riana asked, a protective arm around Jannie.

The Union guards started firing back. Regulation required them to shoot to protect themselves.

So their van was trapped in the middle of a shootout.

It would have been funny had they not been such sitting ducks.

Then Connor finally found what he was looking for. He jerked the van forward, steering it to the right. One of the van’s tires was blown out, but the van lurched forward enough to get it where he needed it to be.

Mikel looked like he was readying himself for his final showdown. He was impressive—Connor had to admit—pale and wounded but utterly resolved in the face of death.

“Connor?” Riana gasped, her eyes panicked as she took in Mikel’s face and preparations.

“No need for heroics.” Connor crawled out of the driver’s seat and into the back with the others. “And you always complain about all my planning,” he murmured, with a wry smile at Riana.