Word and Breath (4 page)

Reed Connor stared out through his large windows at the grimy, crowded city street of east Newtown. The roadway and sidewalks were crammed with cars and pedestrians, and the muffled noise made its way up to the third-floor office of the warehouse building he used as headquarters.

He ached for the old city—for everything it had lost—as much as he ached for the losses in his own life.

It was a fairly quiet evening. No accidents or arrests on the street below him, even though both of them were common events in this part of town. Not much was happening at Headquarters either, giving him a rare chance to do some concentrated planning for the future.

He’d put down his notes a half-hour ago, though, and he couldn’t find the motivation to pick them up again.

Connor was “the Librarian”—an appellation he’d started to use as a joke but one that had ended up sticking and then collecting a useful amount of exaggerated mythology. He was supposed to have led a mercenary army in the fight for independence of several different free islands. At roughly the same time, he was supposed to have taught two-thousand people to read so they could infiltrate Union offices worldwide. He was also said to have hacked the impenetrable Union database in the capital and liberated two dozen imprisoned members of the Front. Anytime something inexplicable happened, his name would eventually get tossed about.

According to the stories people told, he’d lived a pretty accomplished life for just being twenty-eight. He wondered what would happen to his reputation if people knew he spent most of his time writing out coded communication.

Not that his efforts at leading the Front appeared to be making all that much difference to the lumbering leviathan of the Union.

Being the Librarian when no one wanted to read was a discouraging job.

Connor was about to indulge in a rare case of self-pity when a knock at the door distracted him. The man who entered was quiet and competent, but the expression on his face made Connor stiffen in his chair.

“What is it?”

“Brook has been arrested.” Kelvin’s freckled face was basically composed, but his forehead was damp and his fists clenched at his sides.

“Military arrest?”

“Police. They took him on a regular patrol.”

“For general suspicious activity? Then what’s the problem?

Arrests happened all the time to those who supported the Front—just as they happened to everyone else. The police were in the habit of picking people up for suspicious activity, whether there were legitimate grounds to do so or not. Connor made sure his people didn’t keep incriminating evidence on them, since they never knew when they might be rounded up and searched.

Kelvin didn’t answer, and Connor could see a muscle rippling in his jaw.

That was when it hit Connor—the impact so intense it was visceral. He jerked out of his chair. “Brook had taken Ammie’s place today. He has all the correspondence for the north side.”

“Yeah,” Kelvin said. “They’ll find it when they search him.”

Moving immediately into crisis mode, Connor strode toward the office door. “Who do we have over there now?”

“No one on duty. We’re short-handed because Ammie is sick and Valance is out of—”

Connor didn’t bother to let him finish. “Contact Torrence at police headquarters. She should be on shift now. Tell her to be prepared to do anything she necessary to keep Brook from being searched when he arrives.” He stopped at the elevator for a moment and saw that it was on the bottom floor. The creaky elevator was too slow to wait for, so he pushed through the door to the stairs and started down them two at a time.

Kelvin, already working on the touchpad of his phone, kept in step with him. “I will. And I’ll send Marius over. He’s not too far away.”

“Good.” Connor cleared the last of the stairs and burst out onto the city street, the dirty humidity of the late afternoon slamming into him like a blow. His glasses fogged up slightly after the cool of the building. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was nearly five o’clock. “Jenson’s in that neighborhood. He’ll be getting off work. I’ll use him. We might have time. If not, tell Torrence and Marius to be prepared.”

Without waiting for Kelvin to respond, Connor jogged down half a block to where his car was parked. The door rattled slightly as he slammed it, but the engine rolled into life as he turned the ignition. Like everything else he owned, the car was unpretentious, of good quality, and had seen better days. He pulled out into traffic and pressed the accelerator, trying to estimate how long it would take him to get to the north side at this time of day.

Barely sliding through a traffic signal, he grabbed his phone and called Jenson.

He prayed they wouldn’t be too late.

***

Twenty minutes later, a police van plowed violently into the back of Connor’s car.

The impact was loud and jarring, and the airbag in front of him deployed with another burst of sound.

Connor was momentarily swallowed by the airbag—winded and disoriented by the brutal motion and the momentum of the crash.

If he hadn’t been expecting it, then it would have been worse.

Even so, the sudden impact and the grating noise of his car being mangled nauseated him. The skin of one side of his face burned, probably scraped up by the air bag. He’d taken his glasses off before the accident, so at least they were intact. As the airbag deflated, Connor sat behind the wheel and breathed deeply, assessing his condition and composing himself.

His job here wasn’t over yet.

Putting his glasses back on, he tried the driver’s side door. It opened with a little more force than normal so Connor was able to get out.

The damage was mostly to the rear end of the car. It had been crushed by the much larger van, and the sight of it inspired an intense pang of regret.

He’d liked this car, and it wasn’t going to be easy to replace.

Some things were more important than that, though, so he concentrated on what he still had to do. The two police officers on patrol were disembarking from the van. One of them approached Connor while the other went to the back to inspect the rest of the damage.

Jenson’s car had come out best. It was his sudden swerving that had caused the accident, and he’d done it very adeptly—managing to side-swipe the police van, enough to do damage but not enough to injure any of the van’s occupants.

As they’d planned on the phone a few minutes ago, an accident like this would inevitably lead to the afternoon’s arrests vacating the van.

Connor saw with relief that the second officer was following protocol and had opened the back of the van. He was now leading a grimy old man onto the street. With this confirmation, Connor started on the next stage of the plan.

“What do you think you were doing?” he roared at the police officer approaching him. “Haven’t you ever heard of using your brakes?”

His friends and colleagues would have gaped had they heard his harsh, resonant bellow. He was well-known for never raising his voice.

When the officer tried to respond, Connor interrupted, “Look at my car! It’s totaled! Do you have any idea what this car means to me?”

He kept it up, gesticulating a lot and causing such a scene that onlookers gathered around to witness the show. The other officer had herded the arrests out of the van, making sure they were still cuffed and gagged, but his attention kept straying to Connor.

By now, Jenson had gotten out of his car and was holding a handkerchief to his forehead. Connor didn’t dare to look at him directly, but out of the corner of his eye he saw that he was carrying a canvas bag—incongruous next to his old-fashioned tweed jacket.

The first police officer, not appreciating Connor’s attitude, had started to raise his voice too. The second officer, having ascertained that the arrests weren’t going anywhere, stepped over to intimidate Connor with his bulk.

It was painfully hard not to watch what Jenson was doing, but Connor managed to turn away as he yelled, gesturing wildly toward his mangled car.

“Is everyone all right?” The mild, cultured voice belonged to Jenson, breaking into the increasing hostility.

When Connor turned back around, he saw that the canvas bag Jenson carried was now different. He’d managed to make the switch with Brook—protecting the Front’s correspondence.

Had Brook been taken in a military arrest, they’d have been out of luck. The military handled the arrests of all suspected traitors, and the guards were far more vigilant and experienced.

But police patrols picked up people every day—loiterers, drunks, petty thieves, and those at the wrong place at the wrong time. Invariably, they were fined and released. After they were searched, of course.

Brook would be fine, now that Jenson had possession of the incriminating correspondence.

Connor pretended to be bullied into silence, and he let the officers write up the accident and send both him and Jenson to the hospital.

They didn’t fully relax, however, until they were taped up, checked out, and sent on their way.

Kelvin came to pick them up, since both of them had lost their cars.

Connor had a brutal headache and he still felt vaguely nauseous, but he was satisfied with what they’d accomplished.

“I hope you appreciate my sacrifice,” Jenson said dryly, looking oddly unkempt with the white bandage over one temple. “I’ll now have a violation on my perfect driving record.”

“Tragic. I had to sacrifice my car.”

Jenson chuckled softly and stared out the window as the lights of the city blurred by them. It was already dark. They’d lost the whole evening. “It was time to give up that hunk of junk, anyway.”

Jenson was Connor’s cousin—several years older and intensely private. Connor had brought him into the Front a few years ago, once he’d decided the man could be trusted.

It had been a gamble, since Jenson would always be a slightly unknown quantity, but he’d proven himself loyal. And indispensable. And not a bad man to have on one’s side.

Connor sighed and leaned his head back against the car seat. The pang he felt in his chest was genuine—however trivial it should be. “Maybe my car can be fixed.”

Then he opened his eyes. “Thanks, by the way. You were perfect. No trouble with the exchange?”

“No. Everyone was focused on your histrionics. I had no idea you were so good at being a prima donna.”

Connor ignored this jibe and reached over to pull the canvas bag into his lap to find the pages they’d risked so much for.

The Front had used written texts for years to share information and to exchange plans and directives. Since few people could read, the correspondence was relatively safe, even if a text now and then was intercepted. The only real danger was on the days the monthly correspondence was delivered. They split it up as much as they could, but so many written texts in one place were sure to be suspected, even if they couldn’t be read.

Most of the Readers were loyal to the Union. And Connor’s codes—hidden in written language—were good but they weren’t unbreakable.

Connor closed the bag and put his hand on it, finally relaxing in the knowledge they were safe.

“I think we have someone new to recruit,” Jenson said, breaking the silence of the car.

Connor slanted his eyes toward his cousin and noted something almost wary on the other man’s face. “Who is it? Another one of the Readers?”

“Yes.”

When Jenson didn’t continue, Connor arched his eyebrows. “Who is it?”

Still no answer. Connor suddenly realized why.

He gritted out, “No.”

“We need to revisit the issue.”

“No.”

“Yes.” The force in the one word was startling, as was the almost angry look in Jenson’s eyes. “You don’t get to close down the issue without even discussing it. We can use her. And we can trust her. Why wouldn’t—”

“We don’t need her,” Connor interrupted, knowing he sounded petty and young but unable to make his objection take on any more weight. “We have plenty of Readers already. And there’s no reason to drag her into—”

“We drag people in! That’s what an underground movement does. We recruit people to our cause until we have enough supporters to change things. We drag people into this, even knowing we put them at risk. You
know
that. And you can’t let your feelings for Riana—”

The sound of her name made Connor want to strike Jenson. He didn’t, of course. He just clenched his fist and looked away, out the window at the runners in the park. “Any feelings I might have had are long gone.”

“Right.” The word was dry and not quite under Jenson’s breath.

Connor wasn’t a liar, and he rarely spoke anything but truth to his compatriots. Especially Jenson, who was related by blood as well as by loyalty.

But he couldn’t admit to this. Not after the three years he’d spent trying to convince himself his feelings for Riana Cole were gone.