Allie's War Season One (146 page)

She’d be with the boy, anyway; he could even argue that going after her was contractual on his part...part of what he’d promised Salinse as a measure of their agreement. The rest of them would take down the White House security system and the construct itself, which was what they wanted to do anyway. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Salinse’s people were enjoying this op on more than one level. They wanted Allie back, sure…she was the Bridge. But they also loved the idea of taking down one of the humans’ more enduring modern symbols. He could leverage that enthusiasm, and get what he needed from them at the same time.

He knew that if the grid truly went down it could start an actual shooting war in the middle of Washington DC, so they had contingency plans for that eventuality as well.

It could spiral out of control anyway, but again, he was willing to take that chance. The truth was, there was no way in hell Terian wouldn’t be expecting him. He could plan to delay that knowledge as much as he wanted, but at the first sign of any disturbance, Terian would deploy assuming it was him. He couldn’t help but build in redundancies, but still only had two real backups for his first idea, and both were risky as hell...and none changed that naked fact.

Besides, a certain amount of guesswork was unavoidable without a contact working on the inside. Any one of the contingencies he’d mapped would depend a hell of a lot on whatever he eventually found once they breached the perimeter. Whatever that ended up being, it would contain at least a few surprises.

Knowing that didn’t help him a damned bit, really.

Wreg still seemed to find the approach strategy for the primary team amusing, but Revik had noticed he wasn’t as naive about human culture, or even American culture, as he would have expected given the Rebels’ isolationism. He found himself wondering just how many ops Salinse’s seers had pulled on this continent over the years from the Barrier, if not actually on the ground.

He decided he didn’t really care about that either.

In any case, Wreg was fully on board with the plan now.

Leaving the main equipment store, Revik pushed aside a beaded doorway, and found himself in the parlor of their secondary “safe house.” That part, Salinse’s people hadn’t provided; Revik handled that end himself with contacts he had in the States. Upon entering the room, he found himself face to face with Kat before he knew who he was looking at.

It had been a long time since he’d seen her in her full regalia. His eyes drifted down out of habit, settling on the high heels under the silk dress that barely covered her crotch. She smiled at him coyly and he frowned, looking away.

His eyes passed by Jon and settled on Ullysa.

“What the
fuck
is she doing here?” he said.

Ullysa raised an eyebrow. She lounged liquidly on the velvet sofa, her dark red hair spilled over her neck and decolletage. She seemed to be artfully arranged no matter what the occasion, even in their makeshift war room, but it didn’t make her any less valuable of an infiltrator.

“You said to bring my infiltrators, Revi’,” she said, her eyebrow still arched.

He glanced at Kat. “I didn’t mean her. Why the fuck would you bring
her?
You know damned well I can’t trust her with this...” he said, not bothering to look at Kat as he spoke. “I want her out of here. Now.”

Ullysa clicked at him softly. “You can trust all of us in this, Revi’. You know that. Kat will do her job.”

Unconvinced, Revik turned on Kat, his mouth hard. “Anything happens to my wife and you’re anywhere near the cause and I’ll kill you.”

“Or I will,” Jon muttered.

The Russian seer looked hurt for an instant, but it left her face, leaving a colder mask. She glanced at Jon contemptuously, then up at Revik.

“So I get death threats now? Is that how it is?”

He didn’t lower his gaze.

After a pause, Kat seemed to see something in his expression.

She retracted her light. Clicking, she blew bangs out of her face, shrugging with one hand as she rolled her eyes.

“Relax, Dehgoies. I am being paid, aren’t I?”

Revik pointed at Ullysa. “I don’t want that bitch anywhere near Allie. I mean it. I’ll hold you responsible, ‘Llysa.”

“Revi’...”

“No arguments. Just agree with me and say, ‘yes, sir.’ She can mindfuck Terian’s humans if she needs to get her claws in something...”

Ullysa looked a bit startled, but after a pause where she glanced searchingly at Jon, she looked back up at Revik. Making a conciliatory gesture, she exhaled hiri smoke as she gave him a puzzled look.

“Yes, sir,” she murmured.

He walked past them into the staging room beyond the parlor. Seeing Jon rise to his feet, he stepped aside to let the human enter in front of him, but not before he heard Kat mutter to Ullysa in Prexci,

“Yes...this Bridge bitch is holy all right. Making Revi’ look and act like a Rook again...or is it only me that notices?”

“Shhh,” Ullysa murmured. “His wife’s been stolen, Kat.”

“Fuck that. It’s no excuse for—”

Revik let the door swing shut behind him, forgetting their words before he’d stopped hearing them. Watching Jon out of the corner of his eye, he focused on Wreg, wincing a little as he slumped into a chair to rest his leg. He couldn’t afford to be limping when they entered the building. It was the little things that might get him caught, and he knew they’d have gait-recognition software in the White House security feeds too, along with everything else.

Knowing Terian, he might even think to flag anyone with a limp, just on the off chance he picked him up that way.

Wreg was arranging weapons on a long, wooden table.

“You ready for your disguise?” he said, smiling at Revik.

Revik ignored that, too.

“Is the regular here?” he said instead.

Wreg nodded towards a side door. Rather than get up, Revik pinged the seer in the other room through the construct. He waited, still massaging the top part of his thigh, until the male appeared in the doorway.

“Okay,” he said, grinding his jaw against the pain in his leg. “Talk.”

“Talk?” The seer’s sea green eyes widened a little.

At Revik’s expression, his rounded face tightened, his smile wavering a bit as he glanced at Jon, then more reluctantly back at Revik. His blond hair was long, winding down the back of his neck. His face was almost feminine it was so pretty, but he didn’t carry the markers of a homosexual trick only, despite his obvious interest in Jon.

His body was close. Not perfect, but close. Revik found himself thinking the unwilling was in better physical shape than he was.

Still, it was easier to modify in that direction than the other.

The young seer cleared his throat, folding his long hands. He’d been schooled around humans all right; even his mannerisms were flawless. Revik found himself looking the male over again, scanning his light.

Wreg had chosen well.

He motioned for the young seer to get on with it.

“What do you want to know?” the male said.

“Everything,” Revik said, still focused on his leg. “Tell me what you can, but mostly I want you to let me into your mind. Don’t keep a damned thing from me...not out of false modesty or national security or anything else. You won’t get a cent if I find out there was anything less than full disclosure. Further, I’ll make sure SCARB finds out about your little operation here if I’m not completely satisfied...assuming you don’t really piss me off and I just shoot off your cock and watch you bleed to death.”

Letting a pause hang in the air, he held the unwilling’s gaze.

“...Are we clear?” he asked.

Jon flinched, staring at Revik.

The boyish face of the male unwilling faltered still more. He glanced at Jon, again seemingly looking for reassurance. He gestured affirmative.

“Okay.” He straightened in his chair. “Where should I start?”

“I said everything,” Revik growled. “...Preferences, cutesy nicknames, rituals the two of you have...all of it. Walk me through a normal visit, and picture it in your head. Don’t spare a single detail, from the security guard at the front gate to whatever happens when you leave...”

The boy, stammering somewhat, began to speak.

As he did, Revik leaned back in the chair, entwining his light in that of the unwilling’s so he could not only hear his words, but see it, feel it, smell it along with him. He wove a map of the young seer’s light as he listened, storing it in the construct as he created it, so the team could map it too, ensure he didn’t miss anything. Whenever the boy’s mental timeline skipped, he stopped him, had him rewind, take him back through the next set of sequences until he understood it all.

Once he’d gone from beginning to end, he had him describe a few more visits, noting any small variations. They were few.

About two hours later, he began to relax.

“All right.” He glanced at the seer from under his hand, stretching out his wounded leg. “Thanks. You can go. But stay available.”

The unwilling rose to his feet, still visibly nervous as he left the room. He gave Jon a last glance as he left, and Wreg gave him a reassuring pat on the back as he walked by. Jon had a look of near incredulity on his face as he looked at the unwilling, then back to Revik, but Revik didn’t bother to answer his stare.

Most humans were surprisingly naive about what went on in Sark fetish.

For that matter, so was his wife.

The thought brought a sharp stab of pain, bad enough to catch him up short.

For a moment he only sat there, a hand over his face. He knew it was bad enough that the others noticed; neither of the two men tried to talk to him while he waited for it to pass. Once it began to ebb backwards he glanced to his right, looking at the bottle on the table nearest to Wreg.

Following his glance, Wreg shook his head, clicking softly at him, his lips curved in a smile.

“Maybe Salinse was right about you,” he mused, wandering towards the table. He picked up the bottle. “You’re quite the taskmaster when you’re motivated. Did you get what you needed?”

“Most of it.” Revik nodded in thanks when the older seer poured and handed him a drink. Taking a long swallow, he relaxed deeper into the chair, rubbing his temples. “There’s still something that’s bugging me. I want to know how Terian knew where we were...in those hills. Either someone told him, someone in the Seven or one of Balidor’s...or the boy led him there.”

Jon still seemed to be fighting his equilibrium back from the interview with the unwilling.

“Which do you think it is?” he said finally.

“The boy,” Revik said promptly, although he had no evidence to back his assertion. “What I don’t know is which of us he was tracking.”

“Meaning?” Wreg said, eyebrow raised.

“Meaning...he might not need to recognize me if he already knows where I am,” Revik said. “If I’m his link to Allie, or if she’s his to me...either way, trying to fool him with a disguise might be a complete waste of time.”

Wreg pondered this a moment, his thick face thoughtful.

“So you’d be walking into a trap,” Jon said.

“Potentially, yes.” Revik drained the glass, setting it on the side table by his chair. Taking the half-full bottle from Wreg, he refilled the glass without looking up at either of them. “Unless we plan for being spotted. Unless I’m expecting him to find me...”

“He won’t have your wife with him,” Wreg said, skeptical.

“No,” Revik conceded. “Unless...”

“Unless what?” said Jon.

Revik frowned. He glanced up at Wreg. “He wants my wife to fall in love with him, right? The boy.”

Wreg frowned back. “From what you said, yes.” He stared at Revik, as if trying to read past his eyes. Suddenly, understanding flared there, as the rest of Revik’s plan suddenly made sense.

“That’s why you’re going in like this?” he said.

Revik shrugged, his eyes flat. “It’ll have to be loud. From the Barrier, I mean. Loud enough to convince him it’s real...and that it’s me. Like you said, he wouldn’t have her with him. He’d probably even hide her away somewhere.” He added, no emotion in his voice, “...Unless I give him a reason to want her along.”