Cloud Rebel: R-D 3 (26 page)

"We have to get to the White House," he said when the roaring lessened in my head.

"Who?" I blinked at him, still in shock.

"They're going to blame this on the Russians," he hissed. "We may be next," he added. "Come on. We have to hurry." Tossing a large bill on the bar, he practically carried me away.

I didn't comprehend how Opal could be outside in a car, waiting for us to get in. The last I heard, she'd been in Europe earlier in the day.

"Buckle up," she instructed as the car peeled away from the curb. "I've contacted Cori-she and Val are on the way. Half of Iraq is gone-six bombs hit. That only put a dent in the stockpile, so who knows what may get hit, next."

"They're getting hit with the bombs-the ones given to them?" I asked. I'd squeezed myself into the back seat and now stared at the back of Opal's head as she wove her way through traffic toward the capitol.

Matt's cell phone rang. "On our way," he barked into it.

"Sir, there's a firefight going on at the Phillips estate," I heard clearly through the phone.

"No surprise," Matt said. "We'll be there soon." Opal hit the gas, forcing the car to lurch forward. Horns honked all about us that night-the night World War Three actually started.

* * *

Corinne

When Val and I arrived at Phillips' compound, half of it was destroyed and the other half was burning, the flames fed by an unnatural source and licking high into the sky. The roar of it joined the noise in my head, amid desperate attempts to reach Ilya in mindspeech, which were peppered with the images of a country hit by the very bombs they'd stockpiled to destroy others.

Except that's not how it would look when all was said and done.

Blame would be laid elsewhere-by design.

Treaties and agreements would be ignored or blatantly tossed aside, as fingers began to point. Ilya-there was no reply from him. That terrified me.

Those who'd taken the bombs away to drop them on unsuspecting targets would find more nuclear weapons and attack more countries. They wouldn't be forced to rebrand the next round of bombs in order to spread the lies of where the attack originated-it would already be written on the missiles themselves.

While some might be shot down-if they could see past the technology and wizardry concealing them-there were too many to be eradicated completely.

All this raced through my mind as we frantically searched for Ilya, Jen and Brett. Wherever they were, a Sirenali hid them from us-we couldn't find them anywhere by
Looking
. In desperation, I attempted to contact Jen. After all, Maye had mindspeech.

Still nothing. Forcing rising fear and panic down again, Val and I snuffed the flames of the fire. He cooled the heated remains well enough that we could walk among them. We scanned every inch of Phillips' compound that night, and found nothing. I feared we'd find bodies of those who'd gone in with Ilya.

There wasn't so much as a fingernail left behind.

Wherever Ilya was, he was either dead or incapacitated. He'd have answered me if he were conscious-or himself.

A terrible dread came over me, then.

Phillips was Sirenali.

What had he done?

Chapter 15

Corinne

Earth doesn't sleep after an event such as this. After the initial shock and silence ends, voices rise in a demand to know why. And, in this case,
who
.

At first, satellite images of the bombing sites were all anyone could see. Radiation levels were off the charts across Iraq; clouds of radioactive dust moved with the winds while surrounding cities and nations did what they could to prepare for its arrival.

Medical teams converged on the borders of Iraq, waiting for refugees to spill over as they ran from the bombsites. Images of dying children, carried by unidentifiable personnel dressed in white protective gear, became common.

Still, there was no word from Ilya.

Auggie and Matt were practically living at the White House-I hoped Granville had enough sense left to realize what a colossal mistake he'd made, but I wasn't counting on it.

James was torn between wanting to go back to D.C. and staying as far from the troubles as he could. The U.N. had launched an investigation into the bombing, as well as the sarin-carrying drone strikes.

They'd find exactly what the Lyristolyi wanted them to find.

The villa was supposed to be ours-Ilya's and mine
-filtered into my thoughts. I stood, a familiar cup of coffee in my hands, on the villa's terrace, gazing across the landscape. Houses and villas were strewn across the land, and in the distance, the town where we'd had our honeymoon dinner.

Everything appeared so peaceful. Benign. Somewhere, not really that far away, people fought for their lives and died, victims of an invisible enemy known as radiation poisoning.

Fuck Earth
.

That phrase returned to haunt me.

Of course, many rallied to the defense of those responsible for the bombings-in their minds, it was justified retribution for the sarin gas killings.

They merely had no idea that those they pointed at as responsible actually had nothing to do with either.

Lies come back to haunt you
. If it weren't so tragic, the fact that the insurgency accepted responsibility for the sarin attacks in the beginning was almost laughable.

It was too late to admit the truth of it now-that they had no idea who was responsible.

Frankly, too, alerting the media that aliens were in their midst and creating chaos on Earth would be met with skepticism and ridicule at this point. Everybody had a known enemy to blame, and was currently doing just that.

Blaming.

While it was something people usually did, the ramifications this time could destroy all of them, with or without help from the Lyristolyi.

Sales of guns and rifles were skyrocketing, too, as if a bullet could stop sarin gas or a nuclear weapon. Or a plane or a tank or any one of a thousand other bigger, badder things.

I cursed the drug, then, and those who'd created it. The foul substance was at the root of all these deaths and destruction.

I understood, too, why the Lyristolyi wanted all of it gone.

The drug could end up killing all of us, in one way or another.

* * *

Notes-Colonel Hunter

Amelia Sander's funeral was postponed for a second time, due to the chaos after the Iraqi bombings. I worried that the former President would never get her just due, because Earth would be destroyed beforehand.

Granville's aide ordered Matt and me into another meeting-one where Richard Farrell was also commanded to attend. Farrell knew Jennifer was missing. I feared not only his instability, but the President's as well.

That's why I asked that Farrell be checked twice for any weapons before he was allowed into the meeting room.

With a glare in my direction that could melt steel, Farrell strode into the meeting room, jerked a chair away from the table and sat before turning his angry gaze toward Matt.

Matt pointedly ignored Farrell, as did Opal, who sat beside Matt. My cell phone was outside with the Secret Service, or I'd have called Cori on the spot. Perhaps she could defuse this situation-I was fresh out of tact at the moment.

"Good morning," an aide announced as she walked into the room. I suppose it was then I noticed it was Laura Quimby-the real one and not Corinne in disguise. Two Secret Service stalked in on her heels, bringing us to our feet for the President's arrival.

Granville looked even more haggard than the last time I'd seen him. At that point, I wished for Leo Shaw's presence-perhaps someone would listen to him as a licensed physician and psychiatrist.

Whatever troubled Granville now, it didn't look good. A swift glance in Matt's direction showed me something I hadn't seen before-he looked pale. Beside him, Opal appeared ill.

They knew something already.

I merely waited to learn what it was before sinking farther into terror and depression than I ever thought possible.

"We have video," Laura announced, and I noticed then that she looked queasy. "The President wants to show you this before discussing our next course of action."

The following ten minutes proved to me that some things can always be worse than your most terrible imaginings.

I will never forget Phillips' grinning face in that video, while he ordered an obsessed and subjugated Ilya to behead Jennifer. I couldn't keep my eyes open to watch the horror as her blood spattered everywhere.

In the background, an unmistakable wolf howl sounded.

Farrell went crazy, trying to get his hands on the President. Two Secret Service agents fired at the same time, while the video continued to play in the background. Farrell was dead, bleeding out on the carpet in a meeting room. Jennifer was already dead, her blood pooling on a tile floor somewhere in the past, the President was crazy and, in my mind, responsible for both deaths. As for Ilya-his eyes had been blank as he dutifully carried out Phillips' commands.

* * *

Corinne

I think Auggie had to calm down before he called me. Still, he was upset when he spoke-as he should be.

"We're pretty sure it was Rafe and not the doppelganger," Auggie's voice shook.

"How?" Val took the phone away from my shaking hands.

"We saw a hand of the camera operator," Auggie said. "Matt did everything he could to identify him from what we had. Turns out, Granville's trusted Agent-in-Charge wasn't so trustworthy. That, or he was obsessed early on and was following Phillips' commands."

"I regret saving Granville's life," I said. The words sounded dead-foreign, even.

"Cori, you can't second-guess everything," Auggie began, his voice sounding small and ineffective from such a distance.

"Sure I can," I said. "Has any of this leaked to the media?" I realized I was trembling. I doubted we'd get Ilya back from this-and there was evidence he was guilty of murder, even if we could remove the obsession.

"Not yet-Phillips doesn't want that, I don't think, although this is as sure a way as I know not to be invited back to the White House," Auggie replied.

"Then why would he do it? Auggie, tell me," I stuttered.

"Do you remember the real Phillips' plans, dearest?" Val turned to me. "Perhaps this one has his sights set on larger things after all."

"The U.N. is calling for Russia to prove that all their stockpiled nuclear weapons are accounted for," Auggie said. "According to the most recent treaty."

"And since the U.N. was never notified that some of those weapons were handed over to insurgents," my lips felt numb as I said the words.

"Exactly. The remnants of the insurgency are already issuing death threats against Russia," Auggie confirmed. "For killing their country with nuclear weapons."

"They were doing a good enough job on their own," I whispered. "Are they complaining, now that somebody else did the job for them?" Yes, I was scrambling-mentally and verbally-to keep from
Looking
to glean the images from Auggie's brain. Images that showed Ilya-
my Ilya
-doing a terrible, terrible thing.

What would he be commanded to do next?

Who would he be told to betray?

Would Phillips understand enough to know I meant him harm if Ilya revealed the Larentii to him?

Once, on the Larentii homeworld, the Sirenali had attempted to bend Larentii to their will.

Would another Sirenali, without the benefit of knowing that history, attempt to do the same thing? Would Phillips' clone do blackmail, or offer things he didn't intend to give, in order to control a Larentii?

"Some things are worse than death," I said aloud.

"What?" Auggie strained to hear what I'd said, since I no longer held the cell phone.

"Colonel Hunter, we will be there in a moment," Val said and ended the call.

* * *

High Council Meeting

Larentii Homeworld

Breanne

"Now we see why Larentii do not interfere," one stood and spoke.

"Yet the Wise Ones are here, and they say to stay the course," Kalenegar responded. It surprised me that he'd listened to the Wise Ones in this matter. His father, Ferrigar, would have blown them off as he often did.

Turning my head, I studied the five Larentii in question. All were resolute in this-as was I. A part remained to be played and as sad as it could be, it would likely prove necessary.

Too many outcomes depended on it. Outcomes that had already happened once, but as these events were taking place in our past, it could affect our present as well as our future.

Even as we stood here, discussing it.

Stephen Hawking said,
"The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities."
He was right.

Only one here knew of my presence-Kalenegar. The others-it was best they didn't know. Kal and I-we'd already had a discussion, and at the end included Nefrigar and Valegar.

Too many things were uncertain, and Kal's word would be final in the matter. I was merely present to see what the others had to say.

I wanted to sigh, too, for the hard, hard road that lay ahead. Not just for us, but for others.

Six months had passed since Wisdom had approached me to make his suggestion.

Yes, many of those gods already dead in our current existence had left their own version of landmines behind, to trip us up. I suspected the drug was a part of that, in addition to other, less obvious things.

Wisdom had pointed to one such. I'd been surprised by his suggestion, yet saw the sense in it before long. Little did I know, then, how it would become intertwined with our current dilemma.

Together, he and I-Wisdom and Love-had exerted our power.

What had been designed to destroy now held a desire for the opposite. We couldn't erase the rogue god's influence from the whole of the intended weapon, but we'd neutralized as much as we could.

That made me smile. Wisdom and I-we'd laid claim to it. It was ours. We would protect it as much as we could, but it had become its own, guided by its own sensibilities. Yes, we felt a bit of pride from our efforts.

I merely wanted everything else to turn out as well.

I no longer knew if that were possible.

"We cannot destroy the Lyristolyi," another Larentii spoke. "It violates everything we do and have done as a race to even consider it."

* * *

Corinne

He's gone
. Those two words whirled continuously through my mind as we landed in Auggie's office and I saw what Auggie had seen in Ilya's face.

No, Ilya wasn't dead. Not physically. I saw the look in his eyes, though, courtesy of Auggie's memory. Inside, Ilya was gone. I couldn't read what he'd been obsessed to do, and likely the original obsession to destroy me had manifested again.

Perhaps it was similar to fictional characters learning that the one they loved had been taken over by a monster, or had become a zombie.

Either way, the result was the same.

Either way, that one was essentially dead.

Val attempted to massage my neck. I moved away from him. Panic threatened to overwhelm me for a moment as the image of Jen's death settled in my brain. A useless, pointless death.

Phillips merely wanted to stretch his credibility. He understood how much he could influence the current President by showing how he could command anyone to do anything.

Since he was Sirenali, there wasn't any way the strongest and most talented among us could find him, either, unless we found a way to track him by mundane means.

"We took bloodhounds to the site," Auggie said as if reading my mind. "Phillips and company didn't leave in any of the usual ways," he added.

"Because Ilya can now fold space," I muttered. I'd thought to protect him. I'd done pretty much the opposite. By handing a powerful weapon to a Phillips clone, he now appeared to be on track to become as bad as the original.

Ilya is gone
, ran through my head again. I should have pulled him away when Granville started down this mad path. Jen and Brett, too. Jen was dead. Ilya as good as. Brett-who knew what they'd tell him to do, or whether they'd just kill him out of hand and be done with it.