Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (98 page)

“I was
very
clear with your mistress about our objectives around this seer, Dragon,” Brooks broke in, her voice hard.“ I would hope she hadn’t forgotten our discussion on the urgency of her contacting me the
instant
she got wind of his location…”

“Sir, we are waitings for them now,” the seer said, purring in a way likely meant to be reassuring. “They is coming soon. This important…
very
important. If this is gone, then there will be much easier in dealings with Dragon seer…do not worry…”

Brooks felt her fingers tighten painfully on her own thighs.

“Is there someone else there I can talk to?” she barked, her voice openly angry. “Someone who can speak English better than you do?”

She knew she was being rude now, or at the very least, culturally insensitive, but at that point she really didn’t give a damn.

Even so, the silence on the other end made her wince.

When he spoke next, he made a clicking sound, one containing an overt regret.

“No,” he said. “No, there is no one.” Pausing, he added, “We have problem here, cousin. One of our people…she has hurt mine. Killed. There is problem, so no one else here to help…but if you wait. Just a little more wait, then all will be okay…”

Brooks bit her lip, fighting not to snap at him again.

Problem? What the hell was he talking about?

“Who was killed?” she said, her voice sharp.

“Respected cousin, it is not for me to say these things now. Please wait. If there is only a small wait, the Bridge can tell you everything…I do not wish to worry you now…”

Brooks felt her frustration worsen.

She nearly jumped a foot when someone spoke from just behind where she sat. He kept his voice low, nearly a murmur, but had leaned down close to her ear, so the unexpected proximity made her heart leap to her throat.

“Pardon me for interrupting, Madam President,” her Chief of Staff, Javier Garcia, said from behind her. “But we can’t wait on this much longer…”

Frowning as Brooks turned her head, looking up at him, Garcia waited until she’d hit the mute button on the comm, then added in a low murmur. “That seer’s telling the truth. There’s been some problem at the building where you housed the Bridge’s team. Meaning with the seers she left behind. We don’t have details yet, but it looks like one of them might have killed over half of them. Maybe more. Talei was among the casualties…”

Brooks looked up, her eyes incredulous, but Garcia only went on.

“Most of the others think the Bridge is behind it, sir,” he said, his voice even lower, but holding more of an edge. “I think you’d better talk to them. At least half of the Chiefs think she’s probably allied with Dragon now. And I have to say, it doesn’t look good, sir…between the killings here and the intel reports we’ve gotten from flyers over Beijing, it looks like there’s some kind of internal struggle going on among seer factions. Her people are all fleeing the city, but there’s been no sign of her. There’s a damned good chance she’s reuniting with both of them over there. Her husband and this other telekinetic, Dragon…”

Still gripping the console, Brooks fought to think. She turned her head back towards the monitor without switching it on, trying to decide what to do.

Garcia was right. She needed to go over there and talk to them. She needed to talk them down before they started arguing for something reactionary and deeply crazy.

Assuming she still wanted to do that.

She sighed in frustration, trying to decide how far she wanted to push things with the Bridge, in terms of their tentative alliance. She didn’t want to do anything too drastic before she knew something semi-concrete. She knew how fear and overreaction worked. She needed to calm everyone down before she let herself get talked into doing something radical based on nothing but circumstantial evidence.

Apart from Alyson being late––and clearly
someone
had instructed the seer “Jacks” to call her––she had no reason to believe Alyson was yet in breach of their agreement.

She didn’t really want to kill Alyson Taylor. Not without a damned good reason.

If nothing else, the fallout in the seer community would potentially be massive. She didn’t need a damned shooting war with the seers, especially now, when population numbers between the two species were the most “equal” they’d been since First Contact.

The Bridge was still a quasi-religious figure to many seers.

Even apart from that, Brooks didn’t want to destroy even a relatively slim change that she might have actually found a true ally in the seer community.

She knew she might not have a choice but to act though.

Three living, telekinetic seers wouldn’t be an easy sell in the best of times.

Right now, it was likely to make the military Chiefs standing behind her turn all kinds of interesting shades of purple and red as they started screaming at her.

She couldn’t say she wholly disagreed with that, either.

Brooks had been reminded of the Registry incident more than a few times in relation to even the Bridge herself. She’d also been forced to hear insinuation after insinuation that she was being manipulated by Alyson’s psychic powers in her agreement to any kind of alliance with the Bridge in the first place.

Some of those accusations had been more heavy-handed than others.

Brooks didn’t really believe that, though. That Alyson was manipulating her, that is.

Well, not in the way her security and SCARB advisors meant.

She was still staring blindly at the virtual monitor when the murmurs and voices grew suddenly louder on the other side of the room.

Brooks turned, using her feet to swivel the chair. She focused on the nearly-dozen men and women standing there, all of whom now stared up at the same feed monitor.

Brooks noted Manzares standing in front, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His full mouth held a heavy frown, even as she watched in some alarm as fear bled over his features.

Using the armrests of her chair, Brooks launched herself to her feet, walking over to join the rest of them under the main screen.

“What?” she said, her voice crisp. “What is it, Manzares? What’s happening?”

Manzares didn’t look at her, though.

He continued to frown up at the screen even as Brooks reached his side, folding her arms over her suit jacket as she aimed her eyes up where the rest of them were staring.

She found herself staring at an image of Dubai.

The downtown of the city appeared in crystal-perfect clarity, the first images she’d seen of the famous capital in what had to be at least six months. The current image-capture appeared to be from a flyer, and focused on the walkway of a famous mall area that led up to the base of the Burj Khalifa, what used to be the tallest building in the world.

Gunshots erupted while she watched, making her flinch.

Automatic gunfire. So probably military.

Brooks could see people running in terror down the street. She flinched as the sound of gunfire erupted again, louder that time as the flyer glided lower to the sidewalk. Men in black uniforms and armored vests, what looked like military police, appeared in the right corner of the screen, pouring out over the same section of sidewalk like a liquid wave of bullet-proof shields and armored vests. They chased down the people not in uniform.

Those not holding the shields gunned down fleeing civilians as they ran, using those same shields for cover. Brooks couldn’t see any reason for the attack. Activating her implant, she scanned through the feed that appeared in front of the image, opening a secondary window to the secure feed from Langley to confirm the data.

It all said the same thing.

…
Satellite breaches failing
…
global surveillance systems temporarily restored in full. Warning of civil unrest in multiple areas previously covered by blackout of satellite feeds. Violence appears to be mainly seer on seer and seer on human, although cases of human inflicted deaths reported as well. Extensive civilian casualties starting at 16:23 EST in multiple sites, causes still unknown. Incidents reported in Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Anchorage, New York, Salt Lake City, Zurich, Munich
…

Satellite breaches failing
…
global surveillance systems temporarily restored. Warning of civil unrest in multiple areas previous covered by blackout of satellite feeds
…

Brooks felt something in her chest clench as the message repeated, adding new cities each time it re-started. She couldn’t help noticing all of them were cities Alyson had referred to as “Shadow Cities.”

“What would cause this?” she said, her voice taut. “What would cause this?”

Admiral Preston looked at her, his expression startled, as if he’d forgotten where he was.

“Gentlemen? Ladies?” Brooks said, folding her eyes tighter. “What are your thoughts?”

Leavenson muttered from behind her. “Is it another culling? Some kind of racial purge?”

Glancing back up at the monitor as a new set of images appeared, Brooks winced, catching the tail end of an execution-style murder in what looked like downtown Hong Kong.

The image capture was so close blood splattered on the lens when the gun blew out the back of a kneeling civilian’s head.

“Simultaneous kill orders?” Garcia muttered from behind her.

Brooks looked back at him, even as Preston spoke up on her other side.

“All of our intel confirms the feed,” he said. He sounded like he was reading off of his own intelligence sheets. “…They’re targeting civilians. Humans mostly, although there isn’t a significant difference in racial profiling when the size of the population is taken into account…”

“But why?” Manzares said, his voice sounding as lost as his facial expression looked. “Could seers be doing this? They’re killing seers, too…” He looked around at the rest of them, as if waiting for someone to explain. “…Why would they do this?”

Brooks shook her head, not taking her eyes off the screen.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Even so, that cold feeling in her gut got a lot colder.

Swiveling on her heel, she faced Preston and the others.

“Get whatever’s left of the Bridge’s seers in here right now,” she said. “I want to talk to their leader, Chandre…assuming she’s still alive. They need to explain this to us…right now. Or we’re going to have to act on Beijing…”

“Sir?” Osake said, causing Brooks to turn.

He met her gaze, giving her a grim look.

“We’re getting reports on Beijing now, too,” he said. “Whatever this is, it’s happening there along with the other blackout zones. The Lao Hu are in a shooting war with someone on the ground…there’ve been additional reports of Dragon sightings inside the City’s walls. The few SCARB agents we still have access to from the Beijing office believe the trouble might have actually originated there…presumably inside the Forbidden City, although it’s spread to other parts of Beijing. According to their seers, apparently there was about a twenty minute delay between the fighting erupting there and it spreading to the other cites…”

“How?” Brooks said. “By what mechanism?”

“Unknown, sir.”

“Is he leading them now?” Brooks said. “Dragon? Is he leading the seers?”

Osake shook his head, his hand still on his headset. “Unknown, sir.”

“Any news of the Bridge?” she said.

Osake shook his head again. “We’ve got facial-rec on it, looking for her as well as for her mate, Dehgoies Revik, now that the satellite lines are open. So far no hits…and she hasn’t been spotted by any of our teams. Of course, she could be there under disguise of some kind…”
 

Osake gave Brooks a direct look, still holding his earpiece.
 

“It’s also possible she’s dead, sir,” he added. “I’m still getting reports of a full-blown firefight happening on the ground inside the City. We’re getting images…it’s a lot of seers shooting at other seers, sir…very little human involvement, from what we can tell. The bulk of it appears to be between the Lao Hu seers and some kind of occupying or invading force, possibly from the West. We’ve seen no evidence of Dragon or any of the other telekinetics participating in the fighting so far…”

Brooks snapped her fingers, pointing at the main monitor. “Put the feed up. Now.”