Legacy (Alliance Book 3) (5 page)

As always, Riley volunteering to do something decidedly stupid or dangerous.

“No, Riley. You can’t. You haven’t even recovered from what you did to yourself the last two days. Never mind the way you look. They’ll shoot you on sight, Riley. They won’t take you as a hostage, is what I mean, and there won’t be anything to rescue. None of the Zoriners can go,” he said.

Ams was standing next to him then, staring into his eyes with her ridiculous grays, “Brody, you know you have to let me. I am your best bet for this. You or your boys can’t go because you are like them, they won’t take you hostage, and you know that. Laurel is a better shot, so if I don’t make it, you don’t lose that for Crylo, and I am better than she would be for this. I can buy myself enough time, I promise I can. They won’t touch me because of what I am. I just need to cover my freckles...” and she ran out of the room, giggling.

He watched Riley’s face, but he looked calm enough, and he didn’t chase after her. Stan was calculating how much of everything he’d need on one of Ella’s old pads. He kept them for some reason. He made a list of things: rope, carabiners (6), sticky charge, flint, and handed it to Trelix, and then went back to drawing pictures again.

Riley finally walked over to him and gently took him by the arm, “I need to talk to you. In private, Brody,” and he walked him out of the room and down the hall to the comm room. It was empty now. Riley closed the door softly behind him. He didn’t seem angry at him or at Ams, and he distrusted it.

“I know what you are thinking, Brody, but you are wrong. I won’t ask you not to let her do this. I promised Ams that I would never do that to her again, so I won’t. I can’t. But... Ams is afraid of heights. I don’t know if she forgot that or didn’t realize that’s what it was when she learned, but I promise you she is. She almost fainted standing at the window in one of these rooms before, and being in the elevator did to her what it did to you.”

He felt himself blush, embarrassed, but Riley ignored it.

“I don’t know how she plans on flying from roof to roof on a rope, Brody. Don’t know if she can do it, and I don’t want to be the one to question it with her. We should probably take her up on the roof here first and do a practice run, is what I am saying, and you need to be the one to bring it up, not me. And Brody,” he was looking at him old-Riley-like, concern on his face, “Drake and I or one of your boys and I can take her. You don’t need to be there for that.”

He nodded to him, and threw him an unasked for hug, “I think I can learn to like you again, Riley, if you just stop screwing up like you’ve been,” and he grinned at him, and was rewarded with a sharp jab in his shoulder.

Ams was back inside, not a freckle on her, perfectly calm, chatting with Laurel in that casual way they had. “Ams, we need to do a dry run, this roof to the next, so we can make sure you get the hang of what you’ll need to do beforehand. It’s a tad harder than it looks in these doodles Stan’s been making,” he said, keeping his voice even. She was up as were Stan and Drake. He already knew Drake would want to come, and there was no need for him to argue that point. They took the elevator to the top, and then Stan took them to a staircase they didn’t know was there that led to the roof. Riley was up first, standing there breathing the wind in, eyes closed, as if he was actually enjoying this. Maybe he was. He wished he was all right with this, but he felt all sorts of shaky and he was thankful that he was at the tail of this procession up the metal steps with far too much space in between, plenty of space to fall through, and he hoped when he finally made it to the roof that everything he was feeling didn’t show on his face.

He watched Ams more carefully now for any signs of discomfort, but she seemed okay. Serious but okay. Stan wound the belt around her waist, measured what he needed to and took it off, making notches in it with a small knife. He watched him throw the end of the rope with a spiky arrow on it over the edge, and light the wire that ran alongside it. After twelve seconds the rope flew up and over, landing with barely a thud on the roof of the building across from them. There was roughly forty meters between the two. They tugged on the rope, all of them but Ams, and it seemed stuck to the other roof solidly enough. It didn’t budge at all. Stan put the belt on Ams telling her how to unhook herself from the rope when she made it to the other side, making her do it a few times. She turned to all of them, and he saw it then, though she was smiling, her eyes were afraid, and he could see the sheen of sweat on her forehead. She was definitely afraid, but making herself do it anyway.

“I am ready boys. I think somebody is supposed to give me a push here or something,” and she turned away from them.

Riley had his hands on her shoulders. He watched as he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the top of her head, and said calmly, “See you on the other side, Ams. I’ll be right behind you.” And he ran her to the edge and very softly told her to push off and close her eyes if she needed to. He only heard that part because the wind carried it to him. And she was gone, not screaming, not flailing, just flying on that rope like it was no big deal, and nobody could tell if she had her eyes closed or not. They just knew she made it, as they watched her standing there, waving at them now, screaming something meant for Riley that they couldn’t decipher. And then Riley was flying to where she was, only he could tell he was actually enjoying it. Son of a bitch was grinning, and he had his arms out to the sides, running his fingers through the air. It struck him as strange that he never knew this about his friend. They all climbed a few trees together, but everybody in Waller did that. This kid was at home up here. Maybe that’s why he picked the tallest damn building in Reston for them to camp out in, and spent so much time standing at that window, staring at the world.

Going back down on those metal steps was worse, a lot worse. Stan was already in the hallway to the elevator, and it was just him and Drake a few steps above him. He felt his hands get slick with sweat and he worried he might let go, without meaning to. He had to stop, but didn’t want Drake to know. He looked down and there were only a dozen steps left, but still too high to jump from without at best breaking his legs.

“Brody, hand me your belt,” Drake’s voice reached him, sounding far too calm for what he was feeling. He couldn’t take his belt off without letting go of the step he was suddenly stuck to. He shook his head at him and forced himself to drop his foot down a bit, looking for a foothold, feeling frantic now. He felt Drake’s hand grab onto him, holding him up by the front of his jacket.

“Would this be the wrong time for me to tell you that I am afraid of heights, Drake?”

And of all things Drake laughed at him, “So am I, Brody. So am I. All you need to do is slide your feet down step by step, Brody. I got the rest of you and I’m not letting go.”

He was sweating and breathing too fast when his feet finally touched the floor, solid, without any spaces to fall through in it, Drake standing over him with a concerned look on his face.

“I’m all right, Drake. How the hell did you do that, if that’s true? If you are afraid of heights? I could have just killed you....” He was too embarrassed to look at him, “I’ll catch up, Drake. I just need a minute.”

Drake crouched in front of him, looking at his face, all serious, “Brody, there isn’t a person in the world that’s not afraid of something. The heights thing, I’ve been afraid my whole life, but then I had to climb that damn tower at the compound every day, didn’t have any kind of a choice about it, and after a few months I wasn’t afraid anymore. It just stopped bothering me. I saw your face on that roof and I knew, because I knew what to look for. Ams, too, but I’m pretty sure you know that already. So now that everybody knows what they need to know, get up, soldier, and let’s go do this thing,” and he pulled him up by the shoulders, still watching him carefully for some reason.

“Brody, if you need to find something to be embarrassed in front of me over, make it count, okay? Because this isn’t one of those things, and something tells me you’ll try to fix it anyway. Let’s go, kid,” he snapped at him and he did, still feeling a bit out of sorts over the whole thing.

Everybody was geared up and ready to go when they finally made it in. Laurel and Ella were in charge of comms, and Loren just finished walking them through everything they’d need. Trelix had everyone but the girls in body armor suits already, running through weapons and comm checks. He grabbed his suit and had Trelix try to find a large one for Drake, only there weren’t any that would fit him. Drake didn’t seem to care about it, telling them that he’ll be okay and they still had to let him come. After a few more minutes they seemed as ready as they were going to be. The plan was simple enough. Ams had a comm unit in her ear. It would stay on the whole time, so they could hear everything. She had to let herself get caught and simply find a way of telling them how many they were up against and anything else they might need to know. Loren tried hacking the security for them to get through the door, but it was no use, so he did the next best thing. Reprogrammed their cameras so they’ll shut off once they had contact with Ams.

He was half listening, trying his best to hide the apprehension he was feeling about jumping from roof to roof on a bloody piece of rope, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it now. Stan took Ams up to the roof. They couldn’t afford to expose anybody else yet, so they waited. He could hear Stan’s final instructions to her, and the click of the carabiner around the belt loop and then the swooshing of the wind, much louder than he hoped, that. And after a beat, another click of metal, only he couldn’t tell what it was.

“I am Amelia. Nice to meet you. There doesn’t seem to be anybody left in this whole place. I could use some company,” and she sounded like she was smiling at whoever she was talking to.

“Dyrig. You always bring weapons to first dates, little girl?” and then just footsteps and another swoosh of some kind he couldn’t figure out. After a few moments he picked up footsteps again and the sound of a door swinging open, one of the old heavy ones, all metal or concrete, bulletproof.

“Hey guys. I am Amelia. I see there are five more new faces I get to meet. I am awfully sorry I can’t shake your hands. Mine seem to be tied up at the moment. Then again, yours seem busy with them big ugly guns you have. So... how are you?” and suddenly a thud and a much louder thud after that, and the comm went dead.

“I think they knocked her out. We are a go, now. And he raced up the steps not thinking about them or the spaces in between. He was hooked up and running for the edge, waving to Trelix as soon as his feet touched the surface of the roof.

“Loren, have the girls check that we killed their cams.”

Trelix was over, and then Drake and Riley and finally Loren, nodding at him about the cameras. They dropped the belts into their bags, and flipped the rope off the edge of the roof. They weren’t going back the same way.

“Slight change of plans, boys. I didn’t think they’d hurt Ams, but they might not know what she is, and they didn’t give her a chance to tell them. Drake and Riley, you are going to hang back a bit on the stairs. I don’t want them to see you. I’m pretty sure I outrank most of them in there, so we’ll try that first,” and he flew down the steps, his boys following quietly behind him.

The door was locked, so he pointed his stunner at the seam, knowing that these were electronic, and pulled the trigger, frying the connector. He was face to face with the big guy with a scowling face. He seemed in charge, but he was only a lieutenant. The guy must have realized it at the same time, as he jumped off the edge of the desk and straightened himself out.

“Captain?”

“Captain Ellis Maxwell. At ease, Lieutenant,” he said it as nicely as he could, in his kindest Brody voice, and then walked right up to the guy and screamed in his face, “you bloody imbecile! You have our R-level target, by the looks of it injured. Explain.”

The man wasn’t scowling anymore, eyes large, afraid large. He might be their best bet, in charge or not. “Sir, she came here herself. We didn’t know who she was, but she was armed. She had these on her. And it sounded like she was talking to someone on the comm, so we knocked her out. This is an S-5 facility. We didn’t know who she was or anything. We can’t have people walking in and out of here like that, sir.”

“Name, Lieutenant,” he screamed at him, needing to make sure the guy was a coward.

“Maxton, sir,” sheepish that. He was it then.

“You are coming with us, the rest of you are dismissed. I don’t do well with paperwork, so I won’t file this unless I have to. At ease. My backup units, take the elevator down. Meet you below.”

He had Loren pick up Ams, though he would have rather done it himself. He really wanted to make sure she was all right, but he couldn’t do that now. He had Maxton at gunpoint and Trelix was helping Loren with Ams. They just might have pulled it off. He turned away and from the corner of his eye caught his name flashing across one of their screens, only none of them were paying attention now, they were all staring at him in real life instead.

As soon as they hit the elevator, he pulled the trigger on his stunner, more than once, knocking Maxton out for long enough to make it back safely and to try to figure out what he just saw on that screen and how much time they had now because of it.

“Drake, Riley, meet us in the back of the building, we are going to be running when we get there.”

And run they did, all the way back, using the back streets, doing their best to blend into the shadows. Riley grabbed Ams from Loren and he had Loren help Drake and Trelix carry their hostage. As soon as they filed into the room, he frantically told them they might be in a bit of trouble. But he wasn’t sure what kind, and that they had to turn all the lights off, and nobody could do any cooking tonight, not anything that needed heat or electricity. He had Loren shield their room from scanners as best he could. They only had a few sheets of Zapex, the material that hides heat sigs, or so they were told in training. Never really had any use for it before.