Replica (34 page)

“Turn around and put your hands behind your head,” one of the security officers barked as he approached her, brandishing a pair of handcuffs.

Nadia didn’t see any point in resisting, so she did as she was ordered. The officer shoved her facedown onto her bed anyway, putting his knee in her back as he wrenched her arms behind her to slap the handcuffs on. Nadia clenched her teeth to keep from crying out. The officer yanked her to her feet, and his partners forced her parents back so he could drag her, stumbling, out of the room. Mosely watched dispassionately, turning a deaf ear to her parents’ repeated attempts to plead with him.

“Mom, Dad, I’ll be all right,” she choked out, though she didn’t believe it any more than they did.

The servants had gathered in the hallway outside, watching in varying degrees of dismay as the officers marched Nadia between them, each holding one of her arms. She was not being quietly spirited away for questioning, and news of her arrest was no doubt spreading even now. Even if Mosely was using this as nothing more than a scare tactic and immediately released her, her reputation would never survive. No matter what the outcome, today marked the end of the life she’d been bred and raised for, and the future was a horrifying unknown.

The public humiliation continued as Nadia was perp-walked through the lobby of the Lake Towers while people stood and stared. A couple of them openly took photographs of the procession. Nadia saw Mosely notice one of the photographers and then pointedly look away. He obviously wanted this spectacle to be as public as possible. Nadia wanted to kill him for it, for putting her family through all the added horror of the publicity. As if her being arrested weren’t bad enough.

There were several cars with flashing lights waiting for her at the front door, as well as a van with no windows in the back. A pair of hard wooden benches were bolted against the wall, and the sides of the van were peppered with O-rings at varying heights. Nadia was unceremoniously tossed into the van, then dragged to a bench. Her handcuffs were then attached to an O-ring behind her, high enough to strain her shoulders and force her to bend forward as shackles were put on her ankles and then attached to another O-ring. All of this was done while the doors were still open and a crowd gathered outside. Nadia was sure even more photographs were being taken. At least she wasn’t crying, though she didn’t think the lack of tears had anything to do with bravery on her part. Everything seemed too unreal to be true. Too unreal to cry about or panic over. But that numb sense of unreality wouldn’t last for long, and the worst was yet to come.

The four security officers who had escorted her all joined her in the van—they must have thought she was a dangerous criminal indeed to need four hulking guards to contain her—and the doors slammed shut.

*   *   *

Nadia
wasn’t sure where she was being taken, except that it was somewhere she didn’t want to go. Maybe to the security station, where she could maintain at least a faint hope that Mosely would release her after scaring her half to death, but she suspected Riker’s Island was more likely. She tried to keep herself alert for any clues, like the distinctive sound of tires on a bridge, but it was hard to concentrate when panic kept swelling in her chest.

“Where are you taking me?” she tried asking the security officers, but none even acknowledged that she had spoken.

The drive seemed to last forever. Nadia’s back ached from the unnatural position she was forced to sit in, and every sharp turn or deep pothole the van hit was torture on her strained arms and shoulders. Fear was her constant companion, and her mind kept frantically searching for a way out. But there
was
no way out, not from here. She was trapped and helpless. She would be questioned, probably even tortured. She wished she believed she could bravely endure whatever was to come without breaking, without betraying Nate and Bishop and Dante, but she doubted her own courage.

Eventually, the van came to a stop, and Nadia was dragged out of the van and hustled through a door. Her one brief glimpse of the outside before she was shoved through the door showed that she was in a room that resembled an airplane hangar and that the van had entered through a tunnel. She guessed that tunnel was a secret entrance to Riker’s Island, a way the security forces could bring in prisoners of special importance, like her.

Once inside, she was led through several sets of key-coded security doors. The officers forced her to turn around whenever they entered their passcodes, and Nadia felt a bubble of hysterical laughter wanting to rise from her chest. Who did they think she was? Some kind of superspy who could free herself from her chains, disable her four escorts, and make a run for freedom after having memorized their passcodes? She was just a kid, caught up in something way over her head.

The room the guards eventually propelled Nadia into did not look promising.

One half was laid out like the standard security interrogation room: a metal table, bolted to the floor, with a rail to which the unfortunate detainee could be chained; a couple of flimsy, uncomfortable plastic chairs; and a one-way mirror along one wall. It was the other half of the room that caused a new wave of terror to crash over Nadia’s head.

The other half of the room featured a table of gleaming surgical steel, bristling with restraints. The table sat at a slight angle just past horizontal, and there were grooves along its edges. Nadia didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help following those grooves and that angle with her eyes and seeing how they led to a drain in the tile floor. In her mind’s eyes, she saw a river of blood being pulled by gravity, channeled by those grooves, flowing to the edge of the table and forming a waterfall straight into that drain.

Above the table lurked something that looked a bit like a dentist’s instrument panel, only about ten times as big, with ten times as many attachments. Needles and saws and drills and blades of varying shapes and sizes. All of them coiled and waiting. Nestled among those attachments were a variety of instrument panels and darkened monitors.

Nadia felt so dizzy that for a moment she thought she might faint. She wanted to be brave, or at least to put on a brave face, but terror was like a living beast inside her. It clamped down on her chest, making it hard to breathe. It sucked the moisture from her mouth and the warmth from her limbs. It blotted out all rational thoughts, left her with nothing to cling to except the desperate need to run, to escape.

“Don’t worry,” Mosely’s voice said from behind her. She hadn’t even heard him enter the room, so transfixed was she by the monstrosity that loomed over the table. “We have a lot of talking to do before we graduate to more extreme measures.” Mosely wandered over to the table and gave it an affectionate pat, like it was a favorite pet.

One of the security officers dragged Nadia over to the interview area, slamming her into a chair, then uncuffing her hands and chaining her to the table. Then he and the other three officers exited the room, leaving her alone with the man who had with his own hands killed the Chairman Heir and framed another for the murder. She couldn’t hope for mercy or compassion from him.

Mosely continued to caress his monstrous torture apparatus, smiling faintly to himself. Nadia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to tame the fear, trying to
think
. But try as she might, she couldn’t think of a way out. If she refused to talk, Mosely would torture her. But if she
did
talk, she would reveal that she knew far too much. He might not think the accusations of a sixteen-year-old girl being held for treason could do him much damage, but he wasn’t the sort to take the risk. Someone might believe her, even if it was just her own family, and they might make a stink about it. Nothing he couldn’t handle, but why would he bother when he could just avoid the issue by disposing of her?

She was going to die, Nadia realized, and paradoxically that thought steadied her. Whatever terrible things were going to happen, there was an end in sight. She might not be able to save herself, but she would do her level best to take Mosely down with her. As soon as Gerri heard the news of Nadia’s death, she—or her unknown cohort—would retrieve the recordings Nadia had made. Nadia just had to make sure she caught Mosely saying something so incriminating he couldn’t wriggle out from the consequences.

As if he hadn’t a care in the world, Mosely strolled toward her. Nadia’s pulse still fluttered, and she knew that if she unclenched her hands from her lap, they would shake, but she held her head high, thoughts of her posthumous revenge warming and strengthening her.

Mosely tossed a manila folder on the table. He sat down across from her, then flipped the folder open and began laying out a series of photos in front of her. And now she understood why she had been arrested.

The photos were a little grainy, no doubt taken from a considerable distance. They showed Nadia exiting her building and climbing into an unmarked white van. Her heart sank, and she cursed herself for not considering that Mosely might have someone other than Dante keeping an eye on her. Especially after yesterday’s interview, where she had aroused his suspicions.

Had someone followed the van once Nadia had gotten in it? And had there been someone watching Nate’s apartment? Surely if Mosely had been watching her, he’d been watching Nate. And that meant he knew that she and Nate had both been in that van last night. If they’d been followed into the Basement, then it didn’t matter what Nadia said or didn’t say—Mosely knew exactly what had happened, knew exactly who all the players were and who he needed to eliminate.

“It seems you have not been completely honest with me, Miss Lake,” Mosely said. “I’m disappointed in you. I had thought a girl of your impeccable pedigree would understand the importance of protecting the interests of her state.”

She couldn’t tell if he was mocking her, or if he was sincerely disapproving. And she didn’t care.

“In my opinion,” she said, “the interests of my state are not served by pinning a crime on an innocent man.”

Mosely gave a condescending chuckle. “Believe me, my dear, Kurt Bishop is a lot of things, but an innocent man isn’t one of them. Did you know he was working as a whore when our Chairman Heir hired him?”

If Nadia was supposed to feel disgusted by the revelation, Mosely had missed his mark. She might not have known the specifics of Bishop’s past, but she’d certainly known there was ugliness in it. “Prostitution isn’t a crime punishable by death. If you think that’s an adequate excuse to—”

“You are such a child. Everything is black and white to you, isn’t it? You would never consider that sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”

Nadia clamped her jaws shut to keep from responding. She had a feeling he was probing at her, trying to get her to reveal what she knew without directly asking questions. Her mind raced with possibilities as she tried to figure out how to get Mosely to admit his crimes aloud without giving away too much herself. In the periphery of her vision, the torture apparatus loomed.

Mosely tucked the photos back into their folder and pushed the folder aside. Then he leaned forward with his elbows on the table. Nadia felt like he was intruding upon her personal space even though there was a table between them.

“Where did you go last night, Miss Lake?” he asked.

“You’re the spymaster. Why don’t
you
tell
me
?”

Mosely raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I’d recommend you be more circumspect in your responses, Miss Lake. Need I remind you that you’re under arrest on suspicion of treason?”

Nadia didn’t truly believe there was a way out of the mess she was in, but it seemed reasonable to at least put on a show of trying.

“I haven’t forgotten. Are you suggesting my situation would somehow improve if I were more forthcoming with you?”

“I am suggesting, foolish child, that if you are not forthcoming with me, I will make you regret it for every remaining day of your miserable life.” He glanced pointedly at the apparatus. “You can avoid a great deal of unpleasantness by simply answering my questions truthfully.”

So there was no carrot to be offered. Only the stick. Nadia shivered. She didn’t know what Mosely would do to her if he strapped her to that table, but she suspected that she would lose a lot of her higher reasoning powers to fear. If she wanted Mosely to incriminate himself, she was going to need her wits about her. Which meant she had to do it before Mosely resorted to torture.

“I ask you again: where did you go last night?”

Taking a deep breath, hoping she was making the right decision, Nadia began laying out the rope she hoped Mosely would hang himself with.

“I went to the Basement to rendezvous with Kurt Bishop.”

*   *   *

Nate
was standing on the edge of the rooftop garden at Nadia’s apartment, looking out over the lights of the city. The air was completely still, and he was alone, unsure how he’d gotten there. He was supposed to meet someone, wasn’t he? But he was early. Or maybe late. He looked around, confused, unable to remember. The moon hung full in the sky, its light outshining the city. A giant wasp buzzed around Nate’s head. He batted at it, and it went away for a moment. But seconds later, it was back, flying in circles around his head, buzzing incessantly. He tried again to bat it away, but it had become invisible.

Nate’s eyes cracked open, then quickly closed again in response to the light. He wanted to go back to sleep, but the damn wasp was still buzzing around his head. He opened his eyes again, and realized there was no wasp. He blinked his crusty eyes a couple of times as one by one his brain cells woke up and dragged themselves out of his dream into reality. Reality that included his phone buzzing away on the nightstand.

The buzzing stopped briefly, and sleep tried to drag Nate back down into its clutches. He would have been happy to go, but the phone started up again. He considered grabbing it and throwing it across the room to shut it up so he could get back to sleep.