Spy High (36 page)

Well, shit. That explained why Skidmark
wasn’t getting a veteran’s pension. He wasn’t retired.

Karma was still speaking. “…so far we
have foiled three separate terrorist groups over the years. The
current renters are the fourth.”

“They’re terrorists?” Adrenaline surged
into my veins. “Shit!”

“Yes, and I need to be back over there
in twenty minutes,” Orion said. “This is big, Aydan. They’re part
of a group of terrorist cells who have been organizing across
Canada, and they’re planning a synchronized strike on all the
provincial legislative buildings. Mesker, their leader, described
the plan but he never disclosed a date, so we didn’t know until an
hour ago that they planned to strike tomorrow at ten AM
Pacific.”

Skidmark added, “But we guessed it’d be
pretty soon when their arms shipment came in a couple of days
ago.”

“They’re planning to take over the
parliament buildings with replica guns and bayonets?” I asked.

“No.” Orion frowned. “They have
operational M4 carbines. They smuggled them in from the States
across the Strait of Juan de Fuca a couple of days ago. The
replicas were just for drills until they got the real weapons. They
did their live-fire exercise last night during the fireworks.”

My heart lurched into my throat to
vibrate there. Thirty wacko terrorists with assault rifles and
bayonets. Jesus Christ.

Orion turned to Moonbeam and Karma.
“I’ll tell them you’re dead and there’s nothing to hinder them
pulling out tonight.”

“Good,” Moonbeam agreed. “JTF2 reports
that their roadblock is in place and surrounded by ground troops.
All you have to do is get the terrorists clear of the commune.”

Orion turned to me with a slightly
condescending smile. “I presume you’re familiar with JTF2? The
Special Forces counter-terrorism troops?”

“Yeah.” I held my face expressionless.
“I’ve worked with them a few times.”

“Oh.” He had the grace to look slightly
sheepish. “Sorry.” His expression faded into concern. “One more
thing,” he said. “All the terrorists are dangerous since they view
the commune members as depraved sinners worthy of death, but Ratboy
has a real vendetta against you. He’s been bragging about how he’ll
make you pay, and I think he was on his way to look for you. You
should probably stay here in the control room until we’re clear of
the commune.”

“That little prick,” I muttered. “I’d
like to see him try.”

Skidmark wheezed laughter. “Girlie, I’d
pay good money to watch you take him apart. But you’re gonna have
to let this one go.” He winked. “You wouldn’t want to blow your
cover.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled.

“I’m running out of time,” Orion
interrupted. “But before I leave, I need to know: How did you knock
me out?”

I eyed him. If he didn’t know, it meant
he wasn’t familiar with our classified weapons. Probably not up to
me to enlighten him.

“Vulcan neck pinch,” I said.

“Oh, very funny.” His brow furrowed.
“So, a new classified weapon, then. I don’t suppose you’d fancy
lending it to me for the evening?”

“Sorry, I can’t.”

“Pity.” He shrugged off his dismembered
shirt with a resigned arch of his eyebrow before pulling his jacket
on again over his T-shirt. He gave me a pointed look. “Perhaps you
could inform your team I’ll be returning to the renters’ side. This
mission has been jeopardized enough. And I’d like my gear back,
please.”

“Hang on…” I rummaged through my
backpack handing him bits and pieces. My stomach roiled at the
thought of how bad this could have been. Hell, might still be. I
passed over the last knife and added, “I’ll call them right away.
And I’m really sorry.”

Orion finished stowing the last of his
equipment and his smile came back, transforming him from a
grim-faced agent to the carefree hippy I’d thought he was. “It’s
all right. I likely would have done the same under the
circumstances.” He eased his weight cautiously from one leg to the
other. “I’ll have some interesting bruises tomorrow, if I live the
night.”

Skidmark snickered, and Orion shot him
a narrow-eyed look before returning his attention to me. “Just so
you know, I would have made a better show of resisting if I hadn’t
been so pressed for time tonight.” His mouth hardened. “And if I
hadn’t believed you were law enforcement, you wouldn’t be standing
here.”

“Big words,” Skidmark needled. “She had
you, Rand. You weren’t going to get out of it.”

Orion shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But
even if I couldn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered.” His expression was
grim again, his beautiful eyes hard as emeralds. “I wouldn’t have
broken. No matter what you did.”

I swallowed. “I don’t doubt that. I’m
really glad it worked out this way.”

“Me, too.” Orion’s face softened into a
smile and he gave us a jaunty salute. “Well, I’m off. Cheers, all.
See you on the other side.”

As he vanished out the door I pulled
out both my phones and pressed the speed dials. Hellhound and Kane
answered simultaneously, and I rattled off, “The renters are
terrorists, and they’re planning a strike on the parliament
buildings in Victoria tomorrow morning at ten AM. They’re fully
armed with real M4 carbines and live ammo. Orion is going back to
the renters’ side as a mole. Don’t interfere with him, and don’t
engage the renters. We just want them clear of the commune. JTF2
has a roadblock set up to stop them down the road.”

Their exclamations assaulted my ears in
stereo, and I tried to reassure them without giving away any
secrets. “We can trust Orion not to sell us out.” I drew a deep
breath and spoke over their continuing objections. “Yes, I’m sure…
Look, my op; my orders. I can’t tell you more now; I have to get
back to Moonbeam and Karma. I’ll call you as soon as I have them
settled.”

I clicked off both the phones and
turned back to my deceptively-smiling hippies. “Why are we leaving
the explosives on the bridge?”

“Those are mine, dear,” Moonbeam said
with a hint of pride. “Any time we feel one of the groups might be
a threat I rig the bridge so we can contain them in an emergency if
necessary.”

I eyed the flowing rainbow-coloured
caftan that disguised a ruthless professional agent. “So the Earth
Spirit is bullshit,” I said.

“Oh, my dear.” Moonbeam gave me a
sorrowing look. “The Earth Spirit is as real as-”

“It’s bullshit,” Skidmark interrupted.
“The only reason we feed it to the members is so we can run the
evacuation drills. Every man, woman, and child is conditioned to go
to the muster point and follow their leaders immediately and
without question as soon as the bells ring. If we have to get them
out fast, there’s room for four cargo choppers to land in the
field, one for each group.”

I stared at him, my jaw slowly
dropping. “That’s… fucking brilliant. And the fireworks simulate
live fire so nobody will be alarmed if they hear it. And the lights
and sound generators in the field simulate the helicopters…” The
penny dropped. “So you only set off fireworks when you think
there’s an imminent threat of gunfire from the renters. And the
lower walls of the main building are bulletproof. As long as
everybody’s lying down meditating, they’re safe.”

Three smug smiles greeted my
deduction.

“So Aurora and Zen and the other
leaders…” I began, still struggling to catch up.

“Just as brainwashed as the rest of
‘em,” Skidmark said, earning a reproving look from Moonbeam. “They
think the Spirit talks to them through a series of tones the
crystal makes. Each tone corresponds to an evacuation route. That
way we can guide them via the safest route from the control centre
here.”

“Shit.” I tottered over to a chair and
sat down after all. “So why can’t I tell John and Arnie about this?
They have really high security clearances.”

“You mustn’t!” Moonbeam shot a look of
alarm at Karma before returning her wide-eyed gaze to me. “Our
cover is too deep. The only reason we revealed ourselves to you at
all was to save Orion Moonjava.”

Skidmark tilted his chair back,
grinning. “If it was only Rand’s balls on the line we wouldn’t have
bothered, but we needed him to be able to walk for the op
tonight.”

“Skidmark!” Moonbeam frowned at him
before turning back to me. “Of course we wouldn’t have let you harm
him. But if we hadn’t been reasonably certain you were a covert
agent yourself, we would have found another way to stop you.”

“But if you’re working with Five Eyes,
John and Arnie could find out about you anyway,” I argued. “They’ve
got the clearances, so why-”

“We’re not,” Skidmark interrupted.

“What do you mean, you’re not?”

“Five Eyes doesn’t know we exist,”
Karma explained. “Nobody does, except one person in one small
department of the B.C. government. We get cast-off equipment from
other intelligence operations so there’s no paper trail of
resources to us. If we report a possible threat it gets filtered
through that one person and leaked ‘accidentally’…” He made air
quotes around the word. “…so the Five Eyes analysts think they’ve
found it themselves.”

“But Orion is Five Eyes, and he
obviously knows about you.”

Karma smiled. “When Five Eyes
‘discovered’…” More air quotes. “…the threat six months ago, they
assigned Rand to go undercover in the terrorist group. We knew
about him but he didn’t know about us. But after you arrived, we
couldn’t protect you the way we protect our members because you
wouldn’t follow the drills. We knew things were heating up over
there so we revealed our operation to Rand and swore him to
secrecy. He convinced the terrorist leader that they should have
someone planted here to watch our members, and Mesker agreed to let
him pretend to join our commune. That’s when we set up his tent
next to yours.”

I thought about that for a minute.
Okay, so that explained why Stemp hadn’t told me anything about his
parents’ secret life. He didn’t know. But he probably knew about
the Five Eyes operation right next door. So he’d manipulated me to
come out and protect his parents while it was going on. No wonder
he kept delaying my departure, the sneaky bastard.

And his parents wouldn’t have any way
to know he was directing clandestine operations in Alberta if they
didn’t have any official contact with the intelligence
community…

God, what a tangled mess.

“Bringing me here was a hell of a
risk,” I said. “What if I’d just been a nutcase with a gun? What if
I’d tried to kill you and Orion instead?”

“You’d be dead,” Skidmark said with
chilling affability. “And we’d report to the police how you’d been
tragically killed by a cougar. Poor silly little girlie, always
going off in the woods by herself even though she’d been warned
about the big mean cougar. That’s why we circulated the rumour
about the cougar, so the members would back us up if we had to kill
you. But we were pretty sure you were law enforcement. I had you
pegged after that first run-in with Ratboy. And we figured guys
like Kane and Helmand wouldn’t be friendly with you unless-”

My phone vibrated, and I picked up to
hear Kane’s worried voice. “Aydan, is Nichele with you?”

My heart contracted to a small cold
lump in my chest. My voice came out equally small. “No.”

“She’s gone.”

“She’s gone?” I echoed stupidly. “She
can’t be. Nichele would never go wandering around outside in the
dark. Did you check the kitchen and the latrines?”

“Yes.” Kane sounded as worried as I
felt. “She’s not in her bed beside the stove or in her tent.
Hellhound is stationed at a vantage point overlooking the main
building, and he’s been there for at least half an hour. He didn’t
see her leave, so she must have been gone before that.”

“Shit, we’ve got to-”

Moonbeam pressed a button on the
console and the din of the Spirit bells poured into my ear from
Kane’s end of the connection.

He swore, but my heart leaped with
hope. “John, this is good! If she hears the Spirit bells she’ll
come running. She’s been tight with Aurora since she got here.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said. “But I
hate the thought of all these civilians milling around while the
terrorists are on the move. I’m at the main building now. I’ll wait
for you here and call you as soon as I see Nichele.”

“I’m on my way. Tell Hellhound to stay
where he is, okay? He’ll be able to give us a birds-eye view.”

I barely waited to hear his
acknowledgement before hanging up and hurrying to the console to
study the commune map. The dots in the encampment churned like a
stirred-up anthill, already beginning to stream toward the main
building.

“Which one’s Nichele?” I demanded.

“Here, dear.” Moonbeam pointed at a dot
halfway between the bridge and the main building.

It wasn’t moving.

“Something’s wrong.” I jammed my night
vision headset on and wheeled to run for the door.

“Stop!” Karma’s deep voice halted me,
and I turned to see him and Moonbeam pulling night-vision goggles
from a locker as well. “We understand your concern for your friend,
but our responsibility is to all our members, Nichele included.
This Calling is part of our original plan with Rand. We want all
our members behind bulletproof walls until the terrorists are clear
of the commune. Moonbeam and I will be holding positions between
the main building and the bridge in case they pose a threat to our
members as they leave. You and your team can help if needed.”

A flash of memory recalled Orion’s
affronted voice: ‘
Moonbeam and Karma perform very important
rituals when the Earth Spirit calls. Sometimes those rituals can be
extremely uncomfortable…
’

Yeah. Or life-threatening.

Despite the band of fear tightening
around my throat, I forced myself to wait in silence while they
collected an earpiece each. Skidmark turned to me, holding out a
third.