The Trials (The Red Trilogy Book 2) (41 page)

“Her career is a black box,” Jones concedes when we meet again in the briefing room to discuss Vertigo Gate. “Her personal history is unknown, so we can’t even guess at her motive. She might have conceived the plan to hijack Semak’s life and lifestyle because of a grudge or for purely mercenary reasons or with some other purpose in mind.”

The synthesized voice doesn’t communicate frustration, but I imagine I hear it anyway.

The analysts also haven’t been able to link Kurnakova to Exalt Communications. She’s not a company director, shareholder, or employee, and she’s not associated with anyone who is, so Jones thinks she was an outsider, engaged in a partnership of convenience: “So she could be open to forming a new partnership, with us.”

I’m skeptical, reminding them of her animosity toward me. “She didn’t want me there. She wasn’t buying Shiloh’s King David tactic.”

Delphi says, “But even if she didn’t like it, she was still willing to deal with your presence. So she’s motivated.”

“We killed Shiloh and Crow since then. That might put her off.”

“She hasn’t gone to ground. She hasn’t disappeared.”

“Twenty-five years of service off the record,” Jaynie muses. “She would know how to disappear if she wanted to—don’t you think so, Jones?”

“A reasonable guess,” Jones answers.

“But she hasn’t disappeared. That means she doesn’t scare easy. And Shelley, she wanted to make sure you knew the mission was her idea. Wouldn’t surprise me if she recruited Shiloh, instead of the other way around. A woman like that is practical. She’ll do what she needs to do to get what she wants—which means we can turn her if we do it right.”

If we do it wrong, Vertigo Gate is not going to happen.
It’s marginally possible we could bribe another pilot, but I prefer one who has already dispensed with moral qualms.

A long discussion follows on the best way to approach Kurnakova. In the end, it’s agreed I should recruit her because she has a history with me—even if it’s not a positive one. “It doesn’t matter if she likes you,” Jones concludes. “It’s your legitimacy that matters, and the organization behind you. If she wants this enough, she’ll work with you. If she doesn’t, if she’s already decided it was a mistake, it doesn’t matter who we send. She won’t cooperate.”

So I’m going to San Antonio.

“Not alone,” Rawlings insists. “You’re a target out there. That’s been proved more than once. So Squad Two is going with you, to make sure you get back.”

“Negative, Colonel. Not a good idea.”

Jaynie backs me. “Kurnakova will think it’s a death squad. I’ll go with Shelley. Two’s enough. And if we get into trouble? Then you can send Squad Two.”

“I’m going too,” Delphi announces.

Just like that, my heart is hammering.

“You’re not trained for field duty,” Jaynie says, puzzled.

Delphi leans back in her chair, looking relaxed. “This is not a combat situation. It’s just a trip to San Antonio.”

I watch her, waiting for the inevitable flickering of the skullnet icon.

Rawlings doesn’t like it. “Essential personnel only. There’s no need for you to go.”

“I want to go.”

Jaynie crosses her arms and leans back in her seat, tilting her head to look at me. “You got an opinion?”

Logically, Rawlings is right—but I left Lissa behind and I lost her.

Delphi knows what I’m thinking. “None of us is safe,”
she reminds me. “
Anywhere.
That said, this is a diplomatic mission, and neither you nor Vasquez is known for your diplomacy. So I’m going.”

•   •   •   •

We don’t leave right away. I need more time to heal and to recover my fitness, so another ten days go by before a little chartered four-seater propeller plane brings us into San Antonio.

Delphi has been busy working with Cryptic Arrow’s intelligence team, and the team has been busy spying on Kurnakova. So we know she’s in town, we know where she lives, we know her usual schedule transiting between her high-end apartment and the Sidereal Transit Systems launch complex—and we know her phone number.

I call her as we’re landing, using a phone Rawlings supplied. The call routes to voice mail. I keep it simple. “We can still do this thing, Amity. Call me. Let’s talk.”

We’ve just picked up the rental car when Kurnakova calls back. Her voice is soft with tension. “Almost a month of silence, and then
you
call. Did they stand down? Or did they get burned?”

“They got burned.”

“By who?”

“My people.”

“She said you were alone.”

“She hoped I was.”

Several seconds pass as Kurnakova considers this. Then, contemptuously, “You call me now because you think you can get rich.”

“Why are
you
doing it?”

Again, she hesitates. Then softly, “Eduard is the reason I’m flying for STS. He got me the job . . . and he thinks it is all okay, you know?”

“But it’s not okay?”

“It will never be okay.”

So she’s on a quest for justice. I know something about that. I understand how it feels. She will hesitate and negotiate, but she wants this desperately, so eventually there will be a fragile trust. And the mission? If we can assemble all the pieces, it’s a go.

•   •   •   •

We do a face-to-face in an anonymous office rented for the day from a business park. Kurnakova explains the situation. “What I bring to this business is transportation, yes? Access? Everything else, you bring.”

We’re seated around a bland table, with cream-colored blinds closed against the fierce Texas sun. Delphi takes the lead. “We do ground support, guidance, postmission support including legal aspects—and of course Shelley has trained for the actual assault.”

“I am a soldier too,” she says, looking at me. “I will do what needs to be done.”

I nod. That’s the definition of the business we’ve taken on. I don’t want to think too hard about the right or wrong of it. Doubt seeps like water into the tiny fissures of our beliefs, and when we’re left out in the cold, brooding on what it all means, that doubt can freeze and shatter the foundation of our purpose. So I tell myself as often as I need to what Shiloh told me, and what I’ve since confirmed for myself: that Eduard Semak is a bad, bad man.

Jaynie makes her move. Leaning forward, one elbow on the table, she says, “I will be going on this mission too.”

“No,” Kurnakova says. “That’s not possible. There can be only one.”

“You need to make room for two.”

“No. This cannot be done. Shelley will take the place of
the scheduled technician. To add another passenger would require changing the flight plan—and a change would draw attention that we do not want, questions that we cannot answer. So, no. There can be only one.”

“Then that one will be me,” Jaynie says. She holds up her hand to forestall my objection. “I’m pulling rank.”

I object anyway. “You haven’t trained for it.”

“There’s time.”

“There’s no training facility.”

Delphi interjects, an edge to her voice. “The decision doesn’t reside with either of you. It will be made by the mission planners.”

“It will be made by me,” Kurnakova counters, rapping the table with her neatly groomed fingernails. She turns her gaze on me. “Shiloh chose you. I did not approve. I thought it was an irrational decision—but now she is dead, while you, King David, are alive and free—”

“And willing.”

Kurnakova nods. “As you say.” She turns to Jaynie. “I respect the privilege of rank, but in this we follow the original mission plan. It will be Shelley—assuming we go at all.” Her gaze returns to me. She raises a hand, touches a finger beside her eye. “Semak wears an overlay. You understand this technology?”

I hedge. “Shiloh talked about it.”

“The data we’re after is contained in the overlay.” Her hand returns to the table. “Shiloh knew how to extract it. That’s what made her useful to me.” She gestures again, this time moving her hand in a half circle, though whether she’s indicating all of the table or all of the world, it’s not clear. “None of our talk matters if we can’t take over control of Eduard Semak’s overlay, take over all of his passcodes and private files. That skill, your people must bring to this mission—or there is no mission.”

Delphi leans forward with a calculating smile. “We have a contractor who is acquainted with these data extractions. So yes, we will be able to supply that skill.”

I glance at Jaynie. She has a fighting look on her face that tells me the discussion of who is going on this mission is not over yet, but when I raise a questioning eyebrow, wanting to know if she’s familiar with Delphi’s claim, she answers with a minute shake of her head.

Kurnakova catches the exchange. She raps the table again. “I will want proof you can do this thing.”

“Within a week,” Delphi assures her.

Given that the Sidereal Transit Systems flight to visit Eduard Semak is scheduled to leave in twelve days, that’s cutting it close, but to my surprise, Kurnakova agrees. “Let it be so.” Her gaze drops; her fingers tap in a slow, clicking beat. “The mission has been delayed twice already. I think it is dangerous to delay again. He is a very old man, very frail.”

She looks up at me. “You want to do this thing, King David. I want to do it. But if he is dead before we get there, it will be too late. Neither of us will get what we want.”

And what does she want? I am putting my life in her hands, so I want to understand her. “This isn’t just about the money, is it, Ulyana? Not for you. There’s something else you’re not saying. Why do you hate him?”

She draws back, a combative look in her eyes. “Who would not hate him? He is a man deserving of hate. A man who amuses himself by corrupting all those around him. His children hate him. His grandchildren hate him. There is not one person in this world who will grieve when he is gone.”

Her gaze warns me to ask no more questions—but I ask anyway. “Are you going there to kill him?”

She regards me for a few seconds more. Then, “I told you once before, Lieutenant Shelley: I am the architect of
this mission and we will carry it out as planned. It is my goal to see Eduard Semak stripped of power. I want him to know what it is to be helpless. I want him to know he can do no more harm to the world. What happens after that”—she turns her right hand palm-up—“fate will decide.”

A nice speech—but she is still not telling me everything.

Jaynie seizes on my hesitation. “Are you backing out, Shelley?”

“No.”

I tell myself that so long as Kurnakova is carrying out the mission as planned, it doesn’t really matter why she’s doing it.

“Then let’s move on,” Delphi says in a clipped voice. “We need to discuss communications and logistics before we’re through.”

•   •   •   •

It’s mid-June in San Antonio and the city is scorching,
115
degrees American. I can’t directly feel the burning surface of the asphalt parking lot with my robot feet, but I can feel the heat rising through the titanium shafts that splice with the living bone of my thighs. The air in the car is unbreathable and the seats are searing hot. Delphi starts the engine, and flips the air-conditioning to max. Jaynie takes the shotgun seat, and I’m the junior officer stuck in the back.

No bombs went off in San Antonio, but seven months after Coma Day the trauma still shows. It’s late morning on a weekday, but the parking lot of this office complex is only half full. As we head for the exit, we pass several parked cars covered in dust and sitting on flat tires—abandoned by owners who will likely never return.

As we leave the parking lot and turn into light traffic, Jaynie says, “I don’t like yielding control of this mission to Kurnakova.”

“And I don’t want Shelley to go,” Delphi answers. “But the fact stands that he’s had the training, not you. And I did not get the impression Kurnakova considered the matter open for debate. Our options are to let Shelley go, or to call off the mission altogether.”

I lean forward, my hand on the back of Jaynie’s seat. “I don’t want to call off the mission. We need to do this.”

Jaynie looks over her shoulder at me, an accusing gaze, though what she’s accusing me of, I’m not sure. Turning to Delphi, she says, “What contractor were you talking about who handled these data extractions?”

In the rearview mirror, I watch Delphi frown. “He hasn’t
handled
them—not yet—but he understands the process.”

This is not what I want to hear. “What’s that mean? Can we do this or not? From what you told Kurnakova—”

“We still have a week to work out the details.”

“Who is this contractor?” Jaynie insists.

Delphi stretches her shoulders the way people do when they’re feeling uncomfortable but want to look casual. “Joby Nakagawa has been working with us on data forensics—”

“Nakagawa?” Jaynie interrupts. “That’s a hell of a security risk. It was his program that let Shiloh crack Shelley’s head.”

Thinking about the implications of that, I’m kind of awestruck. Joby takes his work very seriously, he has a fiery temper, and he likes to think he’s the smartest fish in the pond. But he made a basic mistake. He trusted the wrong person. He let his assistant get access to my overlay, and that assistant sold me out to Shiloh.

I say, “He must have been seriously pissed off when he realized what happened.”

“Stone-cold fury,” Delphi confirms. “He deduced your location from the program data you managed to upload, and when he figured out we were going in on our own, he gave us the robo-bugs to use on the mission.” She glances
at Jaynie. “They worked perfectly, by the way. No security breaches.”

“Lucky for us.”

“He wanted to see Shiloh slammed.”

No one ever told me what happened to Joby’s assistant. I don’t bring it up. I don’t really want to know. Instead, I ask, “Does Joby know how to extract the data from Semak’s overlay?”

“In theory, yes,” Delphi says. “In practice? I haven’t been able to get a straight answer out of him, but when I told him we were coming to San Antonio, he said to bring you by the lab.” A slight, worried smile twitches her lips. “He said he could use a subject to experiment on.”