Anika zoomed in on her. The girl’s eyes flicked from place to place, taking in the other kids, the adults, the artwork, the surveillance cams.
Be careful
, Anika wanted to warn her.
They’re watching you. Don’t let them see how clever you are.
She switched back to the boardroom. The museum director jabbed his finger at the wall board. He glared at one of the Syria Free men who slouched in his chair, arms crossed behind his head. The expression on the younger man’s face mirrored the blankness of some of the kids. Except in his case, Anika speculated, the boredom masked darker emotions.
“Team B has arrived.” Gianni’s tone had evened out.
One of the operatives approached the adults standing together in a corner. Another one shut off the interactive display of the Second Battle of Fallujah, setting off protests from the kids. The tall girl Anika had noticed earlier crouched low. Her eyes darted from the operatives to the kids to the security cams.
In the boardroom, the director turned off the wall board and the blond slipped the e-pad back into her purse.
Come on.
Anika switched back to the gallery. The operatives were herding everyone through the high archway and back to the first floor.
Move.
The museum director stood at the head of the table, his back ramrod straight, issuing final orders.
“Downloading complete,” Gianni said. “Get ready.”
Anika reached for the laser, re-checked her grip. Still dry.
She took a final look at her monitor. Saw the departing backs of the kids and the operatives. Started to ease out a breath, then stopped.
Where’s the girl?
“On my count,” Gianni said.
“Wait.” Anika pressed the buttons on her wristband and scanned the galleries. “There’s a kid missing.”
“What?”
“A girl. She didn’t make it out.”
“Team B has cleared everyone. Proceed.”
“No,” Anika said, still scanning.
In the boardroom, the two sides were pushing back chairs. The bomber guards took their exit positions, hands inside their pockets where the detonators were kept. Anika’s target stood closest to the door.
She changed visual again. In the corridor outside the boardroom, a tall slender figure stood against the wall.
“I found her. Top floor.”
“I can’t confirm visual.”
“She’s in the corridor. East wall.”
“No time,” Gianni said, his accent back.
The girl inched forward, her gaze fixed on a spot above the boardroom door. A yellow light glowed a warning to stay away from the closed session inside.
“Get her out.” Anika tried to swallow, but her mouth was bone dry.
“Drop the bomber,” Gianni commanded. “Do it.”
Anika switched back to the boardroom. She sighted the bomber, inhaled, held her breath and positioned her finger over the trigger.
“Tell them the laser jammed.”
Gianni stopped Anika outside the security checkpoint of the agency’s subterranean complex. A strand of his dark-blond hair had escaped from the band secured low on his neck.
The other operatives had already filed past and were moving through a narrow passageway toward the guarded entrance.
Anika stared at the receding backs of the two men who had retrieved her and the container, then avoided all eye contact during the tense journey back to New Angeles.
“Did you hear me?” Gianni’s brown eyes hardened.
“She was a kid,” Anika shot back. “I did the right thing.”
“They won’t see it that way.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.” He took her shoulders between strong hands.
“I’ll take the discipline.” Her mind cringed in anticipation of it. “Even Isolation, if it comes to that.”
“It won’t be Isolation.” Gianni’s fingers tightened. “Tell them.”
“The mission discs won’t back me up. Neither will the weapons techs. And what about them?” She nodded in the direction of her team members who had now cleared the checkpoint.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“You can’t keep covering for me. This isn’t like Budapest.” Anika pulled his hands off her. “It’s not working, Gianni. It never has for me.”
She pushed past him, tugging at the neckline of her bodysuit.
Inside the safe zone, Gianni swung her around to face him, but before he could say anything, before she could cut him off, another operative called out.
“Gianni, there you are. I’ve been looking for you.” Jewel’s heels clicked along the cement floor. With her dark-rimmed eyes and rosy cheeks, the petite curvy blond looked like she had just come from Make-up. The smell of orange blossom hovered around her like a citrus-scented cloud. She flicked a glance at Anika.
Every streak of dirt darkened, every drop of sweat itched under Jewel’s appraising stare. Anika’s hands curled into fists.
Jewel tilted her head up at Gianni, her glossy lips parting in a private smile. “Our mission’s been moved up. Briefing in three minutes. Shall we?” She slid her hand down his arm and wrapped her fingers around his.
Anika couldn’t take her eyes off those fingers, their nails coated in pale lilac.
“Give me a minute, Jules.”
Anika stiffened.
Jules?
Was she the reason for Gianni’s recent aloofness? Heat flared inside her, igniting a fireball in her chest.
“Remember. The laser jammed.” Gianni had turned back to her, his eyes unreadable in the flat artificial light.
Anika glanced from him to Jewel. “You’d better get going.” She took two strides, then stopped.
The second most powerful person in the agency blocked her path.
Even in ultra-heels, Second only reached Anika’s shoulder. Despite her diminutive size, she exuded the power of a much bigger woman. Power that came as much from her mental prowess as from her position.
Before Anika could say anything, Gianni spoke up. “Weapon malfunction.”
Second switched her laser-beam intensity to him. “Where are the discs?”
“Tech has them.”
“You can go.” Second included Jewel in her gaze. Then, returning to Anika, she said, “Command’s office. Now.”
Anika bit down on the inside of her cheek. She hadn’t expected the rip to come from Command herself.
Nodding, she turned on her heel and headed down the corridor. After a few steps, she risked a backward glance. Jewel had tucked her arm into Gianni’s and was laughing up at him. Anika’s stomach turned a slow sickening somersault.
She continued toward Hub, the complex’s center around which all of the other departments radiated like the spokes in a giant wheel, until she reached the elevator to Command’s office.
Small round holes the size of her fingernail patterned the inside walls of the circular tube. They would hiss out lethal gas at the first sign of danger. On the way up, sensors verified her identity, operative status, and security clearance. Because she was still conscious when she reached the top, she knew she hadn’t been tagged as a security breach. Not yet anyway.
The doors opened. Floor-to-ceiling safety windows offered a 180-degree view of the agency’s honeycomb of rooms.
“Come.”
Command had her back to Anika. The head of U.N.I.T. 605 faced the wall of monitors that dominated the north side of the room. Flashes, pulses, and colors raced across the three dozen screens and provided a visual status of agency missions around the world. To Anika, the wall looked like a vast display of random flickerings.
She took two steps forward and stopped. Her booted feet sank into the gel-padded carpet. The effect unnerved her almost as much as the sight of Command’s desk, a legless rectangular surface that hung suspended in space at waist height.
“Sit.”
Anika directed her feet to move, one after the other, until she sat in a creamy white leather chair directly in front of the desk. The seat and back of the chair pulsed with warm currents that tried to lull her muscles into relaxation. She kept both feet flat on the floor, ready to jump up at a moment’s notice.
Command finally turned away from the window. Her calf-length tunic and matching pants in midnight blue accentuated her six-foot frame, made even more imposing when she stepped up to the platform where the desk hovered.
Anika gripped the chair arms to keep herself from shifting around.
Command lowered herself into the high-backed chair behind the desk. Dark unblinking eyes bore into Anika. “Well?” Her husky tone, like sandpaper on satin, contrasted with her delicate features, smooth oval head and swan-like neck. Rumor had it that Command had surgically altered her voice to achieve the deep register.
“I couldn’t do it,” Anika said. “I couldn’t carry out the order.”
“I’m told the weapon malfunctioned. Is that true?”
“Is that what the discs show?” Anika asked.
“I’m not asking the discs.” Command’s voice hardened. “I’m asking you. For the truth.”
Anika considered her next words carefully. Without knowing if the discs had been changed, she didn’t know which truth to tell.
“I chose not to fire,” she said.
“Why?”
“There were kids in the museum.”
“Team B evacuated them.”
“They missed one. A girl.”
“You disobeyed a direct order.”
“I don’t kill innocents.” Anika’s fingers dug deeper into the plush leather.
“How many innocents will be killed if First Aryan and Syria Free carry out their attack?”
“The intel was bad. There weren’t supposed to be visitors in the building. I made a judgment call.”
“You’re not here to make judgments. You’re here to obey orders.”
Anika didn’t say anything. Her gaze fell on some stones nestled in a shallow box in the corner of the desk.
Command leaned forward and pulled the object toward her. She picked up the small wooden rake perched along the edge, then set it aside.
Scrrrtch
. One long sculpted fingernail dragged through the powdery substance inside the wooden box.
“How long have you been in U.N.I.T., Anika?” Command kept her eyes on her handiwork.
“Three years, five months, seven days.” Anika answered without hesitation.
“Did you know that most operatives stop counting after their first year?” When Anika didn’t respond, Command continued. “On balance, you’ve been an asset to us. You’re smart, strong, a superior shot. We had high hopes for you. But you lack commitment. That lack has been your undoing. It can’t continue.” Command paused in her raking and locked eyes with Anika. “Your psych sessions reveal a strong desire to leave U.N.I.T. We’ve decided to give you that chance.”
Anika’s eyes narrowed. She half expected the floor to open up and swallow her.
“Your skepticism is understandable,” Command said. “Perhaps you’ll be reassured to know that your release is conditional. It involves Gianni.”
Anika’s mind exploded with questions, but she held back.
“We want you to persuade Gianni to help you escape from a solo.”
A solo was a one-way mission assigned either to a knowing operative as an honorable way out of U.N.I.T. or to an unknowing one as a deadly surprise. Either way, the outcome was the same. No one made it through a solo alive.
Command leaned back in her chair. “U.N.I.T. twelve-oh-five in northern zone needs a new Second. Gianni is under consideration. But they — and we — are concerned about his loyalty to the agency. We need to be certain that U.N.I.T. is his first priority. Above everything else. Above every
one
else.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t play with me.” Command’s words scraped across Anika’s skin. “We are not blind to his feelings for you.”
“They don’t outweigh his feelings for U.N.I.T.” Bitterness, like black ginseng, coated her tongue. How many times had she tried, and failed, to convince Gianni to find a way out for both of them?
“We need more proof than your word.”
“So if he refuses me … that will be your proof?” Anika asked. “That’s your loyalty test?”
“Yes.”
“And if he does help me survive the solo?”
“He’ll forfeit the promotion.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all you need to know.”
“What if that’s not good enough for me?”
“You’re not in a position to bargain.” Command interlocked her fingers in a tight weave.
“What happens to me if he refuses to help? I’ll die in the solo?”
“If he refuses, there won’t be a solo.” Command inclined her head. “But you will have failed your assignment. As with any failure, there will be discipline. And you’ll remain in U.N.I.T. for as long as you live. As your contract specifies.”
“And if I say ‘no’ to this assignment? ‘No’ to your loyalty test?”
“You will face disciplinary action for your behavior today.” Command’s voice became granite. “D zone or exile.”
Anika swallowed back the bile that surged from her stomach. She knew what exile meant. Execution.
“What’s D zone?” she asked.
“Trust me. You’d prefer exile.”
Command raised her hand to the silver star attached to her earlobe and fixed her eyes on one of the wall monitors. “I see it. I’ll be right there.” Lowering her hand, she stared at Anika. “Do we have an agreement?”
“I’d like some time.”
Command’s lips tightened. “After your debriefing, go to detention chamber four. You’re confined there for the night. Report back here at oh-six-thirty hours. I’ll expect your answer then.”
Twelve steps forward, pivot, twelve steps back. Anika paced the length of the detention chamber, her cloth wraparounds soundless on the padded floor.
Images of the young girl, Gianni’s dark eyes, Jewel’s lilac nails, Command’s compressed lips played over and over in her mind.
She rubbed at the muscle knotted between her neck and shoulder.
Hssss.
The door slid open and Gianni stepped over the threshold. He had cleaned up from the mission, too. His olive skin gleamed and his hair hung straight and loose to his shoulders.
Anika’s breath caught in her throat. Relief and desire crashed over her.
“They let you in here?” she asked.
“You’re not in Isolation.”
“I might as well be.” She flung an arm at the windowless room, empty except for a bed, toilet, and sink built-ins.