Die Run Hide (29 page)

Some privilege
. Still, hope sparked inside her.

“Will you be able to pick your solo?”

Gianni shook his head. “Stay close to Evan. If anyone besides Command and Second will know about an upcoming solo, she will. Once we learn what it is, we can work out a scenario.”

“How will we communicate? Same private channel as we’ve been using?”

“No, the code’s likely been broken by now. Pick another sequence.”

Anika thought for a moment. “The champagne that you brought that night. When I seduced you.”

“
You
seduced
me
?”

She widened her eyes. “You think I wasn’t faking my awkwardness at the prep session with the trainers? It was all part of my plan. To get you into my bed, away from the cameras and the recorders.”

“Good plan.” Gianni’s lips quirked and his eyes warmed.

Her heart quickened in her chest. God, he was beautiful.

“Okay, we’ll use the champagne year,” he said.

“Now, all I have to do is convince Command that I’ve stayed on mission this whole time.”

“Tell her you didn’t think my message about meeting at the truck stop was proof of my disloyalty. That you knew I would cover my story by making a reservation at the restaurant, showing up at the assigned time. I’m sure they’ve retrieved the restaurant’s security discs from that night. Verified my alibi, even if they don’t believe it. Stick with that story, no matter what.”

“We’ll need new IDs, prints, retinas,” Anika murmured, allowing herself to dream that they had a chance. “I know someone.”

“They’ll wait until my leg heals before they send me out,” Gianni said. “We’ll have a few days.”

“Where will we go?” The daydream clouded over. “Cuba’s no haven. Officially, it may be closed to U.N.I.T. but it’s got its own version of the nightmare.”

“We’ll need a boat.”

“Yes, the ocean’s a big area to track.” How long would they be able to stay one step ahead of U.N.I.T.? Any amount of time would be worth it. As long as they were together.

“We just need to make it to The Triangle.”

“So the rumors are true?” She remembered the stories shared by some of the older operatives during long in-between times in the field.

Gianni nodded.

“I’ve heard Bermuda is lovely this time of year.” She hoped to bring another smile to his face, but his expression remained serious.

“They’ll expect me to choose the solo. They won’t make it easy. I’m guessing they’ll first try memory modification.”

Her heart stuttered, but the spark of hope remained, like a tiny flare illuminating a black hole. “What can we do?”

He reached for the St. Jude medal nestled between her breasts. Pulled it out and focused on the silver oval. “Say something.”

“What … what should I say?” She flicked a glance at the cockpit.

“Say something from your heart.” Gianni continued to stare at the medal with unblinking intensity. Beads of sweat had formed along his hairline. “Something we’ll both remember.”

She ached to reach for him, to brush back his hair and soothe the lines around his eyes. But her hands couldn’t move.

So she did what she could. She clung to the flare of hope, opened her heart, and made a wish. “Run away with me.”

“Come.” Command sat at her floating desk, hands folded on the shiny surface. Second, in a dark gray suit, stood beside her.

Anika willed herself forward on feet that couldn’t tell the difference between the hardness of the elevator floor and the softness of the gel-padded carpet.

Their eyes skimmed over her and seemed to catalog every detail, from the loose strands of hair that had escaped her braid, to the worn sandals that exposed the tops of her feet.

She had re-entered the nightmare where every movement, every gesture was tracked, recorded, assessed. No place for physical or mental weakness. She had to act and look like an agent back from a successful mission who was ready to debrief and take on a new assignment.

She stopped next to the leather chair that had pulsed with unnerving warmth the last time she had used it.

“Sit,” Command said. “Before you fall.”

So much for pretending to be in control.

Second’s shoe tapped a staccato rhythm. “We tracked you as far as the truck stop. That’s when your chip stopped transmitting. Why didn’t you follow protocol and proceed to the nearest safehouse?” Her words kept pace with the tap-tap-tap of her foot.

Remembering Gianni’s advice before they had landed, Anika returned fire with fire. “Why did you send Salazar after me?”

As if she hadn’t spoken, Second continued, “After you left the truck stop, you proceeded southeast to Red Robin safehouse where you attempted contact with Gianni. Why didn’t you report in to me, as instructed?”

“I believed that Salazar had been sent to kill me. Standard protocol was no longer in play.”

“You were wrong. Salazar wasn’t sent to kill you. After the explosion at Midway, your tracking chip was still active. Salazar knew you had survived. If we hadn’t sent him after you — to retrieve, not to kill — he would have suspected something. We tried contacting you, but you didn’t respond.”

“My ear comm was dead. It failed during the mission. I tried using it to get confirmation of the egress. I barely made it out alive.”

“But you did make it out,” Second said. “With Gianni’s help. Isn’t that right?”

“I don’t understand why you changed solos,” Anika countered. “What happened to Lyon?”

“We believed Gianni was suspicious about the timing of the Lyon mission. So we changed your solo to Midway.”

“Why wasn’t I told that?” Her torso and limbs started to tingle.

“Any potential communication from you to Gianni had to be convincing. He had to believe that
you
believed your life was in danger. It was better you weren’t informed.”

“What if I hadn’t gotten Gianni’s message? Hadn’t understood it?”

Second’s eyes narrowed. “The computer calculated a sixty-two-point-three percent probability of success.” Her words fell like chips of ice. “That was acceptable.”

“Acceptable?” Anika burst out. “To whom?”

“To me.” Command’s tone was quiet. “Do you want something to take the edge off?”

Anika shook her head. She didn’t want drugs. She wanted answers. “What if Salazar had retrieved me? What kind of discipline would I have been given for yet another failed mission? My reputation was already in the sewer, even before Midway.”

“That’s why we made sure Salazar didn’t succeed,” Second said.

If Anika’s brows could have lifted, they would have. “
You
made sure?”

“Of course,” Second replied. “Who do you think sent Babbitt?”

“Babbitt?”

“The red-haired vagrant. The one who intercepted Salazar and created the diversion with the truckers. We borrowed her from another U.N.I.T. so Salazar and Mac wouldn’t recognize her.”

Anika’s anger fired up as she recalled Mac’s confession on the plane. “Then what about Mac blowing up the truck? How did you save me from that?” The tingling intensified and spread to her feet and hands. “Did you program me for a piss so I’d be far enough away when the bomb detonated?”

“What bomb?” Second asked.

“I retrieved a fragment from the debris. A prototype.”

“Where is it?”

“In my knapsack. Underneath the false bottom.”

“What knapsack?”

“The one that I had in Cuba. Mac and Salazar must have brought it back.”

“They turned in only the gear and weapons they were given. And Gianni’s bag. No knapsack.”

“That’s impossible. It was lying on the floor of the cottage.”

Command and Second stared at her, unyielding.

She mentally curled her hands into fists. This exchange was getting her nowhere. Without proof, they’d never back down. “When Salazar showed at the truck stop,” she said, “I didn’t know he had been sent to retrieve me. The safest course of action was to proceed with the escape plan. Pretend to be on the run and keep trying to contact Gianni.”

“Once Gianni helped you through the solo, your mission was accomplished,” Second said. “Your orders were to contact us and wait for retrieval at the nearest safehouse.”

“I understood my mission was to
prove
Gianni had helped me,” Anika said. “The message about meeting at The Truck Stop restaurant was insufficient evidence. Gianni didn’t deliver it himself.” Anika paused, reluctant to reveal that she had gotten the message from Evan.

Did they already know that? Was that why a gaunt-faced stranger with downy whiskers and translucent blue eyes had been sitting at Evan’s station in Hub?

Anika remembered what Gianni had told her on the plane, his guess that Second and Command had already tried to confirm his alibi. “If you check the restaurant’s records for the night of the solo, you’ll find a reservation under J. Jones for twenty-one hundred hours. And if you check the restaurant’s security discs — ”

“Security discs can be altered.”

They
had
checked. Gianni had guessed right. “And souvenir videos can be
patched
.”

Command stiffened and Second’s lips pulled taut.

Anika took in a slow breath to avoid rushing her next words. “I persuaded Gianni to meet me in Havana. The message I sent him from The Paradiso in Miami — I made sure you would hear about it.”

“How?” Second demanded.

“I researched the owner, Jorge Lopez. Information is his trade.” Not a blink, not a flicker from either Second or Command at her mention of Jorge. Oh yes, he had found a buyer for the message she had sent from the hotel room.

“So all this time,” Second said, her mouth a scarlet-hued twist, “you’ve been trying to get proof of Gianni’s disloyalty.”

“Correct. Once Gianni made contact, I intended to bring him back.”

“You expect us to believe this?” Second’s perfectly arched brows lifted a fraction.

“You’ve seen the retrieval mission discs.” Anika calculated that the images from the fight in the cottage had already been relayed, reviewed, and analyzed while she and Gianni were flown back. “I had planned a more subtle scenario. But when Mac and Salazar showed,” she continued, wishing she could lift her right shoulder in a casual-looking shrug, “I had to do the takedown right then.”

“Yes, the fight looked realistic.” Command steepled her fingers, elbows on chair arms. “Almost convincing.”

“The bullet was real enough. But Mac and Salazar didn’t believe I was still on mission. So I tried to subdue them and complete my assignment. While I didn’t succeed in that part, I’m back. My mission is over.” She straightened in the chair, jutted her chin forward. “And I want what I’ve been promised. My freedom.”

Her entire body sizzled like a jumble of live wires. Fingers and toes jerked involuntarily as feeling returned. She licked her upper lip and tasted salty sweat. She knew her story was weak, but she resisted the impulse to say more, to over explain, to defend.

Second’s foot had started up another staccato dance on the carpet. She opened her mouth.

Anika’s heart sank. She didn’t think she had the strength for another round.

Command lifted her hand to the silver star on her earlobe. “Fine.” She nodded at Second. “He’s ready for you.”

Second shot a look at Anika that she couldn’t read. Excitement? Triumph?

A buzz that had nothing to do with the after effects of the laser raced up her spine. “He” could refer to any number of people — trainees, operatives, hostiles.

The petite woman strode past her.

The elevator doors hissed open, then closed.

It can’t be Gianni.
Medics had been waiting for him with a scanner bed at the final security checkpoint into the complex. He was safely in Clinic, wasn’t he?

Command swiveled away from Anika and reached for something in the low console against the wall. She rose from her chair and stepped down from the platform. “Here.” The commander held out a glass of clear, sparkling liquid. “This will blunt the discomfort, not your senses.” She placed the rim against Anika’s lips and tilted.

The liquid effervesced in Anika’s mouth and evaporated on her tongue before she could swallow. The effect was like magic.
Black magic.

Command stepped back up on the platform and settled a hip on the desk’s edge.

The jangling in Anika’s limbs and torso softened to a pleasant tingle and her heart resumed its normal rhythm.

“Bombing the truck wasn’t our idea,” Command said.

The admission startled Anika.
Keep your mark off guard, until you’re ready to strike.
Is that what Command was doing with her?

“Mac improvised.” Command spoke into the silence. “Not his best skill.”

Command’s words didn’t sync with Mac’s. Whom could she trust?

“What about the intel leak to the First Aryans?” Anika asked. “That I was responsible for destroying their planned attack in Ohio?”

“Intel leaks, both true and false, are unavoidable. You’ve been here long enough to know that.” Command looked up from the glass. “You’ve handled yourself well during this mission. Your ingenuity and persistence were exceptional. Even Second was surprised.” Anika stared as a hint of a smile appeared on Command’s lips. “Not an easy accomplishment.”

“Does that mean I’ve earned my freedom?”

“It means you’ve earned another chance within U.N.I.T.” Command lifted a hand to silence her. “Hear me out. A few more years in the field and you could be eligible for a significant promotion yourself. Perhaps even Command of your own U.N.I.T. Provided you curb your rebellious streak.”

Anika forced herself to count off a few heartbeats. “That wasn’t our deal.” She kept her voice steady. “I want what’s owed me.”

“The top position offers many privileges.” Command picked up the glass and appeared to study it. “Your choice of residence. Unrestricted travel. Some Commands even maintain relationships on the outside. Many things are possible.”

Where was Gianni? Had he already been offered his choice of discipline? Was Second briefing him on the solo?

Command banged the glass down on the desk and pushed herself to a standing position. “What kind of freedom do you think you’ll have once you leave here?” Her voice was granite. “You must know you’ll be caught at some point. You can’t run and hide forever. The attempt by the First Aryans was only a taste of what your life will be like. Even though we’ll change our protocols, reducing the value of your knowledge, they’ll still extract it from you. It won’t be pleasant, and once they’re through, you’ll be dead. Or worse.”