Read Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 Online
Authors: EJ Fisch
The interior of the house was dark, but working in the dark was one of her specialties. All the windows had already been set to maximum tint when she’d arrived, which was a bit of a relief. Even though she wore gloves, it was one less thing she had to worry about touching. And in this situation, the less she had to worry about, the better.
She’d been there for close to an hour now. Much of that time had been spent standing motionless in the center of a room, taking in every detail in order to ensure nothing looked any different when it was time to leave. It was something she’d made a habit of doing whenever she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. It made for a slow search process though; each and every movement was carefully calculated, and she felt as though she’d spent more time focused on covering her tracks than on the actual hunt.
After searching the living room and kitchen, she had found nothing of value. There were plenty of items that were valuable
monetarily
, but she never dealt in anything so petty. She searched only for information. It would have been more efficient to simply bug the house or install a hidden cam somewhere, but she knew the owner – an experienced and respected agent with the Haphezian Special Police – would find such a device in no time. She would no doubt be suspected immediately, and all her efforts toward remaining invisible would be rendered futile.
Guided by the dim red light of the single glow stick she carried, she turned and crept down the short hallway toward the bedroom and personal office space. If there was anything interesting to be found, she guessed that was where it would be. When a visual sweep of the room yielded nothing of interest, she went to work at the communications console, carefully picking her way into the call logs. She wasn’t particularly surprised to find that they had all been erased, but she cursed her poor luck regardless. She should have known better than to think a veteran HSP agent would leave such information – work-related
or
personal – in a place where it could so easily fall into the wrong hands.
She moved on to a shelf beside the wardrobe, shuffling through a stack of data pads and taking care to lay each one back down at the appropriate angle as she finished. None of them seemed to contain anything useful. A quick but careful search through the wardrobe itself also produced no results. She was starting to consider calling it quits when she opened the last drawer. Rather than pull out, the front of the drawer simply folded down, revealing two smaller drawers behind it. She tugged on the upper one and found several high-powered pistols encased in protective gel. The bottom one wouldn’t budge.
Hello there
, she thought.
Shutting the gun drawer, she bent down to take a closer look at the locked compartment. It was equipped with a fingerprint scanner as well as a small cavity that appeared to be for some sort of coded key. She knew she could eventually breach such security measures, but at the moment she had neither the equipment nor the time required to do so. She checked her watch; the owner would be returning home from work any minute.
She carefully lifted the false drawer cover back into place and retreated from the room. Everything in the house looked exactly as it had been when she’d entered, and she was confident that the odor-masking spray she wore would successfully conceal any scent she left behind. It was disappointing to be leaving empty-handed, but she believed she’d found what she was looking for. And she’d be back for it.
-2-
The rain had finally reduced itself to a mere drizzle, though thunder still rumbled and some nearby sarmi trees continued to hiss as the wind rushed through their leaves. Lightning illuminated the courtyard for only an instant every few seconds, bathing the walkway and garden in brilliant white light. The raindrops could be heard pattering on the stone path and splattering into the puddles that had formed in the grass and flowerbeds. Excess water from the roof cascaded down from the gutter, making a mess as it hammered into the ground and painted everything within two meters with a thick layer of dark mud.
Kade Shevin pivoted on his left heel and spun his rigid body around, turning back in the direction from which he had just come. After pausing a moment, he began to take slow, even strides back across the footbridge that crossed over the courtyard and connected the Royal Officer’s private residence to his office building.
It wasn’t that the disciplined movements were regulation, and it certainly wasn’t that Kade was standing at attention for anyone. He was freezing, soaked to the skin through his uniform, and he could find no other way to help pass the time than to pretend he was actually doing something of consequence – not that protecting Officer Ikaro Tachi wasn’t of consequence….
Forty paces across the bridge one way, eighty total. He’d lost track of how many rounds he’d made already, but the cramps in his legs told him it was a few too many. When he had reached the end again, Kade turned, walked back several steps, and took a moment to stop and lean against the metal railing that ran the length of the bridge. There was nothing to see there in the dark except for the occasional blink-and-you-miss-it view of the garden whenever the lighting came. In the absence of lightning, a few small illumination bots hovered in the area below him, but the dim halos of light around them did next to nothing to penetrate the night.
The wad of govino gum rolling around in his mouth had long since lost its flavor, so Kade removed it and lobbed it out over the side of the bridge. At twenty-five years old, he was a fresh addition to the Haphezian Special Police’s Royal Guard, having spent the last four years working spaceport security after a year in the military. He had a beautiful wife of almost two years and a newborn daughter. They were his pride and joy, the reason he now found himself standing out in the rain while the majority of the security detail got to stay inside closer to the party. He hadn’t been with the Royal Guard long enough to earn such a privilege just yet, but he was willing to fight his way up the ranks if it meant supporting his family.
Kade wasn’t overly tall as far as HSP agents went, standing a bit shy of two meters. He was strong and just as good with a gun as any RG officer, but his mind was his weapon of choice. Problem solving and perseverance were his strong suits, and as such he’d never meshed well with his colleagues who took more pride in how much weight they could lift or what their target shooting scores were. His work ethic made up for his mediocrity in other areas, and his superiors were finally starting to take notice; maybe it wouldn’t be long before he too could stay inside out of the rain.
Music and laughter from the party trickled out of the main audience hall and reached Kade’s ears. This gala had commanded the Royal Guard’s attention for weeks. Officer Tachi was hosting it for every dignitary on the planet short of the king himself, and was due to present some sort of award to the prime director of HSP, Kade believed. Saying security was high was like saying the galaxy was big.
With a sigh, Kade stood up and resumed his pacing, wishing he hadn’t spit out the gum. He blinked the water out of his eyes and looked down at his boots to shield his face as the rain started pouring hard again. His normally-brown hair was soaked black and he reached up to brush away a lock that had become plastered to his forehead. The surface of the bridge appeared to be covered in tiny crawling creatures as the huge raindrops pelted it and splashed onto him. He was about to check on how much time was left in his shift when he glanced down into the darkness just as a jagged bolt of lightning brought the courtyard into view.
Kade tensed, the sensation of the pounding rain fading into the back of his mind, and rushed back to lean over the railing. He’d seen something down there, the unmistakable shape of a crouching person, highlighted against the solid white wall that surrounded the palace and offices. It had only been for a second, but that second had been enough. Kade held perfectly still, staring into the darkness as he waited for another lightning strike. Even with keen Haphezian eyesight, it was impossible to see anything through the rain. When the flash finally came, the figure was gone, but a thin black cord dangled from the top of the wall, wriggling in the wind.
Instinctively, Kade placed a finger on the communicator in his ear, ready to alert someone, but something held him back. He squinted into the black void a bit longer, trying to see where the intruder had gone. Two more lightning flashes came and went. Still nothing.
“Bridge to ballroom,” he said slowly, barely able to hear himself over the roar of the rain.
“Copy, bridge,” crackled the voice of Luko Zona, his commanding officer. “What’s the problem?”
“I think I saw someone,” Kade answered, “in the garden.”
“It was probably a guest out for some fresh air,” his superior suggested after a brief hesitation. “Believe me, there are a few who’ve hit the drinks pretty hard.”
Out of habit Kade shook his head, though he wasn’t speaking to Zona face to face. “It wasn’t a guest. I closed this area off to civilians.” He glanced around quickly as another lightning bolt ripped through the clouds. “Get someone up here, will you?”
He could hear the exasperation in Zona’s sigh. “You sure, kid?”
“Yes!”
“I’ll have someone clear the garden. Sit tight.”
Kade sensed movement to his right and whirled. “Hello?” he called into the rain. He removed the spotlight from his belt and activated it, but his cold and trembling fingers failed to grasp it tightly and it slipped out over the side of the bridge. “
Sheyss
.”
He felt silly talking to someone when he didn’t even know if they were really there, and he was beginning to wonder if he’d simply been seeing things. With a slippery hand he drew his pistol and strode forward, shielding his face with his free hand. The opposite end of the bridge was shrouded in darkness that anyone or anything could be lurking in.
Gritting his teeth, Kade pressed forward into the shadows. “HSP! Whoever is there, come out with your hands where I can see them!”
Of course nobody would actually come out – if they were even there in the first place. He suddenly felt very afraid, and his mind wandered to Veya and Jernie who were waiting up for him at home. Assuming this was nothing, he’d have quite the tale to tell when he finally made it back to them. And if there
was
an intruder, he would still have a good story…if he lived long enough to tell it.
Something moved ahead of him, a more defined shadow that hadn’t been there a moment before. It was without doubt a person, roughly the same height as himself, standing several meters in front of him. It was still too dark to make out any distinguishing features, much less tell if it was male or female. It stood there watching him, unmoving.
Despite his soaked clothes, Kade could feel himself start to sweat profusely. He grasped his pistol with both hands to steady it and took another step forward. “HSP,” he repeated. “Show yourself, now!”
The figure ducked away without warning, and Kade considered firing at it. “Stop!” he ordered, rushing deeper into the shadows. Boots scuffled behind him and he turned, thrusting his pistol into the darkness toward the unseen enemy.
A brilliant white flash tore through his vision, once when something heavy struck him headlong in the face and a second time when his skull met the surface of the bridge. Kade lay there, fluttering his eyelids, catching a blurry image of the intruder as it entered the palace. Blackness crept inward from the edges of his eyes, and he finally closed them to dull the throbbing pain.
-3-
Skeet Duvo, sergeant of HSP’s Alpha special operations team, shook his head and tugged at the collar of his tunic shirt with two fingers. Not only was it insanely itchy, but it also felt like it was restricting his air supply. His stiff, unblemished jacket hugged his muscular frame, limiting the range of motion in his shoulders. This current ensemble was probably the nicest thing he owned, other than his HSP dress blues, but he had only worn it two or three times in his life. Such formal occasions made him feel entirely out of place, despite the fact that everyone around him was dressed in a similar fashion.
Skeet let out a long sigh and brushed his hand over his greased hair, still unaccustomed to the fact that it wasn’t sticking out everywhere like he usually wore it. He’d done his hair and dressed up for this just like he’d been told, but he’d taken a risk and left the multiple piercings in his ears, small tokens that made him feel like he was still himself.
He was suddenly aware of someone about his height standing beside him. Rather than turn or even make a move, he smiled to himself and continued to scan the crowd. “Remind me again what we’re doing here?”
Ziva Payvan – the Alpha team’s lieutenant, his boss, and the woman he respected more than anyone else in the galaxy – scoffed and crossed her arms. “Someone’s got to be on protection detail for the director. Don’t ask me how they decided it was our turn. Trust me; there are hundreds of things I’d rather be doing right now instead of standing around here looking like an idiot.”
This made Skeet smile again. After nearly eight years of camaraderie, they had begun to think alike. He turned to face Ziva and was rendered temporarily speechless by how stunning she looked in her eveningwear. She wore a modest but elegant floor-length black dress that draped over one shoulder, curved across her chest and disappeared under her opposite arm. The tattoos visible on her back and upper arms seemed a bit out of place at this event, but in Skeet’s opinion they complimented the dress quite nicely. Her black and red-streaked hair was woven and folded into a braid-like style against the back of her head.
“Well,” Skeet said, turning his attention back to the party guests milling about in Officer Tachi’s ballroom, “you look like anything but an idiot.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes, but smirked. “Thanks,” she muttered. “Where’s Zinni?”
“I didn’t know when you’d get here, so I stationed her by the side entrance,” Skeet replied. “What took you so long, anyway?”
“Just had a few things to take care of,” Ziva answered, refraining from elaborating any further. She unfolded her arms and slid her hands down to rest on her hips. Even in the formal dress, she looked formidable enough to make anyone think twice about approaching her in the wrong way.
The vagueness of her response told Skeet not to push the matter any further. They may have faced life-and-death situations together on a daily basis, but their personal lives were a different matter. Ziva especially had always been a very private person, and while it sometimes drove him crazy, he respected that privacy. He reminded himself that, if it was anything important, she certainly would have shared.
Skeet kept his eyes on HSP Director Emeri Arion as he mingled with the other guests. While the place was already crawling with security detail from every organization represented, the Alpha team had been sent along in plainclothes to provide expertise and a few extra sets of eyes. All three of them were packing, but to any onlookers they were just three
more partygoers.
The Royal Officer had yet to make an appearance at his own gala. He was due to present several awards in – Skeet checked the time – about ten minutes, one in particular to Director Arion for some miniscule thing he had no doubt already received similar awards for. Still, this was one of the biggest events of the year among the Haphezian dignitaries, whether it was because they were being commended or because they were looking for a good time. Skeet could honestly say he’d be enjoying himself if not for the clothes he was wearing. He gave his collar another tug and squirmed in his jacket.
“
You
on the other hand might look like an idiot, the way you keep fidgeting like that,” Ziva said in a motherly tone. The corners of her mouth turned upward ever so slightly. It wasn’t often that something so insignificant could make her smile – she was clearly in a better mood than Skeet would have expected of her on an assignment like this.
“Not everyone cleans up as nice as you do, Z.”
“I didn’t say you don’t look nice,” she said. “Just try not to look like you’re dying.”
“You two look like you’re having way too much fun.” They both turned to find Intelligence Officer Zinnarana Vax as she moved up to stand beside them. She too wore a long black dress, this one strapless. The glittering blue sash around her waist did a fantastic job of bringing out the brilliant cerulean in her eyes and hair, which she had left down. Zinni was much smaller than either of them, but what she lacked in size she made up for in attitude and brains. If they were smart, people treaded just as lightly around her as they did around Ziva. She was tough and intelligent, but wasn’t nearly as callous as the lieutenant. The two of them balanced each other out, and Skeet couldn’t have asked for a better pair of teammates.
“You know we are,” Ziva replied, crossing her arms again. “See anything out of place?”
“Not a thing,” Zinni said. “We’ve been here for close to an hour and everything seems normal.”
“Except that,” Skeet muttered, perking up. He stepped away from the women, eyes fixed on the three agents dressed in HSP blues who were rushing from the hall. He turned to his left to see another pair listening intently to their earpieces before they too hurried off.
Ziva and Zinni strode forward as well, with Ziva brushing past him and stopping a step in front of him. “This can’t be good.”
Nearby guests had noticed the commotion and were chattering among themselves. Some were beginning to cluster at the bottom of the grand staircase, peering up in the direction the agents had gone. Whatever had them so intrigued was happening on the second floor of Tachi’s palace.