She concealed her bike under fronds and whatever else she could find, rehydrated, then took an intestinal sedative. The last thing she needed after ripping into some rice’n’beans later on was a bout of diarrhea and the severe dehydration that came with it. With her bag over one shoulder, she checked her watch—eleven in the morning—and set off on foot.
She walked two klicks due north before spotting the river. She checked her bearing, then consulted her GPS again. She was on the outskirts of her suspect area. She was sweating constantly, her arms slick and her face trickling with beads of sweat. Her eyebrows kept most of the sweat from stinging her eyes. Instead, it dripped off her nose and chin. The track was long gone now and she was moving through undisturbed jungle, wishing she had a parang blade handy.
She stopped for a quick snack and managed to get down half a meal of rice’n’beans, chasing it with water. She didn’t want to eat too much because it was going to cost her even more water to rehydrate. She was pretty sure she was sweating out half the water she was drinking.
She checked her watch. It was one in the afternoon. Moving to the riverbank, she dumped her bag. No animal bones and plenty of plants around the river. That was a good sign. She pulled out her empty water bottles, listening carefully to her surroundings. All she could hear was the chilling wail of the howler monkeys.
Then she heard it.
Someone fell over, grunted in pain. Behind her, maybe a hundred meters.
Sophia dropped a water-sterilization tablet into the bottle she was holding, screwed the cap back on and chucked it and the empties back in her bag. She packed her jacket between the bottles to stop them rattling against each other, buttoned the bag up and slung it over her bruised shoulders. Moving as fast and as quietly as the thick jungle would allow, she circled around to an earlier point along the river to see who was following her.
Lying prone and waiting for them to walk past, she pulled out the bottle she’d filled, took a few mouthfuls, swished it around her mouth, then swallowed. As she did, she heard more movement. This time it was a short distance behind her. She remained still, checked their position. They were still too far away to be visible, but she could hear them. Was it a second team? Unless she’d miscalculated the first team and had parked herself right in front of them.
Moving as quietly as possible, she slipped her bottle back in her bag, unrolled a garbage bag and pulled out the roll of twine. She slipped her bag into the garbage bag, checked the plastic for holes, then wrapped it tightly with twine. She cut the twine with her knife and tied it off, purposely trapping air inside the bag. Then she lifted it over her shoulder and moved down to the river.
She wedged her pistol firmly among the twine on top of the bag, then walked out into the river, her bag helping her stay afloat. She reminded herself that piranhas didn’t attack humans. When she was halfway out, it started to pour. Raindrops rippled on the surface around her. By the time she’d waded to the other side, the downpour had subsided. She hauled her bag out, took her pistol and moved quickly under the cover of the canopy.
Further along the winding river, she crossed it again, hoping the deception would throw her pursuers. Then she got down low under cover with her bag and waited to catch sight of them. She had a pounding headache and was starting to feel weak. She hadn’t been keeping up with her water. While she had the chance, she guzzled half the bottle.
A blade slashed through leaves behind her, maybe a thirty meters away. Shit.
She slipped the bottle into her bag and headed away from the noise. Over her right shoulder, she caught sight of the team on the other side of the riverbank. They were dressed in jungle camouflage, faces painted to match. They’d crossed over to follow her tracks, but they weren’t the same people she’d just heard. She had two teams on her now, and the second was dangerously close. She noticed they were carrying small weapons: Uzis or small submachine guns. At least they hadn’t seen her yet. One small bonus.
She had no way of knowing whether they were Akhana or whether they were bandits or even drug runners. For that reason, she didn’t want to set a trap. Belize was used as transit for cocaine from Guatemala to Mexico, but mostly by wet dropping shipments from the air and caching them in go-fast boats. Or by air to northern Belize, not where she was in the deep south.
She changed her direction repeatedly, then angled out to the riverbank again, stopping right at the edge and then backtracking. She hoped this would fool them into thinking she’d crossed the river. And it would’ve worked too, had they not been right behind her.
‘We have hot tracks!’ someone said in a low voice.
Low, but loud enough for her to hear. American. That was interesting.
Glock in one hand, knife in the other, she diverted to the right. To hell with sound. If she was going to outrun them, she needed to move quickly.
She heard movement behind her. She listened for weapons cocking but couldn’t hear anything. She saw movement ahead. It was quick and fleeting, but definitely human. Was it a third team? They were boxing her in. She broke left, away from the river.
Something bit her in the back of the neck. The trunks and leaves doubled, shifted. Her vision blurred. The air was as thick as porridge and her lungs felt crushed. She tripped on a root and sprawled onto the damp undergrowth. Her head spun. She couldn’t stand up.
And even if she could, they wouldn’t let her. They swarmed over her with their compact submachine guns, their shouts hazy and distant.
She couldn’t remember who they were; if they were trying to help her, or were dragging her back to Denton, or were planning on shooting her in the back of the head.
She lost consciousness.
***
When Sophia woke, she was greeted by a headache the size of Belize. Her fingers probed through her damp hair and she was relieved to find no sign of head injury.
She was in a small room with nothing in the way of comfort, or design. Concrete walls, ceiling and floor, no paint, and one closed door. There was a water canteen beside her, but she daren’t drink from it.
Screw it, if they wanted her dead she would be already.
Seizing the canteen, she made every effort to sip slowly, and did so until it was empty. Sitting up, she noticed she was lying on an army-surplus sleeping bag spread across a bed frame. They’d even given her a small travel pillow. She’d been stripped of all her own possessions except essential clothing—still damp to the touch. She stank of sweat.
The door opened. A woman stood there, unarmed. She had light brown hair tied back; unremarkable features save for an overly thin nose. She looked to be in her mid-thirties.
‘Your possessions will be returned in a moment,’ she said. ‘Come with me.’
Sophia couldn’t think of anything to say. She carefully stood upright and tested her balance, then, with more confidence, followed the woman out into a limestone tunnel. The tunnel was lit unevenly, doorways seemingly placed at random.
The woman paused at one and knocked, then opened it. ‘I have Sophia,’ she said.
They knew her name. This had to be the Akhana.
The woman nodded towards the doorway, gesturing for Sophia to enter. Sophia walked inside to find another woman, only this one looked quite familiar.
‘Thank you, Ursula,’ the woman said to Sophia’s guide. Then to Sophia: ‘Please, sit.’
Ursula closed the door, and Sophia surveyed her new surroundings. The room was ten times the size of the one she’d just come from. On her left, three desks were pressed up against the concrete wall; on them, no less than six monitors and two laptops. A desk fan buzzed defiantly. On her right was a large, comfortable-looking bedding arrangement and a tall freestanding fan. The rest of the chamber was mostly empty, except for a bar fridge and a rack of old-fashioned swords.
‘Rapiers,’ the woman said as she sat down on an office chair and crossed her legs.
‘You’re a collector?’ Sophia said.
The woman laughed, making the chair creak. ‘Not exactly. We found them in the cave system when we retrofitted this base. The Mayans took the rapiers from dead Spanish invaders and offered them to the Gods of the Underworld.’
‘I see,’ Sophia said. She barely had the energy to speak. A hurricane of emotion burned within her. She kept it in check for now.
‘I believe you trained in an Indonesian weapons-based martial art during your time in Project GATE?’ the woman said.
‘It’s Filipino,’ Sophia said. ‘Eskrima.’
‘We have an unarmed combat instructor here. Sergey. Perhaps you can compare notes, or whatever martial arts people do when they get together,’ the woman said. ‘He was assigned to instruct Project GATE operatives, but he defected to the Akhana once he realized he was to help programmed children become the Fifth Column’s death squad.’
‘I remember you now,’ Sophia said. ‘Doctor McLoughlin.’
‘It’s good to see your memory is intact,’ she said. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve interacted face to face with any of the operatives. Oh, and you can call me Cecilia. Please, sit.’
Sophia sat on the side of the bed and gathered her thoughts. Her body still ached in a million places.
‘Would you like some water?’ Cecilia said.
Sophia nodded.
Cecilia looked to be in her mid-fifties. She had slanting charcoal bangs with kiss curls on each side. She wore a black top with a gunmetal gray jacket. The jacket had striped arms and a wide gray band that ran up the middle to a tall collar.
She shook her head, smiling. ‘You know, Sophia, I thought we’d lost you for good in Volterra. Once we learned Denton had found you. He had an operative with him too.’
Sophia drank from the canteen, breathing heavily between mouthfuls. ‘I was wearing carbon boride plates in my vest. His sniper missed my head, struck my back.’
Cecilia’s head tilted to one side. ‘You’re extremely lucky. The operative who shot you never misses. Which is interesting in itself. Of course, your body wasn’t recovered, which means Denton will be convinced you’re still alive.’
‘I’m not the only one who can hide well,’ Sophia said. ‘The only clue I had to find you was the name of the country. It wasn’t easy. And if it wasn’t for your patrols, I would’ve walked straight past.’
‘If the base was easy to find, we’d be dead by now,’ Cecilia said. ‘I sent people to find you in Volterra but you’d already gone. We’ve been looking for you everywhere, you know. But as soon as I knew someone had stumbled into our perimeter, I sent recon teams out. Told them to hold their fire. I was hoping it would be you.’
Sophia left a few mouthfuls of water in the canteen; she’d need it later.
‘My head’s killing me. Do you have any Tylenol?’ she said.
Cecilia shook her head. ‘Only the normal stuff, I’m afraid. Your medical records indicate a codeine allergy, but I do have some pure aspirin.’
Sophia nodded. Cecilia reached inside her desk drawer and handed over two chewable tablets.
‘I’m terribly sorry about Leoncjusz’s death,’ she said.
The thought of him made Sophia’s breathing ragged. Her eyes collected tears. She blinked and popped the tablets in her mouth. They were orange flavored. At least the chewing would stimulate saliva production, which she was desperately low on right now. She chewed quickly, then swallowed.
‘I
will
kill Denton,’ she said. ‘I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but I’ll kill him.’
Cecilia shifted in her seat. ‘I’m surprised,’ she said. ‘I thought you would be hesitant.’
‘He killed Leon—’ She paused ‘He killed Adamicz. Because of me.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘It doesn’t matter if it is,’ Sophia said. ‘Denton must be stopped. And I want to be the one to stop him.’
‘You might just have the opportunity,’ Cecilia said.
Sophia’s position on the bed was cutting off the circulation to her legs, so she sat further back. She could feel Cecilia studying her.
‘I’ve studied Adamicz’s notes. I think that while he was deprogramming me he was improving the procedure. Sort of like he was debugging me,’ she said. ‘I think I could capture and deprogram new operatives with a quick turnaround. With enough of them, we could turn the Fifth Column against itself.’
‘No,’ Cecilia said. ‘That’s insurgency and it will fail. Our intention is not to murder the Fifth Column but to disempower it. That is what we call subversion. And that’s where our plan comes in.’
‘If I was going to be subversive,’ Sophia said, ‘I’d want a team under my command.’
Cecilia blinked. ‘Do you wish to help us?’
‘I didn’t say that. But hypothetically.’
‘Then hypothetically, I could provide you with our best Akhana people. They’re former Special Forces—’
‘I want my
own
team.’ Sophia smiled. ‘Hypothetically.’
Cecilia sat perfectly straight, her hands on her thighs. She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘And who exactly do you have in mind?’
‘Operatives,’ Sophia said. ‘Deprogrammed, just like me.’
‘That will take months.’ Cecilia’s grip on her thighs tightened. ‘Did Adamicz explain to you what we wanted you to do?’
‘He did.’
‘Listen to me, Sophia. We don’t have time to capture and deprogram operatives. The encryption on the Chimera vector codes has an expiry date; it will destroy the codes before you have a chance to recover them. We can’t afford that.’
‘
You
can’t afford that.’
‘Why are you here, Sophia?’
Sophia looked away, focused on the desk fan. ‘I don’t know. I guess I wanted to see if this was real.’
‘We could use your help.’
‘I know.’
Cecilia crossed her legs again, studying her as she did so. ‘The Fifth Column took your family from you. Your life. Your belief system. Your free will. Even Adamicz. Do you seek revenge, Sophia?’
‘No.’ She met Cecilia’s gaze. ‘I want redemption.’
‘Redemption. And what precisely do you wish to redeem yourself of?’
Sophia swallowed. ‘Everything.’
‘Then this is your chance.’
‘Under my conditions. I can do most of the deprogramming in under an hour,’ Sophia said. ‘Then I can tie up the loose ends inside of a week.’