Cloud Invasion: R-D 2 (R-D #2)(25)

Rafe cursed as he grabbed the Mary clone. She attempted to fight him, but that was useless-he pulled a weapon I'm sure his daughter had supplied and held it discreetly against the clone's back while Maye held her arms.

Tell Nick to meet us at the hotel, Rafe sent a curt mental message. Get us back there as quickly as you can. He wasn't happy with the way I'd taken matters into my own hands.

Clone Mary didn't want to walk; Rafe and Maye pulled her along as if she weighed nothing until we reached an alcove in a nearby building. That's when I relocated the four of us to the hotel.

*

"She doesn't have one of those devices, and is bug free," I informed Auggie ten minutes later. "Want me to bring her to you?"

"Yeah. Matt Michaels is here, now, so I'll let him have her after you tell me everything you can see in her."

I didn't tell Auggie that she hadn't been bug free when I found her-I'd employed my talent to get rid of it, first thing. I figure somebody was cursing somewhere when she vanished from their radar.

*

"There's a Baikov clone," I sighed, flopping onto a chair in the meeting room back at the Program facility. "She was expecting him when I showed up looking like him."

"What the hell?" Rafe snapped. He still wasn't happy that I'd gotten as close to Mary as I had-he worried I could have been hurt or worse.

"That's why she stepped out of line at the coffee shop," I continued, ignoring Rafe's anger. "He was supposed to meet her there and he was late. Half an hour, almost. She went looking for him. That clone may still be in Dublin, but I can't say for sure."

"Where else would he be?" Auggie asked. "If he was supposed to meet her?"

"No idea," I shrugged. It was a lie, but I couldn't tell Auggie the truth.

What do you know? Rafe sent.

Your son-in-law did the Baikov clone in, I responded. Want to tell Auggie that?

Good for him and hell, no, Ilya grinned at me, his anger momentarily forgotten.

"Corinne, did you see any other Baikov clones?" Auggie interrupted my mental conversation.

"No. I'm still trying to figure out how there's a Baikov clone to begin with," I said. "If the original got the drug, he should have changed. I'm not sure what to make of that."

"Does Mary Evans take two know anything?" Leo asked.

"No. She thinks the Baikov in Dublin is the original, so it's likely that the Russians had him as a backup for the one we killed. There may be others, for all we know."

"Too bad we don't have the other one." Matt Michaels, who sat beside Opal at one end of the conference table, shook his head.

"I think we ought to start looking for more Baikov and Mary clones," Maye suggested. "I can't believe they're cranking them out this fast."

"Where did Baikov come from?" I asked Rafe. "What's his background? When was he made general?"

"You're thinking this may go back farther than we suspect, don't you?" Richard Farrell asked.

"I'm not willing to dismiss any possibility at this point," I said.

"I know what the official reports say on Baikov, but I don't recall him coming to power or into the public arena until the end of the last regime, just before the current President took power. He's been pouring lies into the Russian President's ear ever since." Rafe had already done his homework on Baikov.

"You'd know," Auggie agreed.

"I have that photograph you asked for," Auggie said, tapping the tablet in front of him. "I want you, Matt, Rafe, Richard and Leo with me while we discuss that over coffee."

Nick and I want to see you and Rafe too, Maye sent.

I know. I'll ask Opal to join us, I returned.

*

"This was taken just this morning-he had a meeting with the Joint Chiefs," Auggie said, turning his tablet around so I could see the photograph. We sat in Rafe's and my kitchen, drinking coffee.

"Score," I sighed. Whoever had taken the photograph managed to get the Joint Chiefs in the frame, too.

"What do you see?" Auggie asked.

"I see collusion," I said. "He's been in contact with Phillips all along, as have the Joint Chiefs. The trouble is, the Joint Chiefs think Hal is Phillips, now. They have no idea what Phillips currently is-or where he is. Their initial goal is to make Madam President look bad," I said. I was terrified by other things I saw, but hesitated to give out that information.

"How will they go about making the President look bad?" Matt Michaels asked.

"Well, making her look bad may be an understatement," I amended. "They intend to discredit her completely. They'd love to shove her out of the White House now, by exposing the Program. That's the first purpose in getting the fifteen survivors away-and planting Dinosaur Boy beneath Seattle. DB may surprise them with how little sentience he has remaining to do as they ask. Every day he's on his own allows the animal to take over. Askins thinks they'll tie Madam President to the creation of DB when he causes havoc in Elliott Bay, although she had little to do with it."

"This could blow the Program wide open," Auggie said. I could tell how angry he was. Not only would Madam President fall if Askins succeeded with his plan, but everybody she'd appointed, including him, would fall with her if this news went public.