Cloud Invasion: R-D 2 (R-D #2)(47)

I was wrong-and gratefully so.

"We won't make it without her," Maye said. "Six years ago, I never thought I'd be saying those words."

"What if we're forced to go on without her?" I asked, kissing Maye's temple gently.

"I guess we'll go down fighting," she said simply.

*

Notes-Colonel Hunter

"For now, you're still my Secretary of Defense," Madam President snapped. I'd attempted to submit my resignation, but she'd refused it. "Look, I know Farrell's death hit you hard so close to the others, but we have a new problem."

"What's that?"

"This." She pushed a tablet across her desk. "I got this from Matt Michaels this morning. Want to speculate on why it came from him instead of Askins? Our people in Cuba are still trying to wrap their heads around this."

"This has to be a joke," I said, flipping through the report and the photographs included.

"It's not. They're filling up an airfield in a remote area."

Russian fighter planes and bombers were lined up on cracked tarmac, with grass growing between those cracks. "This one hasn't been used in a while," I said.

"No, it's used-they just don't have the money to repair or replace it. Until now, unless Matt and I miss our guess. We really haven't seen anything like this, though, since Grenada in 1983. We may have to close the embassy there if this escalates."

"I knew they were landing at Latin American bases, but this? This is preposterous. Any word from the Cuban or Russian Ambassadors?" I understood the Grenada reference-that had been named Operation Urgent Fury. It lasted less than two months. I worried that this wouldn't be so easily contained.

"Neither are returning my calls at the moment," the President answered my question. "If we ever needed Corinne's help," she rose and paced behind her desk. I rose with her-and watched her agitated journey as it turned toward the window behind her.

"That's not possible. I wish it were otherwise," I said. With Corinne's current condition, it might always be that way, too. Madam President still thought them dead-all of them. For now, she could be close to correct regarding Corinne.

"Get with Matt and the Secretary of State. Find out as much as you can. Is this just posturing, or is there a real threat in this?"

"I'll do everything in my power, Madam President," I said and strode from the Oval Office.

*

Ilya

Darin Majors, Jr. was buried two weeks after his murder, following an autopsy. Relatives on his father's side made the arrangements, and buried him near his parents' graves in Atlanta. There were no known relatives on his mother's side-she'd been adopted as an infant after someone left her at a hospital. Her adoptive parents were also dead, for at least twenty years.

Corinne still hadn't wakened, although Farrell was surprised that her body wasn't wasting away. The sunlamps were still on and standing about her bed; I refused to allow the others to turn them off.

Farrell was surprised, too, that her skin failed to burn. At least he'd learned to listen to me when I said she never suffered any effects from spending hours beneath the lamps. In fact-she didn't even show a tan.

"It's over, my love. He rests near his father's grave," I touched Corinne's hand, folding it into mine.

"I know." She opened her eyes, then.

I didn't ask her where she'd been. "I'm glad to hear your voice," I said instead.

*

Corinne

Everybody gave me space, except for Ilya and Richard. Ilya wanted to hold me; Richard wanted to examine every inch of me.

Both of those things happened.

It kept my mind off the obvious. I had to stay away from that, just to keep my sanity and the world safe.

"Flowers, cabbage. I found them at the grocery store." Ilya brought in a vase filled with a mixed bouquet.

"Those are nice. You went out to find some, didn't you?"

"Yes. This is better than having a florist deliver. We don't want to draw attention."

"Thank you, honey." I kissed him, took the flowers and set them on the kitchen island. He'd found me there when he got back, having coffee and staring into space.

The others had gone out for lunch at a local pizza restaurant. "I heard from Katya," he said, taking the chair beside mine. "She says that the underground is reporting sightings of Baikov in Russia. This coincides with the idiotic show they're making of crowding South American air bases with planes and recklessly flying missions just outside U.S. air space."

"Bastards."

"I have better terms," he shrugged.

"The underground, huh?" I said, bumping his shoulder with mine.

"It has to be hidden. Many of them are on Russian hit lists."

"So Katya and her husband are doing what they can to undermine Baikov and the President? Do you think that was the reason the Baikov and Mary clones were in Ireland?"

"I think that, yes, and the underground is doing everything it can to stop them," Ilya huffed. "I told Katya to be careful. We know what the enemy is capable of, and somehow, he has his hands on any incarnations of Baikov that may appear."

"True. Do you think this is so he can come riding in on a white horse and save the country from the big, bad Russians?"