Cloud Rebel (R-D #3)(69)

"I heard from Auggie shortly after it happened, but I already knew," I sighed. "I didn't want to go—word is there isn't much left to see."

"Yet the President is still insisting on sending Ilya and the others into that trap," Val muttered. "Word has not reached Deonus Wyyld, as yet. If he hears that Lyristolys is responsible for Keef's death, he will oust them from the Alliance."

"Is that a bad thing?" I asked.

"In some instances, it could prove to be quite detrimental to all involved. Lyristolyi tend to be a vindictive people—as you have witnessed. Without the Alliance laws to hold them in check, they can willfully cause much damage. Look at what they have accomplished here, with only a handful of their people."

"Good point," I mumbled. "Val, I feel numb. Like it's not real one minute, and that it shouldn't have happened the next. I don't know what to do, right now."

"That is an understandable reaction," he soothed. "When did you last feed? Come, I will take you elsewhere."

*

Ilya

The van we rode in dropped us off half a mile from the wall surrounding the estate. Agent Smith led us in; Brett, Jennifer and I, followed by four others. At least they'd given us weapons at the last; I worried that we'd be forced to go in unarmed.

We'd been provided body armor, too, but I was concerned it wouldn't help us against what we might meet inside Phillips' home. Getting over the wall went well enough; it was what came after that changed everything.

*

Captain Brett Walker

Smith had taken the lead, with Rafe right behind him. Jen and I came next, with Smith's agents following. Rafe should have been in the lead—I recall thinking that. He appeared to be better prepared and more knowledgeable than Smith, who took a circuitous route toward the house.

We'd almost arrived at the designated door when the impossible happened—Smith turned as if to signal the rest of us, but instead, he hit Rafe in the head with the butt of his gun.

Rafe fell, unconscious, while weapons were poked into Jen's and my back. "Keep quiet or we kill him," Smith snarled, jerking his head toward Rafe, who lay unmoving on the ground.

The door—the one we'd targeted, opened, and former President Phillips stood there, the light at his back, smiling at Smith as if he'd been expecting us all along.

Turns out, that's exactly how it was.

Our weapons were taken away and Jen and I were forced inside the house while Rafe was dragged in by two of Smith's agents.

"I don't want him damaged too much," Phillips chuckled as the agents dumped Rafe on the tiled floor of the kitchen. "I need him, after all."

Guns were still pointed at us—and at Rafe while he struggled back to consciousness. I witnessed something then that I never want to see again—when Rafe's eyes blinked open, and before he had time to do anything else, Phillips placed a command.

"From now on, you will only do what I say," he snapped.

I'm sure it was the wolf in me that detected the waves of power in that command—I doubted my previous human self would have recognized it.

Somehow, too, the wolf knew better than I did what to do. I turned in the kitchen and fought my way through it, getting two bullet wounds for my trouble.

Yes, I should have known better.

Whatever that power was that Phillips had, he turned it on Jen, next, ordering her to do the same thing. What came next defied logic and would have made me ill, if I'd been human.

*

Notes—Colonel Hunter

Matt and I sat at the bar in a restaurant not far from my office. He'd been the one to tell me that Granville had sent the team in early. Therefore, we'd chosen a public place to drink, imagining that we'd be called to account for our whereabouts at a later time—once word of the infiltration and attack on Phillips' estate got out.

As it surely would.

News of that explosion did come first—barely.

What followed left us both staring at the television screen mounted over the bar, where images were transmitted by Israeli and Saudi news crews of nuclear weapons destroying Iraq.

I found I couldn't move as we watched infrared cameras record high, massive plumes and mushroom clouds. Matt must have called my name a dozen times before I realized he was pulling on my arm to get me away from the bar.

"We have to get to the White House," he said when the roaring lessened in my head.

"Who?" I blinked at him, still in shock.

"They're going to blame this on the Russians," he hissed. "We may be next," he added. "Come on. We have to hurry." Tossing a large bill on the bar, he practically carried me away.

I didn't comprehend how Opal could be outside in a car, waiting for us to get in. The last I heard, she'd been in Europe earlier in the day.

"Buckle up," she instructed as the car peeled away from the curb. "I've contacted Cori—she and Val are on the way. Half of Iraq is gone—six bombs hit. That only put a dent in the stockpile, so who knows what may get hit, next."

"They're getting hit with the bombs—the ones given to them?" I asked. I'd squeezed myself into the back seat and now stared at the back of Opal's head as she wove her way through traffic toward the capitol.

Matt's cell phone rang. "On our way," he barked into it.