Cloud Rebel (R-D #3)(84)

As for Becker, he was still a bully. The autopsy report claimed his death was due to an unusual blood clot in the brain. I didn't waste more time on him than that.

Richard Farrell, though, I had to think a long time about him. He ended up being the only one I went back to the beginning for. I neutralized the stash of drug he had to experiment on himself.

That meant he was very, very old where and when I was at the moment.

Every jolt that unsettled the timeline after I interfered—I received angry mindspeech from Kalenegar. I knew what he wasn't saying, though.

He wasn't saying that I was marked for death if any Larentii found me. I'd known all along it would come to that. I already had a plan in place, just as Phillips did.

Like Phillips, too, nothing would stop those he'd paid to show up at the Louvre the following day.

It was my final act—before the curtain closed.

I figured Kal would eventually figure it out and show up to take me. That's why I had to maneuver around him. I still had something to do and nobody was going to stop me.

*

I'd never gotten to see the grand works of art in the Louvre—the attack had happened shortly after our arrival. We'd arranged to be included in a guided tour, so we and those poor souls with us had already been marked for death by Phillips and his horde.

This time, I'd taken a private tour while heavily shielded, just so I could see the things I hadn't before. I'd already viewed the Mona Lisa and many, many other things. The painting that caught my attention, however, was The Funeral of Phocion, by Nicholas Poussin.

I stood feet away, studying it. Phocion, a politician often known as Phocion the Good, had lived a frugal, quiet life as an Athenian Statesman. Eventually, however, he'd fallen out of favor and been sentenced to death by a new regime.

He'd been ordered to drink hemlock, after which his body was denied burial in Athens. At that moment, I felt a kinship with him.

In the painting, his body was being carried away from the city by two slaves. There were no mourners present to mark his death—everyone else in the painting is going about their business and take no notice of his passing. Even in death, Phocion had been banished from the city he served for so long.

Pulling my gaze away from the image, I went in search of those who were gathering to attack the Louvre. They'd formed an elaborate scheme to steal works of art and a king's crown, to feed the desires of an Asian dictator.

Kal would come to the museum at the time allotted for them to begin their killing, thinking I would appear then.

He would be too late.

Those employees on the inside, who'd accepted a bribe to let the assumed terrorists in? They were already dead inside an office. They'd be discovered later.

Folding space to a nearby building, I held my anger in check as I released the particles of eleven would-be killers.

At the Louvre, it would just be another day.

Except for one thing.

I folded space to the museum, shielding myself from view.

If this were a movie, then someone would put music to this scene—something sad and nostalgic. For what was and could have been, and what everything had come to in the end.

Instead, there was nothing but silence as I stared across a marble floor at myself. There, the former me, aging and standing apart from her husband, blinked right back.

I even heard tourists talking about the many, sudden deaths of people scattered across several continents. News programs had repeatedly spoken their theories concerning the disappearance of President Phillips and his Chief of Staff, too. Everybody was scratching their heads, wondering who could have kidnapped the American President with no sign or appearance of a ransom note.

The attackers were already dead—there would be no blood on marble floors today.

Elsewhere, the attackers' contacts, cohorts and conspirators were also dead. I'd made a note of all of them when I'd read the attackers. That, combined with information garnered from Phillips, Askins and everyone else, ensured that Mary Evans and anyone she worked with was dead.

She'd been in charge of the Paris operation. I had no sympathy for her.

As for Baikov and the Russian President? They'd be found dead in the same room at the Kremlin, their deaths attributed to some strange malady.

In this time, Ilya had never met me.

In this time, we'd never had the chance to fall in love and marry. I wanted to weep for my—our—loss. I couldn't; I had something to do.

It was time to complete my plan.

This—this last act—was all that was left.

Good-bye, Ilya, I sent, knowing he'd never hear me.

Cue the music.

Lifting my hand (the one that Ilya's ring had disappeared from) and realizing what would happen when I exerted power, I released the particles of my former self across the room, knowing that I would disintegrate right along with her.

Across that distance, just before we both disappeared forever, I saw her nod in acceptance.





Chapter 18

Personal Notes—Kalenegar of the Larentii

I arrived too late. Yes, I realized the irony of it. I was set to release her particles. By the time I learned what she intended, it was to see the last of her—and her previous self's—particles spread and wink out of existence.

I kept myself shielded as I dropped to my knees and sobbed.

At the end, she'd fixed everything. She'd turned rebel to do it, but she'd accomplished the impossible.