Cloud Rebel (R-D #3)(9)
"He may have intel on those warheads."
"I hope it's more reliable than last time."
"They were moved last time before we made it to the storage area. Finding something there is next to impossible without good information."
"Living informants are also an asset," I responded dryly.
"We do have a problem keeping them alive," he agreed. "I wish, well, we all know what I wish."
"I do." I stared at the wedding band I'd refused to remove from my hand. If I had my way, it would stay there as long as I lived.
"I'm hoping I can convince another person or two to join us—they may be working with us as liaisons of some sort—if I can convince them to do so."
"Who might that be?"
"The ones Opal said pulled your fat from the fire yesterday."
"Interesting choice of words, Colonel. I'll see you tomorrow."
*
Corinne
"Thank you for bringing me here." Val stood behind me as I paid my respects to Nick and Maye at Arlington National Cemetery. We'd gone to Australia first, to feed, and then he'd brought me here after I'd asked him to do so. That's when I got Auggie's call.
"Can you and uh—Valegar come to a lunch meeting tomorrow? Matt, Opal and I will be there. We'd like to talk to you."
"Go ahead and say Ilya will be there, too," I said.
"Rafe will be there," he confirmed. "Please call him that. I doubt he wants anyone else calling him—well, you should know what I mean."
"It's hard seeing him," I sighed.
"I know. Cori, we need information, and we may need it soon. That's why I'm asking you to meet with us."
"We'll be there," I said.
*
Personal Notes—Richard Farrell
"Hey, Doc." He was dying. Everyone else at Bethesda had considered it a blessing. Blinded in both eyes, all four limbs missing, paralyzed and experiencing renal failure after the IED explosion in Iraq, he had hours left at best. His voice was barely a whisper as he spoke—he'd heard me as I sat on the chair beside his bed.
"Do you remember when you told me how you loved to run?" I asked.
"Yeah. That'll only happen in my next life, now," he joked.
"Brett, just remember you said that," I told him before pulling the syringe from a pocket. I'd already used one; this was the second—and last—that I intended to use. I'd had a private meeting with Madam President—she'd given her blessing.
Two candidates I'd chosen personally had been moved to what Corinne had dubbed the ugly building in Arlington.
Inside, it was anything but. I'd had the top floor outfitted to my specifications, again with permission from the President. She intended to tell Colonel Hunter when—and if—my experiment was successful.
Yes, I'd kept my personal goals out of my proposal to the President, but the truth was this—I was empty without Maye.
I also had samples of her blood—and Nick's. This could fail, and I realized it.
If it failed, I intended to go down with my new charges.
*
Ilya
"Katya?" I answered her call when I walked through the door of my home in Silver Spring. Colonel Hunter had arranged for the house—I understood it had once belonged to her, for a short time.
Nevertheless, it was still owned by the Program, therefore I was using it.
"Papa," Katya's voice was thick with tears.
"What's wrong, little moth?" I asked.
"They caught Sergei—I don't know where he is," she wept.
"Hold on," I said and pulled a second phone from my pocket to dial Colonel Hunter.
*
Corinne
"Cori, I hate to bother you," Auggie said over the phone. I knew, just by the tone of his voice, that something was terribly wrong. Val followed in my wake as I folded space to Auggie's office.
I understood the problem the moment I saw his face.
Ilya's son-in-law was in trouble.
Val didn't bother to protest when I folded space the second time in mere seconds, where we found a naked Sergei Levinson tied to a chair, while his captors did their best to electrocute him with battery cables.
*
Katya stifled a scream when Val and I appeared in her hotel office, where she sat at her desk, crying.
"I need your chair," I said, allowing Valegar to settle the nearly lifeless body of Sergei on the chair she'd scrambled away from.
"Corinne?" she whispered as Val and I began to glow—it would take energy and talent to get Sergei back.
*
"You can't tell your father I was here," I patted Katya's hand later, while she sat on the edge of her bed, stroking Sergei's hair back from his forehead. Val and I—we'd saved his life. Another few minutes and that may not have been possible.
Still, he had weeks of recovery ahead of him.
"Papa won't talk about you," she whispered. "Why?"
"A Sirenali's curse, young one," Val replied. "Once a Sirenali places an obsession, it can only be removed by that same Sirenali. If that Sirenali dies, as is the case, then the obsession tends to remain until the victim's death. Your father was instructed to kill Corinne. He cannot even hear her name without going into a terrible rage."