Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(72)
“How lovely to be identified, even when you cannot see my face,” the mad scientist said. He sipped something amber-gold and bourbon-like from a crystal bulb. “I don’t suppose you would like to return the favor? No? Oh well. The place is loaded with indulgences. Help yourself, whoever you are.” He gestured to one of the glass-doored cabinets.
Angela emerged from behind Kellen in the corridor, brushing past him, charging hell with a bucket of ice water, right into the center of the room. She planted her feet, arched one perfect, nightwing eyebrow, and faced the evilest villain in the history of evil.
“Spare me the Southern charm, Damon. I know you’re all alone on this boat, but I am not, and I’m armed. Also pissed. Start talking.” She stared her enemy the hell down.
Oh yes, sir, she did. His Angela did.
Chapter 13
Damon Vallejo was smaller than she remembered. Or maybe it was just that he was seated and dwarfed by this freaky-ass room that belonged anywhere but on a submarine cruising ruined sunken cities in the middle of the night. Cities that he himself had sunk. He absolutely deserved all the filthy names people could fling at him, but looking at him right now, Angela couldn’t figure how naming and shaming would solve anything at all.
Everything to be said to such a human had already been said so many times, the words no longer had weight. Horrible. Shocking. Cowardly. Despicable. Unprovoked. What all his detractors failed to mention was the lively intelligence of his eyes, the smile that made one want to lean closer to hear what wisdom might fall from his lips.
Damon Vallejo was one engaging little monster.
Capture, incapacitate, or kill, she reminded herself. Either way, this threat ends tonight.
He patiently met her eyes and smiled slightly. “Ah, Angela Ne—no, Senator now, right? It has been too long. As you are not the jailer I was expecting, could it be possible you and your bespoke plaything have come to rescue me instead?”
Vallejo set his drink down on the ovate table between them. The liquid amber surface tilted off true about ten degrees. The sub was descending.
“The mech-clone you sold me has been disabled,” she said. “And I’m not here to play nice. I’m here to serve justice.”
“Too late, dear would-be sheriff, though the role does suit you. Alas for you and role-playing, I’ve been under the cruel thumb of justice for a long time. Imprisoned by it even.” He held up his wrists as if they were weighted by invisible shackles. “And now, because of your aforementioned desire for vengeance, you are doomed to share my opulent cell, unless you have some plan to get us out of here. Please say you do.”
He was bluffing. Angela narrowed her eyes. “Imprisoned by whom?”
“You ought to know, Senator.”
Yeah. She ought to. Why didn’t she know? What clues had she missed? What was she missing right now? There was nothing worse for a politician, a former diplomat for fuck’s sake, than to go into a negotiation without all the facts. Panic wetted the edges of her mind, and she struggled to stay sharp. Find the nerve corridors, dull the autonomics. Steady, slow breaths. This is all conscious.
Kellen came around to stand slightly behind her, up on the floor level of the sunken chitchat corral. He probably meant to look imposing or something, but all she could think was, Thank the cosmos he’s here. She could play hardball solo, but what a nifty thing not to have to. To know that if she even started to misstep, he would be there. With her and for her. She had never in her whole life done anything to deserve that kind of loyalty, but here he was. Confidence flooded her.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me everything?” she said, clasping her hands together at her waist. She kept her face easy, her expression accessible.
She should have been more specific with her words, though. Vallejo anchored his deal with an initial offer. “If I give you information, you will get me out of here?”
“Maybe.” Angela noted that even in a so-called prison situation—which she highly doubted was anything of the sort—he wore his signature boots: pointy-toed snakeskin numbers, dyed black to match his super shiny world-recognizable bouffant hairdo. This man had branding down to a science.
“Ask me a question, and I will not lie,” said the liar. His boots might be brand-recognizable, but his beard had grizzled along his jaw, and it hadn’t been maintained properly. Parts were coming in white, dusting salt into his pepper. He looked tired.
Angela locked her gaze with his, pushing the force of her personality across the room. She tapped her molars, engaging the psych-emitter. It didn’t have a receiver in range, but this was her ritual, her zone. Her comfy place. “Where are the crewmen, your so-called captors?”
“No crew.” He spread his hands, palms up. “This submarine is remote-piloted, apparently, and I am confined to this capsule. You will notice how this room is separate from the other areas, such as the corridors. It also boasts significantly lower crush-depth tolerances than the rest of the inner hull compartments, courtesy of that window. Wiring in the walls suggests both bulkheads leading out can be sealed and this module can be flooded. If I attempt to pass through either doorway, alarms screech and threaten imminent catastrophic compression. This is no lounge, Senator. It is an interrogation chamber.”
“I’m sorry if this sounds less than sympathetic, but to what end?” she said. The scenario he described sounded stupid, and she highly doubted an entity wealthy enough to put this sub together was so sublimely oblivious. Interrogations that ended with death before the revelation of desired information were generally considered abject failures.