Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(73)
Vallejo took a long breath, held it, and then exhaled through his nose. “To what end,” he repeated. “I sleep here, in the lounge, you know. Alone. Day after day. These clothes are self-cleaning, and several months of rations are stored, along with significant quantities of alcohol and recreational pharmaceuticals, in the drawers and cubbies in the wall. We move on a circuit. Crystal Beach to Galveston to Matagorda Bay and back. Day after day, taking me through the ruin. Every time we come up the ship channel, still crammed with the wreckage scoured off Galveston Island, the window clouds over and reveals itself to be a smartsurface. A cursor blinks.”
“You think someone wants your confession?”
He shrugged, and though he didn’t move, part of him, the energy that always seemed to surround him when he was giving presentations, crumpled. “When I was a guest of your fine government, Mrs. Neko, I was forced to produce mech-clones. N-series infiltrator models, like the one you pretend is your husband. Each one I produced cut another sliver of my soul away, but I did it. Out of guilt, perhaps, for my many sins. Your government offered me atonement in exchange for a secret army of spies. But these new captors? I have no idea what they want from me. They never ask, and they never command. They just show me the ruins, and the cursor blinks.”
His hand shook when he plucked the whiskey glass, considered it, and replaced it on the table.
Angela wondered if she ought to laugh or applaud. Or both.
Because she so wasn’t buying his story, or at least not his assumptions. True, she hadn’t seen another soul aboard this sub, and the automation tech he spoke of was available. She was intimately acquainted with the military capabilities she had, up until very recently, been tapped to command.
Partial truth, then? He could very well not be lying about the remote-pilot rig or its circuitous guilt show. The problem was that there were too many parts to his answer, too many folds in which he could hide the lie. She needed to pare down her questioning. Get specific.
“You’re looking pretty comfortable, though, for a prisoner.”
He flinched. “A scar does not need to be visible to hurt.”
Oh. Damn. She flinched, too.
“We negotiated your release,” she reminded him. “My government did. We returned you to the TPA, and we got concessions in the valley. For a short while, it seemed we were approaching peace.” Which she had opposed, but she didn’t see an advantage to confessing that.
“Oh, little girl,” Vallejo said, “this is so much bigger than governments.”
What?
Angela sat. Her legs weren’t working properly, and it had nothing to do with the swim. He couldn’t possibly be referring to what she thought…he couldn’t possibly know about the consortium.
“All right.” Kellen picked up the questioning, giving her a reprieve. “Second question: Did you send your drones against the Hotel Riu when Angela was a guest there?”
“No.” Gaze central, no shift of the eyes, just natural blinks. Vallejo’s hands remained still, easy in his lap. He wasn’t lying.
Kellen pressed. “Did you write the contract to assassinate Daniel Neko back in October?”
“God no.”
“Why did you abduct your daughter Mari and bring her to Enchanted Rock?” Kellen asked.
Surprise flickered over Vallejo’s face. He was far too well-trained a performer for it to linger long, but Angela saw it.
He set his drink down. “Two days before I shot the clone abomination that you refer to as my daughter, I fell asleep in this chamber. I woke with a hood over my head, in some kind of lab. Not here. A pea-brain I’d met some years before in Texas, a man by the name of Nathan Grace, was there and told me he could bring me the clone body, which contains technology that I could trade for my freedom. To be clear, that thing is not Mari, no matter what it calls itself. I also had a hunch holding it hostage might help me punch a hole in the communication null my captors have placed over me and maybe attract the attention of someone who could help.”
Aha. So that’s what they wanted. The tech that had been used to resurrect Mari. Tech that could be used to achieve immortality. Ice washed down Angela’s back, flooding her spine. Athanatos. The consortium.
It was a moment before she realized Vallejo had just revealed his earlier lie. He’d known what his captors wanted. If he even had captors. Her head throbbed, and she swallowed back sick.
“I don’t think Mari would ever willingly help you. She’s awful sweet,” Kellen said.
“It is anything but sweet, young man. That thing you call by my daughter’s name was created out of vindictiveness and venom by an entity more repulsive and unnatural still. But we digress.” He turned back to Angela, but he was shaken.
Hell, so was she. She hadn’t spoken in some time, a silence that Vallejo had no doubt noticed. He was too clever not to realize what he’d said to demolish her calm. She rebuilt that calm, and fast, but the damage was done. He’d seen her wobble.
He peered at her now, intently, and she could have sworn there was a twinkle in his eye. “The assholes, as I may have mentioned earlier via message relay, have been limiting my communications for a few months now, and I needed a hole through their very peculiar firewall. Lucky me, I happened to know of someone who could create such a hole, given the proper impetus, and my captors would never guess we were allies.”