68

3 E 70th St, New York

Barnaby wished he’d given the woman an opportunity to bathe before he’d requested her company. She washed her hands and face on the private flight here from Minneapolis, but her clothes were crusted with blood and worse. She smelled like a farm animal.

“You know who I am?” he asked. She was staring at him in an unpleasantly direct way.

“Carl Barnaby, one of two Barnaby brothers and current CEO of the Hermitage Foundation.” Her voice was scratchy from disuse.

He studied her. Her glance was bold, but she was a small thing, so slight up close. Supposedly, she was one of the Underground leaders, but what were they? A group of scattered women and a few neutered men. The Hermitage had them outfinanced and outgunned, had since the beginning of time. He was past due to swat this annoying fly once and for all.

His tone was measured. “Your daughter is still alive, as is her friend.”

She flinched. Good.

“Where are they?” Her expression was no longer defiant.

He steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair. He’d received word that Isabel Odegaard and Salem Wiley had escaped from jail. Jason wasn’t answering his phone. If the girls eluded Jason’s grasp and located the list, he might never get his hands on it. He would make sure the media covered their jailbreak to help locate them, but that might not be enough. He needed the woman sitting across from him to tell him where the leadership docket was. “Massachusetts. They’re getting close.”

He paused, but she didn’t say anything. He continued. “If you tell me where the list is, we don’t have to kill them.”

She opened her mouth to laugh, but she was too damaged. Jason had taken bits and slices out of her, twisted her fingers, done what he needed to extract information. Only a low moan escaped. “If you have the list, you’ll kill them and more.”

“Not true.” He dropped his hands and leaned forward in his chair, his expression grandfatherly. “We only need the one.”

“Gina Hayes.”

He shrugged. You’ve got to crack a few eggs. “She’s risen too high. Once she’s eliminated, we could live in peace, the Underground and the Hermitage.”

Her eyes were burning again, pinning him in his seat, accusing him. “This war is older than you and me, older even than Andrew Jackson.” Her voice was rising, shaking, white with fury. “I’m fighting for my life, and the life of my daughter, and our right to live in this world without fear, with opportunity, with control over our own bodies and destinies. Do you even know what you’re fighting for?”

Barnaby stood, abruptly, and turned toward the window. “A man tried to assassinate Senator Hayes in Iowa just an hour ago.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her pale. “A rural man, from what I understand. Uneducated and angry. He didn’t want to answer to a woman, didn’t want the shame of living in a country run by a female.”

Barnaby walked around to the front of his desk and sat on the edge. “He didn’t succeed.”

He pulled a burgundy handkerchief from his pocket, shook it out, and held it over his nose to mask the stink of her. His words fell like sleet, their syllables sharp and cold. “His methods were rudimentary, but his mission was not. You can’t possibly understand the terror of losing your power after growing so accustomed to it.”

He pulled the handkerchief away. He was no longer able to maintain his cool exterior. “Imagine if you woke up one morning and discovered that someone was going to slice off your hands, or amputate your legs, and use them for their own.” Spittle flew from his mouth. “Would you fight? Would you kill to keep what you knew was yours?”

She rose to her feet in a single swift move that must have cost her immensely. He drew back, his free hand flying up instinctively to shield himself. But she wasn’t going to attack him. She turned toward the door she’d been brought in, shambling away.

“Monday,” he called after her. “Alcatraz. We kill Senator Hayes, obtain the list, harvest Isabel Odegaard and Salem Wiley, and wipe the Underground off the ass of history. I might let you live to see the end. You’d be the last. A dodo bird.”

Barnaby realized he was shouting. He nodded to Geppetto to escort her back to her cell. The woman shuffled out the door without another word, not so much as a glance over her shoulder.

Geppetto paused at the lip of insubordination before following her.

Back in her below-ground cell, she waited until the door closed and locked to slide her hand under the mattress. She had been brought to this building, ironically, through the underground entrance, and she didn’t know where she was, even what city, though it had looked like Central Park outside Carl Barnaby’s office.

Her cage was windowless, an 8' x 8' cement box containing a sink, a toilet, and a bed. She had requested antiseptic and bandages to dress her wounds, which were starting to fester, the infection burning and setting into her bones, the smell thick and rotten.

Her request had been ignored.

But there was a singular brightness. They hadn’t searched her. She was just a woman, small and beaten, so why would they?

Only 3 percent of her battery remained. She must choose her words wisely.