10
The gusting wind whooshed past the dull-green steel poles supporting the vibrating canvas of Harbor Station’s roof. Maintenance crews had climbed to the top of the poles and were working to furl the canvas, winding it back onto mechanical rollers, one section at a time.
The crush of departure had passed here too, and the station had gone eerily quiet. Only two HPD officers remained. The one on the upper level stood alone beside a waiting train. The other, at the foot of the escalator, gently urged a tardy group of three Japanese visitors to hurry upstairs and board.
Ava eyed the officer. She’d summoned an autonomous taxi, now ninety seconds out, but given that her last ride had been hijacked, she would rather find an alternate mode of transportation. What were the odds she could bum a ride from the cop?
Doesn’t hurt to ask.
She started to walk over, conscious of the weight of the Glock on her belt, and of the extra ammunition clips. But as she skirted the curb, a taxi—not hers—pulled in. Ava stopped to watch it, sensing something off. There was no queue at the taxi station and no one hurrying over to claim the ride. So why hadn’t this taxi been assigned to her?
The vehicle’s left front door opened, revealing an empty seat. After a few seconds, a woman leaned into view—black skin, hair close-cropped and tightly curled, her face as lovely as that of a runway model, despite the hard lines of her smart glasses. Even in such an awkward position her pose held a casual elegance. Ava did not need HADAFA’s whisper to identify her.
Lyric Jones.
Abandoning her plan to hit up the cop for a ride, Ava stepped up to the taxi, bending low to scan its interior. No one else inside.
“Get in,” Lyric said.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Matt’s waking up. I’m hoping he’ll be able to tell me.”
“That order you sent me was rescinded.”
Lyric raised a thin eyebrow. “Please get in. I may need backup and you’re going there anyway.”
If Ava didn’t get in, she’d never get answers.
She slid into the open seat, a hand resting on her holstered shockgun as she kept a wary eye on Lyric. “Talk fast,” she urged. With the sparse traffic, it would take the taxi only a few minutes to reach the medical center. “What’s your involvement with Robert Bell? What are you working on? And why did you show me my expanded profile?”
Lyric eyed her in turn, leaning against the armrest, her long legs stretched out under the dash. She wore a silky black, long-sleeve collared shirt, with black slacks, and black flat-soled shoes. Her feet shared the floor with an olive-drab cloth bag, like a military flight bag. She said, “You’re a person of interest to me. A close associate of my primary target—and I want you on my side.”
“Akasha is a good cop,” Ava said defensively, incredulous that the young officer had drawn this level of attention.
“I’m not talking about Akasha Li. Right now, her documented association with Hōkū Ala is a peripheral concern.”
Ava drew back, her gaze shifting to the street ahead. A passing shower had left the asphalt wet and gleaming with crisscrossed paths of light cast by the streetlights. “Sigrún then?” she asked, a slight tremor in her voice.
She tried to imagine who at KCA Security might be associated with a dissident group whose existence was so sensitive that a high-level security rating was required just to access its basic profile—and she couldn’t come up with anyone.
Her stomach knotted, knowing she’d failed to read the people around her, even with HADAFA’s aid. A failure that might endanger the civilians she was sworn to protect.
“Sigrún,” Lyric confirmed, her inflection transforming the name into a curse. “A subversive nationalist organization, headed by Daniel Conrad, with deep roots in the military. Commander Kaden Robicheaux was recruited by Conrad, and is an active member.”
A shockwave of anger and denial exploded across Ava’s mind.
This is bullshit. Complete bullshit.
Her hand darted for the emergency stop button.
Lyric was faster. She caught Ava’s wrist. “It’s true.”
“It’s a lie. You’re fucking with me, the way you fucked with Robert Bell.” She yanked her wrist free. The medical center, less than a minute away.
Lyric said, “Robert Bell and all his friends were my side trick. My cover for the real game—the game we’re both playing now. Have you figured out yet who your assailants were?”
“Friends of yours?” Ava guessed.
“No. Friends of your friend. The man who tackled you—did you notice he made sure he hit the ground first, saving you from a possible head injury?”
An hour had passed since the assault. Plenty of time for Lyric to review video of the incident—an incident for which no record existed, not at the level of reality Ava inhabited.
“They didn’t want to hurt you,” Lyric went on. “Just take you out of play. Keep you quiet, in case Matt had communicated some critical intelligence to you.”
The taxi turned in at the medical center, rolled slowly up the driveway, then stopped just outside the hospital’s lobby doors. The doors opened, and the security guard Ava had talked to before, Francis Hoapili, stepped outside to glare. Clearly, he expected trouble.
“Let’s talk to Matt,” Lyric said sternly. “Then you can tell me whose side you’re on.” She picked up the bag at her feet and opened the door.
“What are you carrying?” Ava demanded to know.
“Clothing. Gear. Weapons.”
◇
The first defense when faced with an intolerable future was denial: It can’t be true.
But what did Ava know of truth?
She used to think she could recognize it, that she could assess a situation, know who could be relied on, and act accordingly. Then she had gone out into the storm with Kayla, Miguel, and Tyree, believing in them, sure they could handle the violence and the chaos of Nolo without panic taking over.
Ava had been wrong.
Since then, she’d come to rely on HADAFA, trusting the system to show her the shape of people’s hearts, even though the conclusions she’d been allowed to see were half-truths based on incomplete data sets, crucial information absent if it intersected in some way with an area of national security.
Ava had known the system worked that way, even before tonight. Kaden’s sparse profile had been proof. But she’d convinced herself it didn’t matter. She’d trusted the system anyway, because she wanted to believe what it told her. She wanted to know the actions she took were right, based on fact, and not on bias or volatile emotion.
But Lyric had taken away the delusion of certainty, and in its absence, doubt spread like a virulent mold across Ava’s mind. Doubt kept her from calling Kaden. It left her ashamed to call him, to question him. She trusted him. She didn’t trust Lyric.
She got out of the taxi, her face locked in a neutral expression despite the heat in her cheeks.
Hoapili looked her over. His gaze lingered on her pistol, before sliding over to Lyric as she came around the front of the taxi, flight bag in hand. “You bringing more trouble?” he asked Ava.
“Have you had more trouble?”
Akasha hadn’t reported anything.
“Officer Li indicated she was expecting trouble when I found her trying to move the John Doe to another room.”
“Trying?”
The guard shrugged a huge round shoulder. “We moved him to the third floor to allow for the option of a fast exit from the building.”
Even without HADAFA’s guidance, Ava had guessed Hoapili to be former military. Now she felt sure. A small ironic proof that her own judgment was not entirely dormant. But why had HADAFA not included such a basic kernel of information in Hoapili’s profile? Was it because the system had predicted Ava would try to recruit him as an ally if she knew the scope of his experience?
If so, good guess.
She nodded to Hoapili. “Thanks, brah. I appreciate it.”
“We’ll be exiting shortly,” Lyric added.
Hoapili regarded her with deep suspicion. Ava’s regard for the man grew. “Do me a favor,” she said to him. She slipped off her smart glasses and held them out for an electronic handshake. “Call me if any more military types come to visit, uniformed or not.”
Hoapili nodded, took his phone out of his pocket, and held it close to her glasses long enough for the devices to trade numbers. “I don’t like this spook stuff, sister.”
Ava nodded heartfelt agreement. “I don’t either.”
Akasha called, as they crossed the lobby. “He’s awake. Agitated. Asking for a phone.”
“Yeah? Good timing. Show him that picture of Lyric I sent you. Let me hear what he says.”
A flash of white teeth as Lyric indulged in a cutting smile.
The volume of Akasha’s voice dropped but Ava could still clearly hear her asking, “You know who this is?”
A male voice responded, low and hoarse. “Where is she? Is she here? I need to talk to her, now!”
Ava pressed her lips together, shaken again, because she knew now that at least part of Lyric’s story was true. But how far did it go?
Could it go all the way to Kaden?
Please, no.
Denial was the first defense against an intolerable future . . . but Ava was past that. Going forward, she would have to gather and weigh what facts she could, and pick through the half-truths Lyric offered, and somehow decide for herself what it all meant—and hope she didn’t fuck it up along the way.
In a neutral voice she told Akasha, “We’re downstairs. On our way up now.”
◇
Put on guard by the sound of an irate male voice, Ava acted with caution, easing open the door to Matt Domanski’s hospital room, just enough to assess the situation. Akasha stood a few steps within, shoulders square and elbows bent, poised as if to guard the door against Domanski’s early exit.
He sounded eager to leave.
“I have to get out of here! It’s critical. Sigrún will know I’m here. And time is running out.” The wild timbre of his voice suggested he’d emerged from drugged exhaustion into a state of dynamic paranoia. He sat on the edge of the bed, bare-chested, his skin flushed and mottled, facing off against the fiercely scowling Dr. Banerjee.
The diminutive physician gripped his sinewy shoulder with one hand, ignoring the reality that she did not have the mass to hold him down. With her other hand, she wielded a pen light in an effort to examine his eyes. “You will go when I say you’re ready to go,” she snapped. “Now, sit still! Let me finish my assessment.”
Domanski was not persuaded. Jaw set, he seized Banerjee by the wrists. The pen light fell to the floor as he shoved her gently but irresistibly out of the way and stood, naked and unsteady, his hospital robe abandoned on the bed. “Don’t make me hurt you,” he warned.
Ava pushed the door open wide and came in, Lyric a step behind her.
“Settle down, Matt,” Lyric ordered.
At the sound of her voice, his head whipped around. Frantic hope and manic desperation shared space in his wide-eyed gaze.
Dr. Banerjee gripped his arm. “You need rest,” she declared, guiding him back to sit on the bed. “I’m keeping you overnight.”
Akasha gave Lyric a dubious look, but flattened against the wall, allowing her to stride past.
“He won’t be staying,” Lyric announced. “He’s going with me.” She chucked the flight bag onto the foot of the bed. “Get dressed,” she told Matt.
His gaze darted around the room. “I need to report. It’s gotten away from us, Lyric. It’s really happening. It’s happening now.”
“It can’t be happening now,” Lyric assured him. “Locations of the principals are known. There’s time. Get a grip on yourself and get dressed.”
Matt looked uncertain, but he reached for the flight bag, while Lyric turned to Dr. Banerjee. “Have your system identify me.”
Banerjee looked like she wanted to spit, but she did as ordered, studying Lyric through the lens of her smart glasses. After several seconds, Banerjee’s youthful brow wrinkled. Her lips pursed in distaste. “All right,” she conceded—agreeing, but to what? To accept Lyric’s authority?
Evidently.
Lyric told her, “You will leave the room, attend to your other patients, and not discuss this patient with anyone.”
Banerjee went stone-faced with suppressed rage, but she nodded, and walked out the door.
Akasha turned to Ava. For once, the young officer looked uncertain. “I don’t like this. It’s way outside our job description.” She jerked her chin toward the door. “I’m thinking we should step outside too.”
“No, stay,” Lyric countered. “Both of you. I said before, I might need backup.”
Ava nodded reluctant agreement. “We’re already in deep.”
Akasha’s lip curled. “You sure you trust her? I got a feeling she wants us here because we’ll make handy fall guys, when this goes to shit.”
Ava answered honestly. “You might be right. And no, I don’t trust her.”
Lyric defied trust. She had some still-undefined association with The Predator Network. Add to that Ben’s hacked phone, the rescinded orders, her casual dismissal of Robert Bell, and that sly edit of reality causing her name—an essentially anonymous codename—to vanish from a list of prime suspects.
Even Matt shouldn’t trust her. Ava eyed him as he hurried to dress, zipping up brown slacks and then stooping to slip on a pair of dull-brown, flexible athletic shoes. She marveled at his quiet obedience, though Lyric had come late to collect him, after using him as bait when he lay helpless.
And Ava remained haunted by her teasing glimpse into Lyric’s user account—an incident devised to coerce her cooperation, and entice her along a carefully charted path—much like Robert Bell, on his run through the ghost blocks.
Lyric was not to be trusted and Akasha was right—they both should go before their careers were ruined and their futures compromised. But it wasn’t as simple as that, not for Ava, or for Akasha, who’d made herself vulnerable by a too close association with Hōkū Ala.
Ava spoke blunt truth to the young officer. “She knows who your friends are. But go if you want. I’ll do all I can to protect you.”
Shock softened Akasha’s expression, but only for a moment. She drew herself up a little straighter. Defiant. “And you?”
“I need to know what’s true . . . and what’s a lie.”
Akasha considered this. Then her shoulder twitched in a disdainful shrug. “Yeah, fuck. Like you said. We’re already in deep. Too late to back out now.”
Lyric nodded her satisfaction, then turned to Matt. “Talk,” she ordered as he pulled on a long-sleeved knit shirt, light tan in color.
“It’s not just theory anymore,” he told her, a hoarse rasp in his voice. “They’ve put the pieces together. They’re really going to do it—and they’ll use the hurricane as cover, to sow confusion over the origin of the launch.”
“The launch?” Ava interrupted, feeling her hackles rise. “What are you talking about?”
Matt shrugged on a lightweight tan utility vest, while Lyric turned to Ava. “You’re here because I may need your help—”
“With Kaden.”
A short nod. “Matt has been deep under cover as a member of Sigrún, recently assigned to a cell aboard Makani.”
“I fucked up,” Matt said, zipping up the vest. “I tried to get word out to you. They stopped me. And then they needed a story to tell. So they tried to shoot me up with this junk they called Glide Path. Wanted it to look like an overdose.” He shook his head. “No way was I going out that easy. I had to get word to you, so I bailed.”
“You went into the water on your own?” Ava asked, incredulous.
His handsome, muscular shoulders rolled. “We were less than five miles offshore. The sea though, it was rough, and they’d gotten some of the Glide Path into me. I started to think I wasn’t going to make it . . . but I had to get the chip to shore.” He looked at Lyric with a righteous gaze. “I have video.”
She nodded. “Let’s see it.”
“No way this is real,” Akasha said. “A story like that? You should be dead. And you shouldn’t have a chip. They would have taken it away.”
“I didn’t give them the chance,” Matt growled as Lyric unfolded a tablet. She held it an inch away from his back, between his shoulder blades, the standard site of chip injection.
The tablet pinged. Lyric checked the screen, and smiled. “Got it.”
“There are hours of video on there,” Matt said. “Let me show you the critical part.”
He took the tablet, slowly stroking its face. “Here’s the segment I wanted to send.”
Ava heard a male voice, soft and secretive: “We’re on. We’re going to do it.” She squeezed in to see the screen. Caucasian male, dark hair lightened with gray, his features soft, his age probably early forties. “Daniel Conrad’s made the decision. The timing’s a gift from God.”
A woman spoke from offscreen, her voice tinged with horror. “I can’t believe it’s real.”
“It’s necessary,” the first speaker answered. “A necessary sacrifice. The first step to restoring our lost honor. The Chinese navy won’t be idling off our shores much longer.”
Another offscreen voice, this one familiar: “Is it still Denali?” That was Matt speaking, but less hoarse than he sounded now.
The woman objected: “It can’t be. Robicheaux’s in port.”
Ava flinched at the name.
They’re playing me. They have to be.
But Matt had been fished out of a stormy sea on the edge of death. This wasn’t a game.
The first speaker: “The submarine fleet will put out to sea ahead of the hurricane. It’s going to happen, Weaver. It needs to happen. Conrad’s right about that. And the world will never be the same again.”
The segment ended.
Belief and disbelief existed simultaneously in Ava’s mind. “What needs to happen?” she demanded, suspecting she already knew.
Lyric smoothed a section of the blanket at the foot of the bed, and started tapping the soft surface, her lips parted in concentration as her fingers danced across a virtual keyboard that Ava could not see.
Preparing a preliminary report?
Matt used the time to continue his preparations. He took a small pistol from the flight bag, checked the load, then dropped it into a deep pocket on the front of his vest. Two extra magazines went in the opposite pocket.
After a minute, Lyric finished with a flourish that doubtless represented a hard tap against the Send icon.
Slipping off her smart glasses, she turned to Ava. “People used to speculate that Roosevelt let Pearl Harbor happen so he’d have an excuse to take the country into World War Two. In a neat geographic parallel, Sigrún wants a new attack on Pearl Harbor, one that will force the president into a confrontation with China.
“When Denali puts out to sea, it will linger near the coast. At the height of the hurricane, it will fire a single missile from underwater, programmed to detonate over Pearl Harbor. A false-flag operation. Makani will monitor. Its officers will synthesize signals intelligence, enough that the incident can be blamed on a rogue Chinese commander.”
Lyric’s lips quirked. Her shoulders moved in a slight dismissive shrug. “The intelligence community won’t be fooled, but it won’t matter. To keep the country together, the president cannot admit the attack came from within. So the propaganda will be intense. The claim will be made that elements in the Chinese military felt they were getting a bad deal—trading centuries of debt repayment for a real estate investment that would soon be hugely devalued by the storm. Better to have a limited war and teach America its proper place in the hierarchy of nations. No other interpretation will be tolerated. And of course, we will need to respond. Sigrún intends for it to be a brief cleansing war, one that will burn off weakness and corruption, and reestablish the American hegemony.”
“That’s fucking crazy,” Ava said, and Akasha echoed her.
Lyric raised an eyebrow. “I agree. But it’s been a long time since crazy and real were mutually exclusive.”
“No. I don’t get it. You know all this, so the president should know all this—and the conspiracy hasn’t been stopped?”
“I’m doing all I can to stop it, but I still have to go through the chain of command.”
Matt spoke grim words, “And somewhere in the chain of command, is Sigrún.”
A chime, inaudible to anyone but Ava, announced an incoming call on her personal number. She allowed only a handful of preauthorized numbers to ring through. Her gaze flicked down.
The caller’s name: Kaden Robicheaux.