21
Ava grabbed her tactile mic from the pocket where she’d stashed it when they’d entered Gideon’s realm. She powered up her smart glasses and slipped them on. “Here’s hoping my gear’s not hacked.”
Of course, it had been hacked. Lyric had hacked it. Proof of that came when she was automatically linked into an ongoing explanation, Lyric’s voice saying, “. . . the blast door locked and I’ve got a Marine general with a contingent of volunteers standing guard. I’ve never seen anything like it, Matt. It’s blown up into a civil war in cyberspace, and here, in the halls and stairwells—all without the knowledge of the American people.”
“You’re not alone anymore?” Ava asked.
“I wouldn’t say I have a lot of allies.”
Matt made a fist. “You need to get me on that base. I don’t want to hear any reasons why not. I’ve still got the C-4. Just get me past perimeter security and I’ll disable the sub.”
“That is not going to work,” Lyric told him. “You’re a wanted man. HADAFA will tag you and throw an alarm as soon as a networked camera detects anyone who might be you—”
“So fix it. Clean my record.”
“I don’t have the reach anymore. There’s a lock on your profile and that means you aren’t going to get near the base. Even if you could, it’s on lockdown. High alert. Nothing goes in or out. They had an attempted terrorist incident. Averted, but too close for comfort.”
Matt turned to Ava, teeth gritted. She felt a blush stinging her rain-chilled cheeks. “That was us,” she volunteered. “Bad luck it didn’t work.”
“Bad luck it’s made our job even harder.”
“How much time do we have left?” Ava asked. She hadn’t meant it as an existential question, so she clarified: “I mean, before Denali sails?”
“Denali is scheduled to depart at oh-seven-hundred.”
Ava checked the time. Already 6:00 AM, despite the darkness. Less than an hour, and their fate would be decided.
Okay, maybe she had meant it as an existential question.
“Come on, Lyric,” she pleaded. “There has to be someone already on the inside you can use. Or something. A security drone—”
“I don’t have the reach! But I am working with the chain of command to get Denali’s departure delayed.”
Matt asked, “What good is a delay if we can’t get someone in there? Damn it, Lyric. Get me a car. Get me over there. Let me try.”
“Nothing goes in or out,” Ava murmured, thinking aloud. “But what if something happened? An incident that demanded Kaden’s presence off the base . . . would he have the authority to leave?”
“He’s not going to leave,” Matt snapped. “Not now. Conrad owns him.”
“Conrad?” Ava echoed, thinking about the leader of Sigrún. Daniel Conrad had still been in Honolulu as of late yesterday.
Matt said, “Yeah, this is Conrad’s scheme. He recruited Robicheaux—and Robicheaux is devoted to him. You must have heard him talk about Daniel Conrad.”
“No. Or, yes. But only yesterday afternoon.”
Even then, it had been Ava who brought up the topic of Conrad, because he’d been in the news, come to speak against the handover treaty. And when she’d made her contempt clear, Kaden had responded with a gentle accusation: You don’t like it that you agree with him.
Ava had never hidden her political opinions from Kaden, but he’d never wanted to talk politics—a silence she’d attributed to his station, assuming that as an officer, he felt obligated to remain neutral. Little did she know.
“Is it possible Daniel Conrad is still in Honolulu?” she asked.
“No way,” Matt said. “He’s got to be long gone.”
But Lyric grasped at the chance. “Checking.” Seconds passed. “Got him. He’s at the airport in a private lounge. I don’t see him scheduled on any commercial flight . . . okay, I’ve got an association with a chartered jet, business class. Yes. It’s being ferried over from Maui. It’ll need to top off its fuel tanks before departing from Honolulu. That gives you time. Forty-five minutes, maybe.”
“Get me a vehicle,” Matt insisted.
“You can’t be the one to go, Matt. HADAFA will initiate a lockdown the moment you try to enter an airport terminal.”
“I didn’t mean Matt should go after Conrad,” Ava objected, her words running together in her haste to get them out. “Even if you got past HADAFA, got past Conrad’s bodyguards, and forced him to order Kaden to stand down—do you think Kaden would listen? No. It’s gone too far. But you talked before about luring Kaden out. If he’s not aboard the sub, there’s no way the operation can go forward. Right?”
“His presence is required to launch,” Lyric confirmed. “But where are you going with this? You burned your relationship with him.”
“Right. I know. He won’t come for me, but what about Conrad? Lyric, could you fake a message from Conrad? And push it through to Kaden? Have Conrad demand to be taken aboard the sub, a ride-along because he wants to witness the historic action. I’m surprised that arrogant dick hasn’t already arranged it. Kaden would have to leave the base himself, pick up Conrad, escort him back through security—because no one else in his crew would have the authority to defy the lockdown and bring a civilian on base.”
Matt nodded. “This could work, Lyric. But we’ll need a deep fake. A really convincing video message. If you lure him out, I’ll ambush him on the road.”
◇
Lyric instructed Matt and Ava to make their way to Kamehameha Highway. “It’s not far. Once you’re there, wait out of sight. I’ll contact you again when the operation is good to go.”
Ava tallied her ammunition, thinking about Kaden, how he’d been her lover only yesterday. “I’ve got four rounds left,” she told Matt.
“Lyric will resupply you.”
He tore open the second foil packet of Overdrive.
“Matt,” she said disapprovingly. “You’re in no condition to handle another dose of that shit.”
A half-smile, an amused grunt, as he pushed up his sleeve, revealing an old medical patch. “You’re thinking long term. All I need is a couple more hours of clarity.” His smile faded as he swapped out the old patch, replacing it with the fresh one from the packet. “This is a no-fail mission. You know that.”
“Right.”
Deep breath.
He added, “And you’re here for backup, if I go down.”
She nodded, imbued with a sense of calm tension familiar from her time in the army.
They headed out through the banana plantation, the huge leaves of the banana trees rustling, rattling, and snapping as the wind shredded them to ribbons. After that, the road they followed crossed a section of abandoned land, overgrown with kiawe and weeds. The setting moon gleamed yellow past the fringes of rushing clouds—and Ava thought of her daughters.
They’d be awake now in their Spokane home, chided by their stepmother to hurry and get ready for school. She was a good woman, a good mom. They’d be all right. Ava’s heart ached all the same, for all that had been broken—in her, in the world.
Why did we choose this future?
It had been a choice. People had voted against their own long-term interests, returning to office corrupt politicians whose only goal was to sell them out, to sell their futures. Or people had failed to vote at all, too anesthetized by the grind of daily life to lift their heads and really see what was going on around them.
And so the seas rose, the winds raged, fire swept the forests, once-verdant fields turned to dust, and innocent children who’d never had the chance to choose, drowned in floods or were buried in mudslides.
Never ask, Who knew? We all knew.
She staggered as a gust of wind, stronger than any before it that night, roared through the brush, slamming against her back. Branches whipped around her and a confetti-swirl of plucked leaves took flight, shimmering with the sideways rain in the refracted glow of lights from the freeway—all of it blurred into unreality by the water sheeting across the lens of her smart glasses.
◇
They passed under the freeway, continuing on toward Kamehameha Highway as Lyric had instructed, stopping at the edge of the brush, outside the reach of the traffic cameras.
Ava looked out at the highway, the nearest lane some thirty feet away. The imposing edifice of the elevated rail track divided the highway, but no train was in sight, and not a single vehicle moved on the usually busy road. The streetlights still shone and rain danced on the pavement, but there were no cars, no bikes, and no one else on foot—an absence that felt surreal, like an apocalyptic movie set. Everyone but a few stragglers already gone from the world.
Not yet. Not if I can help it.
She glanced at Matt, standing motionless in the shadows. “You doing okay?” she whispered.
“I’m good.”
She imagined Lyric, merged in dark communion with HADAFA, setting up the operation. How long would it take?
To ease her nerves, she turned to the ritual, imagining a dancing flame, a lit cigarette, a burn in her throat as she inhaled soothing white smoke. When that exercise grew stale, she focused on the sound of the wind, the pattering rain, seeking to maintain a state of calm ahead of the coming mission.
Twenty-seven minutes after her last communication, Lyric checked back in. “It worked,” she said. “Robicheaux’s on the move. And I’ve hijacked Conrad’s phone number. If Robicheaux tries to confirm, he’ll only get voicemail.”
“I’m not in position,” Matt objected. “I’m still stuck here on the side of the road.”
“Vehicle is on the way,” she assured him. “Ninety seconds out. Once you’re onboard, you and Arnette will have another ninety seconds to gear up and get in position.”
“No hurry, then.”
“I need you to take him alive,” Lyric said, ignoring his sarcasm. “I want to cauterize this infection. That means I need him as a witness, to testify to what he intended to do, and to name everyone who helped.”
“I’ll do what I can. No promises.”
“Matt—”
“I said I’ll try! What weapons have you got for me?”
“Since this is not a kill, you’re going in light—”
“Damn it!”
“You’ve got a Carousel shotgun, with slugs, light-weight shot, and webbing in the cartridge wheel. Ammo for your handgun, and for Arnette’s. A spike strip, and aerial kamikazes. Robicheaux is not alone. He’s got two armed sailors with him—”
“So he’s suspecting something,” Ava said.
Lyric answered, “The whole base is on edge after the attempted terrorist attack—”
“Right,” she conceded.
“—and Robicheaux has more reason to be on edge than most. He’s been instructed to meet Conrad on the upper level of the airport terminal, east end. Don’t let him get that far. Try to detain him on the road before he reaches the airport, but do not detain him in the vicinity of the base or you will not be able to control the situation.”
“That’s a narrow window,” Ava said. “The base entrance is only a couple of miles from the airport. You need to call for police backup. Get them to close all vehicular exits—”
“We’re outside the law on this one,” Lyric reminded her. “The only thing a heads-up to the police will achieve is advance warning for Robicheaux.”
“Vehicle incoming,” Matt said. “Is that us?”
“Affirmed. Matt, you will enter via the back door. Arnett, take the front.”
Matt turned to Ava, his fist raised. “No-fail mission. Do what’s necessary. Whatever is necessary.”
Her heart rate soared as she lightly touched her knuckles against his. “Confirm,” she said, hoarse with tension.
The vehicle raced toward them: a big, dark-gray SUV with federal plates, its windows coated to reject the probing gazes of standard surveillance cameras and curious onlookers. A hundred feet out it braked hard, swooping onto the shoulder, coming to a rocking stop exactly in front of them as they darted from the brush to meet it.
Ava yanked open the front passenger door. Both front seats were empty. A passage between them allowed easy access to the back where the seat had been removed.
She scrambled in, slamming the door shut. The back door slammed a half second later, and the car accelerated hard, swerving onto the road.
She twisted around in her seat to see Matt clinging with one hand to a grip, using the other to unclip a shotgun from a ceiling rack. Two small quad-copters waited in racks on the floor.
Lyric’s voice: “Arnette, there’s a vest on the driver’s seat. Ammo in the dash compartment.”
Right.
Ava grabbed the armored vest. Got it on. Popped the dash compartment open and found three magazines. She ejected the almost-empty one from her pistol and slammed in a fully loaded one, pocketing the other two.
“You coming up front?” she asked Matt.
“Yeah.” He leaned over her shoulder, bulked up in his own armored vest. “Move behind the wheel. Be ready to take over if you need to.”
The stadium complex loomed ahead. Ava made the shift, then braced as the highway curved south, following the coast of East Loch.
Matt took over the passenger seat, sliding it back as far as it would go to give himself room to maneuver the shotgun. Behind his smart glasses, his expression was grim.
“You’ve missed the first window,” Lyric announced. “Robicheaux has just exited the base ahead of you. So you’ve got a pursuit, not an ambush.”
Ava heard an odd, amused note in Lyric’s voice. It snapped her focus, kicking her loose from the present, sending her back to that scene of Robert Bell, trapped in the basement laundry. Doubt pounded against her rib cage. Had Lyric deliberately mistimed this? No. This was real. It had to be . . . unless Kaden too had been misled from the beginning?
No.
“Why don’t you just hijack their ride?” Matt asked. “Make it easy for us.”
“I would if I could.”
Ava braced as she felt a shift in momentum. She glanced at the dash. “Hey, why are we slowing down?”
“Yeah, what the hell?” Matt demanded. “What are you doing? We need to be closing on Robicheaux.”
“I want you at legal speed so you don’t draw attention from the guards when you pass Makalapa Gate. If Kaden gets additional support you won’t be able to take him alive.”
Their progress felt horribly slow, though it was not. They approached the turn-off to the gate. As they passed, Ava looked down the side street, but she couldn’t make out much through the rain-blurred window, just a patch of light illuminating the area outside the guard booth.
Their SUV picked up speed again, rapidly accelerating.
The windshield wipers worked frantically, but the rain had begun to hammer, and each pass of the wipers yielded only a half-second clarity of vision. Even blurred, the sudden sight of red taillights ahead made her catch her breath.
It was him. Kaden. Her focus tightened despite a flare of anger. She had never loved him. She’d only loved the illusion of him. And I don’t regret anything. Yesterday’s words, but still true. If Kaden had not brought her into this, she would not be in a position to stop it.
With each swift beat of the windshield wipers, the taillights brightened, and the interval between Kaden and her shrank. Would he look back? Did he know there had been no traffic on the highway just moments before? Would he be suspicious when he caught sight of a single vehicle rapidly closing with his?
“Something’s off,” Lyric announced. “I’m hooked into surveillance cameras in the terminal, watching Conrad. He’s left the lounge. He’s moving quickly with a carry-on bag, phone to his ear. But it’s not his phone. Not his registered phone.”
“Secondary line of communication,” Matt said. “Is he talking to Robicheaux?”
“Unknown, but he’s in a hurry.”
“Even if he is talking to Kaden,” Ava said. “Even if Kaden has figured out this is a setup, why is Conrad moving? Is he heading to his plane? Is it ready to board?”
“Checking,” Lyric said.
Then: “Conrad is not going to his plane. He’s exiting the terminal.”
“What?” Matt demanded. “Why?”
Lyric hissed, and then she laughed. “Well, fuck me. Conrad’s flight has been canceled. The outbound traffic queue is so long, the charter company calculated they’d never get off the ground again before the airport closed—so they turned their plane around and sent it back to Maui. Conrad must be about to piss his pants right now.”
“He’s already got a new exit plan,” Ava said, with bitter triumph. “We gave it to him. He’s going with Kaden.”
“New battle strategy,” Lyric decided. “Hang back. Trail him into the airport, but make no move until Conrad gets picked up. Then take them both at once.”