Convergence Point (22 page)

Not worth it then.

He flipped another page over. Someone had scrawled dates on the back with sparkling purple ink. The loops of the s's gave it away. Detective Rose had written herself some notes. Purple. He snorted in derision but read the notes carefully. “Donovan?”

“What?” the other man demanded angrily.

“What's an Emir?”

Donovan stomped across the warehouse. “A what? An emir?”

“Yeah.” Gant held the note up. “Rose said to watch out for an emir. Avoid at all cost.”

“It's a . . . whatchamacallit . . . prince sort of title. Exalted one. Commander. It's an Arab title, I think.” Donovan shrugged and passed the paper back. “Who knows, maybe if you travel on the wrong day, this is the Federated States of Arabia or something.”

Gant tried to remember anything about the Arab nations as Donovan walked away. They weren't Mexican trade partners, and the Middle East wasn't a place he ever intended to visit. Too much sand. He couldn't even remember if they had decent dried mangoes.

Something whined behind him.

Looking over his shoulder, Gant scanned the visible parts of the swamp. The low, keening sound didn't sound entirely organic. “Donovan!”

“I hear it.” The other man pulled his gun. “Four bullets left.”

“I've got five.”

“Did you get any more when you went out?”

Gant nodded. “They don't have standard sizes, but these will work in a pinch.” Donovan grimaced. A too-­small bullet in their guns was risky, but the measurements here were all off by a millimeter or two. They risked a misfire or the guns exploding. Between that risk and the possibility of landing in jail here, though, the gun was a better bet.

“Take the north side,” Donovan said, as he walked out the south entrance. In the daylight, he wasn't silhouetted against a backlit warehouse, but it was a dumb move anyway.

Gant took more care as he went to check the swamp side of the hideout. He peered around the corner and waited, watching for any changes. The birds were still singing peacefully. Somewhere, a cricket was humming. The keening whine seemed to come from all directions at once. He would say it was an echo, but there was nothing for the sound to echo off. Swamps weren't known for their rocky canyons for a reason.

Biting back a curse, Gant moved carefully through the tall grass. Tiny insects rose in black swarms. Prickly sticker seedpods clung to his pant leg as his boots squelched in the mud. The water was still. No ripples caused by an underwater intruder or an incoming airboat. He looked around to see Donovan peering down the road using a sniper scope Gant hadn't known the other man had. A nice tidbit to file away for later use.

You've been keeping secrets from me, friend.

Donovan shook his head and circled his hand.

With a nod, Gant followed the order to walk the perimeter, looking for anything out of place. A bent blade of grass, a suspicious glint of metal, anything to tell him what was making the sound. He looked up at the gray clouds rolling in from the coast. Just how far out could one hear a drone approaching? He watched the tree line for movement, peering at the dark green canopy as if he could pierce it by will alone.

The warehouse walls rumbled. “Oh, hells, no.”
Underground? How could anyone possibly tunnel through this wet earth?
He ran in the direction he'd seen Donovan go as the ground shook. The walls of the warehouse buckled outward. “Donovan!”

As the ground bucked, rippling under his feet, he stumbled and rolled. Clutching his gun with white knuckles, Gant scrambled to his feet.

“Gant!” Donovan skidded around the corner.

“What did you do?”

Donovan shook his head and lifted a finger to his lips in a command for silence.

There were voices inside the damaged warehouse. “Team One, check the perimeter. Team Two, identify the machine. Commander, where is this place?” The voice was definitely a man with an accent that Gant pegged as British, but it wasn't quite British. University English, perhaps, learned as a second language at an expensive school.

“Unknown, sir. The location is not listed as any known contact site.”

Gant's hand tensed around the handle of his gun. He knew
that
voice.

Donovan tilted his head to the side in question.

With a nod, Gant confirmed what they'd heard. Detective Rose just wouldn't die. He shook his head. Five bullets left, and every single one had her name etched on it.

Heavy boots stomped on the cement floor of the warehouse. Sounded like Team One was moving out.

“Do we run for the tree line?” Donovan asked breathlessly. “We can't survive a shoot-­out with them.”

“What's the standard
federales
team have? Six men? Five?”

“For a sting, it's twelve,” Donovan said with an angry frown. “Too many for us to take out quickly.”

Gant felt himself cheering up. Long odds against overwhelming force was his forte. “But they're moving together, with no eyes outside. They go out, we go in.”

“And going in gets us, what, exactly?”

“The four-­wheelers, you idiot. Shoot Rose. Grab machines. Leave in a roar. They'll follow the tracks. We can drop the four-­wheelers by the main road and take a boat back while they're still hunting.” It would work because it had to work. Their window of opportunity was too narrow for anything else.

Clearly, Donovan agreed—­with the sentiment, if not with the plan. With a nod, he led the way, which suited Gant to the bone. The bigger should always go first. Donovan was his shield. That way, at least, the smart one in the partnership got out alive. They moved away from the sound of Team One's beating the grass to circle the building. Inside, six ­people stood hovering around the machine and a bright blue portal. Four were dressed in gray scrubs and held various bits of tech. The other two stood to the side supervising: an older man with a trim goatee and Detective Rose, still alive but thinner than Gant remembered her being hours before.

“I'm beginning to see why you hate this woman,” Donovan muttered.

The old man looked up. “Mr. Donovan, is that you?”

Donovan's brow furrowed.

“Captain Joachim Donovan? Dishonorable discharge was it, or did you walk away in another fit of morals?” The man laughed at a joke no one else saw.

Rose turned, a sneer etched into her elegant face. “We can see you, Donovan. Stop being an idiot and get over here.”

Rage poured through Gant like lava in an erupting volcano. “You traitor!” He struck Donovan across the head with the butt of his gun. “You filthy, lying, whoreson!” Another beat against Donovan's thick skull. Gant brought his knee up, catching the larger man in his kidneys.

Donovan lashed back, slamming a heavy fist into Gant's ribs. “Shut up. They don't know me.”

“On the contrary, Captain, I've studied your life quite extensively,” the man with the goatee said over the sound of their brawl.

Gant got ahold of Donovan's neck and squeezed. “Who is he?”

Donovan's face turned red as he choked out the words, “Don't. Know.” He pushed Gant away with brute force and brought his gun up, aimed at the strangers. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“To kill you,” Rose said. “Iteration three is already crumbling, fracturing in your absence. Faster than we anticipated, but your presence here is subverting predominance.”

Strong arms gripped Gant from behind. He snarled, bent his back to crack his head backward into a nose, and hit the solid plastic of body armor. He roared in fury, squirmed, and felt his shoulder pop out of place.

The old man watched him with the scholarly interest of an entomologist spotting a new species of flea. “Bring them inside. The heat outside is quite oppressive.”

“An excellent reminder of why such iterations should not be preserved,” Rose said. She was ignoring him again. Acting as if she hadn't fumed at his court case, demanding his death. Acting as if he hadn't tried to kill her hours before. Acting as if she were another clone of the Rose he'd killed. How many Roses existed?

“So very calm, Detective Rose,” Gant said through gritted teeth and pain. “I see you washed the smoke off.”

She raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Smoke?”

“I set your apartment on fire!” Fleck of spittle fell from his mouth as he screamed. Gant didn't care. Let her see the anger. Let her see the fire burning in him.

“You're mistaken, sir. I live in residential building 3–42, and there has never been a fire in that building.”

The old man patted his shoulder. “Perhaps he saw another iteration of you. A detective, you say? How typical of the Roses of the world, don't you think? Always enforcing laws.” He chuckled, as if this were a joke.

Donovan was pushed beside him, held by two soldiers wearing full black body armor.

“A detective shows a lack of initiative,” Rose said. “This is an iteration with a strong military. If the shadow of me living here had ambition, she would have sought glory there.”

The old man nodded. “A weakness. Make a note of it. It will make her easy to destroy in the long run.”

Rose wrinkled her nose, giving the impression that such concerns were beneath her. “This iteration is flawed. The entire historical structure is baseless. They'll topple without our help. Fade into the oblivion of nightmares.”

“You—­” The soldier holding Gant jerked him backward so he bit his tongue instead of shouting at Rose again. With a snarl, he spat the bloody salvia at her feet. “I'm not done with you.”

“You never started with me,” she said. It was a cold dismissal. Too cold.

For the first time since the fire, Gant felt a tremor of fear unsettling his soul. This . . . wasn't what he'd imagined. Detective Rose wasn't supposed to ignore him. It went against everything he knew. Dread touched him, the knowing that came before the fall of the axe. His death was coming, and it was wrong in every way.

“Captain Donovan,” Rose said, ignoring Gant. “You and I must talk.”

“I got nothing to say to you, lady.” Donovan sneered at her.

She smiled, and Gant realized she was a monster. The pretty outfits and pageant-­queen smiles were the disguise of a monster, and now he saw the teeth. “Oh, no, Captain. We have much to say to each other. I spoke to your crew in Iteration 3 yesterday. They were very, what is the word, hmmm . . . broken?” Her dark eyes flashed with devilish delight. “Yes, broken is the term. Arms. Legs. Fingers. Jaws eventually. The youngest one held out longer than anticipated, but I know there is more than one way to skin a man.”

“Cat,” Donovan corrected. “The term is more than one way to skin a cat.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? I'll make a note of the wording. However, I was skinning a man. He only screamed after that, but it was enough. I had what I wanted from him. Clever of you to hide here in another iteration.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Donovan said.

“You don't need to,” Rose said.

The man with the goatee clapped. “Oh, bravo, Commander. So much menace.”

Rose's glare promised pain to the man, but he missed the glance. “You don't approve, Dr. Emir?”

“Torture produces erratic results.”

“The promise of torture produces good results,” she countered.

“But in this case, it isn't required. Question the captain and let's be done with this. Our window is small.”

The soldier holding Gant shook him. “Sir? What do you want done with this one?”

“Captain Donovan's little pet?” Emir looked at him with eyes filled with a glittering madness. He'd seen the look in the eyes of prisoners in isolation. The ones on death row who would go cackling to their executions looked like that. “Put him in the corner in case the captain needs persuasion. That is your weakness, isn't it, Donovan? You never left a man behind.” Emir chuckled, and even the birds went quiet.

“Don't you dismiss me!” Gant shrieked, straining away from his captors. “I'm worth ten of him! Ten! Do you even know who I am?”

Emir looked at him. “You are nothing. Donovan is an einselected node.”

Gant gasped in shock. “A pillar?”

“You've heard of them?” Emir's voice couldn't have been more surprised if a fish rode a unicycle past him. “The beasts are learning, Commander. What do you make of that?”

“They're still only shadows of things,” Rose said. “When we're done, this one won't even be a memory.”

S
am's phone rang with a piercing wail she'd programmed in for Ivy Clemens. She grabbed it, aware of the hazard lights turning on in her side mirrors. “This is Rose. Give me good news.” She steered the car to the side of the road and left the wipers on.

“We found a body,” Ivy said breathlessly. “He's not going to make it.”

“Gant?”
Please, God, let it be Gant. Let me lock this bastard away forever. Let me put my nightmare behind bars.

Thunder grumbled across the sky. “No,” Ivy said. “He's been muttering in Spanish, but he's said Gant's name a few times.”

“How much longer does he have?”

Ivy took a deep breath. “Ma'am, the ambulance is here, and they don't even think he's worth the ride back. The only reason I found him is that I saw lights in the scrub. It's a restricted area because it's box tortoise breeding ground, so I followed. I found this guy before I got too far in.”

“They wanted him to be found.” She tried to wrap that around Gant's sick obsession with her and couldn't. “Was there anything on him? Marks, other than the beating?”

“Nothing,” Ivy said. “But whoever worked him over knew what they were doing. All the cuts are neatly spaced out.”

“Either a serial killer or an interrogation.” She swore under her breath, then switched to French blasphemies because they sounded better. “Did you write down everything he said?”