Cries of Penance (26 page)

She faces us, posture stiff. “Who are we?”

As a group we answer with a ral y cry, “Guardians.”

“We are at war, Guardians. Our enemy believes we wil be drawn out. They don’t real y know us. If they did, they would know that these brothers are expendable.” She taps the photos of Eva’s brothers for effect. “This sister, this wife—” Her gaze locks with mine and I know Lattie has already been confirmed dead. “—expendable.”

One of her men asks, “Do we know who they are?”

“No,” she answers curtly. Moving to a laptop, she types. On a wide screen, photos flash large then move to thumbnail size before another large photo flashes and another thumbnail. When she has moved through the sequence there are thirty faces looking back at us, twenty-seven men and three women.

“These are our known rivals, some powerful, some we have believed weak enough not to be any threat at al .” There are ten agents present, including my brother and myself. She hands us each a manila envelope. “Within forty-eight hours I expect any and al threats to be eliminated.”

No one is brave enough to ask what happens if none of those identified turn out to be at the root of our current problems.

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She claps her hands. “Move out.” She final y meets my gaze. “Except for you.”

“I heard you were dead,” I hear my brother say. He is hamming it up with one of the other agents as they leave the room. If he is troubled that he has been reactivated, he doesn’t show it.

The agent he addressed answers, “As I did you,” just before the door closes on their conversation.

“You don’t think you’re overreacting a bit?” Someone wil notice this. Several of the thirty were high-profile dignitaries. I lay the manila envelope on the table beside the scattered photos.

She looks at me with boredom. “I’l know in forty-eight hours.”

She grazes her hand over my shoulder, a touch meant to be reassuring that makes my blood run cold though there is no immediate threat of death. I remind myself that neither Henri nor Claude saw it coming either.

“I told you to stay home with your children.” Glorianna moves fast, hugging me. She could have as easily kil ed me but she has no intention of that. I see that now. I feel like my chest might explode from within. Every emotion I’ve ever felt for her col ides. Love. Hate. Empathy. Fear. I would sleep better tonight knowing she was dead, but I can’t wil myself to wrap my fingers around her throat. My guess is that she feels exactly the same way and so we wil part, granting each other life. “You shouldn’t be here.”

I look at my feet. “I had to try to rescue my children’s mother.”

She lifts my chin and catches my gaze. “Even if it left them orphaned? With no protector?”

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There is a threat underlying the question, and it dawns on me that I have been moronical y reckless.

“Can I count on you to perform the tasks I’ve assigned you?”

“Can you tel me you have proof of Lattie’s death? Wil you give me assurances as to the safety of my children and my lovers?”

Pursing her lips, she looks old, bitter. “You’re so damn greedy.”

She crosses the space to open the door to a room that is little more than a closet, obviously used to store artil ery. She walks over to one of the boxes in the pile and touches it with her hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She strides by me, leaving the room quickly. I don’t want to go into the closet-size room, as much because I real y don’t want to look inside the smal crate that is obviously too tiny to hold a body for fear of what I might find within the box as I fear entering a trap.

I can’t leave without looking.

I cross the smal space in two strides and use a metal bar to pry off the lid.

There is a body bag inside and although it is folded onto itself to fit in the box, it obviously holds something. I unzip the bag and looking, immediately regret that I did so. As my field of vision blurs, I know I needed to see. I wouldn’t have believed without visual confirmation. Latisha is dead.

As I reseal the box, Nikos comes up behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Glorianna sent me. She didn’t want you to be alone.”

I swal ow, unable to speak.

“Are you al right?”

“Al that’s here is her head.”

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“God, Ari, I’m sorry.”

I grip the side of the box as a wave of dizziness washes through me. I thought I stil had time to find her, to get her out alive. I never thought for a minute this would be the outcome. Obviously, we’ve had our differences over the last two years, but she was so passionate about life, so vibrant. I can’t imagine a world without her in it. “I failed her.”

“No. You didn’t. She shouldn’t have been here. Thank God you got your children out.”

“Yes, thank God.”

It bothers me that Glorianna’s team reached my children before Pepé’s team.

The only way it could have happened as it did was if she already had men on the ground when she cal ed me from the shower.

I don’t understand.

I lift the smal crate, planning to deliver Lattie’s remains to her relatives, but Nikos keeps me from leaving the smal chamber. “Are you carrying out her plans?”

Our gazes col ide.

“I’m going to appear to, for now.”

“Outnumbered, outgunned is it? You’ve become a coward?”

“I won’t leave my children orphaned. Once I get my feet firmly back on US

soil, I’l make what decisions I need to. For now, I cooperate.” I push past him to go into the larger room.

“Are you sure your children are alive?”

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I pause beside the long table where Glorianna left dozens of photos scattered. Setting the crate down, I pick up the photos of Celia and Garrett, and start pushing the other photos around, hoping I don’t recognize any others, but I do. Nikkos. Hektor. Olympia. Athena-Sophia.

Beside me, my brother opens my manila envelope and looks through the information of the targets I was assigned. I don’t have to ask what he’s thinking, he’s planning on completing his assignments and mine in the al otted time. I don’t doubt that he can, I wish he wouldn’t. I wanted a life free of the agency for his future, but his future is the least of my worries as I stride from the room to confront Glorianna. I wave the photos of Garrett, Celia and the children in front of her. “Tel me about these.”

Her bodyguards move to intervene, but she waves them off.

“I planned to wait until we are on the plane back to the United States before discussing this.”

“Perhaps you should tel me now.” I palm my handgun but don’t aim it at her and am rewarded with an AK-47 pressed up against my temple by her nearest guard.

Behind him I hear a click as Nikos, having my back, cocks his revolver.

“The plan was to round up the ones we believed were important to be placed under the protection of the Guardians.”

“There were at least thirty photos on that table. You’re going to provide protection for every family of every agent you feel is at threat?”

“That’s ludicrous.” She puts her hands on either side of my face and holds my gaze. “Only the ones we have already identified who are in immediate danger.”

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I drop my gun.

The soldier holding the AK-47 to my head steps away, removing the threat, but coldcocks Nikos with it as another soldier disarms him. I close my eyes against the unsaid in Glorianna’s eyes. I know her too wel . “Please, tel me they are safe.”

“I can tel you we successful y airlifted Garrett out of Cincinnati at fourteen hundred hours.”

Garret was in Cincinnati ?

“However, fol owing an explosion at zero hundred hours, we lost visual on Celia and your children.”

“An explosion,” I repeat, opening my eyes.

“We have every reason to believe that Celia and your children are alive. No bodies were recovered, and two vehicles were reported fleeing the scene.”

“The scene? Where was she?” Pul ing away, I shake my head, trying to make sense of what she is tel ing me.

“The Guardians were preparing to extract her and your children from your Sea Cliff Road residence when the explosion occurred.”

They’d have never seen the Guardians coming, which means someone else spooked them. Sea Cliff. If the house exploded it was because someone triggered the self-destruct. It’s a complicated sequence, not something you can stumble on and get right accidental y, which means she was spooked enough for Hektor to tel her how to do it…and what to do next.

Two vehicles were reported fleeing the scene.

“Two vehicles?” I ask. “Celia was pursued?”

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“The driver of the second vehicle was apprehended. He reported his name as Enrique, Garrett Lawrence’s houseboy. Mr. Lawrence has confirmed his identity.”

I’m more distressed that Garrett is under the protection of the Guardians than I am that Celia and the children are missing, what does that say about my trust level right now? On the ground, Nikos stirs.

Another soldier enters the cavern announcing, “We’re ready to transport you to the airfield.”

Glorianna is insistent. “We need to go. Now.”

“I came here to recover my wife. I won’t go back to the States without returning her remains to her family.”

She waves her hand dismissively. “We have errand boys for that. I need you to leave with me immediately.”

A soldier takes my wife’s remains and carries them to one of the armored vehicles waiting for us.

Nikos slaps me on the shoulder. “This is where we part ways.”

“What?” I demand. “No. Fly back to the States with us.”

He smiles, tilting his head. I can tel by his expression that he isn’t wil ing to spend the rest of his life on the run—that’s what I’m looking at—and if I’m honest with myself, he’s excited about getting back into the field. Ever since we started our training for the WODC, he always loved the danger, the excitement. I don’t remark on the shiner his encounter with the butt end of the rifle left him.

He hugs me.

I whisper against his cheek, “I expect to hear from you. Phone, email, Facebook. I don’t care how you stay in contact but you do it.”

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“I’l find you,” he whispers back.

I watch him run to a waiting vehicle and have to laugh. He’s like a kid running headlong into the surf. Now I’m especial y glad for his company the last two weeks. It doesn’t make up for the decade we had apart, but I at least know his head is screwed on straight. I wait until they’ve driven away before joining Glorianna inside the Humvee. As soon as I am settled we’re in motion. I look out the window into the bil owing cloud of sand created by the vehicle’s tires. We ride in silence, the driver and another soldier in the front, me and Glorianna in the back. Not a word. At the airbase, both soldiers disembark with their weapons aimed and ready. Under their cover Glorianna and I run to the plane, very aware that we are in hostile territory.

Minutes later, we are in the air. Glorianna and I both speak at the same time.

“I can’t—”

“I’m sorry—”

I gesture for her to speak first, because I know what I’m going to say is going to start an argument.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” I tel her, taking a deep breath. I stil can’t believe Lattie is gone.

There wil be a time to mourn, but now isn’t it. I can’t dare let my guard down here.

“We’re doing everything we can to locate Celia and your children.”

I remember who I’m dealing with and too late I realize I haven’t reacted to Celia and the children being missing. I think she already suspects that I know 249

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exactly where they are—and I do—if everything went according to plan. “I can’t go back to being Lex Karros. I can’t abandon my children now.”

She nods and I expect her to say something—argue with me—but she bides her time, leaving a crater of empty silence between us.

“Wil you please say something?”

“Are you going to tel me where to send the recovery team to so that we can protect Celia and your children?”

I rub my face, the hours and days catching up to me. How do I politely decline her protection?

She says lightly, “Before we part company so that you can get to work, I need you to make a final appearance as Lex Karrros. Stand at my side while I withdraw my bid for candidacy.”

I stare at her blankly.

“I thought I could wear two caps, but the truth is I would rather protect global concerns than try to make a stronger US. And if al of this was some divine act to force me to see the error of my ways, then I’ve chosen, and if it is to divide us and break the Guardians, then I need to focus al of my passion toward saving us.”

Face to face with her fervor, I don’t envy her antagonist.

“So after I stand at your side for this final performance, and assassinate the three targets in this envelope, do I get my life back?”

She shrugs. “Which life? Who do you want to be? I can’t go back to being Senator Abigail Wainwright-Ful er, you can’t go back to being Lex Karros but neither can you go back to being Thomas Stephanopoulos. I wil continue to be 250

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the director of The Guardians but by your tone, I assume you want to be free of us.” I meet her gaze but move far enough away to avoid further casual touch.

She tsks under her breath. “We’ve been through so much together and stil you don’t trust me?”

I guess she could take my silence either way.

She cocks one eyebrow, weighing me, measuring me. “If I al ow you to walk away, wil you enjoy a quiet retirement? Or wil you become my worst nightmare?

I don’t think the world is ready for you as a rogue agent, fighting only the injustices you choose to fight. That’s why our kind are never al owed to be completely free. We can’t be trusted, not real y. My lover tonight, my murderer tomorrow, isn’t that how it goes?”

“I could say the same about you.”