Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 (41 page)

“‘What I do’ is my job, Aroska,” Ziva retorted, shrugging his arm away. “I’m no hero! I fix problems, end of story. Whether or not I’m ‘damaging’ has nothing to do with it.”

“Think what you want,” he said, shaking his head. “You like to maintain this cold, heartless façade, but deep down I know you’ve got good intentions.”

Ziva gnawed at the inside of her lip to keep from spitting out every foul word she could think of. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Aroska laughed out loud. “Touché,” he sighed. “Now, you know what I think?”

“Hard to tell.”

“I think you should take a break, maybe catch some shut-eye. You’ve had a bit of a rough day, and the galaxy only knows what the next few hours will bring. Go on – the rest of us can hold down the fort.”

Ziva shook her head. “I can’t, not now that Dasaro knows we’re here. The second I let my guard down, he’s going to show up. That’s how it always works.”

“I’ve also heard that a watched pot never boils.”

Once again he was right, and she hated him for it. “You’re determined to win, aren’t you?”

“I’m determined to see you through this. There’s a difference.”

Ziva sat still for a moment, taking another long look at the sinking sun before rising stiffly to her feet and crossing her arms. Sleep wasn’t an option, but the conversation was beyond over and she was all too eager to move on to something else. Preparations needed to be made for the trip home, and she wanted to know every possible detail about the mess they were getting themselves into. Perhaps she could occupy herself fashioning more ammunition for the rifle.

“For the record, I was way out of line earlier,” Aroska said as she turned to go back inside. “With the way you were acting, I was afraid you’d go off and do something stupid, and to be perfectly honest, I was afraid we’d lose you. It was just the first thing that came to mind and—” he forced a sheepish chuckle “—that sort of thing usually works on women. But you’re not an average woman, and that’s not how I should have handled it.”

Damn right
, Ziva thought, though she remained silent. She hoped that was all it was – a strange, gut reaction and not an indication of some subconscious feeling. That was the last thing she needed to be worried about at the moment. But it was over now. She’d punished him enough and it appeared he was still punishing himself, which was just fine with her. He was lucky he’d caught her by surprise; otherwise he still might have been unconscious on the floor. The thought drew her attention to the bruise she had already given him, and she found herself massaging her own swollen knuckles.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” she said.

Without a word, he looked up at her and gave her a single nod. It spoke more of acknowledgement than forgiveness, which was fine considering she wasn’t sure how sincere her apology had been. Feeling rather drained, she turned silently and slipped back into the shadows within the shop.

-88-

City Center

Argall, Haphez

The streets of Argall were eerily quiet at this hour. Everyone had been good about obeying the curfew the mercenaries had established, including Mag. Right now he normally would have been asleep, exhausted after a long day on his feet and resting up for yet another one. But tonight he was too wound up to sleep.

He had come up with a plan, one that he honestly doubted would work. The only functioning comm grid in the city was the one at the police station, or what was left of it anyway. It had been the mercs’ first target upon arriving in Argall, and they’d made quick work of the officers stationed there. It could hardly have been considered a police station in the first place – two retired HSP officers and a handful of locals they’d hired as deputies weren’t much, even for a town as small as Argall. Even if they’d been prepared for the mercs’ arrival, they still wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Loric had set himself up in the station right off the bat, using the equipment there to not only jam and filter the rest of the town’s communications but send his own private transmissions as well. As such, it was perhaps the most heavily-guarded location in town and anyone who had ever tried to enter unauthorized had been shot without question.

Mag knew the layout of the station well – he’d been there several times back in the day, and Loric had brought him in twice for questioning since the takeover. The building had sustained some damage during the attack and the mercs had done a bit of renovation, so he anticipated a few subtle differences: a missing wall here, a new door there. Regardless, he was confident that he’d be able to navigate successfully once he broke in. And that was where things got tricky.

Mercifully, the mercs had disabled all their surveillance cams, as they could easily be monitored remotely by HSP or anyone else who ever caught on to their operations. All security work was done in person, but they had multiple sets of eyes working around the clock. Some form of distraction would have to be created in order for Mag to get inside, and he’d been busy all afternoon preparing one.

A couple of the items he’d kept for himself while cleaning out his parents’ house were a pair of old thermal grenades that were probably unsafe to even be handling. He’d mentally mapped out the city and selected two old houses near the police station that he knew to be empty. He didn’t usually resort to violence – the initial rebellion against the mercenaries had been totally foreign to him – but as the old saying went, desperate times called for desperate measures. As much as he wanted to see Argall saved and rebuilt, he was willing to blow up a couple of buildings if it meant getting the job done. The end would justify the means.

Mag detached himself from the shadows in front of a store and stole across the street. Anyone caught out after curfew without a valid reason had usually been imprisoned, but he’d more likely be executed on the spot. Part of him didn’t care anymore; he’d concluded that the map must be hidden in a safe place far out of Loric’s reach, so there wasn’t really a need to protect it anymore. And with his family dead, he didn’t have much left to live for. He by no means
wanted
to die, but he certainly didn’t have any qualms about it. There was a difference.

Regardless of what became of him, he decided he wasn’t going down without a fight, the reason he’d finally chosen to take offensive action. The only way to alert anyone to the situation in Argall was to access that comm grid. If he got caught, at least the rest of the city would still have a chance to survive.

He rounded a corner and found himself within sight of the police station, the only building on the block that was still illuminated at this hour. Security wasn’t as tight at night since there were more patrols out enforcing the curfew, but the guards who remained stationed there were plenty vigilant. He could see two of them now – one stood at the front door and another paced back and forth on the roof. A couple of explosions might not actually draw them away, but at least they’d have something else to look at while he made a move.

The first of the two houses on his list was right next door to the one Mag was currently hiding behind. The other was directly across the street from it. Initially he’d toyed with targeting one on the far side of the police station, but it seemed like the mercs would be more likely to realize something was amiss. Besides, if by some miracle they were actually drawn away by the distraction, two explosions on the same side would allow him to get between them and the station, which somehow seemed desirable.

Keeping an eye out for sentries, Mag slipped around the back of the house and scaled the fence into the next yard. Many of the windows were already broken thanks to looters, saving him the trouble of trying to break one without attracting attention. He entered with ease and, after a brief survey of the empty space, proceeded to locate the home’s old heating system. Enough gas probably remained to help intensify the explosion. He knelt down and selected one of the thermal grenades, fixing it with a timer his brother had showed him how to make back during the original resistance. He set the timer for an hour just in case he ran into trouble planting the other charge, though he dreaded to think it would actually take that long.

The streets were still quiet when he exited through the back door. He’d discovered a sewer access hatch in the alley when he’d scoped out the area during the day, and unless he was mistaken, the tunnel led to an identical hatch in the adjacent alley, allowing him to cross the street undetected. Mag located the hatch and lifted it open, floored by the stench that wafted up into his face. He stifled a cough and forced himself to climb down, carefully closing the lid behind him.

Mag stood there in the darkness for a moment, hand cupped over his nose, eyes smarting. If he had to guess, someone had come down here to hide, and for one reason or another, hadn’t made it back out. He willed his feet to move forward and followed the tunnel to the end of the alley, wading through the half-meter of water that ran down the main sewer line under the street. Even in the darkness, the other access tunnel was easy to find, as all he needed to do was walk straight forward.

The hatch itself was another story. No amount of pushing or prodding could move the lid more than a fraction of a centimeter. Mag felt panic encroaching as he pictured something heavy sitting on top of it and blocking his escape, but after a moment of probing around, his fingers found a latch the maintenance crews had installed, probably to keep people like him out of the tunnels. The one on the other door must have been broken. He flipped the latch and pushed the lid open.

The exterior of the second house was nearly identical to the first one. This whole area, including the police station, dated back to the original establishment of Argall, when housing had been put up en masse to account for the hundreds of people migrating there to work. The looters had already hit this house as well, making a quiet entrance easy. Mag carefully worked his way through a broken window and slipped inside.

As he had expected, the layout of this house was identical to the other, only reversed. Finding the heating unit would be easy enough, at least once he navigated across the squeaky floor. He pulled up short, testing his footing, and was startled to find that the creaking didn’t stop when he did.

The crackle of a comm unit, the exchange of a plasma cell – both sounds registered with Mag at once. He froze, expecting someone to rush around the corner and shoot him. But after close to a minute, nothing happened. A low voice spoke into the communicator, followed by more static and squeaking as a pair of boots paced back and forth across the floor. “Everything’s clear,” the voice said.

As near as Mag could tell, the sentry was in the kitchen, stationed in front of the large window that looked out over the street. It was clever on Loric’s part, keeping extra men hidden in nearby buildings. What were they doing? Did they know he was coming? Not that it really mattered. He’d already managed to outsmart them, regardless of whether he’d meant to, and even if they were looking for him, he doubted they’d be expecting the thermal grenades.

Well, planting the explosive directly on the heating unit was out. Mag retraced his steps, coming to a halt just inside the window he’d entered through. Even after giving himself an hour to get the job done, the thought of standing around wasting time still made him unbearably nervous. He slid the pack from his shoulder and searched his racing mind for options. It didn’t take long to decide that a single mercenary wasn’t going to stop him from doing what he’d come to do.

Mag removed the second grenade and returned to the wall that separated him from the kitchen. Taking the layout of the first house into consideration, the heating unit would be right on the other side. This flimsy wall would be no match for the grenade’s power, and even if it hampered the explosion a bit, it would still provide a reasonable – if not more realistic – distraction.

Once the device was in place and its timer synced with its counterpart, Mag retreated silently through the window and crept as close as he dared to the police station. The building was surrounded by a fair amount of open space, no doubt for security reasons, but if all went according to plan, he would be able to cross unnoticed while the mercs had their attention focused elsewhere.

The remaining minutes were some of the longest Mag had ever experienced. He forced himself to stop checking his watch, which he’d synced with the grenade timers, and that helped a little. He’d spent plenty of time over the past three years lying in wait for something or dreading the moment Loric showed up at his house for one reason or another, so he would have thought he’d be an expert on the slow passage of time by now. The difference now was that he was essentially waiting for his own death. The cold truth was that he wasn’t planning on surviving this encounter with the mercenaries. He’d told himself over and over that there was still a chance he’d escape undetected, but a small voice in the back of his head continually reminded him how slim that chance was.

The explosion in the first house was more than he could have hoped for, a brilliant fireball that billowed up into the sky and cast everything within half a kilometer in a bright yellow light. The other grenade went off a few seconds later as planned, bringing the house down with a muffled, dusty
boom
. The fireball came a moment later as a spark finally connected with the old heating unit. To someone who didn’t know better, it looked as though the first explosion had set off a chain reaction via an underground gas line.

The mercs’ reaction was priceless. The two stationed outside had dived to the ground and were just now crawling back to their feet. More were pouring out of the station, shouting and gesturing at the flames boiling up out of the demolished houses. Mag looked to where they were pointing and saw that one of the adjoining houses had also caught fire, and it would only be a matter of minutes before the heating unit went up and caused another explosion. Mag grinned, glad they’d all be preoccupied for a while trying to keep the fires from reaching the station.

He began working his way toward the building, using a line of bushes for cover. With the dancing shadows caused by the flames, he doubted anyone would notice him creeping through the dark, but he wasn’t interested in taking any chances. The merc who had been standing guard at the door had failed to recover the helmet he’d been wearing when he’d fallen, so Mag scooped it up and darted inside.

As soon as he was through the doors, he turned and slipped into the dark space behind what had once been the station’s front desk. He tugged the helmet down over his bleached blonde hair, the feature that perhaps made him the most recognizable. Hoping the subtle change in appearance would be enough to throw someone off at a glance, he rose to his feet and ducked down the nearest hallway.

The interior of the station hadn’t changed as much as he’d feared. The hallway made an extra turn to account for some new walls, but otherwise everything remained virtually unchanged. The place was even still equipped with the same security system. Mag guessed that ordering a new system and new equipment would have raised questions the mercs didn’t want to answer. It was sickening, really, how much they’d left the same in order to avoid attracting attention. This was still Argall, the same place Mag and the other citizens had always known, and yet nobody had taken advantage of the familiarity to fight back.

The station’s comm grid wasn’t exactly in a room – the area was more of an open space surrounded by other rooms. As such, Mag only needed to get through one of those adjoining offices to access it. He was startled, however, to find the office door already open. He immediately stopped and listened, something he’d gotten into the habit of doing whenever something caught him off guard. The office was dark but the comm room on the other side was fully illuminated – it appeared it was already in use.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out through his nose, Mag moved across the office and peered through the small window that looked out into the comm area. Loric stood there in front of the control panel, speaking to one of the mercs while the life-sized hologram of a man waited patiently on the projection pad. He was massive, with a shaved head and jet black goatee. Somehow Mag got the vibe that he might be the one in charge of all this. Bits of the conversation reached his ears through the open door.

“We are
not
under attack,” Loric growled. “If we were under attack, you’d know it.”

“But sir!” the other mercenary said. “You don’t think it’s odd that both houses went up within seconds of each other?”