Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 (45 page)
Read Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2 Online
Authors: EJ Fisch
That animal instinct flared up again, activated by the adrenaline that surged through Ziva’s veins with a force that was almost painful. Time slowed to about half speed; she could smell the blood, the sweaty bodies, the hot pistols, see the positions of the shadows and the movement reflected in the windows of the buildings across the street. She adjusted the grip on her gun and drew a deep breath, stepping around the corner and expecting the worst.
The bright orange hair registered with her in less than a second, though her muscles were wound up so tight that she found she couldn’t lower her weapon right away. Looking into Skeet’s eyes was what finally allowed her to relax. She holstered her pistol and lifted her hands when Zinni and two other armed men appeared at his side, but they stood down immediately when they saw he had done the same.
There was what seemed like a long period of silence as her two teammates stared, wide-eyed, and the other men looked on in confusion. She understood that it must be strange seeing her here, considering how long she’d been out of the picture and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, but then something else struck her. It was one thing to
hear
she was still alive, contrary to what they’d believed for almost two days, but it was something else entirely to
see
her in the flesh after such trauma. The looks on their faces told her they had wholeheartedly bought her little act at the relay station that day, regardless of what they’d learned since then.
“Looks like we missed out on all the fun,” she said, stepping slowly toward them as if even the slightest movement would scare them away.
That finally coaxed a grin onto Skeet’s face, though it didn’t remain there long. “Good to see you, Z,” he said as though he were speaking to a ghost. His eyes shifted to Aroska, and Ziva realized that his charade as her killer was what had really sold them.
An older man whose jacket bore the Royal Guard insignia appeared at Skeet’s side. Ziva recognized him from the press conference on the day of her arrest: Luko Zona. “Please tell me agent Shevin is with you.”
“He was,” she replied. “In fact, he’s one of the main reasons we even knew to come here, thanks to those files he was able to retrieve from your system. He stayed behind to look after his family and fill in the director.”
“He left quite a mess at the RG headquarters.”
“You have
me
to blame for that,” Ziva snapped. “In fact, you can
thank
me for it. If I hadn’t shown up when I did, Kade would be dead and those files would probably be in Dasaro’s hands. Who knows what he would have done to cover his tracks.”
“You were there?” Zinni asked.
“I was there,” she confirmed. “And I shot those men. No need to accuse Kade of that.”
“Did you really kill Nejdra too?” Skeet asked, a strange condemning tone in his voice that Ziva hadn’t expected.
She was quiet for a moment. “I did. How did you even know about that?”
“Dasaro called the director and went off on some rant about how you tried to kill him, claiming that was why he left Haphez. He said you shot Nejdra and that Hoxie had disappeared, and then he requested that he be allowed to continue pursuing you on his own.”
“Probably so he could come here without anyone asking questions,” Ziva muttered. “And anyhow, I don’t know where Hoxie is. He was there at the embassy with the others. Have you seen any sign of Dasaro here?”
Finally Skeet seemed to loosen up a bit. “All of the remaining mercenaries are holed up in the police station,” he said, leading them to an area further up the street where several men were gathered around a stack of crates formulating a plan. “They’ve got all the doors barricaded except the front, but there are enough of them in there that they could pick us off without any trouble if we tried to go in. It’s an effective choke point.”
He caught the attention of one of the men and beckoned to him. “Lieutenant Ziva Payvan, meet Officer Remis of Tekele Private Security. We’ve joined forces with his team.”
Ziva gave him an approving nod. “This is field ops Lieutenant Aroska Tarbic, and our new liaison from Chaiavis, Kat Reilly.”
A voice, its owner currently unseen, spoke up before Skeet or Remis could respond. “Reilly?”
The two other agents with Remis stepped aside to let the speaker through. Once more Ziva found herself rendered completely speechless. The man’s hair was what caught her attention first, and then came the icy blue eyes and
gesh punti
. He looked to be in his mid to late thirties and had the weary features of someone who had suffered a great deal, but there was no mistaking that jaw line and those cheekbones. This man was a spitting image of Kat.
The entire group stopped what they were doing, just as shocked by what they were seeing as the two long-lost siblings were. Everyone moved aside to give them some space and watched in fascination as they approached each other, eyeing one another as if they weren’t quite sure if everything was real. They paused about an arm’s length from each other and stood, just staring, for what seemed like hours.
It was the man who finally broke the silence with a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a sob. He reached out and placed his hand gently against Kat’s face. “Hello, Kat. My name is Mag.” Now he did laugh. “I guess I’m your brother.”
Without another word he pulled her into a solid embrace, and though she seemed timid at first, it wasn’t long before she had just as tight a hold on him. For a while it appeared she was laughing along with him, but as they turned in a slow circle and her face came into view, the tears came faster and the fear became apparent. When she lifted her head and looked directly into Ziva’s eyes, her thoughts were displayed clearly.
What am I going to do?
It was almost surreal seeing her right now. Even after finding out she was alive, he’d never expected to see her here of all places. In fact, he’d even wondered if he’d
ever
see her again. If she’d done what she’d been taught to do, she would have disappeared to the farthest corner of the galaxy, never to be heard from again.
Then again, this was Lieutenant Ziva Payvan he was dealing with, the HSP special operations agent who was renowned for never doing exactly as she was taught. In all reality, he knew her well enough that he should have expected her to show up here. Maybe she was good at disappearing, but he’d also never known her to give up a fight. She’d come here to put an end to all this.
She didn’t look at him when she spoke. “You’re angry.”
Was he? He certainly felt
something
, though he wasn’t quite sure what it was yet. Sometimes it seemed like she knew him better than he knew himself, so if she said he was angry then he probably was, whether he realized it or not.
“I’m not mad, Ziva,” he said anyway. “I’m just….” He turned around for a moment and watched Mag Reilly conversing with his sister. “A lot of unexpected things have happened lately.”
Ziva stepped around in front of him and looked him squarely in the eye. “You understand why we did what we did, don’t you? Why we pulled that stunt on the riverbank and left the planet?” She crossed her arms. “It was the only way to get ahead of Dasaro and figure out what was going on.”
Just because he understood didn’t mean he had to like it. “Of course I do,” he replied, stealing a glance at Aroska, who was caught up in conversation with Zinni and Zona.
I just wish you could have come to us first.
“I just wish there was something more we could have done.”
“It seems to me like you did plenty, considering you’re here,” Ziva said. “Obviously Zona’s files had something to do with it. How did he fall in with you guys?”
“The director actually ordered us to bring him on board after Dasaro left. Argall was basically just a hunch, but we figured we’d better get up here and check things out while the captain was out of the picture. It was just a routine recon mission until we bumped into Remis and his guys, who were responding to an SOS that had been sent by your friend’s brother over there. Apparently Dasaro’s mercs have been jamming and filtering communications since they first got here, which is why we hadn’t heard anything until now.”
“Makes sense,” Ziva said. “Kat said she hadn’t ever been able to reach anyone here.” She gestured toward the police station. “So they’re all in there?”
Skeet nodded. “Remis knows the leader of these clowns, says he’s not surprised they locked themselves in like this. According to Reilly, they’d been ordered to wipe out the whole city, but when the people decided to fight back, everything went to hell for them. That’s about how it was when we got here.”
“Any ideas on how we move forward?”
“Let’s go find out.” The two of them walked back over and joined the others, who by this time were engaged in a somewhat heated conversation.
“The front door won’t work,” Remis said. “We’ve already established that.”
“Can we flush them out?” Aroska asked. “Put grenades in through the windows?”
“We’re fresh out,” Zona replied, massaging his temples.
“Comms are still down so calling for backup isn’t an option right now,” Zinni added.
Aroska shrugged. “Is there anything they want, anything we can give them that will give us a way in?”
Mag snorted. “Loric wants
me
. Even if I can’t give him the crystals he wanted, he’d still jump at the opportunity to put a round through my head.”
There was awkward silence for a moment during which nobody dared to make any suggestions. Skeet kicked himself when he realized he was actually considering using the man as bait. One look at Ziva told him she was thinking the same thing, though she kept her mouth shut as well.
Kat Reilly finally spoke up. “Is Dasaro in there?”
It struck Skeet as a rather odd question. “We found his ship earlier, so if he’s here in the city then yeah, he’s probably in there.”
She studied the building for a minute and then stood up. “Before anyone says anything, I want you to hear me out. I’ve got an idea – I’ll go in.”
“Wait a minute—” Mag began.
“I said be quiet,” Kat snapped. “You just got done telling me this Loric guy killed our family. Dasaro killed Bosco, and he was going to kill me. I want both of them dead. This is my fight just as much as it is anyone else’s.”
Aroska crossed his arms. “You’re not trained for anything like this.”
“I’ve survived on my own on Chaiavis for the past seven years. I’ve got this handled.”
“What’s your plan, Kat?” Ziva asked, bringing her hands to rest on her hips. To Skeet’s surprise, a flicker of understanding flashed through her eyes. Tarbic was right, after all – Kat had no formal ops training, and he wondered why Ziva of all people wasn’t protesting the idea.
“It would be best if I don’t say,” the girl replied. “I want to make this as realistic as possible, and the way you all react will be critical. We contact Loric, tell him Reilly wants to talk, Reilly wants to make a deal. He’ll be expecting Mag, and he’ll let me in.” She moved to the edge of the group and stood, surveying the police station with her hands on her hips. “Split into two teams out here and surround the building. Once everything is in motion, you’ll be able to enter through the side doors. You’ll know when it’s time to move.”
Her brother placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’re sure?”
“I know what I’m doing,” she answered, turning around to look straight at Ziva. “Trust me.”
Although Skeet got the feeling there was more going on than met the eye, it was the best plan anyone had come up with so far. “I’ll see if I can raise Loric,” he said.
-95-
Kat hesitated for a moment outside the station door, straining to see inside. It was no use; the mercenaries had set all the windows to maximum tint, blocking any view of what – if anything – they were doing. Of course this bothered her, but she’d given up trying to see into the future once she realized she was sick. Her discomfort was something she would just have to fight through. This plan of hers was the only way to keep more innocent people, her brother in particular, from getting hurt.
“Reilly’s coming in!” Sergeant Duvo called over the loudspeaker. They’d managed to wire a communicator into the city’s emergency broadcast system, effectively capturing Loric’s attention. After a bit of persuasion, he’d agreed to a meet, requesting that Mag wait by the front door and be escorted inside by his men.
There Kat stood in his place, listening intently to the sound of approaching footsteps inside. The door slid open just a crack and she found herself staring down the barrel of a rifle. A confused face peered at her from the other end, and for a moment she wondered if they would shoot her on the spot. But the man must have noticed the family resemblance, because he stepped aside and motioned for her to enter.
Several mercenaries converged on her the moment the door shut behind her. She lifted her hands and looked each of them in the eye, determined not to reveal how terrified she really was. One of them approached to search her, so she tucked her hands into her pockets and spread her arms, opening her jacket to show that she was unarmed. He gave her a thorough pat-down anyway, removing her spare plasma cell and communicator even though they were both useless.
“Where’s Loric?” she asked, holding her head high.
“This way,” growled the man who had searched her. He turned and began leading the group down the hall.
The interior of the station was dark, thanks in large part to all the tinted windows, but from what Kat could tell it had once been a respectable little police outpost. More armed men appeared at every turn, watching her from the shadows. She met each of their gazes, hoping to catch sight of Dasaro. If there were still this many survivors, she couldn’t even imagine what kind of havoc they’d wreaked while they were at full force.
The mercs marched her into what appeared to be the only illuminated room in the station, and it seemed blindingly bright in comparison. A lone man whom she presumed to be Loric paced back and forth with his hands folded behind his back.
He didn’t even look at her until she stood directly in front of him, and when he did the shock was apparent in his face. “You’re not Reilly,” he said.
“Hello, Loric,” she replied, reveling in the look he gave her when she addressed him by name. “And yes, I
am
Reilly. Kat Reilly. Word is you killed my family.”
Loric smirked. “I haven’t killed anyone who didn’t have it coming,
Defekt
. If you’re as much of a pest as the rest of your family, maybe I should kill you too and save myself the trouble of dealing with you.” He shrugged and looked around at his men. “What’s stopping me?”
Kat slid her hands back into her pockets and surveyed the room; there still didn’t seem to be any sign of Dasaro.
Sheyss
. “I don’t know. What’s stopping you?”
That prompted a hearty chuckle from the man. “Oh! She’s feisty for a
souhn Defekt
, just like…what is he, your brother?”
She said nothing.
“All right, I let you in here because you wanted to talk,” he said, far too amused for Kat’s taste. “I don’t even know you. What could you possibly have to talk about?”
“I may not have been around here long, but I do know a couple of things,” Kat said. “You’ve hurt my brother. Maybe I never knew them, but you killed my parents and siblings, and you made the rest of the world think it was an accident. On top of all that, you’re working for Diago Dasaro, and he tried to hurt my friends. This may not mean anything to you, but I’ve made it my goal in life to
stop
people like you.”
Loric laughed again, though Kat sensed she had struck a chord somewhere within him. “What do you want from me,
shouka
?”
His arrogance sickened her, especially since he knew full well that he and his men were screwed. She stared him down for several seconds, refusing to break eye contact. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d been so angry, so passionate about something – when she’d realized she was dying, she’d done her best to steer clear of high-stress situations. She hadn’t expected this encounter to feel so good.
“I’m giving you a choice here,” she replied. “You and your men can get up and walk out that door right now, and nobody gets hurt.”
“’And nobody gets hurt’?” He snorted and shook his head. “There are fifty of us and one of you. Why should I be concerned?”
“You know as well as I do that there’s a whole squad of agents outside ready to tear this place apart, including Ziva Payvan. It seems she’s been giving your boss some trouble.”
Loric closed the distance between them and loomed over her. “How about I just shoot you now?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“You’re in no position to decide what will or won’t happen.”
“I think I am.” Kat pulled the thermal grenade from her pocket and let it roll to the floor.