Ruthless (12 page)

Not nice, Little D—

Shut it, Wolfe.

I fell back asleep to the sounds of steady breathing next to me, a kind of snuffling noise, a muted breathing through the nose that was surprisingly relaxing, reassuring, telling me I was not alone.

Blue Grass Army Depot

Kentucky, United States

Natasya broke the neck of the soldier with a smile on her face. She wore the black, the warpaint, with some digital-scrambled camouflage pattern like the voice in the computer had told her. She followed the orders. It was what she did.

“Candy from a baby,” Leonid said as they strolled out the door. He carried the canisters on his broad shoulders, his bearded face smudged with the dark paint. “I think that’s how the expression goes.”

“Easy, easy,” Vitalik said. The depot which they were leaving was quiet; it was early morning, an hour from shift change. The air was cold, crisp, not unlike the air outside the prison when they’d gotten out. Frost covered the grass, like spring in Russia. Winter here was mild.

For this, Natasya smiled, letting the corpse fall from her grasp. It made a
thunking
noise as it hit the concrete below. “Capitalist pig,” she said, almost an afterthought. She’d trained to kill American soldiers for years beyond counting. When she got out of prison and learned that the war was not only over, but that her side had lost, it had been a disappointment, to say the least. This was like a rekindling of the fire, a fond remembrance that maybe—just maybe—their war was not over yet.

“The truck will be there in thirty seconds,” the voice came over her earpiece. It was hard to believe she could so trust a voice on the other end of an earpiece, but here she was, and the voice had not failed her yet. “Prep for extraction.”

“Any other soldiers?” Natasya asked. She looked through the dark, pre-dawn disposal facility. There was nary a hint of movement, which was good for the plan. She couldn’t help but feel a hint of disappointment, though, at the lack of targets.

“No other patrols, no alarms,” the voice replied, a little out of breath. Natasya listened for weakness, and whoever this woman was, she sounded like she had a breathing problem. It was worth noting. “You are clear.”

Natasya felt the mild disappointment, but buried it under the feeling of a job well done. “Gate guards?”

“The mercenaries have already taken them out.”

The truck rumbled up to them, and Natasya lifted the canvas back. It was like any other military truck, not all that different from the diesel models that they rode in the Russian army back in the days of old. Leonid got in first, aided by a man in a soldier’s uniform. She watched them handle the canisters on the big man’s shoulders with care, watched them strap them down carefully, carefully, to the decking as Miksa and Vitalik got in the back of the truck.

This was not her first operation on U.S. soil. But, Natasya thought, as she climbed up and the truck started to move, it was perhaps the beginning of her greatest. “Next stop, airport,” Vitalik said, leaning back in that easy manner of his. “And then … what is the name of the place we’re going again?”

“Minnesota,” Natasya said as she sat down on the bench, suddenly uneasy, staring out the back of the truck. She looked once more at the sky and let the flap drop, sealing them in darkness. The truck rumbled on, undisturbed, into the night.

I missed the morning briefing. I was a little surprised, because we’d never had a morning briefing before, so naturally, I didn’t think to check my calendar to see if I was missing something until after Harper dropped by my new office, looked around with a low, unimpressed whistle and said, “Missed you at the meeting this morning.”

Son of a gun.

I’d kinda of spent a few minutes cursing the name of Andrew Philips after that. Not that I really enjoyed going to meetings, but I tried very hard not to be an unprofessional idiot. Call it the unfortunate side effect of running a government agency at the ripe old age of twenty-one, but I had to work pretty hard to command respect, and that meant I didn’t do boneheaded things like miss meetings.

Until today.

It irritated me so much that I just left, walked out of my office and headed back to my quarters. I walked across the snowy campus, burning aggravation and frustration and a sense of HOW THE HELL COULD THEY DO THIS TO ME? coursing through me with every freezing breath.

Note to self: take the tunnel from now on.

And before you ask, no, I had not dropped the dog off at the pound yet. Because I was busy. Busy missing meetings. And playing solitaire and brooding in my office. (Reed would say sulking, or maybe even pouting, but he can go screw a rude Italian doctor.)

I’d just made it back to my quarters and greeted Rover (I’m not a pet person, and I’m worse with names, clearly) when the knock at my door jarred me out of a solid reverie, and it opened before I could grant permission to whoever was knocking to enter. Of course it was Andrew Phillips.

“You missed the briefing this morning,” he said, like opening the door to my quarters was just a normal thing to do.

“Thanks, Lumbergh,” I said, and he didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Maybe he thought I’d genuinely forgotten his name. I backburnered his invasion of privacy and failure to respect a door and launched right to petulance. “Maybe if I’d known about that briefing, I would have been there. Whose bright idea was it to drop that one on the calendar without mentioning it to me?”

“Mine,” he said, unimpressed with my withering sarcasm. His arms were still folded, his tone as flat as Iowa. “We’re getting more cooperation from Homeland Security now, as we’re further integrated into the department, so regular briefings are going to be held to keep our people up to date with all the normal intel, law enforcement happenings—anything that might be useful.”

I withheld more sarcasm because … that actually might be kinda cool. “Okay. I’ll be there from now on. Now that I know about it.” Couldn’t hold back that little dig, though.

“I’m having the condensed version of today’s report forwarded to you,” he said. “I’m assuming you’re in, since your stuff is in your new office.”

“I’m in,” I said, grudgingly, like every syllable was parting with a tooth. “For now.” The dog wagged his tail hard enough to strike my leg.

“The reception is tonight,” he said. The dude still hadn’t spontaneously sprouted an expression of his own. “Jackie talked to you.” This wasn’t a question.

“I will be on my bestest behavior,” I said and mock saluted him. “Trying to regain some public relations yardage.”

“She’ll be by your office to coach you later,” he said, “after you’ve had a chance to read your security briefing. Assuming you’re going to be there? Otherwise I’ll just have her stop here.”

“I’ll be in my office,” I said. “Where are we holding this reception?”

“Third floor,” Phillips said. “I’m having some of that extra cube space cleared.”

I felt a frown crease my face. “What about the people who work there? That’s finance, isn’t it?”

He didn’t even tilt an eyebrow. “A lot of them are being let go. The finance department isn’t needed like it used to be. We’ve got a lot of dead weight down there.”

“So you’re not just here to make us politically attractive,” I said, shaking my head.

“No,” he said, “I’m here to make this agency run. In case you missed it, there’s no one left in Congress agitating to give us more funding, and your old methods are dried up. Welcome to the new world.”

I doubt my expression fully conveyed my feelings, so I reached for words. “I don’t know if I like your new world all that much.”

“I don’t really care.” He truly sounded like he didn’t. “I’ve got a platform to work with, and the job is minimizing the nuisance and threat of metas, smoothing the public relations gaffes so people can forget about you and the vital job you do. President Harmon is running on his ‘Great Community’ platform, and national security threats distract from that.”

“Sorry to interfere with the campaign strategy,” I murmured, not really all that sorry. Not that I was gonna vote for the ass for re-election anyway. “Surely even someone with the blinders on as heavy as you must realize that threats like Simmons are always going to be out there, waiting for their chance to strike.”

He looked at me like I was stupid. “Yes, there will always be criminals out there, regular and meta. But it doesn’t have to be front page news when you take one of them down.”

“Don’t you think people deserve to be at least made aware of the threat?” I asked. “I mean, I’m not talking a full-fledged cable news-style fear campaign, but … something. A little vigilance? There are metas out there who don’t fit into ordinary criminal activity, who—”

“A normal human being has a lot higher likelihood of dying of cancer, heart disease, car accidents—” Phillips’s lips twisted at the side and he looked like he was displaying emotion for the first time—loathing, “any of the top list of causes of death. There are fewer than one thousand and probably more like five hundred of your people still left walking this earth. The entire planet. Yes, most of the remainder are in the United States, but thanks to Sovereign, metahumans are less of a threat than ever.” He stood with folded arms. “No, I don’t think people need to worry about metas. I think there are other priorities.”

I stared at him in numb disbelief. “You might feel differently if you’d ever met Sovereign face to face.”

“But I’ll never have to, because he’s dead.”

“Because of me,” I said, snapping slightly. “Because I was—”

“Because you killed him,” Phillips said, and I felt the dog at my leg, panting. “Well done. You got a medal for that, right?”

“Or something.” I stared him down. “Some people don’t want to be part of your ‘community,’ great or otherwise. They want to douse it and everything in it with gasoline and watch the flesh sear off bones while they try to figure out if they feel anything one way or another about it.”

“Are you one of those people?” Phillips asked.

“In the world of metas,” I said, skipping barely over calling him ‘dipshit’ to start the sentence, “I’m the only one left standing between you and them, and if you ever looked one of them in the eye, you wouldn’t even need to ask me that.”

Phillips stared straight at me. “Really? Were you that sort of line for Glen Parks, standing between him and the ‘forces of evil’?” He let no amusement creep into his voice, just hard steel, and I flinched. “Eve Kappler? Clyde Clary? Roberto Bastian?” I knew he sensed my horror, but he showed as little care for it as he had for anything else I’d said. “Because you killed all of them too, didn’t you? And you weren’t protecting anybody, it wasn’t even heat of the moment like with Rick, it was careful stalking and cold-blooded murder—”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, but I didn’t believe it.

“You killed them,” he said. “It’s in your file. Revenge. Agent Li wrote a long, extensive report on it. So you’re the … wolfhound, I guess? The protector? But you’re also a wolf. If the people of the United States have a meta threat to worry about, don’t you think it might be you? Because it’s seems like you’re the most likely cause of death—”

“I am not—” I’d had to deal with this before, the past rising up to choke me. “It was a long time ago. I did my part, my penance, to make up for it—”

“Can you really make up for it?” Phillips stared at me. “Because if I went by the arguments you’ve made for the prisoners we’re keeping … you’d be in a cell right next to them. Forever.” There was no threat there, but he’d doused me with a fair amount of verbal cold water. Or possibly gasoline.

“I’m not the same person I was back then.”

He leaned in a little, eyeing my dog. “Without powers … you’re just a criminal. With them, you’re worse. You have the potential to be the biggest active threat this agency could face.” He didn’t even blink. “Just so we know where each other stands.”

“Where do you stand, Mr. Phillips?” I asked, feeling more than a little sick.

“I have a job to do,” he said. “It sounds like you’ve chosen one for yourself. I’m not threatening you—”

“If you have to keep saying that, you’re probably being threatening.”

“—but if you’re going to work here, I’m not going to hold you up or cover for you,” he said. “Play by the rules, do your job, keep things quiet. On a tight leash.” He looked down at my dog. “The election will be over in less than a year, and I’m sure I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.” He frowned. “Speaking of which, you should go have something professionally done to your hair. For the reception.” He turned his back and started to walk away from me.

“You just called me a criminal,” I said to his receding back. “You know I’m dangerous. But you keep going out of your way to rub it in my face, if not threatening me then at least inflaming me. Why in the hell would you do that if you think I’m no better than anyone locked up in the cages below?”

He didn’t even glance back as he hit the button for the elevator and it dinged. “That’s the difference between us, Miss Nealon. I know who you are, and you’re still trying to figure me out. One way or another, I don’t have to worry about you anymore.” He stepped into the elevator and disappeared, leaving me wondering exactly what he meant by that.

I was more or less dressed when Reed knocked at the door a few hours later. I’d had an angry rallying of my souls, desirous of slitting Andrew Phillips’s throat for that last snub (I told them no). I’d also had my meeting with Jackie, I’d read my security briefing, I’d sat around fretting for a while, thinking about how much things had gone to suck—yeah, actually I’d spent most of my time thinking that. My souls, randomly agitating for violence as they were, weren’t helping. Wolfe kept floating images of Phillips in various states of disembowelment up to me, presumably for my entertainment. It didn’t help.

I was taking a break from it when Reed knocked, though, and I answered the door to find him standing out in the hall in a tuxedo. “Very 007,” I said as he came in.

“You look nice,” he said to me as he entered. The dog was back on the heating vent, and Reed’s gaze caught him immediately. “You’ve kept the mutt, I see.”