The Suns of Liberty (Book 2): Revolution (31 page)

But Rachel had come prepared for
that as well, it seemed. Ward smiled as she came close, and then something
popped and his nose felt like it was on fire. His eyes opened wide, and he
realized she had opened up a packet of smelling salts. He saw her beautiful
face and smiled again. Then the pain hit like a vise. And he crumpled over.
Revolution grabbed him.

Ward’s mind was fuzzy. He saw the
world in spurts of coherence. The next time he woke with clarity he was fully
dressed in the flight suit and being led down a hallway. Revolution carried
half of Ward's weight on his metallic shoulder; in his other hand he held the
RDSD. Seeing Lantern’s little device brought Ward back to reality for some
reason. He wanted so badly to know how it worked.

“You saved me. Don't know how much
longer I would've lasted,” Ward told him. Revolution said nothing, still
peering down at the RDSD.

“Don't get mushy. I needed a
partner. You ready?”  

That was almost a joke.
Ward
stopped walking.
This must be serious.
There was an urgency to
Revolution’s tone. He thought of how the Guards in that room had taunted him.
Humiliated him. He felt a rush of anger return. If Revolution needed his help,
he was going to give it, even if it meant it was the last thing he'd ever do.
He lifted himself off of Revolution’s shoulder and tested his rubbery legs. “I
can walk. I think I’m good.” He lifted an arm and aimed with the cuff darts.
“I’m all yours, General.”  

Ward heard Revolution chuckle
inside his helmet. Ward had never called him that before. “Fire fast,” was all
Revolution told him.

Ward unclipped the helmet from his
side belt and snapped it down onto his shoulders.

From ten feet in front of them
they heard Rachel say, “If you guys are gonna kiss, let me know because I wanna
watch.” Ward chuckled weakly, and Revolution, as usual, remained silent. Ward
wondered what the Revolution thought of Rachel. Yet another topic for yet
another day.

They turned a corner and saw the
cause of Revolution's concern: a room of a dozen desk soldiers, going about
their mundane office tasks, blocked their exit. The room was big, open, and
offered easy targets. Revolution nodded to Ward, and he opened fire with the
darts. His aim was uncharacteristically off, but still mostly accurate. He
aimed for the extremities as usual. Revolution hurled throwing stars to take up
the slack, grazing a few of the soldiers but mostly causing them to flee the
room through an exit on the other end, opposite the front door. Ward knew
Revolution viewed them as noncombatants, neutral. Unless they made an
aggressive move, he would just want them out of the way. None did, and in a
matter of seconds the path to the outside was clear. They sprinted for the
door, leaping over the unconscious as they ran.

A black van was there to whisk them away to the new
HQ. Alison Mitchell had helped them find the new spot as well as a separate
location to house much of the more technical equipment, such as the Fire Fly
chamber, they were told. It had taken an enormous effort, but with the slow
response time of the authorities to a fire in South Boston, they had been able
to move the chamber and its equipment moments before the police had arrived
(but leaving no time to search for he and Ward in the rubble). It had been
their top priority to do so. The chamber had been designed to be mobile for
just such a contingency. Leslie filled Revolution in on everything as they sped
away.      

Arbor raced in the direction from which the
explosion had come and found the room where Paul Ward had been tortured. It was
a true horror. Three badly injured Guards. One charred, stinking body. Blood,
vomit, piss all over the floor. But no Ward. No Revolution, either, but Arbor
had seen enough of Stars and Stripes to recognize his footprint in the room. He
was around all right. He’d been right to come here, to check on him. He’d just
come too late. The freak had escaped. Arbor sprinted back out and began to hit
the call button on his com when an African-American agent came running up to
him.

“Lithium!”

The big man turned and recognized
him as Kendrick Ray, code name: X-Ray. Ray was in his forties but looked like
he was late twenties at best. He'd looked that way since his early twenties.
Clay Arbor knew him by reputation and casual acquaintance. He was the best
locator in the business. He’d been one of the central players in the Purge.

“Looks like they're gone. But I
hear you're in charge of finding the new hidey-hole.”

Arbor nodded. “Yeah, you
in?” 

X-Ray didn't hesitate. “Hell yeah.
Excellent!”

This was good news for Arbor. With
the Suns of Liberty back together he would need all the firepower he could get.
And X-Ray meant he’d be able to see in any kind of darkness. Even the
metaphorical kind. No one in the business could match him. Not since the
traitor Diego Alvarez died, anyway.

Ray seemed to be reading Arbor's
face as they walked and then turned as if he decided he'd better give the big
man fair warning. “They have a locator working for them. And whoever he is,
he's good.”

“Any ideas?” 

“No, but he goes by the call signature
Lantern.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“Exactly. It should. Whoever that
is worked with Diego Alvarez all those years ago. I've been looking for him
ever since.” X-Ray talked about it with the tone of an excited schoolboy.
Sometimes it was easy to forget that this guy had the highest level of security
clearance available. Higher than Arbor’s.

“All the more reason to take him
out, sweetheart.”

“Exactly. And I know exactly how
to do it.”

Arbor had also forgotten how much
Ray said the word
exactly
. He'd always wondered if it was just a verbal
tick or a fucked-up calling card for a guy nicknamed X-Ray. As long as Ray
helped to arrange a face-to-face with ol’ Stars and Stripes, he didn't give a
shit.

CHAPTER
50

A
lison
took the damp washcloth in her hand and patted it gently down Ward's stitched
back where the pliers had ripped him. He winced. “I'm sorry, baby. I know this
hurts.”

Ward was naked again, but this
time under considerably better circumstances, lying on the bed of their small
quarters in the new makeshift HQ—an old, abandoned warehouse that had doubled
as a prison for a while decades ago. Now it looked like a strange combination
of the two. Lots of hallways, big open rooms surrounded by lots of smaller
cell-like caves, like the one they were in now. Ward was getting sick of
prisons.

“Put the bandage on already. I
really want to turn over so that I can see your face.”

“Just calm down, mister. You rip
these stitches and you're going to see an angry face.”

Ward sighed and let her put the
bandage over the cleaned stitches. “Think I’d do that? I am a doctor, you
know.”

“I’m just glad you're back,”
Alison said, tears suddenly welling in her eyes. Alison had put on a tough face
for him since his return, but now he knew she had only been pretending.

“Are you sure you're safe being
here?”

“I'm sure,” she said, regaining
composure.

“Well then, make sure that thing
is on there well. Don't want any blood in my new bug suit.” He smiled back at
her, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Honey, don't go. Stay here with
me. You need to rest.”

Ward reached out and found her
body. She was wearing a thin nightgown, and the touch of her warm, smooth skin
felt as healing to him as anything else he could imagine. “Let me do the
diagnoses around here, lady.”

“It's different now, Paul. The
Council's changed. They're out for blood. They see he's weak, that the
movement's weak. The hard-liners want to end the insurgency. It’s a full-scale
invasion. That’s what is coming.”

“I know, I get it,” Ward said,
turning over. He did know. Alison had filled him and the Revolution in on the
plans she had intercepted as soon as they had returned. “But isn't this what
we've been working for? I have to defend this city. It’s what we both
want.” 

Alison winced as she saw his ribs.
The shocks had left large painful-looking welts that had blistered. She grabbed
a tube of cream from the nightstand and gently rubbed it onto them as Ward
clamped his eyes shut tight. “We should go to back to the apartments,” she
said.

“You know it's not safe there,”
Ward grunted, surprised at her mental lapse.

“Oh, right. But it's not safe for
you to go out there, either. Not now. Just let the others do this one. Stay
with me. We'll go back to my place and wait it out. That's all I'm asking.” She
replaced the lid and put the cream back down.

“I have to go, honey.” 

“All right, how about this? I'm
not telling you this as me I'm telling you this as The Source. If you go,
you're going to die. That's what I think. I've kept you alive so far. Why can't
you just listen to me this one last time?” Alison looked at him like she'd said
something she instantly regretted.

“It's not going to be the last
time. He and Saratoga have a plan, and Lantern's already on it,” he said. He
tried his best to sound reassuring, but he knew she wasn't buying it. She was
certain about her feelings. She really thought Revolution was going to die.
That he was going to die. Ward had to admit, it gave him pause. She’d never
been wrong before.

“I know their plan, and it's not
going to work. Please just stay here with me.” Alison stepped back from him,
pulled her arms out of the nightgown. It glided down her naked body. Gingerly,
she slid into the bed next to Ward and placed her mouth on his, and they kissed
for a long time.

“So, we got our shit together for tomorrow, Mr.
Director?” Ramsey Hollis asked his old friend John Bailey from across the room.
Bailey raised his eyebrows.

“Well, we better. It’s gonna be
rough,” Bailey answered.

“We've been through it before.”

“Yes, we have.” Bailey sighed,
thinking of the past. “If they come your way though, buddy, you may just have
to drop your knickers and run. You know that, right?” Bailey asked him.

“Well, I figure we gotta protect
these kids from themselves. 'Sides, they're never gonna see me, John. They're
as blind as wombats down there when it comes to me.”

“Don't you mean bats? Wombats
aren't blind, Hollis, they're marsupials.”

“Well, they’re blind down there.”
Bailey just stared at Hollis for a second then rolled his eyes. The two men
laughed, and Bailey poured two shots of Southern Comfort for them. “What do we
toast to this time, pal?” Hollis asked as he kicked his shoes off and took the
glass.

“How about your skinny ass coming
back here in one piece?”

Hollis glanced up at Bailey's
shaved head. “And to your shiny noggin not blinding Lantern when he rides that
hog.” Hollis smiled at him. Bailey lifted his arm and flexed his massive bicep,
then turned the motion into an arm extended at Hollis—giving him the finger.

“I hate your southern-fried
fucking guts, you know that?”

“I know you do. And I slept with
your sister.”

“I'll drink to that. And I don't
have a sister.” The two men downed the whiskey. “You got the letter?” Bailey
asked.

“You kidding?  I'm
superstitious, you know that.”

“Yeah, well, hand it over then.”

Hollis pulled out a letter
explaining his death in the event that he was ever killed in the line of duty.
By writing the letter, he believed he would not be killed. He would handwrite a
new version of the letter for each mission. Each time he addressed it to
someone different. He also had a theory, as Bailey well knew, that whoever he
gave the letter to would also be spared, since they had the letter. Since
Bailey was usually the boss when the two had worked together in the past,
Hollis had made it a tradition to give it to the, now former, CIA special
director. 

Hollis got serious for a moment.
“Are you gonna miss it? SHADOW, I mean? You were in them long enough. Seems
like being out in the daylight could be awful bright.”

“You can only lead a double life
for so long. I just told myself I was protecting the people and the cause I
cared about most. But I made decisions...gave orders...you know. You know what
I did.”

“I know.” Hollis peered around the
room for something to cheer his old friend up. He wondered how he had done the
job for so long. Been a double, triple spy. Ordered the deaths of patriots in
the service of thieves. All to keep the Resistance with a man on the inside. A
man at the top of intelligence. It had been an incredible advantage for the
Resistance, but at what cost to his old friend? A deep cost, judging from the
lines in his face and the weariness that now rolled across Bailey’s
body.  

Bailey peered back up at his
friend, and a smile broke his lips. He smacked the letter with his finger.
“Who's it going to this time?” Bailey asked.

“That ne’er-do-well brother of
mine, what's his name?” Hollis handed him the letter, and Bailey stuffed it in
his jacket that was laid across the chair next to him.

“I believe your brother's name is
Roscoe.”

“Yep, that's the one.” Hollis
smiled “Only brother I got.”

As she strolled down the hallway to her room,
Sophia Lihn was thinking about the night she found her father murdered.
Murdered by the gangs she had dedicated the last two years of her life to
taking down. Freeing San Francisco had not been easy. She thought about the
pain and the loss. She had sacrificed plenty to do it. And now this struggle
for Boston was looming. For the nation, really. For its soul. And it would
hurt. Everyone here would need to be at their best. They would need to stay
serious, focused, professional.