Chapter 4: The Princess in the Tower
VALENTINE
Exodus Compound, Azerbaijan
Several months earlier . . .
“Well? What do you think?”
Dr. Bundt turned off the flashlight he’d been shining in my eyes, and glanced down at his iPad. “Mr. Valentine, you’re very healthy. The last time I examined you, you were underweight and injured. You have made a remarkably swift recovery. Aside from some scar tissue and the fact that I performed the procedure myself, I wouldn’t have guessed that you had been treated for a traumatic brain injury.”
“Okay, that’s good, right? So what’s wrong?”
“Wrong?”
“Something is obviously bugging you, Doc. What’s wrong?”
Dr. Bundt looked at his iPad again. “I’m not sure how to explain this.”
“Okay, now you’re scaring me. Do I have cancer or something?” That would be a hell of a way to go, after everything I’d been through and survived: fucking cancer.
“Cancer? No, no, my boy, you’re as healthy as a farm horse. That’s just it: you shouldn’t be this fit. You should have barely been able to participate in the battle of the Crossroads, given your condition when we recovered you from North Gap.”
I couldn’t stop myself from wincing at the mention of the black site where I’d been held, interrogated, and had God-knows-what-else done to me.
“Have you read the files on you that we found there?”
I shook my head. “I kept meaning to, but . . . you know.”
“I understand.” I guess there’s no shame in not dredging up unpleasant memories. “Dr. Silvers was conducting certain, ah, procedures on you. The notes we retrieved are vague, but she was working off of a template, a plan of action. The program is called ‘XK Indigo.’ Have you heard of it?”
Now I was scared. “XK what? Was she experimenting on me or something?”
“I wouldn’t call it experimenting. She knew exactly what she was doing. I have not been able to find any real specifics on XK Indigo. A search on the internet reveals nothing but rumor and conjecture from conspiracy theorists. As near as I can tell, though, it’s a mental and physical conditioning program.”
I suddenly felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want to talk about this. “Hey, maybe this is my superhero origin story. That’s basically how the Canadians made Wolverine.”
Dr. Bunt raised an eyebrow. I don’t think he got the reference.
“So you’re not a comic book guy, Doc? He was a mutant, one of the X-Men. The second greatest Canadian ever, behind Wayne Gretzky.”
Dr. Bundt cocked his head slightly to the side, ignoring my attempt to change the subject. “Tell me . . . how much do you remember about the program?”
“Almost nothing,” I lied. You can block some of it out, but you don’t exactly forget months of drug-cocktail fueled torture sessions. “It doesn’t matter now anyway.”
The doctor wouldn’t let it go. “Mr. Valentine, you have been a patient of mine for some time. I need you to be honest with me, and tell me how much you remember. It does matter. It matters a great deal. You’re not the only one who has been through such conditioning.”
What? “There are others?”
Dr. Bundt nodded. “I can’t give you any specifics, for privacy reasons, but no, you are not the only one. However, you have dealt with the aftereffects of that program better than most, I believe it’s due to your ability to enter into a serene mental state during extreme stress—”
“I’ve always called it the Calm.” To me it wasn’t anything special, it just was what it was. When things get really dangerous, I get detached. Not from reality, if anything I was even more rational when I was Calm, but things seemed to slow down, or maybe I processed everything faster, but it was handy in combat.
“Indeed. I have friends in the mental health industry who would love to be able to bottle that and sell it. Regardless, you’re the only one who has been through this Indigo program retaining much at all. So please, tell me what you remember.”
I took a breath, and looked down at my lap. “It’s hard to remember a lot of it. It’s like a dream, how it slowly fades after you wake up. I wrote a lot of it down in a journal, like you told me to, last year. I haven’t gone back and read it. I get . . . I don’t know, I get itchy thinking about it. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“It is good not to dwell on such trauma, but I think there is more to it than that. This aversion to recalling the process, to discussing it, I believe that is part of the conditioning. I believe the same of the memory loss. I was concerned such a thing would happen, which is why I asked you to keep that journal after your recovery. You really should go back and read it.”
“No. Like I said, it makes me uncomfortable.” I squirmed on the exam table a little. I wanted to get up and walk out of the room. I didn’t like it when he dug like this, but Dr. Bundt was the man who put the people Exodus rescued back together, both physically and mentally. He wasn’t going to let it go, but I didn’t like thinking about what would have happened had Exodus hadn’t gotten me out of there. What kind of brainwashed, screwed-in-the-head asset for the Majestic organization would I be today?
So the doctor and I had a bit of a stareoff for a while. He folded his arms and looked like a really disapproving Albert Einstein. Sadly, he was such a nice guy that I couldn’t just tell him to buzz off.
“Are you done with him yet?” someone asked, startling both Dr. Bundt and I.
Ariel was standing in the examination room doorway. There wasn’t much left of the terrified adolescent I’d first met in Mexico. She was a lovely young woman now, with platinum blonde hair and intensely blue eyes. I suspected that if not for being sequestered in the Exodus estate in the middle of nowhere desert of Azerbaijan, she’d have her pick of young men.
“Yes, my dear,” the doctor said. “Not to worry, he’s quite physically healthy.”
“Note, he specified physical. I’m still a mental basket case.”
“Okay great, Michael. Will you walk with me? We need to talk.”
Relieved at the distraction, I stood up. “I need to go, Doc. Thank you.”
Dr. Bundt seemed reluctant, like there was more he wanted to ask me, but he let me go. The Doc was a really important man in Exodus circles, but everybody around here usually gave in to Ariel’s wishes. He wasn’t the only one. I’d gotten used to all of Exodus’ secretive paramilitary badasses deferring to a kid, but that didn’t make it any less weird. I’d spoken with her several times, and had even saved her life, but the girl was still a mystery to me.
She led me to the garden. The Exodus manor was built in the restored ruins of a medieval fortress. The modern part of the structure was U-shaped, with a nice garden in the middle. Being out in the desert, the garden was well watered, climate controlled, and protected from the blowing sands by a glass ceiling. It was, essentially, a large, beautiful greenhouse.
Ariel ditched her shoes. “I like to walk barefoot on the grass,” she said idly, even though I hadn’t asked.
“You’re a weird girl.”
“I like you the best because you’re at least honest to me. Not wearing shoes reminds me of when I was small, when I was home.”
“Where are you from anyway?”
She smiled at me but didn’t say anything.
I cocked my head to one side. “What is your deal, kiddo? The sworn Exodus people won’t say a word. Why all the hocus pocus and mystery? I mean, look, I don’t know anything about you. Why are you even here? Why are you so important to Exodus? Why—”
Ariel shushed me. “So many questions.”
“Well nobody else is going to answer them for me. They just tell me you’re so observant you see patterns other people don’t.” Even Ling wouldn’t tell me the whole deal. It isn’t fun to ask your girlfriend questions and get blown off with BS like about recognizing patterns. “Asking why you’d have a little girl planning combat operations seems like a pretty reasonable question to me.”
“You’re right to ask them. I know so much about you, and you don’t know anything about me. It’s not fair.” She looked sad for a moment. “Okay, I’m from Fresno, California. I haven’t been there since I was a toddler, but that’s where they say I’m from. I don’t talk much about my past, mostly because I don’t remember a lot of it.”
Ariel was young, but her eyes looked older. Sad. Seasoned. I knew that she was frighteningly intelligent and almost unbelievably observant. She was probably a certified genius, if there was any sort of certification for that. She was weird, too. Like, sometimes you got the vibe she acted the way she did just because she was trying to mimic the people around her, to blend in. I didn’t spend a lot of time around teenagers, but remembering how things were back when I was in high school, I could tell she wasn’t typical. She almost reminded me of myself at that age, but only after my mom had been murdered, and after I had taken a human life. That was a crappy thing to be compared to, but there it was.
“When I was a little girl I was kidnapped. Like you, I was taken, tested, experimented on. They changed me, just as they changed you.”
My heart sank for the poor girl. “Who took you?”
“You know them as Majestic, but that’s not really what they’re called.”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of names for them.”
“The one I’ve heard you use the most is fucking assholes.”
“Language, young lady.”
That made her smile. She paused to smell some white flowers. Then she plucked one and stuck it in her hair just over her ear. “You’ll laugh at why they took me. It was because I was good at chess, puzzles, math problems, that sort of thing. I don’t remember most of those days. It’s like there isn’t room enough in my brain for things like that anymore. They had problems with me, I know that. When they were done, they put me with a family to be monitored. I guess I needed a normal environment to see how I’d turn out. It was under a fake name. I don’t even remember my real one.”
Now that really was sad. “How did you end up on a Russian arms dealer’s boat in Mexico?”
“Federov wasn’t just some gunrunner, Michael. He was an asset of Russian foreign intelligence. They watched me for years, and then they grabbed me one day while I was walking home from school.”
“What about your foster parents?”
“I don’t know if Doug and Linda were working for Majestic or not. Either way, it’s better to let them think I’m gone forever. I never even asked to go home. I don’t have a home to go back to. None of that was real. It was all a puppet show, a fabrication. It was fake.” Her tone and her pretty face both darkened. “It’s not real and it’s not my life.”
I took a deep breath. I could certainly sympathize with her situation. “That’s a tough break, kiddo.”
“Exodus was watching Majestic’s program the same way the Russians were, so after they grabbed me, Exodus grabbed me back. I’ve been with them ever since. It’s not so bad, you know. I have a good life here. I don’t want for anything.”
“This isn’t a life. This is a gilded prison.” I looked around the lush garden make sure no one was listening, and leaned in closer to her. “Are you being held here against your will?”
She laughed at me and shook her head. “No, Michael. You’re such a sweet man, though. You were going to try to rescue me, weren’t you?”
I didn’t admit to anything, but as a matter of fact, the gears had already been turning in the back of my mind.
“I’m not a princess locked in a tower. I’m here of my own free will. This is where I belong, for now. This is where I can do the most good.” There was an uncompromising certainty in her voice that made me understand how grown men could take her advice seriously. She didn’t sound like a teenager just then. “But I think that’s changing, which is kind of why I had you brought here.”
“I thought Exodus invited me here to stay off the radar.” Majestic’s best operative, Underhill, was hunting me. I’d gone out on a couple operations in the last few months and had had some close calls. Exodus probably didn’t want me dragging them into a war they couldn’t win against Majestic. “I’m confused.”
“I know, but just listen. There are things happening out in the world right now. Big things, and they’re not good.”
“That’s . . . not really helping.”
Her intensely blue eyes almost burned holes in me. The shift from out-of-her-depth teenager to commander was a little unnerving. “The time has come for you to find Katarina Montalban. You need to stop this Project Blue, whatever it is, from happening. If you don’t do anything, if you just sit here in exile, she will succeed.”
“There’s like half a dozen people in the world who know what that even is, and none of them are talking to us. How do you know all this?”
“Because I know, Michael!” she snapped. “Okay? I can see things other people can’t see. I know things other people don’t know. That isn’t just some line Ling feeds you to get you off her back. It’s hard to explain. I see lines of causation, strings, patterns, whatever you want to call it, and I can see where it’s all leading. You have to find her and stop her. You will probably, like, have to kill her though, but that alone might not stop her plan. She’s very smart, but she’s crazy and she’s dangerous. The important thing is you stop Blue.”
I really wasn’t sure what to say. “Um, okay then. Take out the leader of a powerful organized crime family, but first dismantle her wacky scheme that nobody understands first. I’ll get right on that.”
She shook her head. “I know you think I’m crazy. I’m not. You asked me why Exodus thinks I’m valuable, why the Russians thought I was valuable, and why Majestic thought I was valuable. This is why. I know things and see things and feel things that other people can’t, and I’m usually right.”
“So . . . you’re like a psychic?”
“No! I’m not . . .” She was obviously frustrated. She pointed at a nearby bench. “Sit down.” I did, and she plopped down next to me. There was a little fountain gurgling in front of us. The garden even smelled nice. It was a rather pleasant place to talk about the apocalypse.
“I hate when people call me psychic. Making what I do sound like magic is insulting to my intelligence. Look, I don’t read tarot cards or palms or whatever. It’s about facts and probabilities. Some things fit and others don’t, but everything goes somewhere, and when you get enough things together, it is pretty easy for me to see what comes next. No offense, I don’t know how to explain this to you in a way that you’ll really be able to understand. Regular people just don’t get it. You just have to trust me.”
“I do trust you. I’m just trying to understand. You know, wrap my feeble mortal mind around it all.” I shot her a lopsided grin.
She shook her head, looked up at me, and smiled back. “I said no offense. That means you can’t get offended, stupid.”
“Yeah, that’s not really how it works.”
“But listen, okay? I’m totally serious. I read everything that Robert Lorenzo found out about it and everything from the Majestic info that was dumped. I can read between the lines based upon Majestic’s reactions, and now that they’ve lost control, they fear it more than anything else, ever.”
“I figured that when they were torturing me for information I didn’t have.”
“This is what we do know: Majestic thought Blue up as a doomsday scenario. Four operatives were given the mission to prep it, but their superiors were in the dark on the details. Of those four, one was assassinated, the second died in Zubara, you killed the third but only after he’d cut a deal and given Blue to Big Eddie Montalban, and when the last operative, Anders, saw that everyone else was dead, he assumed Majestic was cleaning house, and threw in with Big Eddie’s successor.”
“Katarina.”
“Exactly. Majestic opened Pandora’s box, and then promptly handed it to a psychopath, so now they’re freaking out. I don’t know what they’re planning, but I see where it leads. There will be war, chaos, and worse. The world is on the brink of falling apart already. This might be all it takes to push it over the edge.”
“Colonel Hunter . . .” That was Ariel’s second operative, but he had been my commanding officer in Zubara, so I couldn’t just give the man such a casual designation. I’d been there when he’d died. Crushed and bleeding, his dying confession was how I’d learned about Blue, and his barely coherent last words had been to command me to find someone named Evangeline to stop it. Majestic had tortured the hell out of me to try and find out who that was, but all I had was her name. “Hunter’s journal mentioned a Project Red in China. Millions of people died in the Chinese Civil War, and I think Majestic caused it, just like they used my Dead unit to destabilize Zubara. He said Blue was even bigger.”
“So you know I’m right, then,” Ariel said levelly as she squished her toes back and forth in the grass.
I sighed. “I’m afraid you might be. That’s pretty close.”
“This isn’t about me or what I see, Michael. We’re way beyond that. This isn’t even about Exodus, or Majestic, or any of the other factions fighting for scraps. This time the world is at a crossroads, one path leads to an unknown future, but the other takes us to a hell that even I can’t wrap my brain around.”
“It’s not fair, you know.”
“What’s not fair?”
“You’re too young to have this burden on your shoulders. The world’s about to blow up, but you think you’re the only one who can see it coming. The only people who buy into your theory are a handful of fanatics who think they can make the world a better place if they just shoot enough bad guys.”
Ariel smiled. “It’s okay. This is how it has to be for right now.”
“Why me?”
“Why you what?”
“Why me?” I repeated. “Why do you think I’m the one who can do anything about this?”
She shrugged. “I just know. You always seem to be in the right place at the right time. Trust me.”
I’d made my living kicking doors and pulling triggers. Ariel talked about a world on the brink, but it was men like me who’d put it there. I had spent my whole life fighting somebody else’s war. Here I go again.
“This isn’t someone else’s war, Michael,” Ariel said softly. “If you’re going to win, this has to be your war.”
We sat in the garden for a long time, quiet except for the fountain. I didn’t know if she was crazy, or if I was crazy for believing her. “What should I do first?”
VALENTINE
Salzburg, Austria
September 3rd
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow at me. “Just so we’re clear, you’re here because a teenage girl told you that you need to save the world.”
“It sounds bad when you put it like that, but yeah, basically.”
He shook his head slowly, looking between me and Ling as if we were inmates in a mental ward.
“There’s something else you should know,” I said hesitantly. “Hawk is dead.”
Lorenzo was quiet for a long moment. “How?”
I took a deep breath and looked down. I couldn’t look Lorenzo in the eye anymore. “It’s my fault. It happened right after the Battle of the Crossroads.”
“Your fault? You were on the other side of the planet.”
“The people that held me . . . Majestic, whatever you want to call them. They’re looking for me. They couldn’t find me, so they went after the one person they could find. They killed him over the phone while I listened.”
“Hawk,” Lorenzo said, the word coming out as a harsh accusation.
“Yeah, I don’t remember it, but I probably said something about him under interrogation. They had me so jacked full of drugs that I didn’t even know what was real.”
That sounded pathetic. Shameful. I thought Lorenzo would be angry at my excuses. From him, there would be at least harsh words, or maybe even a gun in my face. Instead he just exhaled and said, “It happens. Don’t blame yourself. What’s done is done.”
“That’s . . . mighty charitable of you.”
“You do what you need to do to survive when you’re in captivity. Every man breaks, sooner or later.”
From what I knew about Lorenzo, that was a strangely humble thing to say. Whatever he’d gone through had left him changed. Had Sala Jihan broken him?
“I called Hawk after the battle. I hadn’t spoken to him since I was captured. I wanted to let him know I was okay. They already had him. The Majestic operatives were waiting for my call. He said his name was Underhill. Older guy, maybe in his sixties. Hawk tried to fight back and they shot him down in cold blood, right on the fucking phone.”
“Anders mentioned something about a guy named Underhill, and being worried that was who his old bosses were sending after him. Anders is probably the deadliest man I’ve ever known, so anyone who worries him is one scary motherfucker. He’s probably still after you.”
“Underhill didn’t strike me as the easily discouraged type.”
“Good. That makes it easier for us to find him and kill him, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t mind being the bait, for Hawk.”
“For Hawk,” Lorenzo agreed.
“Boys, please,” Ling said, interrupting. “Let’s put our penises away and focus on the here and now.” She looked at Lorenzo. “Have you spoken to Jill?”
“No,” Lorenzo admitted. “I wanted to. I thought about it, but the fewer people who know I’m alive the better.”
“Mm-hm,” Ling said, looking down at her phone. She had been sending text messages while I’d been telling my story.
“If they’re not expecting me, I have the advantage. Kat doesn’t know I’m coming for her. She won’t until it’s too late.”
“You keep tossing her guys out of windows,” I said, “and she’ll figure it out.”
“Varga jumped, but no. She’ll be suspicious, but she won’t think it’s me. She has a lot of enemies. I intend to become Kat’s worst nightmare, and Jill doesn’t need to see that.”
“You know,” I said cautiously, “it wasn’t easy for Jill. They came after her.” I raised a hand before Lorenzo got too worked up. “It’s fine. She’s fine. She ran. I guess Kat pulled some strings. The government of the Bahamas seized most of your assets. Tax adjusters went to your house. Nobody was home because Jill had already bugged out, so the police searched the place. She destroyed all your documents, scrubbed everything, but they found your armory. All those guns are illegal in the Bahamas, so . . .” I trailed off.
“I’m glad I never paid taxes, then. Where is she now?”
“I’m not sure. She went back to the States for a while, I think. She’s using one of the other identities you guys had set up, and Reaper was watching over her too. I haven’t talked to her in a while but she’s okay. I promise you, Lorenzo, she’s okay.”
“Good. She was always tougher than she gave herself credit for.”
Ling’s phone buzzed. “Hello?” she answered. “Yes. No, I didn’t know. Yes, he’s here. Okay.” She reached past me and held her phone out to Lorenzo. “It’s Jill,” she said. “She wants to talk to you.”
Lorenzo’s eyes went wide. “What? How?”
“I texted her and told her. The only one you’re fooling with all of that she’s better off without me prattle is yourself. Being a stoic loner will not help you. Here. Take it.”
Jill spoke loudly enough into her phone that we could all hear her, even though it wasn’t on speaker. “You son of a bitch, you pick up the phone right fucking now!”
Lorenzo meekly took the phone. I turned back around and slumped into my seat. It was about to get even more awkward in the van.
LORENZO
Ling held out the phone to me. I hesitated before taking it. I was a con man who could smooth talk his way out of anything, but I didn’t know what to say to the woman I loved. I was . . . scared? That wasn’t the right word. Maybe ashamed was more appropriate, not that I’d ever been good at feeling shame like most people. Jill had never seen me at my worst, and that was where I’d descended in order to survive Jihan’s prison, and where I’d planned on staying in order to get this job done.
“Damn it, Ling. I can’t drag her into this.”
“Seriously, Lorenzo? I can totally hear you!” Jill yelled.
“It’s for the best, Lorenzo. I can see that prison damaged you. There is an emptiness in you, a wound, here,” Ling said, placing one hand over her heart. “The choice is yours how you will fill that hole.”
Metaphysical Exodus bullshit. The only thing over my heart was a big-ass burn from a branding iron. Hooking up with Valentine had turned Ling sappy. I snatched the phone from her, put it to my ear, and took a deep breath.
“It’s me.”
The line was quiet for a really long time, but I could hear Jill breathing. “You’re alive.” It wasn’t a question, more of an accusation. I couldn’t tell if Jill was shocked or angry or happy or what.
Suddenly, my chest hurt. My face burned. “Yeah.” There wasn’t a lot of personal space in the back of the van. I looked at Ling and Valentine. “Give me a minute.” I didn’t want to cry in front of the terrorists.
Ling nodded. “This line should be secure and encrypted, but it would still be best to avoid names.”
Valentine gave me one last odd look before turning around, like he actually got it. But fuck him and his pity. Trying to get as much privacy as I could in the van, I slunk down, and spoke quietly. “I got out. Are you okay?”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Me too. Are you okay?”
“Am I okay? I grieved for you. They told me you were dead.” She sounded out of breath, like she was walking fast or had just gotten done running. “I’m too shocked to cry. Where have you been? How did you escape? When?”
“I was locked up until a couple weeks ago.”
That had to be a slap in the face. “Why didn’t—”
“It wasn’t safe to contact you. It still isn’t.”
“Come back to me. Come home.”
This stung. “I can’t yet. There’s something I’ve got to do first.”
“Then I’m coming to you.”
“It’s not safe—”
“It never is with you. But a lot has changed since you’ve been gone. I need to see you.”
I missed her so much. She was the one who’d kept me alive and sane in the dark, and she didn’t even know it. I wanted to be with her. But then what? I was on a cross-country murder spree. To win, I had to embrace the hate. I couldn’t drag someone so good and decent into that. “Please, Jill. Just stay where you are.”
“I’m in Paris.”
That didn’t make any sense. To Kat, Jill was just another loose end to tie up. She was hiding from the Montalbans, why go where they had so many eyes? “What?”
“I’m here to take care of your ex. Our friends know how to reach me. I’ve got to go.”
Jill was trying to assassinate Katarina Montalban.
I could hear sirens in her background. “I love you.” But Jill had already hung up.
That hadn’t gone the way I’d hoped, and it sure as hell hadn’t lived up to my dreams in prison. “Fuck!” I smashed my fist into the side of the van.
Valentine turned back around. “What’s the—”
I cut him off. “Damn it, Ling. What the hell were you thinking?”
Ling faced me. “I misled Jill to believe you had died, so she wouldn’t throw her life away trying to get you back.”
It was blunt, incredibly cruel, and we both knew if Jill had come back for me, the Pale Man would have destroyed her. I was pissed off, but I did manage to mutter, “Thanks for that.”
“And now I have stopped you from throwing away the one thing in your life that makes you an actual human being. She loves you very much, and she needs you, almost as much as you need her. Jill balances you, Lorenzo.”
“Whatever, Ling.”
“Do you truly think you are the first warrior so tempted to do evil, that you’d set aside all the good in your life because it might hold you back? You know what kind of broken people end up in Exodus? Freed slaves, refugees, and former child soldiers who have lost everything. They hunger for revenge more than even you can understand, yet, if we have to destroy everything we stand for to achieve victory, then what’s the point?”
“I’m not in the mood for Exodus’ cornball philosophy. Here’s the deal. I’m going to Paris. Contrary to Valentine’s assurances that Jill is okay, you must have missed the part where she’s stalking Katarina Montalban.”
Valentine was stunned. “She’s doing what?”
“You didn’t know, did you? I gathered that by the stupid look on your face when I said it. You’re hunting Kat, it’s your business to know. Varga told me Anders shipped Bob to Paris. He’s their patsy. If Kat’s there now, that’s got to be where Project Blue is based out of. After I stop Jill from getting herself killed, I’ll see if I can’t track down my brother’s whereabouts.”
“Exodus has contacts in Paris,” Ling said. “I will reach out to them for information. If Katarina has moved her operations there, we will find her.”
“Good. Because Jihan made it sound like time is running out.”
“So did Ariel,” Valentine said.
“So your little angel and my devil are on the same page then. Fantastic. Before Varga took a header he talked about Blue killing millions.” Valentine and Ling seemed discomfited by that, but not shocked. The description must have matched up the general idea they’d gotten from Exodus’ weirdo mystical teenager. And here I’d been hoping Varga had been exaggerating. “Bob talked about it being big, but I don’t know if he ever realized it was that big.”
They were tight enough now that Ling and Valentine had reached that point where they could share a lot of information just in glances. Valentine gave Ling a questioning look, like hey, I guess I’m supposed to be the leader, but what do I do now, honey? And she nodded in the affirmative, as if to say, go for it. He swallowed, then turned back to me, looking a little uncomfortable. “We’re shorthanded, Lorenzo. We could use all the help we can get. Work with us.”
“The last time we partnered up, I collected several exciting new gunshot wounds and ended up rotting in the Pale Man’s prison.”
“It was your idea to team up with the Montalbans,” Ling said pointedly.
She had me there. “Oh, believe me, I’m full of regret for that little partnership. It gave me something to focus on during the beatings.”
“Call it an uneasy alliance then, but Blue has got to be stopped,” Valentine said. “Are you going to help? Or would you rather keep bouncing around the countryside murdering assholes and ruining months of our work?”
“Yeah, I can’t imagine how that feels.”
Valentine frowned as he realized he and Dead Six had done the same thing to my carefully laid plans in Zubara. “No wonder you were such a prick when we first met.”
“Falah, Adar, Hosani? Because if we’re keeping score on ruined plans and general fuckery, you’ve still got a lead.”
“I do, don’t I?” he asked smugly.
“Enough. Our goals are the same,” Ling said. “Let’s not waste any more time getting in each other’s way. We will do what we can. If fate is in our favor, perhaps we will learn enough to tip off the authorities, and they will stop Blue for us.”
“Fat chance of that. You saw what the FBI did to Bob when he started poking around in Majestic business.” Not that I would mind Kat and Anders getting arrested. I could arrange for them to get shivved in a prison way easier than I could pop them on the streets myself. “Fine. Whatever works. But I figure this doesn’t end until we put a bullet in them ourselves.”
“I don’t have a lot of faith in the system either. Does this mean you’re in?” Valentine asked suspiciously.
Normally when somebody tried to persuade me to do something, my instinctive reaction was to tell them to go to hell. As much shit as we’d gone through, he’d never like me, and I’d never like him, but I knew he’d shoot straight with me, and that was better than at me. Say what you will about him, but Valentine knew how to get a job done when he stopped moping long enough to focus.
“I’m in.” My one-man rampage had somehow turned into another messy teamup. I needed some air. “Let me out somewhere I can boost a car. I’ll see you in Paris.”
VALENTINE
Exodus Compound, Azerbaijan
Several months earlier . . .
I stood off at the edge of the room, not saying anything. The faces of the other twelve appeared on a large screen, in two rows of six, as part of a secure video teleconference. They were electronically distorted so I couldn’t make any of them out. Sir Matthew Cartwright, the councilman who owned the Azerbaijan estate, stood off to the side, hands behind his back, while Ariel addressed the bank of screens. Ling was with me, arms folded across her chest, looking unhappy.
Ariel turned out to be an eloquent speaker. Her conviction and confidence was impressive, even if she did still say like too much. She had just explained to the council what she had previously explained to me, except in greater detail. Once again, the teenage girl sort of disappeared, and all of a sudden there was this brilliant tactician in her place, making her presence felt.
She was a strange kid.
Despite Ariel’s reassurances that this was all for the best, I still felt bad for her. A girl that age should be going to college, hanging out with friends, not making life-or-death decisions and weighing the fate of the world.
“It’s unfair, getting robbed of her childhood,” I whispered to Ling.
My girlfriend smirked at me. At that age Ling had already been conscripted into the Chinese army to fight in their civil war. She didn’t even have to say anything.
“Yeah,” I agreed. Compared to Ling I’d had it easy. When I was about Ariel’s age, I had been in the Air Force. “Never mind.”
Ariel was still making points. Her skills as an orator would have given any politician a run for his money, but it was a tough sell. She was arguing that Exodus should focus all of its present efforts on stopping Katarina Montalban and preventing Project Blue from happening, whatever that entailed. Only Exodus was—by legal definition at least—a terrorist organization. And though they were absolutely committed to stopping evil, righting wrongs, and all that good stuff, they had just gotten their asses kicked at the Crossroads.
She was trying to convince them that Project Blue, if allowed to continue, would set in motion a chain of events that would end with the deaths of millions and possibly trigger a major war. Only she seemed unwilling or unable to get into the specifics of how this was going to come about.
Our host, Sir Matthew, was one of the dissenters. He was one of those distinguished, proper English gentlemen types. I barely knew the guy, but I had a hard time imagining how somebody who looked and sounded like he did had risen through the ranks of a secret vigilante army that spent most of its time blowing up warlords and freeing slaves, unless he’d had some swanky James Bond thing going on in his youth.
“My Lady, we all appreciate your conviction, but you must consider our position. We lost a significant percentage of our strike steams at the Crossroads. Word about the battle has gotten out. There are rumors of it on the Internet, satellite photos showing the damage to the dam and the resulting flooding. We have attracted the unwanted attention of the world’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It is my belief, and has been the belief of the Council, that our best course is to take some time to collect ourselves and recover from our losses.”
Ariel glared at him. “You mean retreat? Go into hiding? Give up on the work because of a setback?”
“No, child, I don’t mean retreat.” Ariel’s eyes narrowed at being addressed as child, but Sir Matthew either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “It’s more of a strategic realignment. We are operationally limited right now. We need time to recover, recruit, and train. When we are ready, we shall reenter the fray from a position of strength.”
“There is no time! None of you seem to understand this. We are out of time. Project Blue is happening now. Katarina Montalban isn’t going to wait while we sit in the corner and lick our wounds.”
“You are being impetuous. Exodus has survived for centuries because we have operated in the shadows. That has become increasingly difficult. Yes, many powerful people have known about us, but have allowed our work to proceed because we were doing the things that they could not, things which their governments lacked the stomach to do. One slipup now, while we are so weak, could mean the end of us.”
An Exodus councilwoman, hailing from India from the accent, spoke up from the screen. “We’ve all read the projections of the Oracle.” From the look on Ariel’s face, I could tell she thought her designation was absurd. “We know that Project Red, whatever the specifics were, was an American operation to destabilize China.”
“We don’t know that,” another council member protested. He had a slight Canadian accent. “Mr. Valentine provided that information.” That was the first time I’d been recognized in this little shindig. “There’s no way of proving that the journals of this Colonel Hunter are genuine, and even if they are, there’s no way of knowing if he was correct in his assessment. We’re making far too many assumptions for my taste.”
At least he didn’t cast any aspersions on my character. Considering how much blood I’d spilt and shed on their behalf, that was nice.
The Indian woman protested. “The Oracle has made it clear that—”
“The Oracle was the one who said we should go into the Crossroads in the first place! Have we not had enough of her mystical nonsense? Have enough of our people not died because of her?”
The councilwoman from India looked aghast. “James, please. Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but—”
“No, it’s okay.” Ariel raised a hand, and the Indian woman fell silent. “He has a right to speak his mind. Go ahead. Tell us how I screwed up everything.”
“As I was saying, on her advice we went into the Crossroads, and how many people did we lose to that butcher? I admit that our so-called Oracle has been right on many occasions, but on this one, she was spectacularly wrong, and we paid for her error in blood.”
That was remarkably impolite for a Canadian. I kept waiting for him to say sorry.
Another councilman chimed in. His accent was thicker than the others, some kind of Spanish. “I agree with our colleague. Will we continue to place stock in this, this nonsense? She may be brilliant, but she is still human. Her advice to concentrate on the Crossroads led us to disaster.”
Ariel looked up at the screens, her face a mask, in silence. She lowered her gaze and looked at me briefly, as if considering what to say next. She nodded to herself, looked up again, and spoke. “The councilman says that I was spectacularly wrong. Was I? Did I say that the operation in the Crossroads would go as planned? Did I say we would not suffer casualties? No. I warned you not to underestimate Sala Jihan, and I had no role in the tactical planning or execution of the operation.”
“So you’ll lay the blame on Ibrahim?” Sir Matthew snapped.
“Of course not. He did the best he could. I simply told you what most of you already knew, Sala Jihan is a force for evil in this world, thousands die in his mines every year, and that he had to be stopped.”
“But we failed,” Sir Matthew insisted. “Now we are unable to conduct other missions, missions that could save lives, in other places in the world.”
“We did not fail!” Ariel insisted, raising her voice, her hands balled into fists. “Sala Jihan lives, yes, but the Crossroads are gone. His mines are flooded. It will be years before he can regain the power he’s lost. It’s not the ideal outcome, just as it wasn’t the ideal outcome the last time Exodus took him on. We suffered major losses then, too, but Sala Jihan was left impotent and powerless. It took him six decades before he showed his face again.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. Sixty years? Lorenzo had met the warlord in person, but he’d not described him as old.
Taking a deep breath, Ariel looked directly at the portion of the screen that displayed the Canadian’s image. “Had anyone told me about making an alliance with the Montalban Exchange, I would have advised them to abandon the mission altogether. I could have told you that was going to end badly. And, if you remember, I was the one who said Michael Valentine was important. I was the one who said we needed him. If not for his leadership, the effort at the dam would have also failed, and the whole mission really would have been for nothing.”
The council remained silent for a moment. I was awkwardly looking at the floor. I knew Ariel was playing up my role in the battle for the dam to get her point across, but it still made me uncomfortable.
Ariel shifted her intense gaze across all of the faces on the big screen. Her eyes reflected the light of the screen and seemed to burn with a blue fire. “You think I didn’t predict the cost? You think I haven’t felt every single loss? None of you hurt as badly as I did. None of you.”
Ling had told me that Ariel had gone nearly catatonic when the results of the battle came in. They’d even called Dr. Bundt in because they were afraid she would try to kill herself. She had retreated to her room, barely eating, not coming out for over a month.
Today, though, Ariel was resolute. “But that doesn’t matter now. The work has to continue, even if we suffer losses, even if we have setbacks, even if we fail. There’s too much at stake to stop. You all know this. If we don’t do it, no one will. People will suffer without hope. For this operation, we don’t need a bunch of soldiers. We can get by with a few volunteers, but from the organization we need logistical and intelligence support. I can’t see for certain what will happen if we attempt this, but I do know what will happen if we do nothing. So please, let’s not give up now. Too much is at stake. Authorize the mission.”
“No.” the Canadian said.
“I agree, no!” said the Spanish-speaker. “Young lady, we’ve had enough of your fortune telling. Am I the only one who sees it? Are we so blinded by her that we don’t realize what we’re doing? We’re letting this American girl have a say in life-or-death decisions while a thousand miles from the action. She’s clearly out of her depth, and quite possibly out of her mind.”
The Indian woman tried to defend Ariel again. “Marco, the Oracle—”
The Canadian cut her off. “Enough of this talk of oracles! Enough! This has gone on for too long. It’s time to put the adults back in charge. She doesn’t know anything. She’s no gift from God. She’s a charlatan who’s been fooling us all along!”
Ling looked at me with a worried expression on her face. This was not going well, and it was pissing me off. I started to step forward, but Ling put a hand on my arm. “You won’t help here,” she said quietly.
I stopped. Ling was right. I was an outsider.
Ling stepped forward, as if to say something, but before she could, Ariel balled her hands into fists and shouted. “I don’t know anything, you say?” she asked, looking up at the screens. “James, I know about that torrid little affair you’re having with your secretary, and that the only reason your wife hasn’t left you is because of your money.”
Too bad the image was blurred, because I imagined the look on his face would be priceless.
“Matthew,” she said, addressing the Englishman in the room, “I know you haven’t yet found the courage to come out to your family. Believe me, it’s the twenty-first century, nobody cares.”
Sir Matthew looked aghast, but didn’t say anything.
“The clues are everywhere. It isn’t my fault the rest of you are too stupid to put things together. All I have ever done,” Ariel said, her small voice booming with conviction, “is give you people the best advice that I could. It was you who sought me out! It is you who came to me with your questions! The half-baked mysticism came from you guys. All this oracle talk is your words, not mine.”
Ling looked me in the eye, and stepped forward, until she was in view of the screens. Dressed in fatigue pants, a t-shirt, and combat boots, she looked out of place in the luxurious office. “I think it’s a sad day when this exalted council seeks to blame its failures on a mere advisor,” she said coldly.
Sir Matthew seemed taken aback. “Ms. Song, I’ve allowed you to watch these proceedings, but I’m afraid I must ask you to—”
Ariel cut him off. “Let her speak! She’s been there for all of this, while you’ve been reading about it from the safety of your offices afterwards.”
Ling gave Ariel a really nasty scowl, and I think the little genius realized that she was being a hypocrite, and shut up. They might have been on the same side of this debate, but Ling was a whole lot more hands-on.
Ling spoke softly. I was pretty sure she did that on purpose, not through any sort of meekness—trust me, not an issue—but rather because it forced everyone to listen carefully. “I was involved in the planning of the Crossroads operation. The decision to meet with the Montalban Exchange was made by the commanders in the field. Ariel had no part in those discussions. We had our reservations, but given the situation, we made the best judgment call that we could.”
“Your call cost hundreds of lives!” Marco insisted.
“I was there,” Ling said coldly. “We made a gambit and it failed. I accept responsibility for my decisions. Ariel was not wrong about Sala Jihan. Having seen his operation firsthand, I can tell you that it was even worse than you can imagine. His reach was expanding daily, as more innocents died or were enslaved, and—as is our mission—we rushed to stop it. Our greatest failing was, I believe, in moving too soon. I point this out to this council, because the timetable for the operation was your decision, not Ariel’s.”
The council had no immediate response to that.
Ling continued. “I do not know how this girl knows the things she does. God help me, she’s tried to explain it to me, and I’m still unsure. But she is right more often than she is wrong. So here we are, with this esteemed council calling her a false prophet on one hand, yet denouncing her for not foreseeing everything on the other. Is this what defeated Exodus has become? Is this how we honor our fallen, by trying to assign the blame to someone who was not there?”
“The situation is more complicated than you know,” Marco said. “Katarina Montalban is a very well-connected woman, above the law, who now has total control of one of the most powerful organized crime groups in the world. She hasn’t forgotten about us. Ever since the Crossroads, international authorities have been haunting our steps, breathing down our very necks. We’ve been subjected to countless cyberattacks and attempts to steal our information. Safe houses have been compromised, and many of our suppliers have gotten nervous and have severed ties. Our connections in national governments advise us to go to ground for a time, stay off the radar, especially in Europe. And in the midst of this, after suffering the biggest defeat in generations, with unprecedented assaults on our operation from every angle, you propose we try to take the Montalban woman head on?”
“That is exactly what I propose,” Ling stated. “Was I not clear?”
Ariel butted in. “I’m aware of all of that stuff, Marco. You think I’m naïve, but I understand what’s at stake way better than any of you do.”
“You are not helping now,” Ling muttered under her breath. Then she addressed the council again. “Katarina Montalban is a psychopath, an unstable, amoral, ruthless psychopath, who has been given the keys to Armageddon. Apparently Project Red destroyed my country and caused the death of millions. If we let such evil proceed unchecked again, then everything Exodus stands for will mean nothing.”
Ariel spoke up one last time. “If we don’t find a way, no one will.” Without another word, she turned her back on the council and stormed out of the room.
After some searching I found Ariel in her room.
“Go away!” she demanded when I knocked on the door.
“It’s me, kiddo,” I said, leaning in close to the heavy wooden door. Music loudly thumped from the other side. She didn’t answer, but after a moment the door opened. She didn’t say anything after opening the door; she just went back to her bed and sat down. It was obvious she’d been crying.
Cautiously, I sat down next to her, and looked around, trying to think of what to say. Her room was cluttered and messy, but smelled nice. Scented candles were burning on her dresser. A couple strands of Christmas lights were tacked to her ceiling, giving the room soft, moody lighting. Band posters decorated her walls. Of course I didn’t recognize any of them. Wrinkled clothes were piled in a heap by the wall. An electric guitar and a small amp sat in one corner, next to a TV and a Playstation.
“The council voted no,” I told her.
“There was an eighty-two percent chance that they would, but I got my hopes up anyway. What are you going to do?”
“What I have to.” I wasn’t going to back down, and Ling was pissed. “Could you turn that down?” I could barely hear myself think over the racket of her music. It sounded like little girls singing heavy metal, but I think it was in Japanese.
“Okay, grandpa,” she said, tapping a little remote control. The music volume went down to where I could hear her talk.
“Thank you. I’ve been around a lot of gunfire. My hearing’s not so great.”
“What do you want?” she snipped. After a second, her expression softened. “I’m sorry, Michael. I don’t mean to be bitchy to you.”
“No, it’s okay. You have good reason to be upset. A bunch of grown-ass men are blaming a bad op against a bloodthirsty warlord on a teenage girl. It’s ridiculous and they should be ashamed of themselves.”
She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “They’re not wrong, you know. I didn’t see everything. I didn’t know how badly the Crossroads would go.”
“Will you listen to yourself? You told me you’re not psychic. How in the hell do they expect you to predict the future, then? Don’t listen to them. It’s probably been a long time since any of them have gotten their hands dirty, if ever. It’s easy for them to second-guess you.”
“I know, but . . .”
“No buts. I’ve made decisions that have gotten people killed. It’s the nature of the beast in this business. You can either forgive yourself for not being perfect or you can let it eat at you until you’re paralyzed. Either way, it doesn’t change the past or bring back the dead. And, honestly? Sometimes, you do everything right, and still lose. Sometimes, even if you win the fight, good people still die. Turn left instead of turn right, die. I don’t care how good you are, you’re not going to predict that. You guys, you’re fighting a war, right? This is war. People die in war, even if you win every battle and execute every operation perfectly. There’s no getting around it.”
“I know that up here,” she said, pointing at her head. She then put her hand on her chest. “It just hurts here.”
“Ariel, how old are you?”
“I’m eighteen.” She paused for a moment. “I’m pretty sure. My records aren’t, you know, complete.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Wow, there’s a way to get some guy in trouble.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Look, what I’m getting at is, you’re too young to be doing this stuff. You’re making life-or-death decisions for others and you haven’t even lived your own self yet.”
“I already told you. I’m right where I’m supposed to be. This is where I can do the most good.”
“Is it? Seems to me that those guys just scapegoated you, and probably won’t be listening to you much from here on out.”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly.
“Yes, you do. Hell, if anybody knows, you do. Just like you knew all that other stuff about them. You know. So you probably know what I’m going to suggest next.”
“I can’t just leave.”
“Why not? You don’t owe these people anything.”
“They saved my life and gave me a home. They took care of me.”
“No, Ling rescued you. I helped, by the way. Besides that, you’ve more than paid your debt. Has it ever occurred to you that they’ve just been using you?”
“It’s not like that,” she said, a little defensively.
I shook my head. “I was a mercenary for years, kid. I know what it means to be an asset. To be honest? Your services are worth a hell of a lot more than room and board. I’ve heard what you can do. They give you an Internet connection, feed you intel, let you see what’s going on and connect the dots and you’re a goddamn oracle. How many successful operations have you fed them?”
She sniffed. “Sixty-four.”
“They are the ones who owe you, Ariel, not the other way around. They saved your life, granted, but that doesn’t make you an indentured servant, and it’s pretty hypocritical of an organization like Exodus to treat you like one.”
“It’s not like that!” she insisted, more forcefully. “They asked me, you know, if I wanted to go home. I didn’t. I have nowhere to go.”
“How’s Europe sound?”
“What?”
“You’ve been cooped up in this mansion for years. Have you been out, even once, since you’ve been here?”
“Yes,” Ariel said softly. “I’ve actually traveled quite a bit, but it’s usually to some safe house or base or whatever place. The last time I got to actually go outside was a few months ago. They took me shopping down in Baku. I even got to go out on a boat on the Caspian. It was so awesome that I wanted to sing. It was like in Tangled when Rapunzel got to leave her tower.”
I didn’t admit to having seen that movie, but in fact we’d watched a bootleg copy of it, with Chinese subtitles, in Mexico. I didn’t want to lose points off my man card.
“Why?” she asked. “What are you getting at?”
“Catch up, genius. That’s where the heart of the Montalban family business is. I can use you more than Exodus can right now. Come with me.”
“They won’t like that. That’s where Katarina Montalban will be.”
“You said I had to make this my war? Then fine. I’m drafting you. Help me figure out Blue. And frankly, I don’t trust that these guys are going to let me talk to you once I leave here. I want you to come with us.”
Ariel suddenly looked very unsure of herself. Her eyes darted back and forth. “I don’t know. It’s unexpected. I didn’t think of this. It’s an unknown, a rogue variable. I don’t like rogue variables. I don’t know about this. I need to think about this. There are implications that—”
“To hell with the implications. You’re overthinking it. Stop trying to see every end, every possibility. You can’t. I don’t care if you actually are psychic or whatever, you’re not omnipotent.”
I could almost see her thinking. “You . . . you’re right. I do need to go with you. I can’t do much from here, not anymore. There isn’t a lot of time left, Michael. I think I can see the end of the world from here.”
“Then pack your shit.” I stood up. “We’re going on a road trip.”
Sir Matthew Cartwright was, as I expected, not happy.
“Absolutely not!” he insisted, raising his voice. His secretary, Penelope, hurried alongside us, her heels clicking and clacking on a polished wooden floor. “You can’t take her!”
I got in front of him and blocked his way. The aristocrat and his secretary were quickly surrounded by Ling, Shen, Antoine, and Skunky. Four badass Exodus operatives, all of whom had been there to rescue Ariel in Mexico, all of whom had been at the Crossroads, and all who were ready to openly revolt, and me, the meddling outsider. It turned out Ling’s guys were a lot more loyal to Exodus’ mission than to the parties running it. They took this protecting the helpless stuff real serious.
I looked Sir Matthew in the eye, coldly. “Try and stop us, Elton John. Ariel is an adult, and she’s going with us of her own free will. We’ll be driving her right out the front gate. I suggest you not be in the way.”
“Ling,” Matthew said angrily, turning toward the woman he’d worked with for years. He should have known better. “When the Council said no, I knew you’d disagree. Yet, I said I’d allow you and your assets to leave without repercussion if you felt you must. Those assets did not include the Oracle.”
Ling glared right through him. “Exodus fights against slavers. It is a sad day when we become them.”
“You know it isn’t like that! We need to keep her here.”
“What difference does it make?” Ling asked, pointedly. “You’ve made that abundantly clear you won’t listen to her. What good does she do here, literally locked away in a castle tower, if you’re not going to use her talents?”
“Bloody hell, it’s not about that!” he insisted, lowering his voice a little. “It’s about keeping her safe. She’s safe here. She won’t be safe out there in the world.”
“Kid’s gotta grow up sometime, man,” Skunky said.
“Not like this! You understand nothing.” Desperate, he turned back to Ling. “If you do this, you will be cast out of Exodus. You would throw away everything you’ve worked for, everything you stood for?”
“I’m standing now,” Ling stated.
“I won’t allow it! Stop this madness at once or I’ll get security down here!”
“Do not do this, Matthew,” Ling stated flatly. “Not like this.”
I felt for Shen, Antoine, and Skunky. They were true believers. They’d devoted their lives to this outfit. The security they were being threatened with were their friends, but they didn’t back down. Ling was like a rock. Her principles never wavered. If doing the right thing meant turning her back on Exodus, which had freed her from slavery, which she’d fought and fled for ever since, she would, in a heartbeat. That was one of the reasons I loved her.
“Penelope, get the guards.”
“Don’t, Penelope,” I warned. This poor woman looked like she was going to faint. She looked at me, looked at Matthew, then back at me. She then hurried off down the hall without another word.
A pulse went through my body, a muscle twitch, and my heart rate slowed, ever-so-slightly. I was carrying one of Ariel’s bags in my left hand, my gun hand. I slowly set it on the floor and stared Sir Matthew down. “If that’s how you want to play it, we’ll paint the walls red. I promise you this, bullets start flying, you won’t make it out alive.”
He didn’t bend. Sir Matthew may have put on airs of being a foppish rich guy, but right then I could tell from the way he carried himself that he was made of sterner stuff than that. He wasn’t going to come out of this confrontation alive, but I doubted I would, either.
“Stop it!” Ariel shouted. I had not heard her approach. “All of you, stop it!” She pushed her way in between Shen and Antoine, and walked up to Sir Matthew. “Please,” she said. “Don’t do this.”
“My Lady,” Sir Matthew said, “I can’t let them take you. It’s too dangerous.”
“Matthew, you’re such a sweet man,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “But I need to go where the work is, and it’s not here, not anymore.”
“But, Ariel . . .”
“You’ve kept me safe for the last few years, but you can’t keep me safe from the world forever.” She looked at me, then back at Sir Matthew. “Besides, Michael isn’t joking. This time the future is perfectly clear: he will kill you. But the five of them would not make it out of here alive. Among these are beloved heroes to the rest of your soldiers, and their death at Exodus’ hands will shake the conviction of your remaining soldiers, leading to desertions and betrayal. Exodus would never recover. In the next few seconds you will decide the fate of the entire organization. It’s not worth it, not for me.”
He clenched his jaw, torn, but believing. Do the right thing, man. I really didn’t want to get into a gunfight with people I nominally liked.
“So just let me go. Please. I need this.”
Sir Matthew looked up at me, bitterly, daggers in his eyes, then back down at Ariel. His expression softened, and I could tell that he really did care for the girl. He wasn’t protecting her because she was an asset; he protected her out of love. “Perhaps you’re right.”
The Exodus operatives all breathed a sigh of relief. That had almost gone sideways.
“I pray you are right. In any case, as you say, you’re an adult now, Ariel. You’re free to go. Exodus is not in the business of keeping captives.”
“Thank you, Matthew.” She hugged Sir Matthew, squeezing him tightly.
“Just mind yourself, child. It’s an ugly world out there. Worse than even you know.” The British councilman then looked at Ling. “Promise me you’ll keep her safe. She’s more important than you know.”
“We are in the wrong line of work for guarantees, Matthew, but I will do my best.” Ling began walking away. She was done here. “Come on.”
“One last thing, Mr. Valentine. If anything happens to her, I will hold you personally accountable. Please believe me when I say that I have great resources at my disposal.”
I picked Ariel’s bag back up. “Yeah, well, get in line.”