Tandem

he knew—she wasn’t just an assignment anymore, a counterfeit Juliana. She was Sasha, and he was in big trouble.

So, then, what to do about it? There could never be anything between them besides a brief, loose friendship; the tandem was too high a hurdle, and he got the sense—silly as it would have sounded if he’d said it out loud—that the universes would disapprove. Besides, her opinion of him seemed … variable. She’d despised him at first, after finding out how he’d tricked her, which was understandable. He was sure he’d be able to coax her out of it eventually, and convince her to trust him at least so far as to take the help that he offered her. He’d thought it was working, but last night she was angry again, and nothing he said or did seemed to please her. In the end, he’d just stopped trying to talk to her, dropped her off at Juliana’s room, briefed the night agent stationed outside, and returned to the Tower for some rest. He needed to figure out what was bothering her, and fast; if he didn’t, it could compromise the entire mission.

But Sasha was only one of many things that troubled him. The Grant Davis situation enraged him, even more now that he suspected someone in the agency of funneling intelligence to Libertas, and of course there was Juliana, who he tried not to think too hard about. He wouldn’t put it past Libertas to kill her if the General didn’t give them what they wanted, which he never would. The only comfort Thomas had was the knowledge that Juliana would be doing her best to give them hell, because that was her way. She wasn’t good at taking orders, the natural consequence of a life of privilege.

And then there was the mole. Thomas’s involvement with Operation Starling didn’t leave him with a lot of time to run his own covert internal investigation, and he had no idea where to start looking for the leak. The KES was a huge organization, a complicated hierarchy with a seemingly infinite set of moving parts. All missions, even Operation Starling to an extent, required the diligent work of hundreds of agents in a wide variety of fields to successfully pull off. Any one of them could be the chink in the KES armor, but ferreting him or her out would require an exhaustive search on a scale outside what Thomas could do on his own. He couldn’t let that stop him, though. He’d just have to figure out a way.

Lost in his thoughts, Thomas didn’t notice his brother until he took a seat across the table from him and gave him a hearty, “Hey T.”

“Lucas,” Thomas said. “What are you doing here?”

Lucas was KES, too, but he was a mid-level support agent with no field duties or on-call minimums who’d chosen not to live in the Tower. Thomas knew it bothered Lucas that his younger brother was a senior level active agent at the age of eighteen, while he’d been denied admission to the KES Academy three times. The Academy was the one place the General’s favoritism didn’t go very far. Potential recruits had to score above a certain level on a number of mental and physical examinations to even qualify, and despite all efforts Lucas couldn’t make the grade. Thomas was sorry for that, because he knew how badly Lucas wanted to be active, and how much he hated having to settle for some mind-numbing desk job, but rules were rules, and Thomas was pretty sure the world was better off not having Lucas Mayhew on active KES duty.

“Just because I don’t live here doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to free breakfast,” Lucas said, lunging across the table to liberate a piece of bacon from Thomas’s plate.

“Actually,” Thomas said, swiping at his brother with his fork. “That’s exactly what it means.”

“Too bad.” Lucas set to work devouring Thomas’s scrambled eggs. “What’s on today’s schedule, princess? Manicures and dress fittings?”

“No, the fitting was yesterday,” Thomas said in bemusement. Lucas rolled his eyes.

“I used to be so jealous of you,” Lucas said, downing half of Thomas’s orange juice in one gulp. Thomas stared forlornly at his breakfast tray, the contents of which were swiftly disappearing. Lucas’s very presence was growing more and more annoying. Thomas hoped he’d get to the point soon. “But if being an active agent means tea parties and fashion shows all day, forget it. I wouldn’t trade jobs with you if you paid me.”

Oh, yes you would, Thomas thought. He wasn’t fooled by Lucas. He knew his brother would kill to be doing what he was doing, and he didn’t even know about Operation Starling, or the true nature of Thomas’s most recent work. The thought of how envious Lucas would be if he did know warmed Thomas’s heart a little. “What do you need from me, Luke? Money?”

Lucas grimaced. “When have I ever asked you for money?” Thomas opened his mouth, prepared to launch into a long list of examples, but Lucas cut him off with a raised hand. “No, this isn’t about money. It’s about Mom.”

Thomas sighed. “I thought so.”

“She’s fine, by the way. But she misses you. I know you don’t believe it, but she does, and she wanted me to ask you to come out and see her. Again.”

“I will,” Thomas said, concentrating on the remnants of his breakfast in an effort to avoid Lucas’s gaze. It seemed like every time he saw Lucas these days, all he wanted to talk about was what a terrible son Thomas was being, and how it broke Alice’s heart that the youngest Mayhew never made it out to Montauk to visit. But it was more complicated than that, as Lucas knew full well. Alice didn’t care if he came or not; she may have told herself she did, but that was only because not caring made her feel guilty.

“When? I just went out there this weekend. Would’ve been nice of you to come with me.” Lucas eyed him carefully, and Thomas wondered if his brother knew he’d been away. By virtue of their different roles in the KES, weeks could go by without the Mayhew boys getting even so much as a glimpse of each other. But Lucas was acting shiftier than usual, and Thomas had a feeling that for all his scolding, Lucas wanted Thomas and their mother to remain estranged. It guaranteed that at least one of their parents preferred him over Thomas.”

“I’m sort of busy at the moment,” Thomas said.

“What, carrying Juliana’s train?” Lucas scoffed. “Yeah, real important work you’re doing in the Castle there, toy soldier.”

“Hey!” Thomas snapped. “Don’t call me that.” It wasn’t easy to ruffle his feathers, but that nickname got under his skin. “Toy soldier” was what they called recruits at the KES Academy, not active duty agents, and it wasn’t a term Lucas was entitled to throw around in either case.

Lucas put his palms up in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry. You need to lighten up.”

These days, it was as if he and Lucas were only a breath or two away from open hostility. There was nothing Thomas could do about Lucas’s jealousy. He wasn’t about to quit the KES, or fail in order to make Lucas look better by comparison; he couldn’t help who he was, or the fact that he was good at his job. It was a shame, though. There had been a time, not that long ago, when his brother was his best friend, his most trusted confidant. He felt the loss of Lucas’s affection more keenly than he would admit out loud, and he was starting to wonder if they’d ever be close again.

Thomas stood. “I’m going to go get some more food, and then I have to head over to the Castle. So …” He trailed off, waiting for Lucas to pick up on the hint.

Lucas nodded. “It was good to see you, T. Mom’s not the only one who misses you, you know.”

Thomas wanted to believe his brother was being sincere. “I miss you, too,” he replied.

That, at least, was true.

They had moved her the night before, right after the girl came in to clear her dinner tray. It didn’t take long for her to get her things together; she’d brought nothing with her, just the clothes on her back and that which she was hoping to trade for safe passage into a whole new life. They’d tossed her room twice already looking for it, but she wasn’t born yesterday. She kept it hidden in her bra, where they hadn’t yet ventured to check, though she wouldn’t put it past them to try.

The place she’d been before had been some kind of underground bunker, but when they whipped the blindfold off her eyes this time, she saw that she was standing in front of a large and well-maintained farmhouse, in the shade of ten towering oaks, with nothing around for miles but cornfields. That was how she knew where they’d taken her. Well, that and the flag flying from the porch, the black phoenix on the red background. At first she was surprised, but then she supposed they couldn’t exactly fly the Libertas banner, even here.

Her room was in the attic, but it had several windows that let in plenty of light. The place was airy and bright, which, while not up to her usual standards, was a welcome change from the windowless cell they’d been keeping her in before. It was almost peaceful, if she could forget about the armed guards standing on the other side of the door. As soon as she was alone, she swept the room for bugs like Thomas had taught her,