“Marianna Axtell?” Diana asked.
“That’s right.” She nodded; her black hair was slicked back into a low bun, hazel eyes flashing between them. “I know you too. Greatly admired you when I was young, ma’am.”
“You’re still young,” Diana said, looking her up and down. Axtell was likely no older than thirty—her skin was virtually wrinkle-less, only a bit of age showing on the sides of her perpetual scowl. “So you were sent here to babysit me?”
“No, ma’am,” Axtell replied. “Myself and Captain Romano are here to protect and transport Major General Hoagland.”
They didn’t have to discuss it any further. Protecting Hoagland meant that Axtell was also prepared to defend him against both Diana and Amber, unsure of where their allegiances truly lied. Axtell was a glorified babysitter, no matter how much she said she “admired” Diana.
“Well, at least everyone already thinks he’s dead,” Amber said, scrutinizing the stains on the linoleum table between the stacked-log walls.
“Everyone except for the Readers,” Axtell said, looking at him, her face completely stoic, almost expressionless. That intensity reminded Diana of a younger version of herself.
It was hot in the cabin. No air-conditioning and the five bodies inside were warming up every space between the cedar logs. No room for secrets.
Amber was the only person in the cabin that she trusted, and they had discussed on the long drive here exactly where they were drawing the line for shared information. They could tell the United States military officials everything. But if they did, it would be taken out of their hands, up to Hoagland and his cronies to stop them. And Diana just didn’t trust them to do so. If Ratanake was still alive, things would have been different. She had no trusted contacts in the military anymore.
Besides, the United States military knew nothing about the Readers and Zabójca when compared to the two of them. On top of all that, the Readers had people on the inside as proven by Lionel Barr/David, Carson, the SEAL who shot Ratanake, and Cameron Snowman.
And that thought reminded Diana of something she’d forgotten about in the wake of all the death, explosions and terrorism—Taras’s suitcase.
She quickly excused herself, claiming she needed fresh air after the twelve-hour drive. It was dark outside but still hot and humid, the night air sticking to her skin like dew on grass. Rounding her way around the rental car, she opened the door to the backseat. Despite the industrial cleaning they’d put it through, it still smelled of David’s blood. Just a slight scent under the smell of oranges and Cheetos that they’d eaten on the way to Tok. Underneath Amber’s duffel bag, she dragged out the roller suitcase that Taras had carried around with him as if it was a keychain strapped to his belt loop. She pulled it up onto the seat and unzipped it.
Piles and piles of folders and papers, almost all of them about Zabójca.
But on the top of the pile, there was a sticky note pressed onto a printed-out photo of a familiar location, her garage at home in Seattle. The maps of the park where she lost Kennedy were still partially taped to the wall in the corner, some of them floated down to the cement ground after all the time that had passed. And in the middle of the picture, of the garage, a matte-black, shrunken-down version of the UCAV that the Readers had underneath the sticky note that said:
“Fight fire with fire - T”
Chapter 18
Amita Voss
London, England
It was an early gray day with spattering bits of rain, and she knew immediately that something was amiss as soon as she walked in her office. The motion lights were on. It was too early for Reina to arrive, and Chief Harlow still wasn’t back from his vacation. Besides, neither of them would dare to enter her office without her express permission.
She placed the box of premade sandwiches on her desk and looked toward the bathroom door. Rounding the office, she turned on the modern record machine in the far corner, covering up any sound she was making. It was set to a 1970s Bollywood album that had been one of her mother’s favorites. And while it did cover the clicking of her boots and the loading of her pistol, it also sent her back to her memories.
Standing in the dim kitchen, her mother cooking papadum, the small room filled with the smells of black pepper and oil. In the corner, a cot for her brother to sleep. She would escape out that kitchen door, into the suburb of London that was filled with neighbors from all over the world—a street of poor immigrants trying to make their way in and out of English society. Hard harsh smells and multilingual graffiti. Vinyl records spinning with music that her mother wouldn’t allow her to change, let alone touch.
And if she did try, it was a wrinkled hand across the back of her face or the slap of a wooden spoon against her backside.
Amita pulled the safety off the pistol as she listened at the bathroom door. It was quiet. None of the father’s regular labored breathing coming through. The sandwiches were a waste. It was clear they didn’t appreciate her efforts at keeping them well-fed. It hadn’t been that way when they first started, but she’d had to break them down first in order to allow them the opportunity to build themselves back up.
Besides, it wasn’t about them. Not in the slightest.
But she did need them alive for this plan to truly be successful. At least, successful in her eyes. They would say what she was doing was fruitless, that her intervention was absolutely in vain. It was. But it was also working. With the updates from Amber, she knew that Weick was doing the best she had since her resurgence. It was only a matter of time before she killed Zabójca and this could all end.
The horns and chimes
