As You Were: Part Seven
It hadn't been an accident. Nate knew that from the moment he saw the hangar, once the fires had been extinguished. If plasma engines suffered a major malfunction - something that had happened maybe once or twice in the whole time the XSE had been using the technology - they lost power. They just did NOT explode. At all. Let alone like this.
The blast radius was big, nearly five hundred meters across. Half a dozen other personnel carriers had been completely destroyed. Others, on the fringes of the blast, were blackened hulks. There were scorch marks on the walls of the hangar, yet another sign of how far the fireball had reached.
They didn't know the precise death toll yet. The twenty-four injured, several of them critical, were in the infirmary. Fourteen bodies had been removed from the hangar so far. As for Cate and her team, and the hangar personnel who'd been closest to the carrier--
"Sir, you really shouldn't be in here," Lieutenant Blythe said, for the third time. She was standing right at his elbow, entirely too close for comfort. Nate had barely restrained himself from snapping at her several times already. Blythe wasn't a psi herself, but if she'd been in the XSE for more than two minutes, she should know better than to squeeze a telepath's personal space. Overenthusiasm for one's job was no excuse. "We can't be sure it's secure--"
"These are my forensics people, Lieutenant," Nate said tightly, gesturing at the teams picking gingerly through the still-smoking debris, working side by side with Security officers and hangar crew who'd been off-duty at the time of the explosion. Elsewhere, a handful of empaths were wandering around in what would look like aimless circles to anyone who didn't know that they were following their 'noses', sniffing out empathic residue suggestive of malign intent. Nate had been trying to do the same thing, but it wasn't something he was particularly good at in the first place. "I'm supervising my people. It's what command officers do. So kindly stop getting in the way of me doing my job and try focusing on yours."
Blythe straightened, but all he sensed from her was a brief flicker of discomfort. She had a disciplined mind, even under circumstances like this. He envied her. His own thoughts felt scattered, and he was having a hell of a time trying to pull himself together. The backlash of all those deaths was still vibrating on the astral plane, a sustained shriek that tore at his nerves, slicing through his shields no matter how much he reinforced them. Back in the CIC, he would have been able to block it out, but not here, at the epicentre. Especially not when he recognized so many of those psi-traces. Cate, Bhutto, Ari Khanjian--so many of the people he'd worked with here in the Tower for years--
Rusch, one of the empaths, was stumbling in Nate's direction, tears pouring down his face, and Nate hurried forward to support the younger man. "Sir," Rusch choked out, swaying. "I can't--I can't find anything, and it's all still screaming in my head--"
"It's okay," Nate said heavily, projecting as much calm as he could. Rusch was one of the more powerful forensic empaths in the division, but he was barely out of the Academy. Strength meant sensitivity, and he just didn't have the experience necessary to deal with something like this. "Don't worry about it, Mike. Get out of here, meditate a little. We'll talk at the debriefing."
The young empath nodded jerkily and started to move unsteadily in the direction of the exit. Nate watched him go, hoping he had the sense to head right for one of the shielded rooms where he could let the empathic overload bleed off in relative peace. It wasn't just the backlash that was the problem; the emotions of everyone working recovery in the hangar were revved up to a fever pitch, too.
The one-two punch was why the atmosphere in here was so devastating. Rusch might have been the first to be overwhelmed by it, but he wouldn't be the last. Nate reached out to touch the minds of his other empaths - something that was much harder than it should have been - and sensed the rapidly building stress, even in Magda Bauer, one of the most experienced empaths currently serving in the XSE. He was going to have to pull them all out soon, and to be perfectly honest, he should probably go with them--
A wave of nausea swept over him, and Nate staggered. Blythe swore and reached out to steady him. "Sir, I'm afraid I've got to insist we leave," she said sharply.
"Be quiet!" Nate snapped, pushing her away. He sensed her recoiling in surprise, but tuned it out, focusing all his attention on tracing that sudden feeling of sickness. It hadn't felt like it had come from anyone in the hangar, but damn it, he couldn't concentrate worth shit--
It came again, and this time, since he was semi-prepared, he sensed the point of origin. The feeling was definitely coming from one of his psi-links in particular. Clare, he thought in frustration, his guts twisting. Taking a step away from Blythe, he centered on Clare's psi-signature and teleported--
--only to emerge just outside Security's holding area, sprawled on the floor as if he'd just bounced off a brick wall. His brain felt like it was on fire, and Nate realized hazily that he'd just tried to teleport through the best anti-teleportational barrier thirty-eighth century technology could provide. Smart, he thought, hauling himself painfully back to his feet and lurching towards the entry arch, ignoring the protests of the officer at the monitoring station.
"Sir! Sir, you have to be scanned first--"
Right, like he was going to take the time to go through a scan when he knew there was only one reason for Clare to be down here in the holding area. As soon as he was within the barrier, he visualized Stef's cell on the upper level and teleported.
What he saw stopped him in his tracks. Stef was standing like a frozen statue in the center of his cell, a vacant look in his eyes and a faint, almost dreamy smile on his face. Just outside the forcefield, Sulven was floating upside down in a meditative posture, humming to herself. Beside her, Clare was on her hands and knees, trembling. As Nate stood there, paralysed, something entirely too close to a whimper escaped her, and another wave of nausea swept up the link. But there was anger there this time, too, and enough fear to snap Nate out of his shock.
Just as he was mustering his strength to reach out and interrupt whatever the hell they were doing, he heard someone clattering up the stairs at the end of the hall. One of the guards, maybe, racing to corral him--
Or not. Nate hesitated, turning to face Dane, who was breathing heavily and looking at him with a peculiar mixture of understanding and wariness. "Nate," he said breathlessly, raising a hand. "It's okay. Just don't interrupt them."
Nate looked back at Clare, half-ready to do it anyway, but by then Dane had moved closer, projecting such flinty determination that Nate realized he wasn't going to get away with intervening. "What the hell are they doing?" he asked unsteadily. "Clare--I can feel her--"
Dane took a few more slow steps towards him. "You're lucky you didn't hurt yourself, trying to teleport through the barrier," he said almost conversationally. "Not the brightest move in the world."
"I didn't know she was down here," Nate muttered distractedly. "I just sensed--" It struck him that Dane was trying to defuse the situation, and he shook his head angrily. "Answer my question, Dane."
Dane stopped, his jaw clenching. "Don't snap at me, Guthrie," he said warningly, and Nate got the bizarre impression that Dane was weighing the best and least damaging way to tackle him, if need be. "Bishop didn't tell you about making DaCosta's interrogation a special assignment?"
"He did, but he said he was taking it away from Counterterrorism--" Nate trailed off, feeling a little sick to his stomach himself as he remembered that Bishop hadn't phrased it that way. What he'd wanted was to make sure that Counterterrorism didn't do anything openly to jeopardize the case against Stef. But if something was done under the cloak of special assignment, it didn't matter who did it.
His jaw clenching, Nate reached out to touch Stef's mind, intending only a fleeting contact. Just enough to get a sense of what was going on without disrupting anything. What he sensed sent him reeling backwards, and he would have fallen if Dane hadn't jumped to support him.
"Nate! Damn it, I told you not to do anything!"
On top of the echoes of death and pain still reverberating in his mind, it was almost too much. The vicious triumph and darkly satisfied lust seething fiercely in Stef's mind was so overwhelming that Nate nearly blacked out. The emotions were thick and heavy, like psionic molasses, and he couldn't push it out of his mind, couldn't shake the feeling that he was drowning in it--
Dane took him by the shoulder, shaking him lightly. "Nate! Nate, talk to me!"
The motion, the reminder of the physical world, somehow helped him focus. "I'm fine," Nate muttered, tearing himself free of Stef's emotions as he wrenched out of Dane's grip. Withdrawing behind his own shields, he concentrated hard on the astral plane, and what he saw stunned him.
Stef's mind was a dull, barely perceptible orange glow. If Nate hadn't been looking for it, it would have been indistinguishable from the rest of the astral plane. Sulven's bright, sharp ruby presence darted in and out, clearly looking for something. Gathering images from Stef's memory, most likely.
But it was what Clare was doing that left Nate truly aghast. She was inside Stef's mind, and not just in a transient sense. It was as if their two presences were occupying the same space on the astral plane. Enveloped in that dull orange glow, the blue-silver light of Clare's presence was flaring and sparking erratically, the clearest sign of stress there was.
Nate reached down the link--and withdrew rapidly, tasting bile. Shit--oh, shit, I can't believe she's DOING this! He'd thought the images from the mind of the Stef corrupted by Farouk had been bad--they HAD been bad. But Stef didn't have the excuse of the Shadow King bringing out his darkest side this time.
"She's distracting him," Nate rasped, shifting his focus back to the physical world and meeting Dane's pained, guilt-ridden look. "Isn't she?"
Dane actually shuddered. "Sulven's idea," he said unsteadily, looking away. "No one could get into his mind, Nate. Not without breaking it, and we can't risk that, not when we need what's in there. Sulven thought Clare might have a shot at keeping him occupied enough that he didn't notice the intrusion--"
Nate turned away from Dane, cursing miserably. He knew what was happening. Clare was in Stef's mind diverting him with a telepathic projection, luring him into such a fully realized illusion of reality that someone as unbalanced as Stef wouldn't have a chance of seeing through. Stef was falling for it, letting his guard down, and Sulven was taking advantage. Even shields implanted by someone else took a certain amount of concentration to maintain, and Clare was taking that away.
"I can't believe you'd support this, Dane," Nate said harshly, watching Clare. How could she have let Sulven talk her into this? Deliberately putting herself in this situation--she'd always had a masochistic streak, but this was ridiculous.
"Do you think anyone asked me my opinion?" The air around Dane crackled, and Nate took a wary step backwards. Dane grimaced, taking a deep, unsteady breath as his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. The buzz in the air faded, but the hair on the back of Nate's neck was still standing up straight. "Shit, Nate, do you think I wanted to let her do this?" His gaze darkened as he looked past Nate at Clare. "But we have to know what he knows," Dane said bleakly. "Especially after this morning."
This morning. The answer to his question, of course. He should have realized that immediately. When she'd first returned to the CIC, Clare had said something about Sulven wanting her help with something 'later', but it had to have been the explosion that had driven her to do this.
"There are better ways!" Nate protested.
"We've tried everything else! Except for outright torture, and frankly, Nate, if this doesn't work, I may yet volunteer!" Dane snapped, the air around him crackling again. His eyes were glowing the color of lightning, and Nate realized how much Dane was struggling to control himself.
It wasn't just anger, either, that he was sensing in Dane. The wrenching guilt behind it all was so thick that Nate could almost taste it. I should have seen-- If Dane had taken the attack on Clare's apartment hard, this would be ten times worse. The Tower was supposed to be inviolate, and Dane clearly saw it as his failure, his personal responsibility.
"It's just so extreme, Dane," Nate muttered a bit weakly, and then wondered what the hell he was saying. Dane just glared at him, looking disgusted.
"Interesting objection coming from you," Dane said harshly, folding his arms across his chest. "After what the bastard's done. He's hiding SOMETHING, Nate."
"That's not proof." Why he was persisting, he didn't know. Maybe he just wanted to argue with someone.
"I know! Proof is what Sulven's looking for!"
There was something very dangerous about that train of thought, Nate thought tiredly, but he didn't think Dane was in any mood to have the the slippery slope discussion right now. God forbid he should interrupt a Summers guilt-fest. "And if she doesn't find any?"
"And if she does?" Dane challenged.
"Oath, WOULD you two stop growling at each other?" Sulven said in exasperation, turning in the air and letting herself down into a standing position. Nate nearly jumped out of his skin, and Dane actually swore, taking a step backwards. "You used to be such nice, quiet boys."
He'd been so wrapped up in the argument with Dane, he hadn't been paying attention to Sulven. He should have sensed her cease her scanning; there was really no excuse for being caught by surprise like that. His heart hammering in his chest, Nate turned swiftly to Clare. "Are you all right?" he asked urgently, crouching down beside her. Shuddering all over, Clare looked at him for a moment, her eyes unfocused and her expression unreadable, and then glanced up at Sulven.
"Nicely done," Sulven murmured with an approving smile, laying a hand briefly on Clare's shoulder.
The compliment nearly shattered Nate's already-tenuous hold on his temper right then and there. Rising, he took a sharp, indignant breath, opening his mouth to say something suitably irate. But before he could say anything, Stef snapped out of it, stumbling and nearly going to his knees.
"W-What--" Stef stuttered, regaining his balance. "What did you--" Watching him, Nate saw realization hit, and the confusion in Stef's eyes turned to incandescent rage with frightening speed. "You bitch!" he snarled at Clare, lurching forward and hitting at the forcefield. It flared, sending him staggering backwards. "Fucking mindwitch!" he raved, gasping for air.
Sulven gave him a dismissive look. "Mind your tongue, boy, before I decide to rip it out."
Stef actually shut his mouth. Childhood instincts, Nate supposed; he knew that you couldn't depend on Sulven being facetious when she said things like that. His hesitation only last a moment, though. "Fuck you!" he spat at Sulven, flinging himself at the forcefield again.
"Yawn," Sulven said pleasantly, and flicked a hand at him. Stef's eyes rolled up into his head and he crumpled, hitting the floor like a sack of potatoes. "Moderately satisfying," Sulven pronounced, looking away with a tiny grimace of distaste. "Though a permanent solution would be more fitting. This century is entirely too civilized sometimes."
Dane gave Sulven a bemused look, his eyes flickering sideways to Stef for a moment and lingering there intently, as if to reassure himself that he was still breathing. "Did you get anything?" he asked uncertainly, looking back at Sulven.
"Enough to work with, for now." Sulven glanced back at the sprawled Stef, her lip curling. "Some very interesting tidbits, as well. Our black sheep here was breeding more than mutates."
"Nulls," Clare said, her voice breaking. Nate offered her a hand up, and she took it, but let go as soon as she was on her feet. Taking a few unsteady steps backwards to where she could lean against the wall for support, she pushed sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes with a shaking hand. "He was creating nulls. Another whole project." She looked at Nate, her expression almost anguished. "How the hell did we manage to miss that?"
Nate didn't have an answer. Nulls. Breeding nulls? He'd never heard anything suggesting it was possible to produce a null through artificial means. The conversation in Clare's office this morning came back to him all at once, and he shook his head, wondering what Mel would have to say about all of this. She's going to be insufferable-- They had to find out more about this, figure out who'd bought the nulls, or their services, however Stef had set this up--
"He's been very naughty," Sulven said gravely, her eyes glittering alarmingly. "Secret accounts, laundered money, prearranged payments--oh, and someone needs to take his lawyer into custody. He was the one who set it all into motion, although I must confess I'm not sure he understood what he was doing." She gave them all a bright, savage smile. "Still, pawn or not, he should certainly be removed from the battlefield."
Age might had added some silver to Sulven's hair - the only outwards sign she'd spent four decades in this time - but it certainly hadn't dulled her edge. "Payments to whom?" Nate asked dully, although he was fairly sure he already knew the answer.
"Some of the most virulently anti-XSE groups in the world, Nathan. Who else?" Sulven gave Stef an appraising look. "He was actually quite clever about it. The militias are the least of it--he devoted most of his attention to recruiting the religiously motivated groups and disaffected elements of certain governmental organizations."
"Any details on how he made contact with them?" Clare asked, rubbing doggedly at her eyes. Sulven nodded, and Clare took a deep, shaky breath, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were cold. "Might be something useful there. A trail we can follow, maybe."
She was fighting so hard for control--he could feel it. The blockage on the link was still there, but it was weaker around the edges, letting what she was really feeling seep through. Nate stared uncertainly at her, not knowing what to say, only know that he couldn't just let this go. He wanted to be angry--hell, he was angry. It was just--
"Well, that would be nice, wouldn't it?" Sulven drawled, but tilted her head and gave Clare a serious look. "He did specify you as a target with several of these groups, Clare. You'll have to be careful." She shifted her attention to Nate, her expression turning amused and almost malicious. "You'll be relieved to know that you were merely an unanticipated bonus that night, Nate."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Nate asked sarcastically, his heart sinking. Multiple kill orders on Clare. Wonderful. His gaze strayed towards Stef, and he imagined letting the forcefield down and going in there to--he cut the thought off brutally, and glared at Sulven instead. Her idea, Dane had said. Oddly, Nate wasn't all that surprised.
Sulven raised an eyebrow at him. "Yes, dear? Something to say to me?"
"You need to get to an interface," Clare said abruptly, sounding a little more like her usual self. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but the shields on the link were gradually firming up again, and Nate scowled. If she thought he was going to lay off just because she was managing to internalize everything, she was going to be unpleasantly surprised. "If you link in and download what you got to the main computer, we can go over it in detail."
"If you want. I'll be in the CIC when you're ready to join me," Sulven said. She nodded at Dane, gave Nate a subtly mocking look, and teleported away.
He and Sulven were going to have a discussion, too, Nate vowed silently, seething. It probably wouldn't end well, but damn it, he was going to voice his opinion, even if it killed him.
"If you're okay, Clare, I need to get back to work myself." Dane was looking at them like he wasn't positive they should be left alone. "We're checking everyone who's accessed the hangar in the last two days since that carrier was used." He stopped, swallowing hard, and the look in his eyes was almost haunted. "I--haven't said how sorry I am about Cate and your team--"
"It's okay, Dane," Clare murmured, not meeting Dane's eyes. "Go on--we'll see you later."
"Okay. Well, I'll go then," Dane said awkwardly. He gazed at them both for a moment longer, and then turned abruptly on his heel and walked away, heading down the hall towards the stairs.
Nate waited until he was out of sight - and hopefully earshot - and then walked over to stand in front of Clare, right where she couldn't avoid meeting his eyes unless she wanted to be obvious about it, and he was betting that her pride wouldn't let her do that.
"How could you do this?" he asked tautly.
Clare's eyes went hard. "To him?" she inquired in a harsh voice, a surge of anger escaping a crack in her shields and flashing along the link.
"To yourself!" Nate snapped, flushing. "Shit, Stef was probably enjoying himself!" Revulsion swept over him at the thought, and he glanced again at the prone form in the cell, part of him wishing Sulven had been a little rougher.
Clare flinched. "It worked, didn't it?" she asked, her voice brittle. "Sulven got what we needed--"
"That's not the point!"
Her eyes blazed suddenly in her pale face. "Fuck you, Nate. I think that's precisely the point," she growled and pushed past him, heading for the stairs.
Swearing silently, Nate followed her. She wasn't going to walk away from this; he wasn't going to let her. "The ends justify the means?" he challenged, making the words deliberately derisive.
"Gold star for you," Clare said coldly, almost contemptuously. Nate hesitated for a moment, but then gritted his teeth and followed her down the stairs. The prisoners on the lower level watched them with too much interest as they passed, so Nate held his tongue, telling himself that there was no need to have it out with her in front of an audience.
At the monitoring station, the officer who'd tried to stop Nate when he'd barged in earlier followed him warily with his eyes. Nate spared a moment to give him an apologetic grimace and then hurried after Clare as she picked up the pace. She was heading for the elevator, which was as good as an admission that she was too shaken to teleport just yet, Nate reflected grimly. She did her very best to close the elevator doors in his face, but he slipped through them with a few centimetres to spare.
"Persistent, aren't you?" Clare grated, hitting the button for the CIC. The elevator started to move upwards, but Nate, setting his jaw, pushed the emergency hold button and then moved in front of the keypad so Clare couldn't get at it. She gave him a chilly look, and Nate folded his arms across his chest, glaring down at her.
"I can't believe you did this," he said, his voice deliberately brutal. "I thought you swore off tactics like that a long time ago. What happened to doing things by the book?" Clare's stint in Black Ops, back during the time they'd been fighting the Unity, had wound up not agreeing with her at all, to put things mildly. He could remember how insistent she'd been about wanting to go back to what had then been a collection of counterterrorism-oriented task forces, not a full-fledged division. I don't mind gray, but I'm awfully tired of black, she'd said. He remembered the words exactly, because they'd so perfectly articulated what he himself had felt when it was all over.
Clare shook her head. "What do you want from me?" she demanded testily.
"Would sane behaviour be too much to ask?"
"What precisely was insane about what I did?" Clare said, her voice dripping with acid. Color was swiftly returning to her face, in the form of an angry flush. "We needed what he knew, I was the one who could help Sulven get it. Besides, there's no harm done. DaCosta might have a headache when he wakes up, but it'll be from Sulven slapping him down, not from anything I did to him."
Nate stepped forward, backing her up against the wall of the elevator. "You think that's what's bothering me?" he demanded. "'No harm done'? How well are you going to sleep tonight, Clare?"
Clare went rigid, and if he'd have been any less angry, he would have backed off instantly at the trapped look that flashed across her features. She managed a thin smile. "Why should tonight be different from any other night?" she murmured. "I haven't slept well in a year and a half, Nate. I thought you knew that."
It deflated his anger, as very little else could have done. Nate backed away a little, awash with conflicting emotion, and the smile dropped off Clare's face as if it had never been there in the first place. "I--saw a little," he said hoarsely. Maybe raging at her wasn't the answer. "Of what--he was seeing. Just a few images."
Clare shrugged, but he sensed that the diffident gesture took real effort. "Who was to know Stef's tastes were that exotic?" she said almost carelessly. "I went in there intending to give him the illusion of what he wanted, but I expected it to be mostly about the XSE." She looked up at him, her features composed in a neutral mask, and Nate shivered at the chill on the link. "It's the trap of participating in your own projection," Clare went on, as if she was giving an Academy lecture in the technique. "You're the most real thing in the scenario, and it usually winds up working both way. Stef sensed that, and it triggered--" She stopped, her mouth twisting for a moment, and then went on, a little less evenly than before. "Well, it triggered something out of a bad porn holonovel. Let's just leave it at that."
"With you in the starring role," Nate muttered, feeling sick again.
"That's right."
"I could just throttle Sulven, you know." Surely Clare wouldn't have jumped to do this. But after what had happened in the hangar this morning, Sulven would have known exactly what buttons to push--
"You could try," Clare said with a faint, dry smile. She ran a still slightly shaky hand through her hair, then took a deep breath and gave him a direct, unwavering look. "I did what had to be done, Nate. It wasn't pleasant, but I can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Really."
Nate glared down at her in frustration, the futility of the whole conversation finally sinking in. *I did what had to be done.* The magic words, the ones he knew he couldn't argue with if Clare really believed them, because he'd never convince her otherwise. The ultimate trump card, more or less.
"You scare me sometimes," he said with a sigh, hitting the button to start the elevator, which started moving smoothly upwards again. Time for a temporary retreat, at least until he figured out some way to get through to her without acting like he was second-guessing her. He was, of course, but she'd always been a little more committed to Askani philosophy than he had. He wouldn't get anywhere if he didn't find another approach. "A lot, lately."
Clare shrugged again, that faint smile returning. "Sometimes I scare myself."
The silence was almost as bad as the earlier part of the conversation. Nate didn't know what to say to fill it. If they weren't going to talk about Stef, they should at least talk about the friends and comrades they'd lost in the explosion this morning, but he couldn't bring himself to force that subject, either. He just couldn't wrap his mind around the idea that Cate and the others were gone--
"You didn't tell me how you sensed the explosion before it happened," he muttered, glancing at Clare, who slouched against the wall of the elevator, her jaw clenching.
"I didn't realize what it was soon enough. If I had--"
"What is, is." Cold comfort, and she was liable to throw it back in his face, given the conversation they'd just been having, but it was the only thing that sprung to mind.
Clare gave a soft, bitter laugh. "Right." She rubbed her eyes. "It's something Sulven told me. Because I created the paradox, if I pay attention to the timestream I might be able to discern the changes that are coming about as a result. Hell," she conceded with a lifeless shrug, "I guess she was right."
"Wait," Nate said, blinking. It had been a very long day already, admittedly, but there was something very wrong about what she'd just said. "You created the paradox?"
Clare squared her shoulders, meeting his perplexed gaze. "I sent you back," she said.
"But your father--"
"I was the one moving you forward. All Dad did was give you a little information and put you in a position to use the temporal momentum I'd already created."
Nate opened his mouth, closed it again, and then shook his head quizzically. "Doesn't that mean I created the paradox?" he asked hesitantly. Just because he'd interned in Temporal Division didn't mean he'd retained the intricacies of temporal theory nearly twenty years later.
Clare looked briefly aggravated. "Would you not argue with me? History changed, and it was my power behind it. I've got a residual connection to the original time-track, because I was the one who broke it. It's not really that complicated, Nate."
Nate stared at her for a long, silent moment. "I thought we were just dealing with a paradox here," he said slowly. "History changed?" Surely she just meant in the sense that Stef had never started his temporal jaunt in the first place--
"Sulven had Temporal Division do an analysis, just after the paradox happened. She told me about it this morning." Pain bubbled up from Clare's end of the link, and was just as quickly suppressed. Nate shifted restlessly, still not understanding but very clearly sensing the other shoe about to drop. "The paradox created a three-point divergence from the original timeline."
"What sort of divergence? What happened?" Oh, he'd just had to ask that, hadn't he. To be honest, he was getting the impression that he didn't want to know.
Clare's hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Originally, you and Stef returned to the Tinex chamber a few minutes after I sent you back," she said, her voice just a little unsteady. "He killed you, and I killed him."
"Oh." Unobtrusively, Nate leaned against the wall of the elevator for support. "I see." An inane response, probably, but what else was there to say? Part of him had suspected, sure, but it was another thing to know for certain.
"Which throws a wrench in the idea that a paradox is always a bad thing," Clare muttered. The elevator came to a stop, and as the doors slid open, she gave him a look that had the barest hint of supplication to it. "Can we just get back to work?"
Nate grimaced. He still wasn't sure whether he wanted to shake some sense into her, or appoint himself her body guard in charge of saving her from herself, but at the moment, she was right; they both had more important things to do. "For now," he muttered.
"Good enough," Clare said crisply, her eyes shifting resolutely forward.
***
There was a hand on his shoulder, shaking him lightly. "Nate? Wake up, son."
Even though his father's voice didn't sound particularly urgent, years of being woken up in the middle of the night for various emergencies had taught Nate to be a light sleeper, and he was awake almost before his father finished speaking. "Umm," he said, blinking up at the pale blur his father's face was in the dimness of Clare's office. "What time is it?"
"Just before six," Sam said, waving a hand over the desk light to turn it on. It wasn't particularly bright, but it was enough to set Nate's eyes watering, making him grimace. He rubbed at them, and then rubbed the back of his neck and his shoulder, too. It didn't do much to get rid of the knots in his muscles. He really should have known better than to fall asleep in a chair. "Your mother'd tan your hide if she found out you were here all night, boy."
"I know," Nate muttered, waking up a little more and realizing that something was definitely up. His father looked serious, if not alarmingly so, and as Nate extended his perceptions a little farther, he sensed a little too much tension for this to be a completely uneventful six in the morning. "We were waiting to hear from de Bont. He must still be flying search patterns." They'd dispatched de Bont and his team to Alaska to look for the installation where Stef had housed his null project. Sulven, for some reason, hadn't been able to pin down an exact location.
Sam grunted and went over to the couch where Clare was dozing, using her jacket as a pillow. Nate was surprised she hadn't woken up as soon as his father had walked into the room. "Clare?" Sam said, not moving any closer than a couple of steps. Nate rubbed his eyes again, wondering if Sulven had told his father what had happened in the holding area. The caution was a pretty good indicator. "Come on, rise and shine--"
Clare shifted, muttering something, and then sat up, raking hair out of her eyes. "I'm awake," she said hoarsely, blinking up at Sam. "What happened?"
"Julianists attacked the base in St. Petersburg about an hour ago," Sam said, looking back and forth between them, his expression grave, but still not in that 'we have an impending disaster' sort of way. "Situation's under control, but Moscow had to teleport in reinforcements."
Nate frowned, his groggy mind doing its best to make the connection between that and the fact that his father was here, waking them up to tell them this. "The Julianists weren't on Stef's list," he said, reflecting that the taste in his mouth was truly foul. Too much coffee yesterday, not enough food, he supposed. "We haven't seen anything significant from them for years."
The Julianists had been one of the major groups involved in the Uprising in Russia, back when he and Clare and the others had been fresh out of the Academy. They'd enjoyed more longevity than most of the other participants in that particular dirty little war - Clare's first, he remembered suddenly; she'd done her combat internship in the thick of it - but they'd dropped out of sight years ago.
"Right," Clare said, scowling faintly as she started to rebraid her hair. Nate was sort of surprised she'd actually slept. She'd been so on edge last night. "They weren't, and we haven't. But Idrissov WAS on the list." Her mouth quirked in a humorless smile as she looked across at Nate. "Secondary contacts, maybe? Idrissov playing the money man, funneling it through to the Julianists? It would be in character."
"You're such a pessimist," Nate muttered.
She had a point, though. The ex-foreign minister of Kazakhstan, after he'd been kicked out of the government for trying to pull off a coup, had turned to formenting as much chaos in his region as he could. They had evidence linking him to nearly two dozen terrorist acts in Eastern Europe in the last two years alone. The problem was, Idrissov never came out into the open. The man was both paranoid and meticulous about his own security, and it was awfully hard to catch someone you couldn't find.
"We can't know for sure," Sam pointed out. "But given everything else that's been going on, ah took the liberty of asking Voronin to send a couple of his investigative teams from Moscow. He'll get in touch with you two as soon as he's got something worth reporting."
"Spreading the wealth," Clare said darkly, still clearly entertaining the possibility that Idrissov was using the money from Stef to revive threats they'd thought were dead and gone. "What a pleasant thought." She shook her head, frowning. "We really need to get our hands on Idrissov one of these days."
"That'd be nice," Sam said drolly. "Make some room on the most wanted list for some other worthy candidate."
Something had occurred to Nate, though, and he looked over at Clare, biting his lip. "You didn't sense anything?" he asked.
Clare snorted. "I was asleep, Nate, remember?" Her expression almost immediately turned thoughtful. "I was having strange dreams, though." That tiny, bleak smile returned to her features. "Maybe I should stop sleeping?"
"Ah don't think that's an option," Sam murmured. Nate gave him a questioning look, and he nodded. "Yeah, Sulven filled me in. Temporal Division can't do anything to help you with this, Clare?"
Clare stiffened. "I--haven't gotten a chance to ask them yet. Yesterday was--well, I haven't gotten around to it."
It was like tripping over a landmine, one that blew the fragile equilibrium in the room into a million pieces. The brief distraction, the puzzle of the Julianists' sudden re-emergence was forgotten as a bleak, heavy silence fell.
The problem was, Nate thought painfully, there was never anything to say at times like this. Loss was their constant companion, an indelible part of the life they'd chosen, but it never made it any easier. The day he got easier, he'd know it was time to get out.
"Twenty-seven dead," his father said slowly, breaking the silence. The small desk light cast strange shadows on his face, making him look something closer to his actual age, with all of the times he'd faced a new day mourning the losses of the one just past reflecting in his eyes. "That's the final count." He stopped, cleared his throat. "Ah set the memorial for tomorrow morning."
Clare picked up her jacket, meticulously smoothing out the creases. Her expression was curiously flat, but the link ached, and she avoided their eyes. "I called Heinzelmann yesterday," she muttered. "He'll handle things in Berlin. He--" Her voice wavered, but she went on, as if forcing the words out. "He knew, already. I didn't know he and Cate were psilinked. I didn't even know that they were--"
Sam shook his head, sadness carving deep lines into his face. "If you think he's up for the job, we'll leave it to him," he said a bit hoarsely. "The less disruption, the better."
"I think he'll do fine." Clare laughed bitterly and finally looked up at them, her eyes shining suspiciously. "Listen to us. Talking about replacing Cate." She pressed her lips tightly together, her expression pained. "I have the letters to write, still."
"I can help with that," Nate offered, the words coming out more roughly than he'd intended. He wasn't sure she'd accept the offer. Clare tended to take the responsibility of writing letters to the families of officers killed under her command very seriously.
But she just nodded. "Thanks," she said very softly. "I could use the help, I think."
Sam had watched the whole exchange, emanating such a mixture of suspicion and relief that Nate had to wonder exactly what sort of gossip was making the rounds of the Tower now. It was possible, he supposed, that one of the guards in the holding area had heard that first part of his and Clare's argument yesterday afternoon. The scuttlebutt around here tended to move at the speed of light.
"Anyhow," Sam said abruptly, trying for a brisk tone and almost making it, "ah just wanted to make sure you two were up and around. Ah'll let you finish waking up--ah've got to get back down to the CIC. Kozlova's out chasing the Julianists and ah want to provide at least a little supervision."
"Tania would be hurt if she knew you didn't trust her, Dad," Nate said, trying desperately to lighten the atmosphere, at least a little. "I can see her giving you that soulful, wounded look now." Tania Kozlova was one of his father's personal proteges, recently assigned to her first field command.
"Ah trust her," his father protested with a perfectly straight face, though Nate could sense perfectly well that the humor was a thin veneer at best. "Ah trust her completely. Ah just think she needs a little supervision, at least until she gets over that problem she has with excessive property damage."
"Right," Nate murmured, shaking his head. "We'll meet you down there, Dad?" It turned into a question as he looked over at Clare to check for agreement, and she nodded.
"All right, then," Sam said, turning on his heel and striding from the office. "But you make sure you get some breakfast first," he tossed back over his shoulder as he vanished.
Clare sighed heavily, letting her face rest in her hands for a minute. "Coffee sounds good," she said, her voice muffled.
"Coffee's a given, but we have to make up for the meals we skipped yesterday." Not the morning to be bantering, maybe, but sinking into depression wasn't an option, and damn it, he was tired of arguing with her. The confrontation in the elevator hadn't been the end of it yesterday, and still, nothing was resolved.
"Point," Clare muttered, getting to her feet and half-walking, half-staggering in the direction of the washroom. She hesitated halfway there, looking down at herself. "I just realized something. I'm wearing my only uniform. Damn it."
Nate yawned, widely enough that his jaw popped, and not in the painless way. "Ow," he muttered a bit crossly. He had to be getting old, when he felt this decrepit first thing in the morning. I wonder if our bodyguards camped outside the door last night. Blythe had been very irritated at him for vanishing on her.
Clare, who'd stumbled the rest of the way into the washroom, stuck her head out the door and blinked at him. "What was that?"
"Nothing."
"Fine."
She closed the bathroom door, and Nate decided that coffee would indeed be a very good idea.
***
The CIC was quietly abuzz, with most people, even those working on something else entirely, paying close attention to the main holotank and the glowing image of Tania Koslova as she reported on the aftermath of the battle in St. Petersburg. Nate, watching from his front row seat right at the holotank itself, couldn't help but catch some of the subtler details of the projection, like the plasma burns on Koslova's armor which made it very clear she'd been in the thick of fighting. She didn't appear to be injured; if anything, she seemed energized. But then, Tania had always been something of an action junkie.
"--did capture several prisoners," she was saying, her accent a little thicker than it was normally. Adrenalin, Nate supposed. Koslova's eyes flickered sideways as her attention was caught by something out of the camera's range, but she returned her attention to her distant audience almost immediately. "Some are wounded, but a few are able to talk. Commander Voronin was good enough to send us one of his interrogation specialists. We will have results soon," she said forcefully.
Nate couldn't help shaking his head. Not 'we may have results' or 'hopefully we'll have results soon', but again, that was perfectly characteristic. Kozlova was also something of a hardcase. Nate could acknowledge that, while still appreciating her genuine talents, although his father had always despaired of Tania understanding that moderation was a virtue.
"By the book, Commander," his father said, as if on cue, and Koslova straightened, looking mildly indignant. Sam sighed and raised a defensive hand. "Ah know, but ah had to say it. Only minor injuries to your own people, you said?"
"A broken leg is the worst of it," Koslova said with a nod. "The damage to the base is more serious, but I have assigned three work crews. They assure me the repairs will be completely within forty-eight hours and Lieutenant Commander Armundsen is prepared to remain here with her people to provide support until then."
"Sounds like you've got things well in hand, Commander," Sam said with an approving look. "Ah'll let you get back to it, but keep us updated. Good job, Tania, and you can pass that on to your people, too."
"Thank you, sir. I will." Tania tossed off a salute, then turned away. The projection flickered and vanished.
Looking satisfied, Sam turned to the small circle of people seated around the holotank. "Well, you heard it," he said briskly. "Ah think we can declare the immediate situation resolved."
"'Immediate' being the operative word," Sanchez pointed out gloomily. The rapid-reaction team commander on duty this shift was a short, stocky man that Nate knew only slightly. Nick had never spoken particularly well or particularly poorly of him, but Nate had never gotten the impression that they were particularly friendly. "Looks like it's a damned good thing you told the idiots at the UN who were calling for a reduction of the Combat Ops complement in that area where to go, sir."
"Cheer up, Mike," Elena Brumado, one of the Intelligence section chiefs, said reassuringly. She topped Sanchez by almost a head and a half, even sitting down.
Nate had always wondered why someone with a physical mutation like hers had chosen a desk job. Elena had class-ten enhanced strength, skin that even armor-piercing projectiles had trouble getting through, and ran marathons without breaking a sweat. A perfect mutation for field world, but she preferred Intelligence, and she was very good at it.
"We won, remember?" Brumado continued. "Kozlova was taken completely by suprise, but she still managed to kick their asses. All the Julianists succeeded in doing was telling us they're still out there. Not the wisest move in the world."
"It doesn't matter if we won this time, if Counterterrorism doesn't get off their asses and do something about the Julianists before they learn from their mistakes," Sanchez said, glaring at Nate and Clare.
There was real, whole-hearted condemnation behind his words, and Nate knew it had very little to do with the Julianists. Two of the officers who'd died in the explosion had recently transferred into Counterterrorism from Sanchez's team. The man was understandably upset, and acknowledging that allowed Nate to hold his tongue without too much difficulty.
Sanchez wasn't about to leave it there, though. "You haven't had the best track record lately," he said, a nasty edge to his voice. "I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say I hope you see fit to do something about your losing streak before we have to bury more officers."
"Oh, we'll do something about it," Clare said mildly, leaning back in her chair and meeting Sanchez's gaze unwaveringly. "Once Counterterrorism and Intelligence have done all the hard work of tracking the Julianists down, I promise we'll give you and your people very clear directions so you know exactly who to shoot. I know how confusing it can be when things aren't spelled out for you--"
"It's too early in the morning for this," Sam said calmly, and Nate snorted inwardly, knowing that his father had let it go on just until Sanchez and Clare had both gotten one good dig in, just to be fair. "Ah won't waste the breath pointing out just how unproductive it is to be sniping at each other." Sanchez flushed darkly, but Clare shrugged off the rebuke casually.
"At least we're not dealing with a Julianist army anymore," she said mildly, as if her exchange with Sanchez hadn't happened. "Kozlova said less than twenty. That suggests something about the manpower they have available to them."
"Well, they're not the military arm of a shadow government any longer," Selwyn, the Black Ops duty officer, pointed out in his impeccable British accent. He hesitated, then gave Brumado a questioning look. "That's most likely the case, isn't it? I was under the impression that our best intelligence for years now has suggested that the Russian shadow government no longer existed."
Brumado made a rueful gesture. "Our best intelligence also suggested that the Julianists were inactive."
"Point. But the current Russian government is so very XSE-friendly. Surely they'd inform us of any organized opposition working outside the political system, especially given their history?" Selwyn shrugged elegantly. "Of course, I may be giving them too much credit."
"We need to establish that, one way or the other," Nate pointed out grimly, really not liking that idea. "It's a bad thing if it's just Idrissov backing the Julianists, but it's a catastrophe waiting to happen if the shadow government's been revived somehow, too. The last thing we need is another Uprising." The original had nearly crippled the XSE, especially since it had come so soon after the end of the Sentinel War. The XSE was in much better shape in terms of manpower now, of course, but it was never a good time for another war.
"Amen to that," Sam said with a heavy sigh, rolling his eyes a little, as if too appalled by the thought to put it into words. "Brumado, ah want a full report from all your agents in the area. As of now, this is their top priority." Brumado nodded, and Sam went on. "Ah know Voronin's already got teams at work on site, but ah want Counterterrorism's Russian analysts here on this, too. Let's work the problem, people, before it gets any bigger. Dismissed."
Sanchez immediately stood up, giving Sam a jerky nod before he stalked out of the CIC. Brumado shook her head, glancing reprovingly at Clare. "You couldn't have just ignored him?" she asked with a sigh. "He was just blowing off steam."
"I don't like being poked at, Elena," Clare said evenly. "Mike's not the only one who lost friends yesterday." She tilted her head, her eyes going distant for a few moments, and then focused on Sam again. "Rykov says he'll have a preliminary report on my desk by lunchtime. Nice to have the XSE's foremost expert on the Julianists right here working Counterterrorism's Russian desk, isn't it?"
"Indeed," Selwyn observed, getting up and giving his chair a push back in the direction of the holo-tank. "I'll consult with Commander Logan when he gets in this morning, to see if we have any assets of our own in the area. At the very least, we should be making a more concerted effort to find this fellow Idrissov." He gave Brumado a brief smile. "As for Michael, if he can't stand the heat, he shouldn't have lit the match."
"There's a novel way of looking at it," Brumado said, sighing again. She stood, and nodded at Sam. "I'll get the word out to our agents, sir, and go through the latest intercepts from that area while I'm at it. There may be things that make sense in hindsight."
"Ah'll make sure you're first on the list for whatever Kozlova sends us," Sam said. "Selwyn, tell Logan when he gets in to stop by my office so we can go over some of this."
"Aye, sir," Selwyn said. He and Brumado departed, leaving Nate alone at the holotank with Clare and his father.
Nate was mentally running over what information they had so far - not nearly enough to be drawing any kind of conclusions with - and he kept running up against one particular detail that struck him as being particularly significant. "Their weaponry," he said, and his father and Clare both looked at him expectantly. "It may not be Idrissov, but someone's giving them funding to re-equip. Pulse cannons and EM charges--that's not Uprising-era weaponry."
Sam looked pensive. "Ah don't want to get stuck on Idrissov here, just because he's tied to Stef. Unless we get a big intelligence break, we can't prove a connection anyway, and--"
"We have to deal with the situation as it is," Clare said steadily. His father gave her a troubled look, and Clare shook her head. "What, you think we could get 'what is, is' drilled into our heads since infancy and not understand that?"
"Ah just don't want to see the two of you losing your perspective on this."
"No danger of that, sir," Nate said with a faint, humorless smile. "We're fully aware of the fact that Stef has lots of company in the 'We Don't Like The XSE' Club."
"It's a very popular club," Clare said dryly, and leaning back in her chair, looking towards the commofficer sitting several feet away at her station. "Wesley? Any word from Commander de Bont yet?"
Lieutenant Wesley didn't even look up from her console. "He's still carrying on the aerial search," she reported patiently. "If there'd been anything substantive, Commander Summers, you would have been informed. Just like you requested."
So don't nag me. Though unspoken, the rest of Wesley's thought was perfectly audible, and Nate snorted again, covering it with a cough as Clare glanced over at him, her eyes narrowing.
"You know," he said aloud, jumping to keep the conversation on track, "it still doesn't make sense to me that Stef would put the mutate project here and the null project in Alaska. Where's the logic behind it?"
"We can't know that until we know how he creates nulls," his father pointed out pragmatically. "Might be something about the process itself that needs an isolated environment. Heck, it might even just be extra security, something that simple."
"Extra security against us?" Nate frowned. "Surely he knew we'd go after both."
"More likely against his competitors," Sam said. "No one's ever created nulls before, as far as we know."
"Well, that's insulting," Clare declared, her eyes cold. "The idea that he'd be more worried about industrial espionage than about us--" She trailed off, her eyes fixed on something over his shoulder, and Nate, sensing the same presence that had undoubtedly caught her attention, turned to see Dane coming over to join them. "Dane, you look like crap," Clare said with a worried scowl.
Reaching the holotank, Dane stopped, blinking at her as if his eyes were having trouble focusing. The circles under his eyes looked like someone had drawn them with charcoal, and he looked flushed, almost feverish. The alarming thing was the sheer intensity of the pain Nate was sensing from him, though. That was one monstrous headache.
"I was in full-link to the computer all night," Dane muttered. Nate frowned, reaching out with a flicker of telekinesis and pushing one of the chairs in Dane's direction, but Dane paid absolutely no attention to it. "Tracking access codes used in that hangar. I lost track of time."
Sam straightened, emanating sudden, vehement anger and worry. "Lieutenant Commander Summers," he said, the formality a crystal-clear sign, even to the headblind, that he was well and truly pissed off, "there's a damned good reason you're not supposed to full-link for more than two hours at a time. Once you've said your piece, ah want you in the infirmary to get checked out." Dane blinked at him, and Sam's expression softened very slightly. "Ah appreciate the diligence, Dane, but you could've given yourself synaptic damage."
"I'm fine," Dane muttered. "Head hurts, that's all." He pulled a small glass circle with a chip embedded in it out of his pocket - the standard recording media for the Tower's computer system - and tried to insert it in the reader. It took a couple of tries, as if he couldn't quite see where the slot was. "Anyhow. Access codes. We tracked them." The holotank sprang into life again, displaying a series of rapid-fire images of the hangar, people zipping and darting around at lightning speed. "One belonged to a hangar tech who transferred out to the Dallas perimeter three days ago. The computer didn't deactivate her code because her transfer papers were processed late--some kind of administrative error, the computer says, but since someone got their hands on her code, we're looking into the possibility that someone cracked our system."
Dane stopped the fast-foward on the picture of a tall man in a hangar jumpsuit and safety helmet, fit-looking but otherwise unremarkable, just as he entered the camera's field of view. "This," Dane said lifelessly, leaning heavily on the console for support, "Is the person who used her clearance to get in."
"Bingo," Clare murmured, but hesitated and gave Dane a sharp look. "Dane," she said, very slowly and clearly, as if she were talking to a small child, "sit down before you fall over."
Dane rubbed at his eyes, and then looked at the chair like he hadn't realized it was there. "Oh. Thanks." He sat down, swaying slightly, as if the movement had made him dizzy. "This is our guy," he said, reaching out and starting the playback again, at a slower pace.
The unremarkable-looking man went right to the carrier that had exploded and began to service it. The picture wasn't as good, not at this angle, but Nate watched as he worked on the carrier for a few minutes and then stopped, reaching into the pocket of his jumpsuit and taking something small, round and very un-tool-like out. The man looked around casually, as if making sure no one was in his immediate vicinity, and then reached into the open panel on the side of the carrier, the round item still in his hands.
"That looks about the size of a plasma charge to me," Nate murmured, something twisting in his chest. It would fit, too. The engines might not explode of their own accord, even in a serious malfunction, but a plasma charge would be just the catalyst required to set off an explosion of the size that had devastated the hangar. "There wasn't enough forensic evidence left to tell us anything useful, but a plasma charge would definitely be consistent with the nature of the explosion."
Sam made a noise that might have been a growl. "Someone got into the Tower, carrying a plasma charge?" he demanded. "How the hell did that happen?"
Some of the hectic color drained from Dane's face, and he took an unsteady breath before he went on. "I don't--know about the plasma charge, sir, but I found the record of him entering the Tower, too." He leaned forward, bringing up another series of images. These showed the main lobby, specifically the security post clearing visitors into the Towers. Dane stopped on a single image, and there the man was, dressed in civilian clothes and a baseball hat, but clearly recognizable. "He was with a tour group," Dane said unevenly. "The ID he presented was a fake--I had that checked before I came up here. A good fake, though. It fooled the remote scanner. I started a trace using his picture, but that could take days."
"If he was with a tour group," Clare said, but reluctantly, as if she didn't want to push Dane - and she didn't, Nate realized, sensing the protective worry she was directing at him, "he would have been checked out of the Tower, too."
"He was!" Dane said miserably. He started to shake his head but then stopped with a wince, holding his head as if he was afraid it was going to fall off. "I can't explain it. Their guide's a fucking telepath and she swears she didn't lose anyone, not even temporarily."
"Maybe the number of psi-signatures didn't change," Nate said suddenly, inspiration hitting. "Look--baseball cap in the first picture, safety helmet in the second. He could be wearing a neural shield."
"That doesn't excuse the guide," his father said harshly.
Nate shrugged uneasily. "I know, but you can see where it might happen. If she's a telepath, she might have been keeping track of them by psi-signature, not visually. Some of us just get--complacent that way." It sounded very weak, even to him.
"Complacency's not something we can afford," Clare murmured, staring at the image of the saboteur. "Maybe he didn't carry the plasma charge into the Tower, either. Would the tech whose code he was using have had a high enough access level to get into the armory?"
"Oh, shit," Dane said defeatedly, his head in his hands. "I didn't even think of that. Would someone like to relieve me of duty, please?"
Sam sighed and stepped forward, resting a hand on Dane's shoulder. "Easy, son. No one's pointing fingers. You've done a hell of a job getting this far this fast, but you're no good to anyone when you can't see straight." Dane looked up at him, and Nate sensed the protest coming, but his father didn't give Dane the chance to make it. "Get down to the infirmary," he said inexorably, "get checked out, then go off-duty for the rest of the shift. Get a few hours sleep, and THEN get back at it. Trust me, it'll help."
Focusing on Dane, Nate might have missed sensing Mel's imminent arrival if her presence hadn't been bubbling with enough excitment to light up the astral plane like a small bonfire. "Jackpot!" she shouted as soon as she was two steps into the CIC. She came running over, waving another record-disc over her head in triumph. "Intel's cyberpath picked up more message traffic from our favorite pretentiously-named military groups."
She came to a breathless stop, pushing the disc at Clare. "More of the calls to regroup, emergency orders for more weapons and security equipment to be delivered to the Indiana residence by a teleport-equipped arms dealer, and - you're really not going to believe this - a declaration of their principles and how they're prepared to resist the 'corrupt military arm of the evil one-world government'. It's their freaking manifesto! They sent it to some contact in New York telling him to release it 'when the time comes'!"
Nate exchanged a startled look with Clare, who shook her head and took the disc from Mel, staring down at it in something close to wonder. "They think we're coming after them," she marveled. "I wonder where they got that idea." She slipped the disc into another reader, and then looked up at Sam, raising an eyebrow. "I think we need one of Kitty's pet cryppies to get in here and give our computer security a once-over. Someone has definitely cracked our system."
"What?" Mel asked, still out of breath. "But what about--" Clare gave her a look, and Mel coughed. "Well, that's really bad, I know, but what about the Sons of the Revolution?"
"If they know we're coming anyway," Nate said, before Clare could answer, "we'd better do it fast, before they're ready for a siege."
Even Dane looked up blearily at that. But most of Nate's attention was on his father, who had the strangest look of irony on his face.
"Ah had a bet," his father said dryly. "With Logan, actually. About how long it would take you two to try and wriggle out of restricted duty."
"And?" Clare asked distractedly, bringing up the contents of Mel's disc on a second projection.
"Ah owe him a number of beers."
***
"I believe you two are still on restricted duty," Bishop pointed out, his fingers tapping out an irritated rhythm on his desk. "Send Commander de Bont."
"He's still in Alaska." Clare said. She was standing over by the window, staring out at the panoramic view of New York as if it was what was interesting her, not the conversation. "I think finding the site of DaCosta's null project is just as high a priority. Even higher, wouldn't you say?"
"Don't be disingenuous," Bishop growled, and Nate shifted restlessly in his chair. This wasn't going well. Bishop definitely didn't seem receptive to the idea of them leading the tactical teams to Indiana. Although he hadn't come out and said no yet, either, which suggested he might be willing to be convinced. "There are other field commanders available."
"Not from our division. Unless you're thinking of bringing Duschenay and her team in from Vancouver." Nate stopped, cringing inwardly as Bishop's expression turned thoughtful. He really hadn't intended to give him ideas. "They'd have to be briefed, though, and that would just take more time. From the sounds of it, we've given them too much time to dig in as it is."
"And wanting to do this yourselves has got absolutely nothing to do with being cooped up here waiting for the other shoe to drop? Or having personal reasons to go after these people?" Sam asked darkly.
"What, you want us to lie?" Clare asked, finally turning away from the window. She folded her arms across her chest and gazed steadily at the two senior officers. Nate left her to it, more than glad that she'd finally decided to drop the indifferent pose. "But putting boredom and bloodthirstiness aside, it's all very simple. Patrice is handling things in Alaska, Voronin's teams have got the situation well under control in St. Petersburg. No one's getting in or out of the Tower without being scanned six ways to Sunday, with the security measures Dane's implemented, and Intel's still trying to sort out everything Sulven got from Stefano." She shrugged slightly. "I may not be in perfect fighting trim, and I know Nate's not either, but neither are we in bad enough shape that we can't supervise tactical teams. At the moment, we're wasted assets who'd be best put to use addressing this situation in Indiana ASAP." She tilted her head slightly. "Besides, for morale purposes if nothing else, we need to make an example."
Nate sensed a certain thawing in Bishop. Something Clare had said had hit the right note, he realized. "Hit us, we hit back?" Bishop rumbled.
Clare gave him a not-quite-smile so reminiscent of her father that it was almost frightening. "Pardon my language, sir, but fuck, yes."
Bishop shook his head, giving a grating laugh. "Point taken, Clare, but you'll forgive me if I give you exactly what you asked for." He waved a finger warningly at Clare and Nate both. "You can be on-site in a supervisory position, as mission commanders, but I want someone else leading the teams in. Neither of you have been cleared for combat duty yet."
"Nicholas," Sam said firmly.
Bishop raised an eyebrow. "I was thinking Commander Sanchez--hasn't he got the duty today?"
"Nicholas would be the better choice. He's got plenty of experience in situations like this, and he's worked with Counterterrorism more often than Sanchez. Duschenay would be ideal, but Nate's right, we don't have time to get her here and briefed."
"Just Nick?" Clare pressed, and Nate rolled his eyes, not sensing an ounce of gratitude in her for having been saved from dealing with Sanchez again. "Not any of his all-too-full-of-themselves rapid-reaction team who think they're so much better than we Counterterrorism dabblers?"
Sam gave her a half-tolerant, half-exasperated look. "You can take your own teams, Clare, Nick'll just be the one leading them in. Don't push your luck."
"Bad habit. Runs in the family." Clare looked over at Nate. "We need to get a preliminary team out there to assess the situation first. Think Mel can handle it?"
Nate managed a shrug. "This is probably as good a time as any to find out," he replied. Mel did need a little more experience on the tactical end of things, and the best way to learn was by doing.
"I'll leave the disposition of your assets to your best judgement," Bishop said wryly, but he held Clare's eyes for a moment, his expression turning serious. "If we're making an example, Commander, I want it to be a good one. I want this operation carried out quickly and efficiently." She opened her mouth to reply, but he raised a hand. "Hard and fast, Clare."
"Do I ever do things any other way, Uncle Bish?"
"Well," Nate said unable to help himself. "You do occasionally like it slow and tortuous--" Clare raised an eyebrow at him, and he offered his best 'don't kill me?' smile.
"That's when the situation calls for pulling the wings off a fly," Clare said with another of those frightening smiles. "This time, we need the flyswatter."
to be continued...
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