Tracker and the Spy Read online

  “I’m sick of fish.” Cyrus pushed his plate away and went to the cabinet for the bread. “Make me a grilled-cheese sandwich.”

  “You ate that for the last three nights,” Luke said cautiously, buying time so he could finish creating his fish burrito and take a big bite before rising to go to the stove.

  “It’s better than eating stinking fish.” Cyrus stabbed at the one that had been dished up for him. “How do you even know that’s a fish that won’t poison you? That idiot Bobby is still sick after eating that stupid fish he caught the first day.”

  “That’s because he listened to those crew guys when they told him eating barracuda would make him more virile.” He turned on the stove and started cooking Cyrus’s sandwich. “Those things are full of bones and don’t even taste that good. He’s an idiot. He’s probably got a stomach full of bones.” He eyed Cyrus. “You know that girl in the warehouse?”

  Cyrus glared at Luke. Yes, he knew about Bobby soiling himself with that girl.

  Luke flipped the sandwich in the frying pan. “One of the crew guys told me she was the niece of the first mate. They’re afraid he’s going to throw Bobby over the side before we reach Galveston. Maybe they figured if they made him sick, he’d stay down below and the first mate would leave him alone.”

  “Will he be able to travel when we arrive?” Cyrus was eager to make port and travel to this City of Light Simon had promised him. It was imperative to get his message to the world. He was wasting time on this boat, surrounded by morons.

  “If he’s not, we’ll leave him at a hospital,” Luke said, shoveling Cyrus’s sandwich onto a clean plate and returning to his burrito. “We’ll meet other believers in Galveston who’ll have our travel arrangements ready from there.”

  Cyrus nodded. “Good, good.” He bit into his sandwich. At least he had one competent person with him.

  ❖

  Haley’s rain gear consisted of a sombrero and piece of waterproof tarp with openings cut for her head and arms, but Tan thought it blended better with the city’s population than her and Kyle’s hooded camping ponchos. She was getting sloppy in this lifetime. Would memories of being warriors be enough to carry them successfully through this crisis? At least the network’s beat-up transport, with a roof but no doors and sprayed with graffiti, was the norm among local teens.

  The deteriorating buildings with broken-out windows gave way to a retail district, and that gave way to a patchwork of multi-family housing. Children roamed the streets because they had few open places to play. Haley drove cautiously, yelling at the older kids who were belligerently slow to move out of the way. The residential area evolved into a business and industrial district. Haley turned into a narrow alley that was mostly blocked by a large delivery transport. She waved at the man sitting in the open rear of the transport.

  “I’ve got your customers,” she told him.

  Tan met his gaze when he looked them over with a critical eye. “Twenty credits each just to drop you off, right? I don’t wait and don’t come back to pick you up.”

  She nodded curtly. “That’s the deal.”

  Kyle tapped the information into the IC on her forearm, then touched it to the man’s IC when he held out his arm. He watched the transfer, then jerked his head toward his transport. “Get in.”

  Tan gave Haley a small wave. “We’ll find our way back later to see what your team’s turned up.”

  They climbed into the back of the transport, and the man pulled the door down to seal it. The only seat was for the driver, and since they preferred to stay out of sight they sat among the boxes in the back.

  “That street has twelve houses, and I have deliveries to make at two. These are nice houses, so I deliver to the back doors, using an alley.” He kept his eyes forward on the road as he spoke over his shoulder. “The house you want will be the third on the right. I’m delivering to the fifth on the right and the last on the left.”

  “If you don’t see anyone around when you stop for the first delivery, we’ll be gone when you get back to your truck,” Tan said. She shed her poncho and folded it to fit into one of the cargo pockets of her pants. “The poncho material makes too much noise,” she said. Kyle nodded and did the same.

  They drove for about twenty minutes before the truck slowed and swayed as it bounced. Tan could see the narrow alley of pitted dirt through the windscreen. Neat fences and stone walls topped by silver coils lined the lane, interrupted by an occasional garage.

  “What’s that on top of the fences?” Kyle asked.

  “Razor wire,” Tan said. “It’s very sharp and keeps burglars from climbing over the fences and stealing what they want.”

  “People are stealing to survive,” the driver said, turning to look at Tan for the first time. “The peacekeepers are overwhelmed, so the citizens with pantries full of food and medicines are putting locks on their houses and walls around their courtyards.”

  “How can one man destroy decades of relative peace in a matter of months?” Kyle’s words were bitter.

  Despite Tan’s determination to hold Kyle at arm’s length, her heart hurt for her. She knew, too, the relentless gnawing of guilt in her belly. “If not Cyrus, some other disease would have eventually exposed the weak immune system of The Collective,” she said, hoping to ease Kyle’s pain a little.

  They stopped, and the driver checked his IC, then selected a box from the shelf beside Kyle. “The house you seek has an iron-post fence. No one’s in the yard, but the gate has an electronic lock.”

  “The lock’s no problem for me.” Kyle took a tiny tool set from her front pocket.

  “I have to ring a bell at this gate, and they’ll unlock it remotely. Once I go in, you can slip out.” He scanned the area through the windscreen, then paused in the doorway of the truck, as if checking his address.

  “All clear,” he said, stepping out and pushing the bell beside the gate.

  Tan slipped silently out of the door on the other side of the truck as soon as she heard him push through the gate, with Kyle on her heels. They walked casually to the wrought-iron gate, and Kyle removed the plate on the locking mechanism. Tan surveyed the house. All looked quiet. She was about to tell Kyle to hurry when the gate swung open.

  Tan nodded and led the way in a crouching run around a pristine pool to the back of the house, where they knelt against the brick exterior. The house wasn’t a mansion, but those were few in this new era of more evenly distributed wealth. Tan peeked into the window of the rear door. A woman was facing away from the door, stirring something on the stovetop. She ducked down and put her mouth close to Kyle’s ear.

  “You go in the back door and try to get to that woman without alerting the two men guarding her. I’ll go around front to take a more direct approach. If I can distract the men, see if you can sneak the woman and two girls out the back and away from harm.”

  Kyle nodded and Tan started to move away, but Kyle’s long fingers wrapped around her forearm. “They’re probably armed with projectile weapons. You won’t have time to melt a bullet at that close range, so be careful.”

  The snarky retort making its way from Tan’s brain to her mouth evaporated when she looked into Kyle’s eyes, impossibly blue in the sunshine. “You, too, Blaze,” she said.

  Kyle drew a deep breath as Tan disappeared around the house, then peeked into the window. The woman still had her back turned, busily chopping vegetables she was adding to the pot on the stove. Kyle used her magnetic tools to disengage the lock and silently opened the door to slip inside. The woman chopped noisily. Kyle closed the door and attached a small magnetic box to the locking plate, then easily moved behind her unnoticed. She covered the woman’s mouth with one hand and grasped her knife hand with the other—just in case the woman reflexively swung the blade at her rather than the vegetables. She whispered into the woman’s ear. “Don’t scream. We’re here to rescue you and your daughters. Do you understand?”

  Kyle could feel the tension coiled in the woman’s s
mall frame, but she nodded her understanding.

  “My name is Kyle. I’m going to let you go. You should keep chopping while I ask some questions.” Kyle released her, but the woman’s eyes were bright with panic.

  “You must disarm the alarm or it’ll go off,” she whispered. “They don’t guard it because they changed the code. I don’t know it.”

  “Relax.” Kyle pointed to the box attached to the door plate. “That box fools the alarm into thinking the door is still locked.” She gestured to the counter. “We don’t have much time. Chop.”

  The woman put two more tomatoes on the chopping board and began cutting.

  “How many guards and where are they?”

  “Two. They’re both in the living room watching the d-vids.”

  Kyle could hear the sounds of an action vid playing, and she snuck a look. A dining room separated the food-prep area and the living room, but the wall between the two other rooms was little more than open shelves holding decorative items. She could see the back of one man’s head and the profile of another sitting in a chair. A hallway was immediately to the right.

  “Besides you, how many hostages?”

  “My two daughters. One is ten, the other sixteen. They’re down the hallway in the last bedroom on the right. We’ve been staying together because I don’t trust those men.”

  A loud knock sounded at the front door.

  “That’s my partner,” Kyle said.

  “They’ll expect me to answer the door.”

  “Go into the dining room and ask them to see who it is. Tell them you can’t leave your cooking right now.” Kyle ducked behind the cold storage, peeking around it for a clear line of sight to the front door.

  The woman took a few steps into the dining room. “Hey, I’m frying tortillas. It’s probably my daughter’s boyfriend. If you tell him she’s not here, he’ll go away.”

  She came back into the kitchen as the man in the chair stood and went to the door. Kyle nodded and signaled for her to turn off the stove. The man’s big body filled the doorway so she couldn’t see Tan, but she was speaking loud enough to be heard clearly.

  “Simon says he doesn’t need you guys to babysit any longer. His hand is all better and he’s sending the doctor home on the next plane,” Tan told the guard.

  Kyle bent close to the woman’s ear. “Go quietly and get your daughters. Don’t stop to get anything. Just them. Then come back down the hall, but stay back enough so they can’t see you from the living room, and wait until I wave for you to come this way and out the back.”

  The woman slipped silently into the hallway while the second man paused the vid and rose to stand in the middle of the living room. He had a projectile weapon at his side.

  The big man turned to the first man and smiled. “Hey, did you hear that? That’s good news. I’m sick of sitting here.”

  The second man stared at Tan, then also smiled. “Come on in, friend.” He backed toward the dining room and swept his hand toward the lounger where he’d been sitting. “Maybe you’d like to have a seat while we ask a few questions.”

  Tan smiled a predatory smile. “I’m in a bit of a hurry, if you don’t mind, but I’m supposed to confirm that the doctor’s wife and daughters are unharmed.”

  “Yeah, about that.”

  Kyle cursed under her breath. The man had moved so that she couldn’t see his gun hand. The woman and her daughters were now waiting in the hallway.

  “Why would Simon send a woman to tell us?” the gunman asked.

  Tan shrugged. “Less threatening to the lady and her daughters, I guess.”

  The big man laughed. “Sun, you nearly scared the dung out of me when I opened the door, dressed like a man and shaving your hair off on the sides.”

  “Now I remember where I’ve seen you.” The gunman raised his weapon.

  Kyle stepped out while the men’s backs were still turned and motioned the hostages to slip out behind her.

  The gunman glared at Tan. “Grab her hands. Now!”

  Everything happened at once.

  Tan ignited her hands, but the big man grabbed her forearms, stopping her from flinging a fireball and swinging her toward the gunman. Tan used their momentum to continue their spin as the gunman began firing. The spray of bullets tore into the big man’s back before two narrow blue-white columns of flame from Kyle incinerated the gunman’s head. His gun and body dropped lifelessly to the floor.

  Tan pried her arms free of the big man’s grasp. He lay on the floor, a pool of blood widening around his upper torso. A fine bloody mist coated his lips with his last breaths. He blinked once, then stared blankly into his next life.

  The other man was facedown. At least he would have been if he still had a face. His head was a blackened husk, the skull cracked open like an egg from the intense heat and his brain charred black. Dung, she’d never even seen Jael do that before. Not that she couldn’t. She just had more control than this untrained blazer.

  Souls above. Jael wasn’t going to be happy about the mess they’d made here. She’d have to see if the network could haul the bodies out after dark and get them to a rooftop tonight. She straightened and looked around. Kyle stood in the dining room. Behind her, the woman stood in the food prep doorway, her wide-eyed daughters peeking around her. The woman’s gaze was calm.

  “Ma’am. I’m very sorry for the mess.”

  The woman walked forward and lightly touched Tan’s shoulder. “You’re bleeding.”

  Probably the adrenaline flowing. She hadn’t even felt the bullet graze her shoulder, slicing a shallow seven-centimeter cut in her deltoid muscle. That would smart later. “It’s fine. Just a graze.”

  “My husband keeps some supplies here. Before we had children to raise, I worked as a nurse.”

  “Thank you, but I’m a physician. I’ll take care of it when we return to our base. We need to clear out in case someone heard the weapon fire and calls the peacekeepers. Is there somewhere you and your daughters could go for the night? The house of a friend or a relative?” Tan asked. “We’ll have someone come after dark and clean this up, if it’s safe, so you can return to your home tomorrow.”

  “I’ll take the girls to my sister’s home. Then I’ll come back and stay with my neighbor until your people arrive. I’ll help them clean.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to scrub every trace of these filthy men from my house before my family spends another night here.”

  “I understand.” Tan did understand. She recalled many places she wished she could scrub clean, memories she wished she could erase. But some stains would always remain. “Do you have a transport?”

  “In the garage.”

  “Could you wait outside for us and drop us off in the city?”

  “We owe you much more than a ride into the city. It would be my honor.”

  The woman ushered the girls out the back door, but Kyle stood rooted in the same spot. She was pale and silent, her eyes fixed on the man she’d incinerated.

  Tan picked up the weapon the man had used. She superheated her hands until it was a useless lump of metal that could never be fired again, then threw it onto the belly of the big man. It didn’t seem decent, no matter their crimes, to leave them sprawled about the room, and it would be easiest to drag the gunman alongside the larger man to cover them both with her poncho. She went down the hall to the personal facility and found a towel that she used to tie around the gunman’s charred head. She didn’t want to trail pieces across the floor while Kyle watched, looking like she was barely holding together. Then Tan gently lifted his shoulders, dragged him next to his friend, and covered them.

  She went to Kyle and examined her hands. She’d seen pyros burn themselves by using too much heat, but Kyle’s hands seemed fine. The rest of her wasn’t fine though. Her skin felt clammy, and her pulse beat too fast when Tan held her wrists to turn her hands for examination. She grabbed Kyle’s shoulders and shook her gently. “Kyle, take a few deep breath
s.”

  Kyle’s eyes remained on the covered bodies as if she hadn’t heard.

  Tan firmly cupped Kyle’s face with both hands and moved so close their noses were inches apart. “Deep breath, Kyle. Take a deep breath.”

  Kyle blinked, then sucked in air as if she’d suddenly remembered to breathe.

  Tan released her face and stepped back but gripped her shoulders. Kyle closed her eyes and a fine shudder ran through her, but she took a few more deep breaths. “That’s it. A few more, but slowly and through your nose.” Her skin was still clammy, but they needed to go. “You okay now, Blaze?”

  Kyle opened her eyes and nodded but avoided Tan’s gaze. If it was possible to turn any whiter, Kyle’s face did, and she bolted for the back door. Tan let her go. She needed to check in.

  Jael.

  Here. What do you have to report?

  The doctor’s family is safe and has been retrieved. We have two believer casualties, however, and will need a rendezvous tonight to pick up the bodies. I’ll let you know coordinates later.

  Any word on Cyrus?

  I’ve made contact with some old friends with many eyes on both continents. They’re looking. I think we might find them a very useful tool in our fight.

  Excellent. You and Kyle are unharmed?

  Nothing that will impede our mission or fail to mend. But there’s no time to elaborate. We’re still on location and need to get the family to a secure place and return to base.

  I’ll expect a more thorough report when you rendezvous tonight.

  As you command.

  Tan sighed and walked to the cold storage. She grabbed a bottle of water and followed Kyle, whom she found doubled over, emptying her stomach into the flowers planted at the base of a banana tree. Tan offered the water, and Kyle rinsed her mouth and spit that among the flowers, too.

  “Ugh. Not sure regurgitated pro-chow mixed with stomach acid is appropriate fertilizer for perennials,” Tan said, trying to break the tension.