39
With the first step of our plan completed, and Leo supervising the transfer of our batch of prisoners to the cells in the Citadel using Lacey’s tried and true method of laundry bin transportation, it was time to move on to the next step: cleaning our respective departments of the spies that Sadie and Dreyfuss had put there. We couldn’t get to the ones in the Medica, IT, or the Farming Department yet, as taking them would undoubtedly draw the attention of the councilors who presided over them, but plans were in motion to capture them as soon as the council meeting was underway. Maddox was already rousing the Knight Commanders we knew we could trust, along with Theo—a boy I used to have a crush on—and debriefing them on the mission, and soon they would be moving against the legacies in the Knights Department.
And I would be joining her, just as soon as I got what I needed from Lacey.
I was in one of the front offices by the gate of the Citadel, waiting—rather impatiently—for the two of them to show up, and I had to remind myself to be calm. A quick check of my watch told me it was 6:15 a.m. There was still plenty of time to get the data to Quess in central command, but I was growing more and more uncomfortable with how everything seemed like it was “hurry up… and wait.” I wanted more action than all this endless waiting, but then again, I was about to go after Salvatore, the man who had made a pact with the legacies to win the Tourney and gotten my mother killed.
A flash of blue and orange caught my eye, and I looked up to see Strum and Lacey coming to a halt a few feet from the entrance to the Citadel. I quickly exited the sentry shack and headed down the metal ramp to meet them, waving off the few guards on duty, who were confused by the presence of the heads of both the Water and Mechanics Departments.
“Took you long enough.” I huffed when I reached them.
Lacey rolled her eyes, reached into one of the deeper pockets of her toolbelt, and pulled out three pads. “It took Tony a second to figure out the logistics of running three different pads patched with three different feeds from three different departments.”
This time, I rolled my eyes. “I’m sorry, what were the three different things again?” I asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice.
She growled, but before she could say anything, Strum gave a harsh, “Enough”—and it held a note of command that had an effect even on me. I looked at the bald man, the Diver’s marks on his scalp a harsh black under the bright spotlights overhead, and he speared us both with a pointed look. “Now is not the time. We have work that needs to be done before the council meeting starts. Lacey, give her the pad.”
Lacey scowled, but shuffled through the three pads and then shoved one at me. “Here. Tony is hacked into the feed of the Citadel, has been since last night. He’s kept every single one of them under watch since you gave us their cover identities.”
I accepted the pad and turned it on. I was immediately greeted with a split-screen view of four different camera angles. Three of them were thermal sensor readings from the bedrooms, showing the subjects sleeping, while one was monitoring a Knight on sentry duty at one of the rear bridges leading to the shell. I slid a finger across the screen and saw four more thermal viewpoints of subjects asleep—one of them in the Academy dorm rooms, no less, sleeping on the bottom bunk.
It was beyond impressive. Tony was giving us nonstop coverage of our targets—something even the most adept tech would struggle with, given the numerous cameras in the Tower. Never mind using the sensors.
“This is amazing,” I said, studying it. “Tony is doing this?”
“He had to learn how to, but yes. He’s gotten quite good at it over the years. This is a bit of a nightmare for him, though; he’s still monitoring the other three departments, as well.”
I couldn’t wait to meet him. The way he was handling all this at once told me he was special indeed. I just wished that Lacey had let me do it before we had started moving against the legacies. But she had been adamant about waiting until the council session, and I couldn’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to expose his location to anyone I didn’t fully trust, and I doubted that even Strum knew where he was being housed. I wanted to believe it was as simple as a terminal in her quarters, but knowing how resourceful Lacey could be, I doubted it. Maybe she had him in the Cog server somewhere? It was possible, but then again, I doubted she would be so obvious.
Still, it didn’t matter. In a few hours, she would be attending the council session, and would be bringing Tony to testify. Soon, he would be reunited with the others—all except for Kurt and Alice. But hopefully, we would find them too.
I returned my view to the screen and paused when it suddenly dawned on me that Lacey had lied to me a very long time ago, when we had first met. “There was no specialized bacterium, was there?” I asked as she slipped a pad into Strum’s hands and clicked it on to reveal his own department. “Tony figured out our hiding place under the Menagerie, didn’t he? He tracked us like he’s tracking the legacies now.”
Lacey gave me a smug look. “You never asked yourself how the hell we got hold of a specialized bacterium?” she asked.
I considered it for a second, trying to remember why I hadn’t questioned it too hard, and found it all coming back to me. “I just assumed you stole it or something. It made sense, especially if you had spies in other departments. Why not the Medica as well?”
Lacey gave me a thoughtful look. “That is a good conclusion, which was the point. I didn’t want anyone knowing about Tony. But we can talk about the old days once they become just that—the old days. For now, let’s focus on what we’re doing. My department has already started cleaning out the spies.”
“Mine as well,” Strum said, cracking his neck. “I need to be joining them, but I wanted to wish you both luck.”
He was wishing us luck because I was going after Salvatore, while Lacey was going after Dreyfuss. I wasn’t happy about Lacey going after Dreyfuss without me or Strum there to make sure she remained in control, but she’d been adamant that he was hers, because she knew how to get in and out of the Farming Department undetected. I didn’t like it, but the fact of the matter was that we had to grab as many of their leaders as we could, save for Plancett and Sadie. And that meant grabbing Dreyfuss early, because any one of the uncollected spies might try to contact him if they noticed something was up before we could capture them.
Controlling the leaders meant we could monitor those who tried to contact them and scoop them up before they could reach out to anyone else. And I was already in charge of getting Salvatore.
Letting Lacey go after Dreyfuss had really been my only option.
“Thanks,” I said, tucking the pad under my arm. “You as well. Just remember, we need the casualties to be zero—and that goes double for Dreyfuss. We need him taken alive, or our story is going to look less believable to Scipio and Sage. They are going to need someone to punish, and he’s the other half of this. He’s been fathering the undocs and running the undoc side of things. It’ll scream conspiracy if he just up and dies.”
Lacey tsked under her breath. “He doesn’t deserve to live,” she snapped irately.
“Lacey,” Strum said, before I could even utter a syllable in response to her vehement and alarming statement. “We agreed on this plan together, and this is what it will take to see it through. Do not jeopardize everything we have managed to accomplish here with your petty need for revenge.”
I kept my teeth clenched shut under his wise and calming words, watching Lacey closely. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I would lead her team in after Dreyfuss, when she sighed, the anger draining out of her in an instant.
“You’re right, of course,” she said tiredly, rubbing a hand over her forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m just amped up.”
I knew the apology wasn’t for me, and I could tell that Strum accepted it readily, but I wasn’t as convinced. “Lacey, if you think for a moment you are emotionally compromised in this, you need to take a step back. Let Strum go in your place
, or even me.”
“I’m fine,” she said firmly, some of the anger returning. “I will take Dreyfuss alive. I’m not saying he’s not going to be a little banged up, but he will be whole and healthy, okay? Now, can we get moving? We are burning some precious time here. The council meeting is happening soon, and we need to get this done.”
I kept my mouth shut and didn’t argue. I had to trust that Lacey meant what she said and would do what she promised; I had people waiting on the data on the pad, and a raid against Salvatore to carry out.
And only two hours before the council meeting started.
Thirty minutes later, Dylan and I were standing on either side of Salvatore Zale’s door, not even a stone’s throw from my own father’s quarters, and I was trying to distract myself from yet another of the endless waits that seemed to have become my life over the last few hours. She had a tensor placed over the door, the round rubber suction cup holding a very finely tuned receiver that could hear everything happening in the room beyond. It was unnecessary; the pad in my hand showed me the two figures of Zale and his wife sleeping in their bed. Of course, the thermal signature didn’t translate to sound, so I relied on her to tell me if they were awake and talking, and if so, what they were talking about.
“Anything?” I asked her.
“Two sets of breathing. Deep and even,” she reported, before giving me a look and adding, “Same as before. Same as on your screen.”
I ignored her jab, knowing that I was probably driving her crazy at this point, and followed my question with another one directed to a different person. Command, how long before everyone is in position? Dylan’s lips twitched, and I could tell she was fighting back a smile.
I knew I had asked the question before—and more than twice—but, Scipio help me, I wanted to move. To get in there and grab Salvatore.
Just relax for a minute, Quess groused in my ear. I’m waiting on final confirmation that Lacey’s and Strum’s people are in position, and then I will give the go ahead. I do have an update on the prisoners we collected in Water Treatment. Out of the fifty-five we collected, only thirteen had nets, and only two of those were legacy nets. They’re all resting comfortably in the cells above the expulsion chambers, with Zoe and Eric keeping an eye on them. Grey is on his way back to your quarters to start downloading the evidence.
‘Evidence’ was code for ‘Jasper and Rose’—the real evidence would be transmitted to the council’s server after the session began. Thanks for the update, Quess.
No problem. Now will you stay off the line and let me do my work?
I suppressed another sigh, attempting to turn it into a fortifying exhalation, and once again tried to summon up a great calm. Hours of preparation would mean nothing once he gave the order to breach the door. No plan ever survived first contact. With everything hinging on us getting the job done in a matter of seconds—before Salvatore and his wife could wake up, or, if they were awake, before they could call anyone still around for help—one slight misstep from any of us could give our enemies the opportunity they needed to slip through our fingers.
If they got a message out before we could stop them, we were sunk. If they somehow managed to escape us and warn the others, then the rest of them would disappear before we could grab them. But I couldn’t do anything about any of the other spies being picked up at the moment. I could only focus on my target.
I flexed my hands into fists and then relaxed them, trying to find a way to get rid of this pent-up anxiety. Beside me, Dylan sighed.
“You know,” she said conversationally, keeping her voice low enough that it wouldn’t carry through the door. “You aren’t making it easy to remain calm over here.”
“Sorry,” I said, relaxing my hands enough to wipe them on my uniform and trying to force myself into something resembling calm.
“It’s okay. I don’t like this either. I never thought in a million years I would have to arrest Salvatore Zale. Yet here we are, in a joint operation with the Cogs and the Divers, about to grab another thirty-three people who had subversive intentions toward the Tower. It’s… weird.”
I blew out a breath. Dylan still didn’t entirely understand why I had gone to Lacey and Strum before I moved against the legacies, and I couldn’t exactly explain that they were also legacies without it getting messy fast. Instead, I told her a version of the truth that might better explain it.
“Lacey was Ambrose’s aunt. She approached me after he died to ask me to look into the matter, and I promised her that I’d involve her if and when I found anything out. Besides, arresting Salvatore is going to divide the department—at least until we can explain to everyone why we had to do it. And I can’t tell my commanders that without the authorization of the council until after I walk them through all the evidence and convince them of the conspiracy. Hell, I had to exclude at least half of the Commanders from mobilizing on this, because they were in the Academy with Zale at one point or another.”
Dylan nodded at my words, her mouth pressed into a thin line. “All very excellent points,” she said. She cocked her head at me, giving me a canny look. “I think the Knights chose well when they voted you in. I’m not sure I would’ve been so circumspect of my Commanders’ loyalties like that. But you’re right. You can’t trust that Salvatore won’t prey on his relationship with others to—”
She was cut off by Quess coming over the line. All teams in position. I repeat: all teams in position. Be ready to breach in ten seconds, on my mark.
I exchanged a glance with Dylan, and then motioned for her to pack up the tensor. She nodded and quickly detached it.
Ten… nine… eight…
I slipped my baton from the loop in my belt and clicked it on, inhaling deeply and letting my eyes drift closed. From here, I would override the door. Dylan would enter first, sweep the living space, and then proceed to the bedroom, where Salvatore and his wife, Alisha, were lying asleep. Our goal was Salvatore, but Alisha was a seasoned Knight as well, and likely wouldn’t let us take her husband without a fight.
Five… four… three…
I opened my eyes and turned to the door, my face tilting toward it.
Two… one… Mark!
“Open door. Arrest mode. Authorization Champion Liana Castell, 25K-05,” I commanded toward the door.
“Authorized,” the door replied, and a second later, it slid to the side. I held back as Dylan stalked through the entry hall, her baton held out before her in one hand, light in the other. I gave her a three count and then followed, my eyes darting around the dim lighting of the room.
I stopped when Dylan did, letting her sweep the light around a tidy living room and kitchenette area as she searched the shadows for any sign of life. There was none, and she resumed moving forward and crossed the floor into the second hall beyond, her boots barely making a sound. I followed suit, keeping my knees bent to prevent any extraneous noise, uncertain of how lightly either of the married couple slept.
We paused at the door opposite a bathroom, and I waited, nerves tingling with anticipation, while Dylan quickly cleared the bathroom. At her nod, I turned my focus to the bedroom door and took one last deep, calming breath.
“Go,” I whispered.
She hit the door control, and the door slid open, the pneumatic hiss harsh in the silence. I pushed through in spite of it, in time to see Alisha sit up, the tall, reed-thin woman’s brown eyes wide and searching. She spotted me in an instant and flung the sheets aside with a sharp, “Salvatore!” to the lump beside her.
I bit off a growl as I drew my baton up, intent on hitting her in the shoulder, but she sprang forward off the bed, going low. Her move was unexpected, and my momentum too great, and she drove her shoulder into the center of my chest. The breath exploded from my lungs and I went down, landing hard on my back. My eyes were wide open—wide enough to see her draw a foot back for a kick—and even though I felt I couldn’t breathe, I reacted quickly, bringing my hand, my baton still tightly clenched in its grip, up
and into the sole of her foot.
She gave a strangled cry, her body trembling, and I heard Salvatore say, “Contact Sadie—” before his voice abruptly cut off. I jerked the baton away, letting Alisha topple over onto the bed, and sat up, one hand going to the spot she’d hit on my chest. I tried to suck in a breath through my frozen lungs, and it came in a sharp wheeze that prompted me to start coughing.
In spite of the crisis of air that had overcome me in the span of a few short seconds, I stood and searched the room for Dylan. I found her hunched over Salvatore’s still form on the bed, already pulling out the extraction kit for his net.
“You okay?” she asked.
I nodded. “Alisha always could pack a punch,” I wheezed slowly, moving gingerly into a kneeling position over the downed woman and pulling out my own extraction kit. Alisha’s loyalties were questionable at best, and I wasn’t about to take a chance on anyone being missed.
I paused what I was doing as I listened to the reports flooding through my ear, waiting for my chance to slip in my own update.
…6, target apprehended, net removed.
This is Team 3, target apprehended, net removed.
This is Team 4, target apprehended, net removed.
Team 5, I interjected, grateful that I could transmit orders neurally instead of wasting even more of my breath. Target apprehended, net removed.
As if to emphasize my point, Dylan leaned back, a net pinched between two fingers. Black, which meant it wasn’t a legacy net. However he’d been working with Sadie, it hadn’t been as one of their leaders. Unless, of course, he had taken the legacy net out to keep it hidden, which was possible.
Roger, Quess replied. Sending collection teams in now. All clear for the Citadel. I repeat, all clear for the Citadel. Relief poured through me as I realized that all our teams had reported back, but it was premature; we still needed to hear from Lacey’s and Strum’s people. But we were getting there.