So far so good.
She wiped her left hand on the exec trousers, leaving a dark stain. Then she pulled the switchblade out of her boot.
If Sukiota stayed true to form, she’d leave the guards by the door when she came. And she’d come in unarmed. Coming in unarmed would have a point when you didn’t want the prisoner to steal a weapon. However, it gave the prisoner an advantage if she was already armed.
Evi slid the pipe back into place and folded her body over it and her right arm so they wouldn’t see her hand was free. She waited.
It was five-thirty in the morning when Sukiota opened the door and walked into the cell. Two of the pseudo-cops stood outside with their Uzis pointed into the room.
The cops were human; their reaction time wouldn’t be quick enough. At least she hoped so.
Sukiota walked into the middle of the room. “We’re going to have another little talk.”
“You bet we are,” Evi responded in as insolent a tone as she could muster.
“You—” Sukiota stepped toward Evi, hand raised.
Evi leapt. She tackled Sukiota to the far wall, slamming her good shoulder up under Sukiota’s chin. Sukiota’s head thudded against the tile. Evi kept close to her, hoping that the guards out the door would hesitate out of fear of hitting their superior.
They didn’t fire, and by the time Sukiota had recovered from the head blow, Evi was pressing the knife against her jugular.
For a second, everything stopped moving. One of the cops, one of the token blacks, had stepped into the room. He froze, machine gun leveled at Evi and Sukiota. Beyond the door, out on the subway platform, the pseudo-cops who were manning equipment at the impromptu command center stopped their activity as they turned to watch what was going on behind them. Even the dust from the last train passing seemed to hang in the air, frozen in the lights.
“Drop the guns!” Evi yelled at the guards, keeping her gaze locked on Sukiota.
The vein bulged from the pressure of the knife. A little more pressure, or a quick slash to the left or right, and even an engineered metabolism wouldn’t keep Sukiota from bleeding to death.
“NOW!”
Two guns clattered to the ground. Evi moved around, to Sukiota’s right, so she could keep an eye on the gunmen and her hostage.
“This is a dumb move, Isham.”
“Don’t make any sudden moves. I’m as quick as you are, and younger.”
“Enjoy it. You won’t get any older.”
The two cops, black and white, were staring at Evi, guns at their feet. “You out there, kick that weapon away.”
The one outside the room did as she told him.
“And you,” she said to the one in the room with them, “kick that gun over here.”
The gun slid across the tile to clatter to Sukiota’s feet. Sukiota’s eyes glanced down briefly and Evi pressed the knife harder. “Your throat’d open up before you were halfway there.” Evi put her foot on the butt of the gun. “Not worth it.”
She addressed the black cop, “Get out of here.”
He backpedaled out of the room, leaving Evi and Sukiota alone to face each other. Sukiota smiled. “Now what?” She asked.
Evi was becoming aware of the pulse in her neck. There was a coppery taste in her mouth. Calm, she told herself, you have a hostage. She looked deep into her adversary’s eyes and came to a realization. “You enjoy this shit.”
Sukiota smiled wider.
“Get on the ground, face down, slowly.”
Sukiota slid slowly down. Evi kept her knife pressed into Sukiota’s neck. A small trail of blood had leaked down the edge to form a small bead on the web between Evi’s thumb and forefinger.
She put her knee in the small of Sukiota’s back and glanced at the scene out the door. Everyone was facing the cell. A few were trying to ease out of her field of vision.
“All of you, down on the fucking ground, now!”
To the last one, they hit the dirt. They knew when it was not a good idea to play games.
Sukiota was wearing a familiar-looking black jumpsuit. Evi reached down under Sukiota with her left hand, which hurt like hell, and unzipped the top about halfway.
Sukiota was maintaining a level tone of voice. “Are you going to use me as a hostage or rape me?”
Sukiota was trying to rattle her, have her make a mistake. Evi almost slugged Sukiota the way she’d been slugged. In Evi’s awkward position that move would have been disastrous.
“Put your hands flat at your side.”
Sukiota did so, and Evi retrieved her left hand and pulled Sukiota’s collar down to her mid-back, restraining her arms. Only after she had Sukiota somewhat immobilized, did Evi reach over for the gun.
It wasn’t a real Israeli Uzi. It was an Italian knock-off. It still carried uncomfortable echoes.
She held the barrel of the gun between Sukiota’s naked shoulder blades with her left hand as she slowly withdrew the switchblade and pocketed it. Then she switched the gun to her good hand. “You’re going to get me out of here.”
She backed off of Sukiota, holding the Uzi with her right hand and the collar of Sukiota’s jumpsuit with her left. “Get up.”
She did so, stripped to the waist. “You can’t—”
“Can the speech. Where’s my bag?”
“Over there.” Sukiota gestured with her head. Evi saw her backpack sitting on a table next to one of the portable comms out on the platform. “You,” she yelled at the cop laying in front of the door. “I want you to get up and slowly walk to that backpack. Bring it here.”
The cop looked up at them and Sukiota said in a disgusted tone, “Do as she says.”
“Finally being cooperative?” Evi asked.
“It’s not like you’re going to get away.”
“Just keep thinking that.” The cop returned with the backpack, tossed it into the room, and returned to his spot on the ground without being told. Evi briefly let go of Sukiota to retrieve her backpack. She made sure the gun was a constant pressure between Sukiota’s shoulder blades.
“Even if you get out of here,” Sukiota said. “I’ll be able to find you.”
Evi shouldered the pack with a wince. “You know the drill. We’re going to move slow, and by the numbers.” She grabbed Sukiota’s collar again. “Now, walk out. Toward the van.”
It was nervewracking, the slow advance toward the police van. The darkness beyond the lights seemed perfect to hide a sniper, and every eye was locked on her, looking for an opening. All they needed was one person with a gun that wanted her dead more than they wanted Sukiota alive.
Somewhere down the length of the abandoned subway tunnel was the echo of dripping water. Closer was the occasional electronic beep from the equipment. One of the comms began to ring for attention, an incoming call. One of the agents looked at the offending comm but didn’t move toward it.
“This is a communications hub,” Sukiota told her. “You’ve cut it out of the loop. How many people do you think are converging on us right now?”
Sukiota was right, too right. This HQ might be makeshift, but there were enough agents, computers, and secret encryption and surveillance equipment here to make any compromising event here a national security risk. A priority risk. Red lights would be flashing in DC right now, and the Feds would be mobilizing everything in the immediate area from the FBI to the Coast Guard.
That triggered another thought, one that was even scarier.
Am I being set up? Evi thought. This seemed to be going much too smoothly.
Evi backed against the side of the police van. The handcuffs chained to her wrist was rattling. She calmed her shaking hand.
“Get in the van.”
“It’s locked.”
Evi didn’t like the thought that Sukiota was keeping her cool better than she was. Evi looked at one
of the agents hugging the ground nearby. He was the other black guy.
“You, lose the gunbelt.”
He looked up at her and fumbled it off. Evi was getting nervous. She’d almost feel better if one of these Agency people dove for a gun. They were being too acquiescent.
But even if it was a setup, what could she do other than what she was doing?
“Come over here and punch in the combination for this vehicle.”
She watched him unlock the van door and then had him resume his position on the ground. Evi ushered Sukiota into the passenger seat, fastening Sukiota’s seatbelt with her left hand. Between the restraining of the jumpsuit bunched around Sukiota’s forearms, and the seatbelt itself, Sukiota was immobilized.
“Where are we?” Evi asked. The view out the front windshield showed more of the subway platform, which ended about ten meters in front of the van. To the right, the platform dropped off to the subway tracks. To the left there was a blank tile wall broken only by a large garage door hanging open next to the nose of the van. That was the only route from which the van could have come.
Beyond the door was darkness.
“There’s only one exit.”
Evi sighed. “I could, out of view of all the people out there, quietly slit your femoral artery and try and bluff my way through using your corpse as a hostage.”
You’re letting her get to you, Abdel said, that’s what she wants.
Yes, but someone still ought to bury her.
“We’re under East 130th Street.”
Evi started the van.
“The hole opens into the parking garage under the new Harlem precinct station.” Sukiota wore an evil smile.
Damn. That meant cops, sharpshooters, all waiting for the Feds to show up. That blew her only escape route. No wonder Sukiota was smiling.
Could that be why the Agency people weren’t acting? Did they want her to run that police blockade? Was it because they didn’t expect her to break through it—?
Or because they thought she could?
Being shot while trying to escape was a venerable method of disappearing troublesome prisoners. That could be it.
Or they could want her to escape.
Evi decided she was getting too paranoid even for the situation at hand. All she knew for sure was that she didn’t want to use that garage door as her escape route.
Evi shifted the van into gear, hit the headlights, and gunned the engine. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sukiota lose the smile. “What?”
Evi didn’t head for the door. She aimed right off the edge of the platform, turning the wheel to shoot the van out on to the tracks themselves. The bone-jarring thud of the impact reawakened the pain in her gut where Sukiota had punched her.
Gunfire sounded from behind her, but none of the shots seemed to hit the van.
While the van was making the abrupt transition from platform to tracks, Evi had a brief fear that there wasn’t enough clearance under the van for the rails. After the one big jar, the rail began sliding under the van inside the left tire. Even so, it wasn’t a smooth ride. The rotting ties were busy trying to shake the right side of the van apart.
They shot down the tunnel, leaving the platform behind them. The van’s headlights cut a hole in the darkness ahead. Concrete walls shot by on the left, while on the right, black grime-coated girders flew by.
The top of the rail that the van was straddling was dark with rust. Evi considered that a good sign.
The speedometer was creeping toward 100 kilometers an hour.
“You’re crazy.”
She smiled at Sukiota’s reaction. “In the last forty-eight hours I think I’ve earned the privilege.”
“You’re only delaying the inevitable. Someone will catch up with you.”
“Think I don’t know that? I tried to come in, and I got you for my trouble.”
“You’re not helping yourself—”
Evi felt her pulse race as the scream of a train passed by them. Very close, in a neighboring tunnel. The entire van shook in response, and she had to struggle with the steering to keep the vibrating wheels on course. When she could hear again, she told Sukiota, “I cooperate with you, and I’d disappear. As far as the Feds are concerned, I’m either a rabid terrorist or a great big embarrassment.”
“Or a traitor.”
A bright light caught the windshield and began to close on them. White washed the front of the van. Evi hit the brakes, for all the good it would do, as the sound of the oncoming train threatened to shake the van apart.
A wall of moving graffiti shot by the van on the track to their right.
She caught her breath, then turned to Sukiota. Sukiota hadn’t moved and was looking at Evi in much the same way Chuck Dwyer had.
“You—” She sucked in another breath and looked at Sukiota. “No. Explaining it wouldn’t do any good.” She swung the Uzi up to Sukiota’s jawline. “But cut the ‘traitor’ shit. I’ve never turned on anyone.”
Sukiota remained silent.
Evi felt her hand tighten on the trigger. “Whatever was going on, it was Frey’s operation—”
“You were recruited by a rogue element of the Executive sometime in ’53, and when things went bad and they tried to eliminate you, you tried to run back into the fold of the Agency.”
There was nothing she could do. As far as the government was concerned, she was fucked. Ignorance never cuts very well as a defense. Frey and the others had separated from the Agency and had followed their own secret agenda.
Why did they drag her along without telling her the full story?
She pressed the gun harder beneath Sukiota’s jaw. “Do you know what happened in Cleveland in August of ’53?”
“The Agency terrorist division attempted to apprehend a canine terrorist named Hassan Sabah.”
“Who’d he work for?”
“The CIA. They were trying to cover up an operation to funnel money to political candidates.”
“The CIA?”
Evi couldn’t believe it. The aliens had gotten away with it. The secret masters, the ones who had controlled the money, had manufactured the CIA story out of whole cloth. The agents in Langley were no more in control than the congressmen who were indicted.
“That was a plant for public consumption. The CIA was just a scapegoat. Who was Hassan really working for?”
Sukiota stared at her.
“You think it was a coincidence that Hassan’s last known affiliation was with the NLF? The same people the Afghanis you’re tailing are working for?”
Evi reached into Sukiota’s pockets. She found a wallet, the keys to the handcuff she was wearing, and the white ramcard that Sukiota had been waving in her face earlier.
Sukiota stayed silent.
Why didn’t Frey and the others bring her all the way in? Why the hell did they let her be blindsided by all this?
Anger was beginning to twist in her gut. “Let me draw you a picture, sister. I look at you and I see myself back in ’53. You’re about to tackle something that’s a hell of a lot bigger than you are. You’re going to get too close to what’s at the core of Nyogi and the NLF. You get too close to Frey’s little sideline, and everything you thought you worked for is going to go south on you—”
She unlocked the passenger door, popped Sukiota’s seatbelt, and prodded her with the Uzi. “Get out.”
Sukiota zipped her jumpsuit back up and stepped out of the van. “You aren’t going to escape, none of you.”
“And you are?”
Evi floored the van, letting inertia slam the passenger door closed.
No more trains passed by her, and the tracks eventually disappeared, leaving a subterranean highway of algae-slick ties and black gravel. She pushed the van beyond any safe speed because she wanted to beat any attempt to cut her off.
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As she shot through the bowels of Manhattan, she tried to understand the events that had swept her up.
The first players, the peeper and the Afghanis, were part and parcel of Nyogi Enterprises. Specifically, the subsidiary of Nyogi popularly referred to as the NLF. From what Seger, the veep, said before he was ventilated by the Afghanis, an alien cell was running Nyogi. “You don’t know what those creatures are like.”
“Yes, I do,” she whispered.
The second players were Frey and company. Frey had covered up the situation in Cleveland. Instead of reporting MLI and the aliens to the Agency, they had let the phony money trail to the CIA stand. And someone had appropriated the aliens and MLI’s assets for their own use.
Those assets exceeded eighty billion dollars.
For the past five years, Evi had been working for an Agency within the Agency. A totally self-contained organization, answerable to no one. The think tank she, Price, and Hofstadter worked for was totally outside the community. She’d known about the aliens, so the conspiracy had to keep her in its own fold . . .
But they had never brought her all the way in.
Evi was beginning to realize why—
It was because she wasn’t human.
Hofstadter called her a frank and was trying to kill her. At least she knew why now. She could finger too damn many of the conspirators. Everyone at the think tank, Hofstadter, everyone who had some knowledge of the aliens back in 2053.
Evi growled and floored the van, intentionally slamming the side of the vehicle against the concrete walls.
She’d been duped. For six fucking years she’d been duped. And they didn’t let her in, not for security, not because she was a risk, but because she wasn’t human.
“BASTARDS!” A bright blue spark flashed across the passenger window as she scraped the front fender across the concrete on the inside of her turn. “All of you. Fucking bastards!”
The tunnel dipped down and, up ahead, the headlights were reflected back at her. She was going one-twenty, and the brakes didn’t stop her in time. The nose of the van plowed through a scum of ice, throwing sheets of gray water up and out. Evi heard a buzzing zap and the cab filled with the smell of a blown-out transformer. The headlights and the indicators on the dash died.