Sake Bomb (43 page)

Nikolay had stepped in long after Hiro’s
death, more for Vanda’s mental acuity than her well-being, but as
her Papa she owed him respect. It paid off. He’d stumbled onto the
old salted bomb and with his usual engineer—her mother—long dead,
lucky him, he’d found a backup in his daughter. But Niko was
short-sighted, planning to sell the nuke for a healthy profit to
the American.

The
privideniye
… A phantom.

Vanda worked hard to reverse-engineer the
bomb, all while slowly constructing her own plan. Fay managed to
recruit four more submissives who, over the course of several
years, had dedicated themselves to Mistress Shinari’s rule and her
way of thinking. Too bad the others had died. Even the quest for
peace had its casualties, she supposed…

Just as she’d completed the rebuild of the
bomb, Papa Nikolay had been taken by her idiot half-brother Sacha,
but he passed along one last message for his daughter through Sumi:
Get Harvey to the American. He’ll do right by you,
Vanda.

The bomb was nearing the center of the
basin, and the submersible had begun its dive into the murky
water.

In less than 24 hours, she’d do as her Papa
had said. She’d give Harvey to the American.

Each and every one of them.

T
he rain fell in
fat drops, smacking Kizzie in the face. The hood of her jacket
gathered air, bouncing around her head as she darted toward the
water’s edge. A few more strides and they all stopped at the bottom
of the circular marble steps, the Jefferson Memorial at their
backs. The glare from the monument’s lights was enough to see a
good portion of the water, but the flashlight in Xander’s grip
covered a greater distance.

Kizzie’s eyes went wide. “Holy…”

“Fudgeballs,” Xander deadpanned. “I think
that’s the word you’re looking for.”

The dark water rippled softly, and the view
to the Washington obelisk was simply awe-inspiring. It wasn’t what
held their attention.

Seventy feet away from the edge and just
west of center, an unmanned float powered across the water. A large
black box rested atop it.

“You said a picnic basket. That is
not
a picnic basket.”

“Yes, well, apparently I was wrong.” Xander
said. “Is now a good time to point that out?”

“Which one of us is going swimming?” Phil
asked calmly, adjusting a backpack on his shoulder.

From where they stood, the 107-acre Tidal
Basin had the Potomac River to the left and the Washington Channel
to the right. The tide was starting to come in, which meant the
outlet gates to the channel were closed. But the inlet gates from
the river were open, rushing water in at a rate of a quarter
million gallons per minute.

“You,” Xander answered. “I’m the brains of
the operation. And the good looks.”

“Now that I think about it,” Phil countered,
“I did take that nasty dip in Ecuador a couple years back.”

“I
knew
you hadn’t let Ecuador
go…”

“This is a cakewalk compared to
Ecuador.”

“Rock, paper, scissors?”

Kizzie didn’t have time for their banter. Or
to consider her last diphtheria vaccine. Tetanus…whooping
cough…typhoid fever…colitis...

Dear God, anything but colitis again.

Forcing away thoughts of a future jam-packed
with needles, she shrugged out of her jacket.

Xander stopped her, frowning. “No one
invited you to the party. And stop getting naked in front of Phil.”
Smacking the flashlight into her open palm, he plunged the depths
of his pants pockets and passed Phil the haul: the flash drive
she’d seen on the plane, a phone and wallet.

“I wasn’t as trusting of Niko as I led you
to believe, Kizzie. Don’t know the specific make up of the sphere,
but I do know how the bomb works—”

“In theory?”

“Bit more than theory.” Grimacing, he passed
Phil his gun, shucked off his jacket and yanked his shirt over his
head. “After this, we’re square on Ecuador. Crystal?”

“There’s still Bolivia.”

“
Bolivia!
You son of—”

“So you know how to stop it?” Kizzie had no
idea how they could be so cavalier with the fate of DC—and their
own
asses—hanging in the balance.

Xander wiped his hand over his rain-slicked
face, nodding. “Just never thought I’d need to.”

“You always lie to me.”

“An omission, Princess. A subtle difference
of motive.” He swept his gaze over the water as though running down
his own medical history. Grabbing her hand, he angled the beam out
toward the box. “This just keeps getting better…”

Kizzie followed the line of her outstretched
arm. The bomb rode lower in the water than when they’d arrived.
Sinking. Quickly. Harder to find in the dark, and all the more
difficult to haul back to shore. Xander double-timed it out of his
shoes and socks.

“Where’s Sumi?” Phil asked.

Kizzie spun around to find her favorite
bucket of Looney Tunes had rabbited into the night. If she wanted
any chance of catching Vanda, she needed that submissive. Someone
was going down for this.

But if she went after Sumi, she’d have to
trust Xander wouldn’t leave with the bomb.

She pulled out her phone, bringing up the
sat-link for the subcutaneous tracer in Sumi’s shoulder.

Moving east. Fast.

A thicket of trees lined the basin in that
direction. Farther away from the path the terrain opened up to
manicured lawns. Sumi would stick to cover.

“You know what you’re doing?”

“If not, at least we won’t remember.” Phil
laughed at his morbid joke.

Xander shucked his jeans, standing in his
boxers, skin slick from the moderate rainfall. He glanced in the
direction she’d be going, then looked at her like he wanted to say
something sappy. “Don’t get dead.”

Kizzie nodded once, kept the ‘Yes, Sir’
confined to her two ears, and pulled the Beretta from her thigh
holster. “Don’t make me regret trusting you.”

Xander winked and blew her a kiss; turned
and jumped into the basin.

A last look at a smirking Phil, Kizzie ran
to chase down Sumi.

Then a boom loud as thunder split the
night.

* * * *

A
loud clap of thunder, and then the skies seemed to
open sending down a deluge. Sumi could hardly see where she was
going, stumbling on grass and jumbled roots. A concrete walking
path was just to her left, hugging the curve of the basin, and if
she was going to stop her Mistress—

Not
your Mistress. Vanda.

If she was going to stop
Vanda
in
time she had to risk running on the path.

Her lungs burned, and her clothes were
soaked, but her focus was clear. She had to atone for her sins. Had
to find herself again.

She’d be good.

Up ahead, a soft, muffled crack floated to
her ears.

She pushed herself harder, breathing
louder.

Sumi came upon Julie’s body stretched out
near the water’s edge. Vanda had positioned her expertly—gun in
Julie’s right hand, exit wound at her crown. Rain filled the basins
of her eye sockets, gates flung open, the overflow trickling down
her temples to make it appear as though the wide-eyed corpse was
crying.

A new wave of anger surged through Sumi.
Grabbing the gun, she swerved through the rain determined to end
the life of the woman who’d ended hers,
theirs
.

Vanda was only a dozen meters up ahead, a
dark shape moving through the trees, back turned on yet another
dead warrior. Another failure. Another extension of Her who served
honorably and then was found unworthy.

Julie would not be made sacred. None of them
would.

Sumi stalked her, moving silently from tree
to tree until she reached the outskirts of the clearing Vanda stood
in with a phone pressed to her ear.

Seconds passed and then Fay’s phone bleated
in Sumi’s pocket.

Vanda spun around quickly, a huge smile on
her face—

—that faded when she saw the weapon and the
warrior behind it.

Gun and eyes both trained on her former
Mistress, Sumi answered the call. “When a warrior strikes…”

X
ander reached
Phil, exhausted and freezing. In spite of the rising tide, the swim
out took less than 20 seconds. Coming back was closer to eight
minutes. Between the flashlight, the weight of the bomb and the ice
cold water that had it mostly submerged, he might as well have been
raising the Titanic.

It didn’t deter him.

Six million dollars and a couple years
later, Harvey was finally his.

Provided it didn’t explode first.

Shivering, he let the heavy rain sluice off
the putrid water, then tugged on his clothes and huddled in his
leather jacket. Phil was already kneeling, carefully forcing open
the roof of the metal housing with a wicked-looking knife. Beneath
this, another plate of metal lay inside, ostensibly protecting the
bomb from making contact with water. This plate was removed with
just as much care, revealing the delicate innards.

Xander muttered a curse and Phil echoed
it.

Gold spheres. Plural.

Xander knew Nikolay had completed one; knew
the potential damage for one. But six?

Each had a small charge ringing it—Hiro
Ohayashi’s “more impactful” version of RDX, if Xander had to
guess—the initial chemical reaction that would create a
supercritical environment for the nuclear material to detonate. As
a fail-safe, they’d been daisy-chained together. In the event one
charge didn’t go, the others would get the party started until
everything went kablooey.

The fallout from an explosion this size
would be unthinkable.

A cell phone was rigged to the device,
counting down the minutes. Roughly six hours left. Plenty of
time.

Unless Vanda was suicidal and decided to
phone a friend early.

Xander crouched beside Phil, holding the
light as steady as his shaking hands could, and encountered yet
another problem. Unlike the movies, where the crazy person who’d
constructed a nuclear bomb
conveniently
color-coded the shit
ton of wiring nuclear bombs inherently came with, there was no
black or green wire to decide between. No blue or white.

Every thread was red.

Phil gave a low whistle. “Never easy, is
it?”

“Where’d the fun be in that?”

“You really fond of DC?” Wholly calm, Phil
consulted the weather-proof laptop situated between them, the flash
drive Xander had given him secured in the port. Schematics for
every possible detonation scenario had been provided.

For a single gold sphere.

Using multi-colored wires.

A pair of cutters in his grip, Phil
separated the wires with careful fingers. “I’m thinking, we go now
we’ll be halfway back to Paris by the time this blows.”

“Or back to Bruges,” Xander goaded. “Well,
‘back’ for you...”

Phil didn’t respond.

Grinning, Xander studied the screen, glanced
at where Phil had selected one thin cable. Repeated the process.
“Not that one. Go over two to your left.”

“You sure ‘bout this?”

“I could lie to you if it makes you feel
better.”

Phil cut the wire.

The timer paused at 05:48:33—

Xander grinned. “See, I told you. Easy
work.”

—started up again at 00:09:48

Two heads snapped up.

“Well, hell…” Phil said, sighing loudly. “So
much for you being the brains.”

* * * *

“
W
hen a warrior…
strikes
…” Sumi repeated into the
receiver.

The confusion in Vanda’s face was but a
brief flicker, and then the smile was back. “It is with stealth,
accuracy, and purpose, so that his enemies have not the ability to
counter or strike back,” she said, finishing the code Sumi had
started. The code
she’d
given Sumi long ago.

Lowering the disposable phone to her side,
she glided toward her submissive and cocked her head. “Are you my
enemy,
kotenok
?”

At the sound of her nickname, Sumi
hesitated. Her hands shook, and she tossed the useless phone aside.
Vanda inched closer; Sumi leveled the gun. “Stay there.”

“No. I do not take orders from you, pet.”
Vanda kept coming, strides even, voice cool and seductive. “I knew
you would kill them. Had every faith in you.”

Sumi blinked, frowned. “You…you did?”

Nodding, Vanda let the umbrella swing down
so the bell was now upright, collecting rainwater. Then she dropped
it to the ground. “It was your final test of devotion to me. I am
your
Domme
, Sumi,” she said softly. “
Always
. It is my
job to test your limits and you far exceeded them.

“Chiho was a limit. Akari…a limit. Fay,” her
voice wobbled the slightest bit, “Fay was your strongest
opposition. I remember how fiercely you fought during the training
sessions, how Fay always bested you, but you never stopped. That
determination, that strength, is why I sent you to Sacha. It’s why
I lied when I said you were no longer my
kotenok.
I knew it
would push you.”

Close enough to see Sumi’s trembling lips,
Vanda continued in her coaxing tone. “Tell me, how did you do it?
Gun? A knife?” She smiled widely as though they shared a secret.
“Or did you bludgeon Fay to death as you so often wanted with your
bare hands?”

Neither. She’d had someone else do it.

Same way someone else had finished off
Sacha.

“She’s dead,” Sumi snapped. “What does it
matter how?”

“So, not at your own hand then?” Sumi thrust
the gun forward, holding it a bit steadier, and Vanda smiled again.
“No matter. You succeeded,
kotenok
. I knew you would. It was
always you, you know?”