The Drafter (12 page)

Dropping the polishing rag, Sandy went behind the bar, the light from the UV hand sanitizer flashing as she stuck her hands under it for a few seconds. Frank had come down from the ladder, and he and Jack were talking in hushed but strident tones. Peri jumped when Sandy handed her a chipped mug of lukewarm coffee. “How about you start with the black eye?” she said, leaning against the bar to make her long black hair fall in a curtain to one side of her face.

“Someone hit me.” Peri looked into the oily, rank depths of the
coffee. Sandy's coffee invariably sucked. “I hit him back. What's to tell? Especially when you don't remember.”

“You always remember, you just don't recall,” Sandy said, and Peri blinked fast at the pity in her voice. Sandy put a hand to her mouth. “You killed someone, didn't you. I can tell.”

Peri's thoughts touched upon the man twitching on the floor as stuff that should be inside leaked out through a hole the size of her knife. Both hands around the mug, she took a sip of coffee. It was old, bitter, and burnt. “Jack tells me he killed me first,” Peri said softly. Guilt pulled her shoulders down, but it wasn't from killing the guard. No, her unease was that she would have to work Sandy over. She had to know if she was in on it. She had to get her reacting.

And the best way to do that is to start a rumor, one that accounts for Bill's erratic behavior in a nonthreatening way
. “Sandy, is there talk about splitting Jack and me up?”

The woman's eyes widened. “Oh, honey, I'm not supposed to say even if I know—and I don't. Why would you even think such a thing?”

Peri looked down as she worked over her friend. “Bill showed up five minutes after we got home. They're watching us.” She took another sip, gauging Sandy's expression over the rim of her mug. “It's so unfair. Bill has us going out again on task already. It's got to be one of those stupid evaluation ones, and if they don't like what they see . . .” Peri made a small sound.

Sandy held her thick-walled mug of untasted coffee before her. “Already? You're supposed to get two weeks after a draft—especially if you're being evaluated. I'm glad you came here for your debrief and orders, otherwise I'd assume you were on leave. You want some Baileys for your coffee? You're tense enough to crack eggs on.”

Sandy touched her shoulder, but Peri had gone still, looking at the wall where pictures of retired drafters and their anchors hung in the shadows. “No, I'm driving,” she whispered, but something Sandy had said had pinged in her intuition.

Two weeks. Frank and Sandy would be the only people to know she and Jack were out on a new task. Everyone else would assume they'd taken their break and gone to a sunny beach to recover—no one would
suspect they were doing anything outside Opti's legal parameters—and Sandy didn't seem upset about it.

She should have been.

Shit
. Peri looked at Frank and Jack still talking. Their own psychologists . . .
We have to get out of here
. “Would you excuse me for a moment?” Peri said as she put her coffee down.

“Sure. Go ahead, honey.”

Peri crossed the room, her boots leaving puddles of melted snow on Frank's dance floor. Her back was to Sandy, and for the first time, she didn't like it. The men turned to include her, and she forced a smile. The big bear of a man was both the bartender and the bouncer, but he had a past, like everyone else connected with Opti. “Hi, Frank,” she said, heart pounding as he gave her a one-armed hug that made her feel like a little girl.

“Hey, sweet pea.” His voice rumbled through her slow and easy, and whereas it usually calmed her, it was all she could do not to jerk away. “How you doing?”

“Fine.” She smiled convincingly. “I need to ask Jack something. Can we have a sec?”

“Sure, hon.” Giving her a grin, Frank ambled to the bar.

Peri's breath came in slow, shaking on the exhale. Taking Jack's arm, she turned him so they couldn't read her lips. “We gotta go. Now.”

Jack's focus sharpened on her. “Huh? Why?”

“Because they're in on it. Both of them.” Peri pulled him back around when he tried to look over her shoulder at them. “If we go on a non-Opti-sanctioned job, right after I drafted and lost time—no one will think twice about our absence. We're supposed to be gone. Sandy doesn't care that we lost our downtime. Neither does Frank. They're our psychologists, for God's sake.”

His eyes widened in understanding. “We have a problem.”

“You think?” She had a bug-out bag in the trunk. So did Jack. Getting to them was step one.

From the bar, Frank's gruff voice called out, “Either of you want a beer?”

Peri turned to see him holding a cell phone to his ear. Looking tiny
beside him, Sandy pulled a chopstick from the water glass on the top of the bar. Hips swaying, she wound her hair up as she paced a slow path to the back door. With a last acknowledgment, Frank said something and ended his call.

A sliver of fear wedged into Peri, driven by Frank's knowing look. Sweet adrenaline poured in behind it. By the front door, the floor cleaner finished with a cheerful ding and shut down. “We're fine,” she said, but she knew Frank heard the lie.

Jack's expression when he turned back to her was thick with concern. “Any ideas?” he muttered, lips hardly moving.

“Working on it.” Peri gave his cold hand a squeeze. Bill wasn't here yet. They had a chance.

Jack's eyes flicked over her shoulder. “I'm sorry, Peri.”

“It's not your fault,” she said when Jack reached inside his coat to touch his handgun.

But the sure and steady
snick-snack
of a rifle cocking cracked through her and he froze.

Peri cursed her slow understanding when Frank came out from behind the bar with that squirrel rifle he kept hidden, now pointed at them.

“This isn't how I wanted to do this, babe,” Jack said as he shifted to stand between her and Frank.

“Not my first choice either,” she said, then started when the sound of keys drew her attention to Sandy returning from the back door. It was padlocked, the excess chain still swinging. Frank pulled a handgun from the small of his back and tossed it to her.

“You know the old saying, too smart for her own good?” Sandy said as she checked the clip, and Peri grimaced. She'd thought Sandy was her friend.
Lies, it was all lies
.

The front door opened, and Peri looked at the thirtyish man coming in and stomping the light snow off his shoes. His long face was red from the cold and his coat too thin for the weather. A gray scarf was around his neck, and Peri stiffened when his brown eyes found hers and his thick fingers unwound the gray wool. Though his black slacks and
shirt were casual, she could tell he was Opti. It was his grace, the way his eyes traveled the room, lingering on her in what might be guilt as he flicked his curly black hair from his thick black glasses.

“I told you she was verging on one of her epiphanies,” Sandy said as the new man caught the keys that Frank tossed him and locked the front door before pulling a chair from a table to sit in it, his feet spread wide and his confidence absolute. “That intuition of yours is both your saving grace and your Achilles' heel, Peri,” Sandy continued. “I blame Bill. He'd rather believe Jack's fairy tales than split you two up. You're his best operatives. Three years. I don't know if I should congratulate you or decide that you're especially stupid.”

Peri tried to get in front of Jack so he could draw his gun, but he wouldn't let her.

Still holding that infuriating, sweet smile, Sandy eyed Jack with appreciation. “But if I had a man like Jack waiting on me hand and foot, I might be keen on a little self-blinding, too.”

Heart pounding, Peri thought of her knife, peeved at bringing it to a gunfight. She suddenly realized how fit Sandy and Frank were. Overdraft was a trap.

“We're going to have to get that furry orange mouse-eating bug back into your apartment,” Sandy was saying coyly, as she sashayed closer. “We could have lost you on your ‘evaluation mission.' ”

They bugged my cat?
Peri flicked a glance at the man by the door. “Jack?” Peri muttered. “I'm open to suggestions here.”

“Play it out,” he said grimly.

“Frank, let's get this going,” Sandy said, a new, ugly look on her face. “Shoot her.”

“Not me,” Frank said indignantly. “I want her to like me tomorrow. You do it.”

Sandy sighed. “Maybe you're right. Can you shoot Jack?”

“Oh, hell yes,” the big man said, bringing up his rifle.

“No!” Peri screamed, lunging forward. The rifle fired, stunning her ears. Jack fell into her arms, his hands across his stomach. Together they hit the yellow parquet floor, both staring at his middle as blood seeped
past his fingers. It was a gut wound. It would kill him, not right away, but it
would
kill him. Even getting him to the hospital might not save him.

“You shot me!” Jack said, voice high. “Frank, I can't believe you shot me!”

“Why are you doing this!” Peri raged, Jack's head in her lap as she held him tight.

“Because you're valuable, honey, and he's just firmware,” Sandy said sweetly, and Peri hated her all the more. “Now. Either draft to save his life and become who we need you to be, or let Jack die. Your choice. Tick-tock.”

Somehow they'd found out, but how? Frantic, Peri wadded up her scarf, using it to stanch the blood. Jack was okay. He had to be! They'd survive this.

I will. He won't
.

Peri's teeth clenched. Jack's blood stained her fingers as it soaked through her scarf and he made a heartrending gasp. “Fuck, that hurt,” he moaned, face white.

“Suck it up, Jack!” Sandy barked. “You knew the risk.” Turning back to Peri, she smiled. “Go ahead and draft, honey. We'll scrub you back to where you don't have any disturbing thoughts about Bill, or me, or Frank here. Everyone wins,” she said brightly.

Peri's arms began to shake, the stress of holding her and Jack together beginning to tell. “It doesn't work like that,” she said, terrified. “You can't predict a draft's mental damage.”

“Sure you can,” Sandy said, and Peri's fear coalesced when the man by the door came forward. “This is Allen Swift,” Sandy continued. “He can scrub your memories until you forget everything I say. I'm thinking . . . four months? The six weeks Jack managed weren't enough.”

They can't do that!
she thought, and then her mind seemed to jump.
Jack took me back? As in intentionally?
Had all those lost days and weeks been engineered? On purpose?

Peri looked at Jack as her hands pressed into him. A wash of nausea
flooded her, and the world seemed to turn inside out. Frightened, she stood, and Jack's head hit the parquet floor with a thunk.
He's in on it
, she realized as Jack yelped.
He always has been
. He'd told her exactly what he needed to in order to get her to come here tonight.

She wasn't corrupt—but Jack was.

“O
w!” Jack sat up, annoyance joining his pain as he rubbed his head with a bloody hand—clearly not dying. “Way to go, Sandy.”

“What? Like she's going to remember any of this?”

Peri started when Frank was suddenly behind her, the rifle now in Allen's hand and out of her reach. His meaty fingers pinched her arm as he pulled her away, but she was too shocked to react. Her heart pounded as Allen set the rifle on the bar with a sliding click, brown eyes evaluating. Sandy's aim never wavered, her expression mean, as if she wanted an excuse.

Not Jack!
But it felt like a wish, and she tensed as the truth cycled down to one ugly certainty. If she jumped, she'd lose everything—be exactly who they wanted. She'd be whatever they told her she was.
How many times have they done this?

“And now she gets it all,” Sandy said sarcastically. “Welcome to the party, Peri.”

“Jack?” Peri said, and he winced, not in pain, but in guilt.

Anger flared. “You bastard!” she shouted, lurching for him, only to be brought back by Frank's iron grip. “You stinking son of a bastard! You knew? How many times have you done this?” she shouted, thinking over the tasks she could remember, seeing the gaps, the anomalies. A fragment here, a missing hour there. That time she lost eight
months? Peri's fury grew, and Frank's grip tightened.
I trusted him. I let him do it
.

Flinching, Jack scooted himself backward until he was propped against the low stage. “I'm sorry, babe. I did it because I love you. It's the only way to stay together.”

“Stay together?” Peri exclaimed.
“You lied to me!”

She fought to get to Jack, but Frank had her, arms pinned to her sides, helpless. “How long? How long have you been doing this? Lying about our tasks, making me into . . . a corrupt agent? Was my name on that list? It was, wasn't it. And it wasn't me, it was you!”

Jack lifted the scarf from his middle and let the blood-soaked yarn hit the floor with a sodden plop. “You can't tell me you don't love the adrenaline,” he said, shifting his torn shirt to show the body armor dented and smeared with synthetic blood. “The excitement. The money.” He looked up at the last, giving her a shit-eating grin.

“I'm not a mercenary. I don't kill for money.” Peri wiggled as Jack levered himself up gingerly to sit on the low stage. He must have known he might be shot tonight, even down to where to put the sack of fake blood.
Damn it all to hell.

“If you're not doing it for money, then you're doing it for kicks.” Jack reached awkwardly to the straps, and the sound of Velcro ripped the air. His innocent blue eyes were full of knowing. “Admit you like it. The thrill, knowing that you might have to kill someone to survive. The sense of superiority you get from it. Otherwise it wouldn't have taken you this long to figure things out.”