THE LONG GAME (29 page)

“Why tell me this?” Daniela asked finally, breaking the heavy silence that had fallen between us. “What could you possibly expect to gain?”

I didn’t turn to look at her. “My name is Tess.”

She hadn’t asked.
She probably didn’t want to know.

“My mother’s name is Ivy. She doesn’t have any siblings. And Adam, Walker’s other brother, he doesn’t have any kids.”

I didn’t stumble over referring to Ivy as my mother. There was too much at stake.

“Your daughter,” I said, bringing my hand slowly to Daniela’s stomach. “We share the same blood.”

We’re family.

I willed her to see it that way, to see me that
way, if only for the most fleeting of moments.

“And if you are telling the truth, if you and my daughter share blood, what does that make me?” Daniela asked.

A terrorist. A criminal.

“Someone who wants to protect her daughter,” I said, my quiet voice cutting through the air like a knife. “And hopefully, someone capable of believing that I might want that, too.”

Daniela stared at my hand on
her stomach. She kept staring until I removed it.

I wanted her to trust me. I wanted her to at least try to convince me that I could trust her, too.

Nineteen minutes.

I knew in the pit of my stomach that we weren’t going to make it back to Hardwicke before the hour was up. I knew what would happen when we didn’t.

Stop
, I told myself. I had to believe that Ivy would come through, that Daniela
would be released. And if I believed that, if I could
make
myself believe that, then I needed to know what we would be walking into once Ivy had secured Daniela’s release.

For that, I needed someone who knew how Senza Nome operated. I needed Daniela on my side, not theirs.

“You said that you had a message for me.” Daniela’s voice was even, without emphasis. I had no idea if she believed what
I’d told her about Walker’s parentage, or if she cared. I had no idea if she saw even a hint of him when she looked at me. “It would be in your best interest,” Daniela continued in that same deadly, even tone, “to deliver that message.”

What if the interrogators were wrong?
I thought, unable to block out the hint of fear slithering its way up my spine.
What if Daniela hasn’t been emotionally
compromised? What if she’s one of them in every sense of the word?

What if they have no intention of silencing her at all?

For the first time, I truly processed the fact that the woman sitting beside me was Senza Nome. Like Mrs. Perkins. Like Dr. Clark.

“You want the message?” I said. “‘The dove has always wanted to fly to Madrid.’”

I saw the moment the words landed for the woman.

The dove
has always wanted to fly to Madrid.
What did that mean? What could that possibly mean?

Beside me, Daniela climbed to her feet. I stayed sitting, tracking her movement. She turned back to face me, and I returned her stare.

“You are quiet,” Daniela said finally, after a full minute had stretched by with us in silence.

I shrugged, my leg muscles tense, ready to propel me to my feet the second
it became necessary. “I told you everything I came here to say.”

The woman opposite me smiled slightly. I didn’t know whether to be warmed by the expression—or chilled.

“If I asked you to,” Daniela said, a slight, lilting accent creeping into her voice, “would you tell me what else my people asked you to do? Their other demands—the things that were not a part of their message for me.”

I wasn’t
sure if this was a test or a trick or even just a request—but I was here, and she was asking. If things went as planned, Priya would be delivering both of us through the gates of Hardwicke. Honesty was a chance I had to take.

“They want you, and they want Priya, and they want me.” That was just the start of their demands. In as few words as possible, I communicated the rest. Daniela listened
in utter silence,
one hand creeping to the small of her back, her eyes sharp as she digested my words.

“May I ask who issued your orders?” Daniela inquired once I’d finished.

I told her about Mrs. Perkins.

I told her about the armed men in the halls.

I showed her the video Mrs. Perkins had sent me. I didn’t watch it. I couldn’t. But even when I turned my head away, I wasn’t able to block out
the sounds. I closed my eyes. I pressed back against the strobe-like images that battered against the halls of my memory.

Help me!

I bowed my head, my arms curving around my torso.

Daniela let the video play to the end. When she looked up, her eyes were dry, but I could see a glint of emotion lurking in their depths.

Guilt? Sorrow? Rage?

“Why you?” Daniela asked me, her voice still even,
still controlled as she paced to the far corner of the room. “Why let
you
go? Why send
you
these videos? Why send
you
here?”

I gave her the only answer I had, the only one I’d been given. “I’m a resourceful girl, related to some very powerful people.”

Daniela looked at me and into me, like I was a clock, and she was a clock maker preparing to take it apart. “You care.”

I do.
For some reason,
I couldn’t admit that out loud.

“Walker cares.” Daniela turned her head to one side, allowing her matted hair to fall into her face. “He’s always cared too much.”

About you
, I thought.
You mean that he cared too much about you.

This was the moment—the one I’d been waiting for, the only one I was going to get.

“I’ll die to protect the people I love,” I said. I let my gaze fall down to her stomach
and let a question form on my lips. “Will you?”

Daniela walked slowly toward me.

“Congressman Wilcox was killed in federal custody,” I told her. “He was a liability.” The terrorist drew herself to a stop directly in front of me. “Are you?” I asked her. “A liability to Senza Nome?”

When the government hands you over, what are the terrorists going to do? To you? To your child?

Do they have your
loyalty?

Do you have theirs?

Those questions never made their way from my mind to my lips.

“A liability?” Daniela repeated after an elongated moment. “To the people you have been dealing with, let us say that I am a
concern
.”

She knows she’s a threat
, I thought.
And she knows what they do to threats.

Once upon a time, Daniela Nicolae might have been a true believer in Senza Nome’s cause.
But right now, in this cell, looking at the possibility of confronting her own people, she was also a mother.

I knew from firsthand experience—from Ivy—what a powerful motivation that could be.

“The message you brought me—‘The dove has always wanted to fly to Madrid.’ It was an order to kill the woman who brought you here.” Daniela Nicolae stood over me. “Priya Bharani. She’s the dove.”

I stood
up, trying to process that statement. “And Madrid?” I asked, my tongue like sandpaper in my mouth.

“I know people,” Daniela replied, “who have been to Madrid. I know what it is they refer to.”

“Murder,” I said.

“Execution,” came the correction. “They don’t just want the dove dead. They want it sudden and public, and they want the blood on my hands.”

Priya had been ordered to give herself up,
to deliver Daniela, to deliver me. She’d known that, in all likelihood, she would be surrendering her life.

“When we make it back to Hardwicke,” I said, trying to process the reality of the situation. “When we go in . . .”

“I’m to make an example of her.”

“With the FBI and SWAT team watching?”

Daniela gave a slight nod.

“Won’t they shoot you?” I asked.

Daniela looked at me with an expression
somewhere between detachment and pity.

That was when I realized: “They won’t shoot you if you have me.”

I could see how this would have played out, if Daniela hadn’t told me the meaning behind the message. I’d have been prepared for an attack, but I wouldn’t have expected it to come from her.

Neither would Priya
, I thought.

The dove has always wanted to fly to Madrid.

“Why tell me this?”
I asked the woman Walker Nolan had loved, the terrorist operative he’d never really known.

“You told me your truth,” Daniela Nicolae replied. “You wanted my trust. You claim that we are family, of sorts.” She
let that sentiment hang in the air a moment longer than the ones that had come before. “My people, the organization I work for—they have been my family. I was taught, from the cradle, to
protect that family.” She laid a hand on her stomach. “I would have died for our cause. But I will not allow my daughter to do the same.”

There was a noise in the hallway—footsteps, then a shout.

“Do you have a plan?” I asked Daniela.

She smiled again, that same subtle, chilling smile. “Do you?”

CHAPTER 60

Two minutes later, the door to the cell opened.

Priya stepped in and shut the door behind her. “We’ve got company,” she said. “Tess, you and I need to get out of here. Now.”

“What kind of company?” I asked.

Priya grabbed my arm, and as she pulled me out of the cell, she met Daniela’s eyes. “You stay here.”

I’d known that it wasn’t my job, or Priya’s, to get Daniela out. But after
the past fifteen minutes—and especially the last two—my gut rebelled against the idea of leaving Daniela behind and
hoping
things went according to plan.

We need Daniela. Without her, we don’t stand a chance.

“Stay behind me,” Priya said softly, as she guided me down the corridor. “And do exactly as I say.”

The two guards who’d been there when we arrived were still just outside the door, but
they’d been joined by a third—and all three were slumped on the floor. Unconscious.

What happened?
I bit back the words, suddenly sure that I didn’t want to risk making any unnecessary noise.

Priya caught the look on my face as she glanced back over her shoulder at the men. The look on
her
face clearly said,
Don’t ask.

We rounded the corner, walking at a brisk pace. We continue at that pace
until a group of men turned the corner at the end of the hall, walking toward us.

Not good.

There were four men. At least three of them were armed.

So not good.

“Head down and keep walking,” Priya murmured. She slowed her pace slightly, and I matched mine to hers.

“You!” I heard a voice say to my left.

Priya tensed, ready to launch herself into action.

“Tess.”

The sound of my name drew
Priya up short, and for the first time, I looked past the guns to the men’s faces. Three of them appeared to be guards of some type. The fourth was the vice president of the United States.

Where’s his Secret Service detail?

“It is Tess, isn’t it?” the vice president said. Beside him, one of the men’s hands hovered over his weapon.

“Yes,” I told the vice president, turning to face him full-on.
“It is.”

“They say you saw my daughter. They say you saw Anna.” The vice president didn’t say a word about my presence here. He didn’t seem capable of registering surprise or suspicion or anything other than a haunting mixture of sorrow and fear. “She’s okay?”

“She was screaming,” I said, unable to keep the memory from coming to life on my tongue. “I saw them knock her unconscious, but they
weren’t trying to hurt her. They needed her intact.”

They need her to get to you.

“They won’t need her much longer,” the vice president said, the words getting caught in his throat.

I realized, then, why he was here.

He turned to Priya. “I never saw you,” he said gruffly.

“Nor we you,” Priya returned. She started walking again at that same brisk pace. After a moment, I followed.

He’s here
for Daniela
, I thought.
The same as us.

The difference was, the vice president—the
acting president
—had the authority to let her go.

Priya and I made it to the surface. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to see Ivy waiting outside. Adam stood slightly behind her.

They were very surprised to see me.

“What—” Ivy started to say, but then she changed her mind. Instead of asking me what I was doing here,
she turned on Priya, the look on her face promising dire consequences.

“She had a message,” Priya told Ivy. “For the prisoner. I assure you—”

“I assure
you
,” Adam countered, stepping forward, “that you do not want to finish that sentence.”

Adam and Ivy hadn’t been happy when Priya had used me to send a message to them. And now that she’d brought me to see a known terrorist? Put me in a room
with that terrorist?

This wasn’t going to be pretty.

“She didn’t have a choice about bringing me,” I said, trying to get Adam and Ivy to focus on me. “Just like I didn’t have a choice about coming.”

They have Vivvie.

I willed Ivy to remember that, willed Adam to ask himself what lengths he and Ivy would have gone to if the terrorists had still held me.

“Get Tess out of here,” Ivy told Adam,
clipping the words.

“Is it done?” I asked, stepping back and away from them before Adam could reach for me. “Daniela? The files? The foreign prisoners?”

Everything else Senza Nome asked for—is it done?

Ivy held up a USB drive. “My files,” she said.

Or at least, the version she was giving Senza Nome.

Ivy inclined her head slightly. “It’s done.”

The door opened behind us. All four of us whirled
in the direction of the sound. Daniela Nicolae stepped out into the evening air, her hands cuffed in front of her body, an armed guard on either side.

“President Nolan will be sworn back in within the hour,” one of the guards told Ivy. “You need to move.”