The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) (24 page)

She tilted her head back for a moment, then looked at him, and gave him a rueful smile. “I’ve always believed in the law, Bartholomew. I’ve never understood that vigilante feeling.”

“Until now,” he said.

She nodded. “It’s all I can do to restrain them.”

“I know,” he said.

“And don’t give me that old saw about hurting the Peyti clones makes us as bad as them.”

He held up a hand, palm out. “I wasn’t planning to. You know my history.”

“I do,” she said. “That’s why I figured you’d understand. And, no offense, I figure if you are appalled at the fact that the division wants to go after the clones in a legal but inappropriate manner, then I should be appalled.”

“You should be appalled that you’re using me as your moral compass,” he said.

This time, her smile was real. “You have to listen to people who’ve already thought the tough stuff through,” she said. Then her smile faded. “It’s not going to be easy, corralling the interrogators.”

“I know,” he said. “But we’ll figure out a way.”

“I’d rather figure out how to get those damn clones to talk,” she said.

“Me, too,” he said, wondering if he could find something, anything, to get one of them to speak. “Me, too.”

TWENTY-NINE

THE ELEVATOR DOORS opened, and Flint stepped onto the top floor of the United Domes of the Moon Security Building. He extended his hand so that Talia would join him, and so that the elevator door would remain open until she did so.

She looked at him from the back of the elevator, arms wrapped around her stomach as if it hurt. He’d already asked her if it did, and she had said no. She had eaten the lunch he picked up along the way, so he was less concerned about her physical well-being than her emotional one.

The closer the two of them got to this building, the more she shrank into herself. Just once, she’d asked to go home. He didn’t want her there without him.

Yes, he was being overprotective, but he didn’t know what else to do.

And, if he were honest with himself, he was terrified to leave her alone—not just for what she might do to herself, but because she had nearly died the last time he had.

And if he expanded that self-honesty even more, he had to admit that he was as much of a mess as she was. He had just learned over the years how to keep moving in the face of overwhelming emotion.

She raised her head, giving him what he would once have called “a teenage look,” sullen anger mixed complete contempt. She stared at his hand as if it offended her, then stood up and stalked out of the elevator as if coming here had been her idea.

The hallways here were active—people going in all directions, holding tablets and looking busy.

He rounded the corner and stopped at Rudra Popova’s desk. She had gone through a lot since losing her lover on Anniversary Day, but she was working her way through it—or she had been until the Peyti Crisis.

He had no idea how she’d been afterwards, since he hadn’t come up here at all since finding Talia.

Popova pushed her long black hair away from her face, her dark eyes glinting. She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise.

“Miles Flint,” she said. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Apparently, DeRicci hadn’t told her that he was coming.

Talia hovered just behind him. Popova leaned sideways and grinned. “Hey, Talia.”

Talia nodded, but didn’t say anything.

Popova’s expressive eyebrows went from mock surprise to a very real frown. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Talia said curtly. At least she hadn’t snapped,
Why does everyone ask me that?
like she had a few days ago.

Popova’s gaze met Flint’s, and he could read her questions. He didn’t have answers.

“Noelle is expecting me,” he said.

“Us,” Talia said.

Flint didn’t correct her. He knew how vivid her imagination could be. He figured it was better for her to hear his fears and know that the team was expecting something bigger than it was for her to make up things on her own.

He would also have supported her keeping her head down and remaining quiet if that was what she needed.

“I know,” Popova said. “I had to clear a bunch of very busy people out of her office.”

During the actual Peyti Crisis, a large part of the security staff was working in DeRicci’s gigantic office, partly under the direction of Flint. Then he had realized that Talia was in danger and he had just left.

Apparently, the workstations had remained in the office.

“Thanks,” he said to Popova and pushed open the double doors leading into the impressive space.

The view upon entry always took his breath away. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the entire city. The view also worried him: someone could take out DeRicci with just a little effort. He had insisted on reinforced material for the windows. After Anniversary Day, he also insisted that she either rent or confiscate the nearby places where a sniper could target her.

The airspace at this level was restricted as well. No aircars, no drones, no flying aliens, nothing except the protections she had put into place.

That still wouldn’t stop a truly determined assassin, but it did take care of the obvious problems.

Talia followed him inside and closed the doors.

Workstations, computers, chairs, tables, all crowded into the vast expanse of floor. Plants—real ones that someone else maintained (because DeRicci just wasn’t good at it)—furniture groupings and decorative tables lined the walls, pushed out of the way over a week ago, and never brought back.

DeRicci stood as he entered. She looked thinner and older than she had, or maybe he was just noticing the toll this crisis was taking on everyone.

“Miles,” she said, and he thought he heard relief in her voice. Had she felt abandoned? Probably. But she was too classy to say anything about it.

She knew his first priority was—and would remain—Talia.

“You found something?” DeRicci asked.

“Actually, it wasn’t me,” Flint said as he walked deeper into the office. His usual path was blocked by a chair pulled out from a desk. He slid the chair back in place. “It was Luc Deshin.”

DeRicci’s lips thinned. She hated that Flint was working with Deshin.

“We’ve always known this thing was big, Noelle, but he figured out something that makes sense to me.” Flint then proceeded to explain the cost of these operations. He added in the timelines, and how long it would have taken to plan everything.

Even Talia paid attention as he spoke. He almost wished she weren’t, that she was ready to leave or had left in disgust, because he was going to have to ask DeRicci something about clones that he really didn’t want Talia to contemplate.

Still, maybe this would galvanize Talia, bring her back from whatever dark place she had crawled into.

As he spoke, DeRicci rounded her desk and then leaned on it. She looked exhausted, more exhausted than he had ever seen her, and this information didn’t seem to be helping.

“What are they trying to do?” she asked. “And who are they?”

“That’s the hard question, isn’t it?” Flint said. “Deshin believes they’re not an individual.”

He glanced at Talia. She was sitting on the chair he had moved, hands gripping the arms like it was holding her up.

“He thinks we’re at war,” Flint said.

“Well, clearly—”

“No, Noelle,” he said gently. “Not clearly. This is some kind of planned attack that Deshin believes, and I concur, did not have a criminal motive. It has a political one.”

DeRicci frowned.

“They want to get rid of the Moon?” Talia asked.

“That’s what we were acting on,” DeRicci said, looking at Talia. “Because we were uniting the domes on the Moon, we thought that someone didn’t want us to unify the place. All of the attacks have been focused here.”

“Right next to Earth,” Flint said quietly. “Earth is impossible to get to, very well defended, and quite unified.”

“But the Moon isn’t any of those things,” DeRicci said, “and it really wasn’t like that decades ago or whenever they started planning this.”

“They,” Talia snapped. “How can anyone fight an unknown
they
?”

“We can’t,” Flint said. “We’re trying to find them.”

Talia shook her head, as if she didn’t believe it.

“Here’s what we’re thinking,” Flint said. “Imagine if the first attack had worked.”

“I have,” DeRicci said. “Every night when I close my eyes. And it didn’t exactly fail, Miles. We lost millions.”

“I know.” Even talking about Anniversary Day had become a difficult thing, fraught with emotion for everyone involved. “Imagine how many we would have lost if all twenty domes collapsed.”

“Then there would have been no reason for the Peyti Crisis,” Talia said. She sounded even grumpier than she had before. “I think your criminal friend is wrong, Dad.”

“Oh, but there would have,” Flint said. “I bet, if we check, all of those lawyers were off-Moon or out of the domes during Anniversary Day.”

DeRicci leaned backwards on her hands, her eyes narrowed. “We can find that out.”

“Do,” Flint said. “It’ll help.”

“So what?” Talia asked.

“The Peyti clones were all high-end lawyers who had been on the Moon for years. They often represented law firms that had clients in government and major Moon-based corporations,” Flint said.

DeRicci tapped a finger against her lips. She had started to do that recently when she was thinking.

“They would have been right in the middle of rebuilding plans,” she said.

“You’re assuming the Alliance would rebuild,” Talia said.

“They’d be in talks to rebuild,” Flint said. “This is the entrance to Earth. The Alliance needs the port, and it needs Armstrong. The other domes matter less to the Alliance, but they have developed an economic base that makes the Moon what it is. The lawyers would have been helping figure out ways to revive the Moon—or they would have been seeming to.”

“And then they would have killed everyone with an interest in rebuilding the Moon,” DeRicci said. “Six months after the Moon is devastated, it gets devastated again.”

“More than that,” Flint said. “Officials who would help with the rebuilding, from Alliance officials to corporate heads, would be in those meetings. The Peyti lawyers would have been very important to the rebuild, as survivors who knew what was going on before the domes collapsed.”

“Survivors,” DeRicci repeated. Her gaze skittered away, but not before Flint saw bleakness in it. In reality, she was the only major survivor of the United Domes of the Moon’s young government. She knew exactly what he was talking about.

“Survivors,” Talia said, and for a moment, Flint thought she was agreeing with DeRicci. But Talia’s face had gone blank, her eyes fixed.

Flint was beginning to recognize the look. She wasn’t in the room at all.

“Talia,” he said, and put his hand gently on her shoulder.

She started, then looked up at him, her eyes filling with tears. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and raced out of the room.

Normally, he would have gone after her. But he knew she couldn’t leave the building without him. And he needed to stay here until this conversation was done.

“What was that?” DeRicci asked him.

“I’m beginning to think the Peyti Crisis was some kind of last straw for her,” he said. “I don’t know what to do about it.”

“You have been asking her to handle a huge emotional load,” DeRicci said.

Flint almost denied it, but stopped himself. DeRicci was right; he had asked a lot of Talia. “I know,” he said gently.

“She’s not you, Miles,” DeRicci said.

“Or you, Noelle.”

DeRicci’s smile was sad. “Sometimes you put the emotions away until you have time for them, and hope they respect that distance.”

He nodded. He knew that. He glanced at the door. Part of him was very relieved that Talia had left.

“These masterminds had a two-pronged attack,” he said, deliberately changing the subject. He would deal with Talia when he left. “Destroy the domes, destroy the people who try to rebuild. The fact that the domes didn’t get completely destroyed, and the Earth Alliance wasn’t involved in the rebuilding, didn’t stop the plan, because I believe that the plan was put in motion decades ago.”

“And you think there’s more,” DeRicci said. “What else could they do to the Moon?”

“I don’t think this about the Moon,” he said. “This is about the Alliance.”

“You think or Deshin thinks?” she asked.

“We both think. But I want to hedge my bets. Just in case I’m wrong, just in case
we’re
wrong. If we are, then we should be able to find another group of clones on the Moon, waiting to release some other kind of attack.”

DeRicci closed her eyes. She seemed to gather herself. Then she opened her eyes slowly. “You’re assuming that they’re here now. The Frémont clones weren’t. You theorize that the Peyti clones would have been off-Moon if the plan went differently. What makes you think the other clones are here now?”