The Rogue Retrieval (16 page)

“I find it useful sometimes.” She turned back to him. “What can you do?” she asked.

“Nothing so grand as that, I'm afraid,” Quinn said. He gestured to the stone beside her, and raised his eyebrows in question.

She nodded; he sat down. Not too close, but not far away, either. He produced his deck of cards and began shuffling one-­handed. She watched the cards move as well as any mark back in Vegas.

He held the deck out to her. “Pick a card, any card.”

She touched a card in the middle, thought better of it, and took one from the very edge. A choice that hinted at suspicion, though her face was hard to read.

“Memorize it, and then put it back in my hand,” Quinn said. He held out the fan of cards toward her, and looked the other way. He felt her slide the card back in. Right away he began shuffling, with both hands this time, riffling and churning the cards for show. Dealers in Vegas learned this on their first day; shuffling cards the way most ­people did it would have them worn out in half an hour in a real casino.

The wind picked up suddenly and nearly blew them out of his hands. Jillaine had her little smile again, and he couldn't help but think she might have had something to do with it. He spread the cards in a line on the stone between them, just enough that the symbols showed.

“Do you see your card?” he asked.

She scanned the deck carefully, giving away nothing. She looked back at him before answering. Smart. “Yes.”

“Good.” He swept up the cards again, shuffling efficiently this time. Riffle, cut, riffle. Then he made another spread. “How about now?”

She looked again. It took longer this time, because her card wasn't there. “No. It's gone,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

Her mouth opened a little. She was surprised he'd questioned her. “I'm sure.”

“Maybe the wind took it,” Quinn said. He began searching the area where they were sitting. Jillaine hadn't moved; she was watching him.

He came up empty, of course. “What about under your boot?” he asked.

Her boots were ankle-­high, cut in some kind of soft leather. Maybe suede. She lifted the one closest to him, and there it was. A single red-­backed card, facedown on the ground beneath her. She gasped in a soft, girlie way. Adorable. She snatched it up.

“Is that your card?” Quinn asked. It would be, of course. She'd picked the queen of hearts.

“No,” she said.

“It's
not
?”

She handed it over. It was a queen, all right, but green instead of red, and the hearts had been changed to something else. It took him a second to recognize them. Candles. Oh, she thought she was so clever. But it wasn't the first time a mark had tried switching a card on him. He had another queen of hearts at the ready. He made the switch and held it up for her to see.

“I think this
is
your card,” he said.

She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Still wrong.”

He flipped it over; now
this
card had candles on it. “Hey!”

She laughed then, a soft and delicate laugh. He laughed, too.

“How long have you been on the island?” he asked.

She groaned. “Too long. My father rarely lets me leave.”

Ah, yes, a father. She'd have one around, and he'd probably keep a tight watch on her. “He's a magician, too, I take it,” Quinn said.

“Of the most boring kind. He's been here, like, forever.”

“What does he do?”

She shrugged and looked back out across the water. “Something or other for the council.”

Oh, no. Please, no.
“What's his name?” Quinn asked. Hoping desperately he didn't already know the answer.

“Moric.”

Of course it was.

 

“Alissians might not recognize a thoroughbred, but they know a good horse when they see one.”

—­
R
.
H
OLT,
“O
VE
RVIEW OF
A
LISSIAN
H
USBANDRY
”

CHAPTER 14

PESTS

L
ogan made the rendezvous just in time. Kiara and Chaudri had arrived earlier and erased all signs of their presence from the abandoned farmstead. They'd bought about a week's worth of provisions, mostly in the form of local nuts, figs, and cured meat.

“We had to wait in line to get it, no matter the price,” Kiara said.

“Too many ­people, not enough food,” Chaudri said. “Even with Dr. Holt's intervention, things will be difficult here for some time.”

“That reminds me,” Logan said. “Briannah said someone tried to steal the horses.”

“Did they get anything?”

“Don't think so. Lem and the boys were all over them.”

“When this is over, we should have another look at the security at Briannah's inn.”

“It's not as bad as it sounds. And we can trust them.”

“I suppose the food is decent,” Kiara said.

“Decent?”

Chaudri leaned over. “You smell just like her kitchen. She was cooking, wasn't she?”

Logan shrugged. “I have great timing.”

“Did you bring me some?”

“Ooh, sorry,” Logan said. “Not like I had any Tupperware.” Yet another item on the company's doesn't-­go-­through list.

Chaudri's face fell.

Logan handed her a bundle wrapped in wax paper. “Brought you some of her honey rolls, though.”

“Oh, Logan! You're a knight of honor,” Chaudri said. She was all grins, which was fitting. Briannah's baking was the only thing equal to her cooking.

Kiara and Logan wandered over to where the horses were hobbled. “I assume that's to keep her busy while we drug the animals?” she asked quietly.

“Not sure she'd be thrilled about it. You know how she is with the horses.”

Logan dug into his saddlebags and came up with a sealed leather pouch. The tech team had crafted it to look like the kit of an Alissian surgeon. The vials inside held a proprietary solution derived from South American tree frogs. The natural substance was called dermorphin, and often used to dope racehorses. The company's synthetic isoform was more potent, though, and longer-­lasting. They'd even gone so far as to match doses to each animal based on gender, weight, and genetics.

Logan read the reminder label inside the kit. “ ‘Emergency Use Only.' ”

“This qualifies,” Kiara said.

The horses didn't protest the needle prick like Logan feared. He supposed that as company investments, they saw regular blood draws, antibiotics, and supplements to keep them in pristine health. And they came from good stock, too, which couldn't hurt.

They mounted. Chaudri took the reins of the packhorse, and Logan handled Bradley's mare. He gave the isotope scanner a quick glance. Nothing was on the scope but the three of them. Holt had defeated the system somehow—­Logan forgot to ask him about that—­and Bradley was still MIA.

Great: all this tech, and it's useless when we need it.

It's one of the reasons they'd brought Bradley in the first place, and now he was lost. Logan had left instructions with Briannah in case the magician wandered back that way. He hoped to hell that he would.

But he wasn't holding his breath.

D
rugged-­up horses made incredible time.

A week of hard riding put them in north Valteron, approaching the border. Kiara set an aggressive pace; they stopped only to feed and water their mounts. The animals didn't seem to tire, thanks to the frog juice, but they still had to refuel. Logan, as the heaviest member of the party by half, had alternated riding his own mount and Bradley's mare to spare the animals.

The fact was, though, that the ride was harder on Logan, Kiara, and Chaudri than it was on the horses. Too bad CASE Global didn't have a serum for its soldiers as well. The company had one in the works, of course, but it wasn't yet ready for prime time. Which was a shame, because they could have used it. He was exhausted, and even the lieutenant looked a little worn.

Not that she'd ever admit it.

What surprised him was that even though Chaudri was dragging, she voiced no complaint, either. She'd been uncharacteristically quiet since encountering her former mentor. She'd been more awed than indignant during their encounter, which was intriguing. Logan would have thought she'd be the angriest of all of them.

Word of Holt's ascendancy must have spread quickly, because most of the ­people on the road were heading south. The majority of them were walking and not riding, though they passed the rare wooden cart with two wheels and a mule.

Hard to tell what nationality they were, but they were refugees for certain. It showed in the possessions strapped on their backs, the dirt and road grime that coated all of them. A lot of groups of women and children. Must have left their men behind, when the fighting started. Now they were headed back to reunite. Or to bury them.

They came to a shallow creek that crossed the road, and stopped to water the horses.

“What's the status of Bravo Team?” Logan asked. It was easier to talk when they weren't riding; the timbered north of Valteron often had them riding single file. He knew she'd been in touch with Command, but nothing had merited an update so far.

“They're making slow progress. Felara just had a snowstorm, one of the worst we've ever seen. The snowdrifts are chest-­deep in some places.”

Logan had out his lightweight parchmap of Alissia. A hell of a lot of work had gone into these. There was no satellite coverage here, no long-­range aircraft. Once upon a time, charting the main Alissian continent ranked among the most dangerous jobs in Project Gateway. He didn't miss it. Sudden winter storms in the north, when the temperature dropped forty degrees and the sky dropped four feet of snow. Caralissian sinkholes. Packs of wild dogs that would kill your horse right under you.

Bravo Team had played a part in that. Logan had trained every single one of them. They were solid guys. Tough. Whether or not the company had decided to send another Vegas magician to accompany them wasn't clear, but he doubted it. A hostile party slipping through the gate merited only one kind of response.

“Any word on the infiltrators? Who they are, what they're doing?” Logan asked.

“Two to seven individuals, based on the tracks. As for who they are, I have my suspicions.”

Logan chewed his lip. A few organizations had the resources to raid the island compound and breach the security protocols CASE Global had in place. Most were governments, and that made them more likely to try a soft approach first. Legal actions, casual blockades, inquiries from state departments. A raid was far more direct, but riskier, too. It had to be someone with a lot to gain from CASE Global, and that meant only one thing.

“Raptor Tech,” Logan said.

Sabotage, espionage, stock manipulation . . . nothing was out of bounds for them. If anything, he wished CASE Global would hit back harder sometimes.

“I had the same thought,” Kiara said.

“Did they do a head count at the company?”

“Right away,” Kiara said. “Everyone's accounted for, except for a janitor with limited access.”

“I don't think a janitor managed to evade Bravo Team for this long,” Logan said.

“He might have been taken, or bought off,” Kiara said.

Logan guessed they'd find him stuffed in a closet. Or several closets.

“I'll keep an eye out for anyone in blue coveralls,” Chaudri offered.

O
ver the next week, they continued to push the horses hard. They crossed into the city-­state of Tion, a marshy and sparsely populated kingdom between Valteron and New Kestani. They'd avoided this trek by catching a ship from Bayport while heading south, and with good reason. In every bit of Tion that he'd scouted, the ground was a constant form of muck and the air smelled like stagnant water. You wouldn't want to mention that to the Tioni, though. They didn't seem to notice the smell, and took offense if an outsider brought it up. Bugs were bad here, too; biting flies of the dime-­sized variety swarmed their horses whenever they slowed.

Kiara's communicator-­bracelet made a coughing noise. Urgent message. She looked at it, and her brow furrowed. “Video coming in from Command,” she said.

Logan fell back beside her. The video was footage from external security cameras at the island facility. A shadow swept across the frame. Airborne, triangular, and moving incredibly fast. Then it stopped in midair and just hovered there.

“It's jamming the island radar systems,” Kiara said. “Broadcasting a high-­band signal at the facility, too.”

“You were right about Raptor Tech,” Logan said. “But that's a bird I've never seen before.” Not a surveillance-­only model, either. It had the bulky shape of a weaponized aircraft. Just looking at it had him reaching for his holster.

“Recommendation?” Kiara asked.

They must want her to give an order.
Logan might be in charge of mission security, but Kiara was the top dog for the gateway island. The tough calls always came to her, no matter where she was.

Logan weighed the options. They could ignore the drone, or track it without opening any gun ports. With a bird like that, though, it was better to hit first, and hit hard. “Show them our teeth,” he said.

Kiara tapped in a brief message. Logan recognized the code.
Weapons free.

The island was equipped with a new generation of antiaircraft weaponry in the form of the Russian-­made S-­400 Triumf system. The launcher held thirty-­two long-­range surface-­to-­air missiles controlled by a mobile command center. The panoramic radar system was almost impossible to jam. Even by a next-­gen military drone. The missiles were accurate enough to take out ICBMs, according to the Russians. Entire battalions of these systems ringed Moscow, so they had to put some stock into it. It helped that the crewmen who ran the S-­400 had actually trained there.

“They're locked on. Fifteen seconds,” Kiara said. Two contrails appeared, streaking toward the drone. The first closed within a hundred yards. Couldn't miss . . .

Then the drone flipped over and dropped, like a swooping bird of prey.

“Son of a bitch!” Logan said. He'd never seen a drone move like that.

The missile shot past it and crashed into the cliffs behind. The second one, three seconds behind it, missed the cliffs and circled around. Good. It was hard to see what happened as it came back, but it ignored the drone entirely. Came right at the camera. Logan sucked in a breath. Then a flash and the video feed became a snowstorm.

They stared in silence for a long, uncomfortable minute.

“I'll be damned,” Logan said. “Rerouted the damn missile.”

The communicator beeped, and Kiara exhaled. “They're all right. Asking for suggestions.”

“They might try something low-­tech. Anyone there have a deer rifle?”

“I'm sure they can drum that up.”

“It'd help if we had the specs on that bird.”

Kiara frowned. “We can reach out to our contacts on the Senate Arms Committee, but that'll take time.”

“There are less official ways to try to get them,” Logan said.

“I wish we had you there.”

“Then we'd better get going.”

They pressed the horses farther; they were holding up well. Bravo Team sent an update. The infiltrators, whoever they were, had acquired horses. Certainly not the stock that Bravo Team had—­more thoroughbreds from the island stables—­but enough to make it a chase. They'd changed directions, too, and turned east toward Landor.

“It's odd that they'd set a new heading,” Logan said. “How are they even getting their bearings here?”

“You can ask that when we intercept them.”

“We'll need a new route to head them off,” he said.

“What do you think about cutting back over to New Kestani?” Kiara asked.

“The border could slow us down. Especially with Holt's little warnings.”

Chaudri cleared her throat. “What about going through Caralis?”

Logan mulled it over, trying to ignore the darkness he felt when he heard that name. “Longer ride that way.”

“But the terrain is virtually flat. We'd make good time.”

“They have a local militia,” Kiara said. “We've had a few run-­ins with them.” Which was putting it lightly.

Chaudri waved it off. She didn't know about Logan's failed mission there. “They're in harvest season. They'll be busy. If you want to get north fast, that's the way to go.”

Kiara looked at Logan expectantly.

I swore I'd never go back there.
But duty called. He took a breath and gave her the nod.

“Caralis it is,” Kiara said.