Your Planet or Mine? (26 page)

The REEF poked his rifle at her. “I am giving you a head start, woman. But you’re still here. Are you going to leave, or will I have to give Far Star an extra little something to get you moving?”

The last thing she wanted was for Cavin to be debilitated at the moment of facing his mortal enemy. She looped the strap of her attaché over her head and shoulder and kicked off her remaining shoe as she moved away, slowly at first, making sure to hold the assassin’s slightly amused gaze. She couldn’t escape to the stairwell, because it would swing the REEF’s attention directly to Cavin. Her only option was to run in the opposite direction. But it would bring her to a dead end. She winced. Bad choice of words.

Dead end or not, she wasn’t leading the REEF to his target. She had to trust that Cavin, an experienced soldier, knew what to do.

One…two…three. She dived into a full run. The floor was like ice under her panty hose. Her back crawled as she imagined the REEF’s rifle aimed between her shoulder blades. If he wanted her, he had her.

In fact, when the firing started, she was sure the shots were meant for her. But somehow, she was still on her feet.

The blasts deafened her. Bursts of white-green light lit up the entire area. It was loud, painfully so, cracks of thunder like when lightning hit too close during a storm.

She skidded to a stop and spun around in time to catch Cavin pumping one shot after another into the REEF. The man wore armor under his street clothes—clothing that was shredding before her eyes under the barrage from Cavin’s gun.

B
OOM
,
BOOM
,
BOOM
. Cavin fired nonstop. The REEF’s armor sparked and sizzled. Without having fired a shot, the assassin slid to the floor and landed in a sitting position with his long legs sprawled out in front of him. The rifles fell from his hands, clattered to the floor. His chin sagged to his chest.

Cavin turned to Jana, took a step toward her as if he meant to run to her, but his body jerked backward, a hand going to his head. His neck corded. He grimaced and fell to his knees, hunched over and convulsing. He dropped his pistol. It bubbled and melted into a foul-smelling metallic puddle.

“Cavin!” she cried.

The assassin gave Cavin another mental push. Cavin’s body went rigid, his back arching, as if he’d been shot through with a bolt of electricity.

The half-conscious REEF wasn’t even touching him, but he was doing something to Cavin, to his internal computers, destroying him from the inside as he’d promised.

Nausea and utter terror rose like bile in her throat. She swung her head around, searching for a weapon. She needed to kill the REEF before he killed Cavin. A discarded rifle sat near the wall. She dived for it, grabbed it with one hand. The REEF turned slitted eyes to her and clamped his hand around her wrist so she couldn’t aim. His body sputtered in and out of view, like a picture on an old TV. And then he was gone.

She felt his hand release her, felt his fingers slip away. “Where did he go? Where did he go?” She danced in a circle, searching high and low. The body was gone, but, luckily, his weapons remained behind.

The guard fell down from the ceiling. He hit hard, rolled onto his side. “Are you okay?” Jana yelled.

“Yeah. Fine.” He got up stiffly.

Jana fell to Cavin’s side. He was still conscious, but barely. The arm with his gauntlet seemed to be paralyzed as it hung at his side. She helped him to a kneeling position.

He looked terrible, pale and in pain. Yet, he ran questioning blunt fingers over her bruised jaw. She winced at that gentlest of touches, and murder flashed in his eyes. As debilitated as he was, he looked as though he wanted to hunt down the REEF and finish the fight.

“No, Cavin. He’s gone. Let him go.” She grabbed the material at his collar and forced him to look at her. “Listen to me. He did something to you—to your internal computers. It’s what’s making you sick. He said he can kill you without even touching you, but that he’d rather do it in person. If you go looking for him, he’ll finish it. He’ll finish you.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Swallowed a lump in her throat. “He can make it worse, he said. He can make it so bad that you’ll beg him to kill you.”

“The only one begging for death will be him if I ever find his neck in my hands,” Cavin growled. He tried to struggle to his feet, but she stopped him.

“You have bigger things to conquer than him. You came here to save the world, not to fight that monster. Do you hear me? Save the world. Save me!” She gave him a hard kiss so full of desperation and passion that in seconds she’d dragged his focus from the assassin back to her.

They separated, panting, crouching there, forehead to forehead. She heard the CHP officer calling for reinforcements. “Are you going to be able to walk?”

“I don’t know,” Cavin said. “I’ll try. My balance, it’s not the best. And I’ve lost vision in my left eye.”

She steadied his head with her hands pressed to the sides of his cool, damp face. “We’re in this together, remember? Stick with me, and I’ll get you out of here. You have some world-saving to do.”

“Damn right,” he said. Jana tugged on his good arm with every ounce of strength that she had and helped him stand. When they were sure he’d stay upright, she snatched her attaché off the floor and held on to his arm to guide him. The police officer supported his other arm. Cavin seemed all at once embarrassed by the need for help and frustrated by his failing body.

They clambered down the stairs. The thundering of boots from below warned of guards on the way up. “Got a DOA in the elevator, and a perp…hell, the perp’s gone. Six-two. Caucasian, black, blue.”

“Gun run?”

“No, man. He, ah, disappeared. I mean, literally. And he…” He struggled to come up with words to explain what the REEF had done to him and gave up. “Weird shit going on.”

Two of the police ran the rest of the way up the stairs. The third stopped at the sight of Cavin, who was in obvious physical pain. “He needs a doctor.”

“I’m bringing him to one,” Jana lied. No doctor could fix what Cavin had. The only place she was bringing him was out of this building.

Back in the parking garage, she told the officer who’d helped her get Cavin into the car, “The guy in the elevator attacked me before you got upstairs.” If her heart pounded any harder, it was going to register on the Richter scale. “But he tried to kill me. This was an attack I believe is related to an ongoing investigation into a huge smuggling and poaching ring. If they came after me, likely they’ll launch similar attacks on the other officials involved. Have someone call Katherine Garner, chief of Fish and Game special ops. Right now. We need to make sure every warden on the team is checked in and safe. Hell, make sure Katherine is checked in and safe.”

He answered with a curt nod. “After you get him some medical help, go down to the station, Senator. File a report.”

Mess around with paperwork at a time like this? Not in this lifetime, she thought.

The officer brought his radio to his mouth to pass along Jana’s warning.

She started the Jeep, the old-fashioned way. Jamming her bare foot on the accelerator, Jana jerked the wheel around. Skidding, she fishtailed out of the parking garage and roared up the dark street.

“What is this about another attack on you, Jana?”

“Someone tried to stab me in the elevator.”

“Not the REEF?”

“No. In fact, he probably saved my life. I was set up. There never was going to be a meeting with the governor. Someone posing as his secretary sent a memo to my staff to lure me here, alone. I never questioned it. I got careless, because I was expecting the meeting.” She’d made the phone call to Willa in a very public place. Anyone could have overheard—and passed along the information to whoever wanted her dead.

Who had ordered her execution? She started to shake, post-traumatic stress, as she mentally reviewed the week’s disastrous events: the Russian photographer at the fish farm who she’d now bet had supplied photos to the
Sun;
the canceled meeting so she’d have to have lunch at Ice and be set up with more photos; the attempted ruin of her father to make her family look bad; and finally the break-in at her apartment and Evie’s car blowing up, both of which she’d blamed on Cavin’s would-be killer when it was now obvious she had an assassin of her very own. His-and-her executioners—she and Cavin were truly the couple with everything.

Within minutes, she was on the highway. “How did the REEF figure out who I was, Cavin? I thought we were careful.”

“We were. However, the newspapers weren’t. The guards offered me a paper to read. I saw an old issue side by side with the most recent. I saw your shoes, Jana.”

“My shoes?”

“One photo shows your shoes as evidence where we abandoned the first car that night. Another photo shows you making the speech at the fish farm…wearing those very shoes. To a careful observer, the pictures connect you to me. The REEF is a careful observer. I knew then it would only be a matter of time before he found you.”

“He sure didn’t waste any—time, that is. But he let me live. He’d already let me go when you got there.”

“For the sport of the hunt.”

She pressed a fist to her stomach so she didn’t get sick.

More police cars zoomed past. Before long, the entire Sacramento Police Department would be at the capitol. But she and Cavin would be long gone by then. They were about to disappear. And they weren’t surfacing until they’d saved the world.

O
NCE IN
N
EVADA
, Jana merged onto Highway 95 and headed south. “We’re five hours from Las Vegas. We’ll be there by midday. General ‘Baloney’ Mahoney might not want to return our phone calls, but it’s going to be harder turning away an alien at his doorstep.”

They stopped once, at a truck stop as the sun rose over the bleak landscape of the high desert. Cavin looped an arm protectively over her shoulders. He was in his socks, having given his boots to her. Jana shivered in her thin business suit. The day would be warm, but for now, the air hung on to the chill of the night. “It’s not the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from here. That’s what Grandpa would say if he were with us.”

That won her a smile from Cavin, and she thanked the heavens for it. He was getting worse, not better. His face was pale, and he was sweating. His suffering tore her apart. She tried not to think of what the REEF had told her.
Days, Jana Jasper…you’ll be back looking for me in mere days…

For Cavin, they bought a large foam container of chicken noodle soup and a quart of milk. For her, a quilted camouflage hunting jacket and lined boots, an extra large coffee and a box of doughnuts. There were newspapers from five major cities to choose from and they brought them all back to the Jeep.

Slugging down some coffee, she chanced a peek at the first newspaper. “StarWars In Sacramento. Elevator Operator Left For Dead. Capitol In Disarray After Playgirl Senator Flees Crime Scene With Alien Lover.” She drank more coffee, wishing it were tequila. Reading the headlines felt surreal. She couldn’t have made up with better ones if she’d tried. “‘Damage Estimates To California Capitol Soar, Governor Says, After Police Wage Late-Night Gun Battle With Aliens. Jaspers Mum As Officials Find Strange Vessel Covered By Tarp In Backyard Midnight Raid.’ And check out this one—Healed By Alien. Homeless Vet Claims Miracle.”

She put the papers on the seat between them. “So now you’re a religious figure.”

Cavin made a sound of disbelief. “Better a religious figure than a monster.”

True. Thanks to the REEF floating the police officer like a party balloon, at least they didn’t have to worry about convincing the world of the existence of aliens. If only it was as easy convincing the government to give them access to the ship at Area 51. “The men in black are going to be all over this, Cavin.”

“If that’s what it takes to get us into Dreamland, we’ll take it.”

“As long as the men in black don’t take you.” She started up the Jeep and rolled back onto the highway. Gauntlet engine starts were too taxing for Cavin now, and she refused to let him do it. His voice was hoarser, his accent stronger. He had sight in only one eye, and the full use of only one arm. He was deteriorating before her eyes. What if he didn’t make it to the ship? “Maybe we should find a doctor, Cavin.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

He answered with a stubborn glare. But as he turned his focus back to the road ahead, he said, “There is an option, should my condition worsen.”

“What kind of option are we talking about? I’m not putting you down like a sick dog, so forget it.”

“Do you remember our discussion about my gauntlet?”

“That it’s the command center for the rest of your biocomputer systems—yes.”

“I believe the REEF’s interference is targeting the gauntlet. The bad signals start there and spread from there. But if I take out the implant, no more problems.”

“You mean, like…cut it out?”

He turned his arm over and made a slicing motion with his index finger. “I’d cut along the seam, here, peel back the flap of skin and lift it out.”

“Ugh.” Jana fought to hold down the contents of her stomach. She blew air into her cheeks and held it there until her stomach settled. She couldn’t argue his logic. It was the method she couldn’t handle. She wasn’t anything like that tough chick Sarah Connor in the
Terminator
movie, praised by the hero for her natural ability for patching gunshot wounds with a homemade field dressing. No, Jana was perfectly capable of fainting at the sight of a box of unopened Band-Aids.

Her cell phone rang. She’d never been so grateful for a cell phone call changing the topic of conversation.

Jared was on the phone. “How are you holding up in that transport?” she asked him. “Bored out of your skull yet?”

“If the adrenaline stops pumping, which I doubt, I’ve got caffeine as a backup. And my iPod and cell if it comes to that. But trust me, Jana, at this point the adrenaline rush is more than adequate to keep my eyes open—that and Evie’s cooking. She just brought out breakfast. And I’ve got an update for you, so listen up.”

Jana put the cell phone on speaker. “Go ahead. We can both hear now.”

“No word from the general yet, but I thought you’d rest easier knowing that your wannabe killers are in jail. They busted up that smuggling ring last night. They made the decision to move in after you were attacked.”

Katherine, Jana thought. Fish and Game’s chief of special ops had acted fast.

“They rounded up over twenty men and women. And Alex. He gave a whopper of a confession, too, after they found messages from him to your almost-killer on the guy’s cell phone.”

“Alex,” she hissed.

“Apparently his smuggling ring brought in a majority of the illegally obtained caviar from Russia. But you kept foiling his plans to boost dependence on illegal importation, because everything you did increased the local domestic sturgeon population. And all those fish farms opening up, it was going to ruin him. So he put a contract out on you.”

With a shudder, she thought of Evie’s car and wondered if the bomb had detonated too early or too late. “There’s big money where the Mafia’s involved. It can change people. Turn them into killers.” How else could she rationalize that she’d almost dated the man?

“For what it’s worth, Alex tried
not
to kill you. He meant to get rid of you by ruining you.”

Or by sleeping with her, thinking he could neutralize her through a relationship. It was all making sense now. “So he went after you and Dad, our entire family. He wanted to make the Jaspers look bad so he could make me look bad.” She suspected the charges against her father and brother would be dropped Monday.
If
the world was still around Monday. She chanced an apprehensive glance at the sky.