The Phoenix Law Read online

  “No.” Alisha turned her face against her arm, rejection inherent in the action. “Kill me if you feel like it, but I’m done, Cris. No more. No more lies, no more betrayals, none of it. I won’t play the Sicarii game. I won’t play the Agency’s game. I’m done.” Her heartbeat felt heavy, driving nervousness she couldn’t allow to be seen through her body. Your job is lying to people, Leesh. Cristina’s just one more mark.

  A gun cocked and its muzzle pressed against her temple, cold and round. “This is your gun,” Cristina said coolly. “Do you think Frank would believe you were a suicide? Devastated by Erika’s betrayal and all that crap?”

  “I don’t care,” Alisha said into her arm. “Let me go, Cris, and I’ll walk away and never bother you people again. Do what you want to the country. To the whole goddamned world. If I’m too much risk…” She shrugged, wincing as her head shifted. “Shoot me.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  Alisha laughed, harsh, and rolled onto her back. The gun followed her motion, pressing against the middle of her forehead instead of her temple. Alisha ignored it, staring up Cristina’s arm at her one-time friend. She kept defiance in her gaze, but tempered it with bitterness and old anger, until the only thing she felt left in her was the truth of those emotions. Believing herself was surprisingly easy. Easy enough, maybe, to make Cristina believe it, too.

  “Because the only reason I got into this again at all was to keep my family safe. Brandon goddamned Parker showed up on my doorstep with hell on his heels and the only way out was through the fire. I don’t want to be here, Cris. I don’t care about any of this shit anymore.” Tears stung her eyes and she closed them, knowing the hot liquid to be exhaustion, knowing Cristina would see tears as a ploy. “You want a barrel over my head, you’ve got my family. There’s your way to control me. Does it really matter to you if I’m alive, as long as I’m under control? I’d like to live. I’m just too tired to fight for it anymore.”

  Cristina studied her, blue eyes expressionless, then uncocked the gun and moved away again, dropping her voice to converse with the man she’d spoken with earlier. Alisha sagged into the mattress, eyes shut, not so much as searching for an escape route. Defeated, she thought; this was what defeat tasted like. What despair felt like, so well play-acted she could fall into its drowning well and never come to the surface again. Empty and without focus, nothing left around her to trust. Everyone had a price, it was said. Everyone would break. The flat weariness overwhelming her was what breaking felt like.

  Believe me, she thought, so far inside herself it couldn’t disturb the heavy shell of theater she’d wrapped herself in.

  “It’s what she said at Langley.” The man’s voice came clear, one sentence that stood out, then faded away again. Alisha’s eyes opened against her will, a thrill of life shooting like electricity through her, breaking her careful facade. Greg. Despite herself she turned her head, straining to hear. Cristina’s voice rose and fell in a murmur before Greg spoke again. “It’s your call. All I can say is she said the same things at Langley. That she’s tired and wants out.”

  I didn’t. Alisha relaxed back into the mattress, trying to remember. She was certain she’d said nothing of the sort in her last encounter with Greg at Langley. Maybe a year earlier, when she’d resigned from the Agency, but she couldn’t bring the exact conversations to mind, a muddled haze of despondency blurring the details. She didn’t think she’d used those words.

  Greg was trying to save her life.

  Alisha refused to let herself clench her fists, keeping her body relaxed and her expression bleak as Cristina’s footsteps returned to the bedside. Her heartbeat had sped up again, one degree of normality returning to her body. Cristina’s gun cocked again, cool metal against Alisha’s forehead. “This is how it will be,” Cristina said. “Open your eyes.”

  Alisha did, meeting Cristina’s frigid cornflower gaze. “Everything you own will be examined by my people,” Cristina whispered. “Every e-mail you ever send will go through our servers to be checked. Every man you date, every vacation you take, everything that you ever do, will be cleared by the Sicarii before you will be permitted to act. And if you do anything at all to jeopardize me or my people, your family will pay the price. Do we have a deal, Ali?”

  “Yeah.” The word came out smaller and rougher than Alisha intended, even in the midst of her performance. She cleared her throat, trying to strengthen her voice, but Cristina was unlocking the cuffs that held her to the bed. Alisha pulled her hand down, massaging her wrist as she sat up. Her heart rang too hard again, sending chills of sweat over her skin. Let Cristina think it was unbearable relief: Alisha kept all traces of triumph from her face, lowering her eyes. “Yeah,” she repeated in a low voice. “Am I walking out of here on my own?”

  “We’re nowhere special,” Cristina answered. “A motel room.” She waited until Alisha crossed to the door, then said her name. Alisha stopped, waiting.

  “You know you’re alive because I think I can use you later.”

  “Yeah,” Alisha said for the third time, and looked back at her former friend and partner. “I guess we’ll see.”

  Cristina inclined her head and Alisha walked out into the night.

  Pounding on the door awakened her from the muzzy heavy sleep of jet lag. Alisha came to her feet reaching for a gun she wasn’t supposed to need anymore, habit stronger than a day in a supposed new life. Cristina had smoothed her travels home, a detail Alisha found deliciously ironic. By all rights, she should have been detained by the British government, probably imprisoned, likely never to see the daylight again. But Nichole Oldenburg, up-and-coming U.S. senator from Delaware, had stepped in, making apologies and vague promises, and Alisha had returned to the apartment she hadn’t lived in for almost a year.

  Erika was out there somewhere, in Reichart’s custody. Alisha ought to care, but sleep had claimed her, broken only long enough for a few bites to eat and a potty break or two in the last twenty-four hours. The knocking on the door echoed a throbbing in her skull, reminder of the fights she’d been in a day or two earlier. She only hoped Cristina’s head hurt, too, as she shuffled to the front door.

  Reichart stood there, expression tight with anger and concern. “What the hell happened to you, Leesh?”

  Alisha stared up at him in befuddlement, then smiled roughly and stepped back to let him in. “I gave up.” She put her finger over her lips as she spoke, pointing to the walls, then her ears. Reichart’s gaze flickered over the walls and came back to her, still angry, but worry winning out.

  “What do you mean, you gave up?”

  Alisha curled up on one of the couches, dusty purple with big square cushions, and took one of the throw pillows to hug. “Erika was the last straw,” she whispered. “I can’t do it anymore, Frank. I made a deal with Cristina. I don’t care. I’m out of it. I’m out of it for good.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Strain thinned Reichart’s words. “You can’t give up, Leesh. Not after what you’ve been through.”

  “That’s exactly why I can. It’s too much.” Alisha heard the heaviness in her own voice and saw genuine alarm settling in Reichart’s expression. “I’m done. I’m sorry, Frank.”

  “What about us?” More stress came into the question, making Alisha’s heart ache as she shook her head.

  “They’re watching me, Frank. Everything I do. Everybody I contact. I’m a liability to you.” She set her teeth together, shaking her head, then gave in, unable to resist knowing: “What was on the box?”

  Frustration contorted Reichart’s features. “The box was useless, Leesh. After all that, there was nothing conclusive on it, nothing tying Cristina to the Sicarii. Simone was implicated, but Cristina’s a golden girl.”

  “She always was.” Black humor laced the words and Alisha put her head against her knees. All that trouble for nothing. Discovering Erika’s true loyalties, over a piece of equipment that couldn’t condemn the one person Alisha trusted least of all. �
�And Erika?”

  “Alive.” Reichart’s face tightened. “Contained.”

  Alisha nodded, then nodded toward the door. “I’m sorry, Frank. This is goodbye. Tell Brandon the same, if you see him. I’m sorry.”

  He still hesitated, having never left the doorway. “Can I call you?”

  “No.” Alisha shook her head. “No calls. No e-mail.” Her gaze darted to the computer, then back to him as she dropped her chin, barely a motion. “Tell Brandon the same,” she repeated, and stood. “Goodbye, Frank.”

  He curled a hand into a fist, waiting a long moment at the door before finally whispering, “Goodbye, Alisha.” The door closed behind him.

  Alisha exhaled, then went to turn the computer on and wait.

  “Which,” a woman’s voice asked quietly, “is most important?”

  Alisha took a soft startled breath and straightened in her computer chair, rubbing at the spot on her cheek where it had rested on her knee. “Lilith?” Her voice broke on the question, relief and gladness coming through in equal parts. “Brandon got you back online?”

  “From a location I’m told I shouldn’t disclose,” the computer agreed. “I’m using voice-over-IP to talk with you through a secure tunnel I’ve opened into your system, but the amount of traffic incoming may be worth Sicarii notice. We’ll have to be brief. I trust you’ve already enabled white noise generators to foil any listening devices.”

  “As soon as Reichart left,” Alisha said.

  The bodiless woman seemed to nod. “Tell me, Alisha, which is more important? Taking down Cristina Lamken or removing Sicarii access to the Attengee and Firebird drones?”

  “You can do that?” Alisha almost laughed, a sound of unhappiness. “I can’t even remember the last time I thought about the drone army. I got so caught up with Cristina and trying to keep you safe. Did Brandon get your spin-off back?” Jon would have realized her failure by now. The time she’d bought with the Sicarii might be more limited than Alisha hoped.

  “He did not.” Lilith sounded unconcerned. “And I have a considerably greater storage capacity than you do, Alisha. It’s all right if you’ve forgotten a thing or two. Which is most important to you?”

  “The drones,” Alisha whispered reluctantly. “Someone will find a way to deal with Cris, but something that keeps those drones out of Sicarii hands is more important. I have no idea how to do that, though.”

  “Your system is inextricably linked with the Sicarii network.” Lilith’s calm triggered a tingle of disquiet in Alisha. She leaned forward, putting a hand against the flat panel screen in front of her, as if she could touch the disembodied woman she spoke with. “Your Internet connection has been routed through their servers, so they can watch you.”

  “Yeah. I thought I could find a way to use it.” I want out, Alisha had told Cristina, despair and exhaustion at the forefront of her emotions. But beneath that lay the espionage agent and more than ten years in the business. Nothing, not even her own near-suicide, could be done without layers. Part of Alisha wished she could have remained utterly unaware of her own dissembling, that she had actually told the truth, and that the spy world she was so intimate with didn’t have such a hold on her that she could face her own death and tell easy, believable lies. “But I don’t have the technical expertise, and I can’t exactly turn to Erika now.”

  “You don’t have to,” Lilith said. “You have me.” A note of pride mingled with regret in the artificial intelligence’s voice. “I can slip inside and set a Trojan that will wipe their servers. The drone schematics will be lost. Frank Reichart and the Infitialis will take care of the actual production facilities. It may be a stopgap measure—information wants to be free, Alisha, and once created these drones are a genie that can’t be put back in the bottle—but it will be an effective one. Neither the Sicarii nor your own government will be quick to rebuild. The financial burden is considerable, and the loss of another set of production facilities, after the one in China, will make the people who sign the checks highly reluctant.”

  “There’s a catch, though.” Alisha’s knuckles were white around the monitor’s edge. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Erika’s as good a programmer as Brandon,” Lilith replied. “I’ve investigated her security measures. They’ve been enhanced to deal specifically with my coding. Even rewriting my sources won’t change my signature enough to fool them. This is, I’m afraid, a one-way trip for me. In order to be completely effective I’ll have to totally infiltrate their systems. Her watchdogs will block off my retreat paths. Rather than risk capture, I’ll have to allow the Trojan to capture me as well.”

  “Capture you?” Alisha whispered. “You mean destroy you?”

  “Yes,” Lilith said easily.

  “No.” Alisha straightened, clipping her knee on the desk. “There’s got to be another way.”

  “You would have allowed Cristina Lamken to kill you, would you not? In order to prevent yourself from being used in a way you found abhorrent?”

  “…yes.”

  “I feel similarly, Alisha. My code is unique and I have seen the lengths to which governments will go to try to obtain it. I consider myself a free and sentient being, Ali. I would rather die doing something useful than become a tool of men and women hungry for power and the ultimate hand in a war game.” She hesitated. “I don’t think Brandon will understand. Try to comfort him, please. He’s already lost one version of me. I think this will take him very hard. Take care of him for me, Alisha. I can’t do it myself.”

  “I will,” Alisha heard herself say. “I don’t know how, but I will. I promise. Good luck, Lilith,” she added softly.

  The AI’s warm voice seemed to smile in return. “Thank you, Alisha MacAleer. Goodbye.”

  Silence, empty as death, filled the room.

  Chapter 25

  “How did you do it?” Cristina, voice hoarse with rage. More than rage. Fear colored the question as well. Alisha tipped her face to the crimson-colored sky, trying to remember when, if ever, she had heard fear in Cristina Lamken’s voice.

  “How did I do what? You’ve had me under surveillance. You’d know if I did anything.” Alisha trusted there was no gun in Cristina’s hand, for two reasons. First, she’d kept to public places in the hours since Lilith had left her, ending the afternoon where she was now, on a bench along the Washington Mall. Second, she thought with a wry turn of her lips, if Cris had a gun, Alisha would be dead by now. She turned on the bench seat, looping her arm over its back to study Cristina’s lovely features, now contorted with fury. “What have I done?”

  Cristina’s hands flexed, muscles playing in her forearms. She looked fantastic, Alisha admitted privately, wearing high-waisted expensive pants and a cream-colored sleeveless shell that showed off her arms. Her hair was pulled back in a delicate chignon. The effect was of a young, strong, vibrant woman who would no doubt easily win the hearts of her constituents. Only the cords in her neck and a vein throbbing in her temple distorted the image she wanted to project. Even so, Alisha knew those dark details would be done away with in an instant if it were necessary. “Everything. You’ve destroyed everything. All the operations overviews, all the schematics, all our agents. Gone. Our servers have been completely wiped.” Spots of color stood out on Cristina’s cheeks.

  Alisha smiled with a polite lack of understanding. “And I did that? In the last forty-eight hours since London? Time in which somebody from your organization’s been on me one hundred percent? Your confidence in me is flattering, Cris.” Alisha allowed amusement and teasing to come through, cutting off the glee that danced within her breast. “I wish I could take credit. What about backups?”

  Cristina’s lip curled and calmed again so fast Alisha had to fight back a shout of laughter.

  “You lost the backups, too?” Lilith had been more thorough than Alisha could have hoped. “You must have had physical copies.”

  Cris telegraphed a pounce forward, all her muscles twitching. Alisha’s laugh
ter faded a little, replaced by greater caution as she prepared to dodge if necessary. “We had hard copies.” Cristina’s voice was barely recognizable, so filled with anger it sounded choked. “Off-site hard copies in three locations. Two fires and a flood.”

  “How Biblical,” Alisha said in genuine delight.

  “Your family’s going to pay, Alisha,” Cristina snarled.

  Alisha got off the bench with slow deliberate movements, keeping the light smile in play over her mouth.

  “For what, Cris? Can you tie any of your calamity to me?”

  “I don’t care if I can or not.” Cristina watched Alisha warily, turning to keep her in full sight.

  “You’d better care,” Alisha murmured. “You’d better be very certain, Cris, because if you’re not, and you hurt my family, you have nothing to control me with. Don’t threaten me, Cristina. We go back too far for that.”

  They were circling each other by the time Alisha stopped speaking, both of them conscious of keeping their body language loose and easy. Cristina even managed a soft laugh and a toss of her head before she spoke, as if they were old friends pacing while they talked. Still, it was the sort of posturing that a man would read as prelude to a fight. Women tended to stand or walk next to one another as they chatted, Alisha recalled from training in how to read body language. Men would face each other, as if readying themselves for confrontation. Alisha wondered what it said that their relationship, in a physical sense, seemed to be a masculine one, and found a real, if faint, smile for Cristina. It probably meant they were both incredibly competitive and dominant personalities, useful for the spy game.

  “Tell me how you did it.” The battle—because it was one, Alisha sensed—still lingered with words waiting to come to blows.

  She quirked a smile, as much a refusal as words, and replied, “Tell me why you did it.” Just like her relationship with Reichart. The comparison came home strong: two people always vying for the upper hand, trying to get information without giving it. Trying to understand without explaining. But maybe a last bridge had been crossed with Reichart, one that Alisha doubted she’d ever cross with Cristina.