Jake didn’t know what to say.
“How’s that Diet Coke looking to you now, Mr. Carter?” the man asked, nodding toward a kid tipping up a plastic bottle and downing the last of the black liquid inside.
“If you can force POTUS’s hand, you have real power. These people have real power—beyond lobbyists and interest groups. They have the power to create political movements and get the very people they’re subjugating to do their dirty work. Look at the Tea Party, a supposed grassroots movement of passionate, well-meaning people who think they are fighting elite power, fighting for the change they were promised by Obama that they are so sure he failed to deliver. But it’s not grassroots. There is no mass mobilization, it’s all about the money behind it, and the irony that they are being stirred into action by the very interests they believe they are confronting. That so-called movement was established and guided with the help of money from billionaires and big business. They lavish money on advocacy groups that are instrumental in turning politicians away from environmental laws, social spending, taxing the rich, and distributing wealth. The only freedom they want is for corporations to trample the poor into the dirt while they profit. If there’s a way to do this without getting your own hands dirty, leaving no trace you’ve been there even in this digital age, then that is the perfect storm . . . So now you know.”
“Why? Why, if they’ve already got this kind of power, why would they risk everything by moving now? By doing this?”
“Much wants more, Mr. Carter, and ever it was thus. There is no loyalty, there is only the bottom line, and here we are talking in the billions, the greatest robbery ever known to man, unseen, unremarked on, but quite remarkable.”
“That can’t be enough. It just can’t . . . People are dying out here. It’s the end of the world as we know it and they’re looking to make a fast buck? I’m not buying it. Not when they already have the kind of influence it takes to bend a president to their will. It’s just . . . these are real people we’re talking about, not just numbers on a balance sheet.”
“It matters not. You are thinking like . . . well, like part of society. A man on the inside. These people are on the outside. Think of the world as a snow globe. No matter how much you shake it up, the flakes always fall. The chaos can be pretty for a while, but in the end you are always left with order. The chaos will return the next time someone shakes the globe, but eventually life will return to what it was. A certain type of people exploit the chaos so they have more control during the order.”
“Okay, I get that, but it doesn’t explain how they could know about the polar shift, what was going to happen, and prepare to exploit it like this.”
“On the contrary, it absolutely explains it. Everything is for sale, even when you are facing an extinction event.”
With that, the three of them simply turned and walked away without another word, which in the grand scheme of things was profoundly creepy. Jake’s mind was reeling. He realized he’d have been happier if it had been terrorists. He knew how to fight al-Qaeda. How did you go toe-to-toe with the 1 Percent? Because that was what he was being asked to do, wasn’t he? You couldn’t fight that kind of power. It just wasn’t possible.
He missed yesterday when things had been simple and all he’d been worried about was pulling a double shift.
He watched them go.
There was no point in running after them. He’d entered a world of poison pills secreted in porcelain teeth. They wouldn’t give up any answers they weren’t absolutely prepared to. The only thing he could do was see what little gift they’d left him on top of the trash can.
It was a business card.
Jake picked it up. It was made of good thick card stock, smooth rather than rough, and a gleaming, pristine white. One side was blank, although Jake detected irregularities in the surface as his finger ran over it. Some kind of textured embossing? He held it to the light. There was no indication of any hidden message within. On the other side was an address handwritten in pen. It was up near 91st Street, on the West Side of Manhattan.
He had no idea how the fuck he was supposed to slay a dragon, but he was pretty sure he’d just been handed the address to its den.
And he knew their name now—even if it sounded like something you’d more likely call a super-villain than a sect trying to bring down civilization—which was more than he’d known an hour ago.
He couldn’t decide if he was more screwed because he was going face-to-face with the dragon or because he was the bait.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“MIND IF I JOIN YOU?”
Sophie pocketed her phone. She had no idea if the call would make a difference. A lot depended on Jake Carter. She was banking on him being the same guy he’d been back then in the once-upon-a-time part of the fairy tale. Because the Jake she knew would make a difference.
She started to push back her chair to stand when she realized there was a woman looking expectantly at the empty chair across from her. She blocked Sophie’s path to the door.
“No need, it’s all yours, I’m done,” Sophie replied, then saw the small circular gold pin on the woman’s expensively tailored lapel. The symbol was unmistakable, hiding who she was—what she was a part of—in plain sight.
That pin changed everything.
Sophie scanned the room, trying to locate her backup. There was no way one of the top brass would come out alone. Sophie couldn’t see anyone, which was so much worse than knowing exactly where the crosshairs were pointing at her from.
She turned her attention to the woman in front of her. She was tall, almost six feet, giving her a real reach advantage if it came down to an old-fashioned fistfight. Her deportment was good, straight back, well balanced. She had the quiet confidence of someone who knew they could handle themselves if things turned nasty. Her hands were empty, but her jacket had large pockets that could have hidden an arsenal. Her eyes were so dark there was no distinction between pupil and iris, just deep black wells. They were cold, careful, cautious, and completely unconcerned.
They were the eyes of a killer.
“Xbalanque,” she said, putting two and two together. They’d lost faith with Cabrakan after the stock exchange debacle. She was looking at the cavalry.
“Sit down, please. Let’s try to be civil about this, we’re both women of the world.” The woman inclined her head toward the seat Sophie had just vacated. “This doesn’t have to get ugly. I’ve heard so much about you, Sophie. You’re something of a legend from where I’m standing. I hope you’ll do me the honor of breaking bread before we end this?”
Sophie didn’t have a lot of choice. With no idea where the assassin’s backup was, the odds of her making it out of the coffee shop alive diminished rapidly. She could turn it into a combat zone, create enough confusion to disappear, but the tables were too close together, and in the last couple of minutes too many people had clustered around the screen watching the news bulletin. There was no easy way out of the front door.
Of course, she could always pull a Han Solo and shoot first. It seriously crossed her mind. Her pistol was in her coat’s front pocket. She wouldn’t try to draw it, just shoot through the lining. It would save a couple of seconds, but if Xbalanque was as good as her reputation, those couple of seconds might just make all the difference.
She nodded, trying to appear gracious, and sat.
Xbalanque joined her at the table, and to the rest of the world they looked like old friends catching up.
Sophie felt like she was looking in a mirror—not one that reflected the outside appearance, one that went beyond looks and reflected the inner you. Mannerisms, training, instinct, and the deeper, darker parts of her soul. This woman was her ten years ago. Fiercely loyal to The Hidden, just as she’d been, eager to prove herself to her paymasters, just as Sophie had been, willing to do anything to advance herself within the cause, exactly as Sophie had been right up until she hadn’t been. No doubt Xbalanque had her own line. Would she lose her soul and cross it?
“So,” Sophie said after a few seconds of silence had stretched between them, “we’re sitting, there’s no bread. Tell me, all bullshit aside, what are you hoping to get out of this?”
“I’m here to offer you an olive branch, Sophie. I’ve been asked to bring you back into the fold. I’d like to make that happen. I really would, but my orders were ambiguous.”
“Of course they were. It’s called plausible deniability. You’ll get used to it.”
The assassin’s lips curled into a hungry smile. “No one said you needed to be breathing when I brought you home.”
“I should be flattered, I suppose.”
“I would be.”
“You know what they’re doing, don’t you? They must have told you,” she tried reason, testing just how much of the woman’s soul was intact. She had to. She needed to give the girl a chance to do the right thing. “You know how many people it’ll hurt. You know the kind of suffering we’re talking here. It’s inhuman. We can’t let that happen—we can’t just sit by and watch this city, every city, burn while they adjust it.”
“You’ve mistaken me for someone who gives a shit . . . This isn’t my problem,” the other woman replied. “I’ve got a job to do.”
“No. If you’re the new me, you’re better than that. I am. I have a brain. I know how to think. I know when something is fundamentally evil.”
“You’re broken. That’s why I’m here.”
Sophie shook her head, doing her best to keep her voice level. “This is blind obedience you’re offering them, the callous disregard for anything and everything, it’s got a name. It’s not a pretty name. There’s nothing noble about it. It’s nihilism. The love of nothing and the desire to return to that nothing. Do you recognize that? Do you think you can absolve yourself of any guilt by saying you’re following orders? If you do genuinely believe that, let me be the first to disabuse you of that notion, you know, being as how I was you before you were. You make a conscious decision every time you accept a job. You make a conscious decision every time you pull the trigger.”
The other woman sighed. “Fine. I make a choice. Are you happy now?” She waved over one of the staff and ordered a hot tea, then glanced at Sophie. “What can I get you?”
“Nothing else for me, thanks.” Sophie wasn’t comfortable with the whole old-friends routine. But a cup of steaming hot tea in her replacement’s face could prove decisive. “Actually, make mine a chai, thanks.”
The waitress nodded and left them to it.
“So, you’re here to kill me?” It came out a little more brazenly than she’d intended, but Sophie felt like laying down a gauntlet. She’d always had a problem with people telling her how something was going to happen. No respect for authority, as the old school reports used to say. She just felt the need to prove them wrong.
Xbalanque simply nodded. “You’re not walking out of here, Sophie. It ends here. You know that. Don’t make it any more unpleasant than it needs to be. Death comes to us all. Today I’m better than you. Tomorrow it could be my turn. That’s just the circle of life.” She reached into her coat.
Sophie tensed, expecting a gun, wondering when the damned waitress would return with her hot chai. But it wasn’t a gun; the woman pulled out a silver hip flask. It had The Hidden’s mark lightly embossed across it, just shallow enough that you might not notice the markings in dim light.
“Think of it as kindness. I’m letting you decide how this ends.” She set the flask down on the table between them. “The flask represents a choice. You like choices, right? So, you can either take the easy way”—she tapped the flask—“or, to use a terrible cliché, the hard way.” Again she smiled, and it felt real.
“Don’t tell me—you’d recommend the easy way?”
“Oh, fuck no, I want you to go for it,” she grinned. “I want you to try to live, it’s so much more fun that way. There’s no enjoyment in it if you just sip from the poisoned chalice, now, is there?”
The flask no doubt held vodka or whiskey, laced with a fast-acting, relatively painless poison. She’d used similar herself. It didn’t leave any clear trace evidence behind for the autopsy, its effects mirroring the natural causes of a violent heart attack.
“Ah, the arrogance of youth. I remember that.”
“You sound like an old woman.”
“In this life, I am. You’ll come to understand that if you’re lucky. I’m surprised though, I expected them to want me to suffer for turning against them.” She was stalling for time, waiting for that damned chai to arrive.
“Oh, they do want you to suffer,” Xbalanque answered sweetly. “Mr. Alom gave me explicit instructions to hurt you as much as possible before the end. I’m the one making you the offer. Call it a professional courtesy.”
Sophie studied the flask carefully, then slowly reached out for it.
“You know . . . I didn’t think you’d do it,” Xbalanque said, almost disappointed, as Sophie unscrewed the silver cap.
She raised the flask to her lips as if to toast her companion and, when the other woman’s posture relaxed, drank deep but didn’t swallow. She spat the laced vodka into Xbalanque’s eyes.
The woman was on her feet in a heartbeat. She shoved her chair back, its legs scraping loudly on the café’s tiled floor as she roared at Sophie. Her face contorted in pain and she tipped the table up, sending Sophie’s empty cup crashing to the floor. The bite of the poison had already turned the soft skin around her eyes an angry red as it burrowed into her system, absorbed by her skin. “You absolute fucking
bitch
!”
Sophie didn’t waste time on words. She tried to push her way past the screaming woman, when a shadow crossed her path. Before she could react she felt a sharp stinging pain in the side of her neck.
“Well that was an anticlimax,” the other woman said, the needle in her hand disappearing back into her coat pocket. Her eyes burned red as if she’d been crying. “You couldn’t just give up, could you? You had to go and make a mess. I don’t know if I even have the strength to clean it up. But who cares? People will remember our little dance, and I’m not even sure it matters if they recognize your face when they see it on the news later.” She touched her cheek. “I don’t even know if I’ll be around to take the shit for screwing up. So much for trying to be nice.”