Free Fall

“No. I’m not.” It sounded priggish, but it was also the truth. “I don’t wake up and stare at the ceiling, or listen to the clock tick. I go to bed, and I sleep through the night, now.”

And with that small white lie, he walked away, hoping that what he had said had been enough to seed doubt, that even if she would not question her loyalties, she would not turn around and betray him.

He didn’t look back, but he felt her staring at him.

Three hours later, sitting in an office in another part of town, surrounded by exotic woods carved into seductive and somewhat disturbing forms, his cell phone rang.

“I’m sorry, if you’ll excuse me for a moment?” he asked the man he was speaking with. Taking the nod as permission, Sergei walked a few steps away and flipped open the phone. “Didier.”

“Maxwell’s Tea House. 4:00 p.m.”

The connection broke off, and Sergei pocketed his phone with a thoughtful frown. He hadn’t recognized the voice, or the number on the display. Not that those facts alone meant anything, good or ill. His phone number got around, and he had been sowing the ground pretty intensely over the past few months since the fiasco downtown. But he would have been slightly more comfortable if he knew which tug on what rope had produced that invitation.

Maxwell’s was, if he remembered correctly, not particularly in one group’s territory or another, and he had never met anyone there before. In fact, the only reason he knew about it at all was that Shig, the Japanese Fatae friend of P.B.’s, had mentioned it as having a particularly authentic tea ceremony. And that it was a good place to hold delicate discussions.

So it could be an honest meet. Or a setup. Or both.

It could be anything. So why did he feel a nervous chill in his bones?

Because he knew too well what all the players were capable of. And he had no backup.

“I’m sorry.” He went back to the man he had been speaking with, who was waiting patiently. “I’m afraid I am a man in demand, today.” The other man, an art dealer from New Zealand, accepted the comment as it was offered, with a smile, and they continued their negotiations.

Even in wartime, business continued.

five

The building that housed the Silence elite was a discreet brick structure on a street of similarly discreet structures, all dating back to when the island was known as New Amsterdam, not Manhattan. The original Board had met here, at the turn of the previous century, laying the groundwork for what would become the multinational, multimillion-dollar foundation known as the Silence, and some said that their ghosts still lingered in the hallways and boardrooms, watching and judging what their heirs did with their inheritance.

For all that history, the building was completely nondescript the way only the very wealthy and the very confident can afford to be. To walk down this street, under trees almost as old as the buildings, it would be difficult to guess who lived and worked here. The only identifying marks on the rows of buildings appeared on small plaques with the years of their founding engraved on it, and a well-placed buzzer to call for admittance.

The Silence’s building, number 27, did not have even that. You either knew, or you walked on by without a second thought. It wasn’t magic that kept them unnoticed, but practical camouflage. This building is exactly like all the others. This is not the building you thought that you were looking for.

And if it was the building you thought you were looking for? The Silence had security for that, some nonlethal, some very lethal, and all perfectly legal.

But some unwanted visitors were more persistent than others. And they didn’t need to ring the buzzer to gain entry.

“Seven,” Christina was saying. When she had first joined the Silence as an Operative they had called her Tina. By the time she made Handler two years later, she was Christina. To most of the rank and file, she was now ma’am. “Seven times our security has been compromised.” She didn’t mention how many attempts had been made that failed, and nobody asked. A failed attempt was part and parcel of the job, and not worthy of comment.

The man at the head of the table nodded thoughtfully. “Seven attributed to the same source?”

“At least four of the seven, likely closer to six.” It was probably all seven, but she could not confirm that.

“Has there been any actual penetration?”

“No, sir. Each time we were able to reroute our protections and deny entrance.” If it had been otherwise, heads would already have rolled. “But they are learning our patterns, and there is only so far we are able to alter them without compromising ourselves in the effort.”

Andre Felhim listened, not to what Christina was saying—he already knew, having used his still not inconsiderable resources within the organization to get his hands on and read the report before it went to Duncan. He listened now to what was being said by the rest of the people in the room: not voices, but bodies. Too many people were surprised by the fact that there had been any incursions on their security system; that news should have spread within three hours of the first attack. The Silence’s main currency had always been information, both within and without, and the more you held the more power you had.

At this level, in this room, new information should have been blood in the water, and yet there had been no frenzy, no desire to know, to acquire the details, and dig—or, if you had enough status, have someone else dig—for more.

Some might say that was the sign of a well-trained team, focused on their task.

Duncan did not have a team. He had a cadre. Zealots. True Believers, who saw no need to know anything beyond what the Man Himself needed them to know to accomplish their goals.

Andre had seen terrible things in his thirty-plus years with the Silence. He had done terrible things, and allowed terrible things be done to others, all the while believing in their call to arms: to defend the innocent and the unknowing against the things in the world that would prey upon them. He believed, wholeheartedly, in the mission.

The people in this room terrified him.

“How long will it take to implement and install a new system to underlay the original?” Duncan asked as though he expected the answer to be “it was done yesterday.”

Christina hesitated, and looked to her left, where her group members sat. “We should have the underlay in place within four days. It has yet to be tested, however.”

The room went still.

Duncan considered the words, and Andre considered Duncan, carefully, observing their leader no more and no less obviously than anyone else in the room. His lean and angular form, draped in a suit of very expensive, quietly classic cut and fabric, gave nothing away. Duncan was a natural mute when it came to body language. It was part of what made him so dangerous.

“You can test it without disrupting the original security?” he asked Christina after due consideration, just long enough to make her sweat.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then get it in place and run the tests.” He dismissed her almost casually, to imply his greatest faith in her ability to perform perfectly, and she fell back into her seat with the expression of a woman who had been kissed by the gods. That was the other part of what made Duncan a real and present danger: charisma. “What’s next?”

“Sir.” A solidly built Asian man stood, formally waiting to be recognized. “If I may?”

“Please.” Their leader oozed both charisma, and a disarming grace of manners. Duncan had not gained any of his power by being rude, even the politely confrontational manner of the new speaker’s posture did not trigger anything but graciousness in him.

“This intrusion, it is the work of these so-called Talent?”

There was a burst of nervous laughter, quickly stifled, from someone sitting in the row of straight-backed chairs lining the far wall of the conference room. A junior, someone’s assistant, who would catch hell later for that.

Duncan almost reacted, leaning forward to deliver a rebuke. “There is no so-called about it, Reese. They are quite definitely talented, and should not be underestimated. I believe that the events of last January should have brought that home to everyone in this room?”

There were nods around the room. Not that any of them had been there; shock troops had died on the Bridge, not these privileged officers. None of them had been on the front lines…none of them save Andre, and Duncan himself.

And Duncan’s hand-picked lieutenants, including Poul Jorgunmunder, who had once been Andre’s own protégé/right-hand man.

Poul was no longer with them, dead at Andre’s own hand. Dead, after he had first killed one of their own, his former teammate Bren, Andre’s left-hand woman and trusted aide d’office.

It had been a bad day at the bridge, that cold winter morning. Bad all around.

Andre wondered briefly what cold hell Poul was populating now, and then gave his attention back to Reese, who was still speaking.

“Sir, why have we not struck back at them? We know where they are, we know who they are. What is to stop us from simply making them…”

“Disappear?” Duncan asked, his voice dangerously soft and inviting.

“Sir. Yes, sir.” Reese was cautious, but he did not back down.