A Maze of Glass, Chapter Twenty, Pt. 2
In the small cabin built above the Malleus safehouse, Omar and Zoe sat in fold-out chairs at a fold-out table and Leo leaned against the kitchen counter, fingers steepled in front of his lips. After a prolonged, serious silence, he lowered his hands. “You’ve killed five operatives.”
“Four,” Zoe corrected.
“Plus the man in the basement,” Leo replied.
“He can still be processed.”
“By who?”
Zoe stared at her empty plate, not wanting to look at either of her companions.
Leo sighed. “The police are out in force. There’s CCTV footage of you—blurry, but existent. Our Conceal and Coverage department won’t even touch it. Touching it would be the same as admitting our involvement to the Consortium, which, needless to say, we cannot do.”
Zoe nodded.
“With everything that’s happened…on paper, we’ve scuttled your insertion op into the Winters team. You’ll be expected to extract within forty-eight hours.”
“I can’t leave her.”
Leo folded his hands in his lap. He considered his shoes and sighed again. “Unfortunately, I don’t believe we have much of a choice.”
“I can’t,” she peered over at him. “I—”
“Promised?” Leo wondered. “Maybe you did. Even so, with real police looking for an armed woman who murdered four Jane and John Does, and with the Consortium searching for someone to blame, someone to punish, it would be suicidal to continue.”
A steaming pause followed. Omar glanced at her in his periphery, a look that meant stop. She worked her jaw. “They killed a child. They’ve killed two children.”
“What happened was tragic, we can all admit that, but they didn’t kill—”
“They did!”
“From an evidential perspective, they didn’t.”
“We know better.”
“They couldn’t have known that the girl would’ve been in the same car,” Leo said. “They couldn’t have even known that the accident would be fatal.”
“Bullshit.”
“Even if they were good enough practitioners to make it likely to be fatal—”
“They wanted him dead and he died! And Altan, and Clarissa, all of them!” she stood with her shout. “And I…”
“Wanted the same experience for them?”
She glowered. “I’m getting her out of there.”
“Even if you succeed, Malleus can’t help you. You’ve lost all coverage—if Jill escapes, now, there won’t be any doubt as to who ran the operation to rescue her. Even if Winters-Armitage was cooperating with us, I doubt we could hide you. Or that the Board would want to.”
Zoe blinked, losing heat. She sank back down in her seat.
(the only way Leo’s cover story works is if you fail)
Leo stepped away from the countertop and straightened up. “I’m sorry, Zoe. I really am. Even after Jill defected to Winters, I still…” he searched for whatever combination of words he needed but couldn’t find them. He trailed off, glanced at the floor, and continued. “I wish this could’ve ended another way.”
“It still could. We have a plan.”
Leo looked at her piteously. It hurt more than the earlier anger or detached pseudo-sadness. “If you’re caught—when you’re caught, either by agents of the Consortium or by proper police—the Belgian will have you black-bagged. The Board doesn’t want to start a war, so they won’t protect you.”
“A war between two organizations of our size could be a threat to Secrecy,” Zoe said, a surge of idea energy thrumming through her. “You could use that argument to back the Belgian down.”
Leo stared, still piteous.
Zoe deflated, realizing. “But nobody wages real war, anymore. It’ll be guerrilla and hidden, secret assassinations and dozens of covens working on hexes and luck magic, curses and psychic invasions, unsolved mysteries and invisible vectors of attack.”
“Stock market movements, too,” Leo added. “Financial pressures, corporate espionage, a search for evidence that our manufacturing or training contracts with the DoD are for some reason void—or worse, evidence that we’re not upholding our end.”
“‘O brave new world,’” Zoe muttered.
“I’m sorry,” Leo repeated. “And while I know it’s not much consolation, I can at least guarantee the lives of Jill and her…”
“Remaining children,” Zoe said.
Leo nodded.
Omar leaned forward, shaking his head. Leo took a breath and stepped toward the door.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this. We’ll expect to see both of you in forty-eight hours. Until then…until then remember that our work, to the best of our abilities, is aimed toward ensuring that one day we will all live in a safer and more just world.”
“When?” Zoe asked. “When do we get that world?”
“I wish I had an answer to give you,” Leo replied.
And then he left.
For a long time she and Omar just sat there. They moved—fidgeted, really—but didn’t speak. Their eyes wandered near each other but never to each other. Eventually, chest tight and hollow, burdened by too much silence and thought, Zoe stood up.
“You know,” Omar said, “there are only five people in that house, now.”
Zoe turned toward him. “You’re—you’re serious?”
“I didn’t come all this way to leave.”
“Last night you said—”
“Yeah, ‘cause you snapped and fucking killed four people.”
Zoe winced.
“I’ve been in this shit for ten years and I’ve only ever had to kill six people. Even that, even that—Jesus. I never thought. But…” he didn’t look at her, he looked straight ahead, breathing against something inside of him he didn’t want to come out. One last long inhalation seemed to settle him. “But your sister shouldn’t run out of options just because of what you did.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yeah, I don’t. But I don’t have to stand by and watch, either.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, yet. If shit goes wrong, you’re still taking the heat.”
Zoe nodded. “Of course.”
Omar stood, finally making eye contact. “You were right.”
“About?”
“The floor and the walls and the ceiling. The dead ends. The maze where the light has to hit things just right for any of it to make sense. And we’re running, now. We’re being chased. I just hope this fuck-up doesn’t shred us.”
Turn Back
...coming soon...
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