Page 76 of Agent Zero
“I know.”
There was nothing to say to that, so he just pulled her forward, let her find the ladder rungs.“You go up first.”
“In case I fall?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll catch me?”
“I’ll do my best.Or I’ll fall with you.”
“Oh.”Slight sounds—the tips of her boots scraping, hitching against a rung broader and better anchored than the ones at the other end.She said nothing else, and the tang of iron determination to her marvelous, still-intensifying scent reached in and yanked on something in his gut.
And a little lower, too.Holly was outright goddamn amazing.
Reese shook his head, waited for her to get a little farther up, and began climbing.
* * *
The rest platform at the top wasn’t big enough for both of them, but he braced one foot on the wall behind him across the tunnel and had a tricky few moments feeling around for the release switch, Holly trapped between him and sheer rock with her feet firmly planted on the iron strip.The close quarters might even have added something if she hadn’t been trembling, her breath shorter and shorter and her pulse spiking.
The dark didn’t sit well with her.Either that, or reaction to the last few hours was setting in.Could be both.“It’s all right,” he breathed in her ear.“In a little while we’ll be safe and warmed up, and this will be just a memory.”
His fingers found the plastic cover; he flipped it up and keyed in the code by feel.If that didn’t work there was the killswitch, but luck was with him and there was a low hum.A creaking, and he braced himself a little more tightly before lifting his hands to the wheel overhead.No ice, because the exit was just below ground level and incrementally warmed by the same geothermals as the cabin, so he only had to swear once to get the entire thing moving.A thin crack of daylight appeared, and Holly’s sobbing breath of relief made something in him relax a bit.
“Upsy-daisy, sweetheart.”
He watched her scrambling up into the dim glow, and when she finally cleared the entrance he followed.It was, he thought, pretty goddamn symbolic.If there was any light to head for, she was the only one who knew where it resided.
All he could do was stagger after her.
Their exit looked like a manhole cover in the floor of a shack of a shed that was nevertheless nicely weatherproofed on the inside.A dusty window, one pane rubbed clean, let in pale tree-filtered sunlight through festoons of cobweb.
Wait, a clean pane?That was wrong.
He cleared the entrance and hopped sideways, but not fast enough.A pop, a spear of ice buried in his left glute.
Holly stood with her back to the wall—staring, dead white, hair mussed, and beautiful.He opened his mouth to tell her to run, but whatever was loaded in the tranquilizer dart was potent enough to knock out an agent, and he fell sideways into darkness still trying to say her name.
FORTY-EIGHT
He’d leftorders for Three to wake him up, but it was his phone that did the service instead, buzzing and blurring in his pocket so hard Bronson thought there was a tiny animal coming after his family jewels.He jolted out of dreaming, overworked heart thundering, and for a sleep-fogged second he was back at Shah-i-Kot again, dust in his hair and the stench of gunfire, blood, offal, more dust kicked up by explosives...
Goddammit.She was supposed to wake me up.The phone glowed, spectral in the dimness—a buzz from Control, probably asking for updates.
Well, the old man could wait.Bronson was the boots on the ground, and Control had to expect he sometimes didn’t have time for little chats.
The worn leather couch he’d been napping on creaked as he hauled himself up.What I wouldn’t give for a nip of bourbon right now.Washing his face with cold water, swiping his graying hair back, not looking in the mirror any more than he could help it.The bloodshot eyes, the indifferent skin—once he’d been handsome, but not anymore.Bronson shambled back to the desk, pressed the call button to summon Three and yawned as he rubbed at his eyes again.
A few minutes later, irritated, he shrugged into his suit jacket, slid the phone into his breast pocket, and strode for the soundproofed door.He unlocked with a muttered curse and threw it open, intending to bellow for Three.
Instead, he was greeted with the sight of Noah Caldwell, grinning like a maniac and just lifting his hand to knock.The major was in fatigues, and he positively reeked of cold, fresh air, and gasoline.His baby blues sparkled, and behind him stood Three, a high blush in her cheeks from the cold, shouldering a rifle Bronson most definitely hadn’t cleared.
“What the hell is this?”Bronson snapped.
“We got ’em!”Caldwell all but clapped his hands like a three-year-old.“I had Three here calculate routes and vectors.We locked on and spooked them, then drove ’em into nets.We’ve got them all—Six, and Eight, and the woman.She’s a damn Gemina.Control will be?—”
“You took Three off the rez.”You little prick.“Do you know what Control’s going to do to you when he finds out?”
