Marque of Caine Page 5

  Connor’s eyes told Riordan that his son had read his thoughts—right before the young, tanned arms reached out to rest on Caine’s shoulders. Connor squeezed them tightly for a long moment, then shook them. “Damn it, Dad. You make me crazy.”

  “That’s part of my job as a parent. If I read the manual correctly.”

  Trevor was staring back at the receding plumes. “That’s a lot of smoke, even for a C-8 charge.”

  Riordan nodded. “The drone must have triggered its self-destruct device. Almost got me, too.” He ran his hand along several gashes on his left calf and ankle.

  Gray Rinehart studied them sagely. “From spalled rock?”

  “Yep. Chips came flying up that old fumarole pretty hard.”

  Rinehart shrugged, unconcerned. “If there’s anything that needs to be removed, it shouldn’t be too deep. But we’ll need to clean you up, first.”

  Connor smiled. “Yeah, Dad, you look like you were rolling in the mud.”

  Riordan smiled back. “That’s because I was.”

  Trevor scanned Caine from head to toe. “Old expedient against IR and thermal imaging.” He nodded approvingly. “Limited effectiveness, but better than nothing.”

  Caine returned the nod absently, leaned back into the seat, finally felt his body begin to relax, worried it might start shaking, instead. He concentrated on external sensations: the sun, the sky, the breeze. “I just wish I had some ideas about who’s behind this attack and why.”

  Rinehart looked at Trevor. “We might be able to shed some light on that.”

  Trevor nodded. “There are two possible reasons, and they might be linked. First, this month’s message from Bannor raised a flag.”

  Connor was looking from face to face. “Bannor? The Green Beret who worked for Dad?”

  Caine smiled softly. “I wouldn’t put it quite that way, son. Let’s say I enjoyed the benefit of his advice because I had the dubious benefit of rank.”

  Trevor let out a long-suffering sigh. “Okay, okay: even I won’t give you grief about your rank anymore. It may have been a political assignment, but in the end, you earned it. And then some. And yes, Connor, Bannor Rulaine was your dad’s XO on several operations.”

  “And now Bannor’s in trouble?”

  Trevor seemed uncertain how to respond. Caine stepped in. “He and the rest of my team couldn’t risk returning after our last mission. They, and the humans we found stranded on Turkh’saar, were both politically hot.”

  Connor frowned. “How hot?”

  “Nuclear. The odds were good that the people we rescued would ‘disappear,’ and that my team would wind up in secure facilities for years. Or longer. So they all went into hiding.”

  “While you risked a firing squad by coming back?”

  “Connor, things were never going to come to that.”

  Trevor looked away. Gray Rinehart stared at Caine from under silvery brows.

  Riordan ignored their dubiety. “Anyhow, it seems that Bannor’s most recent status report indicates—but only to Trevor and me—that they are all in imminent danger of being discovered.”

  Connor shook his head. “Wait a minute. You once told me that Bannor and all those other people made a deal with Nuncle Richard and the government. Well, a bunch of governments. And now one of those governments is breaking that deal?”

  “Looks like it.” Riordan turned toward Trevor. “Is that why I got the Ultimate Experience signal?”

  Connor blinked. “The what?”

  Rinehart leaned back, blew out his cheeks. “A few of us in IRIS—the Institute for Reconnaissance, Intelligence, and Security—set up a back channel to keep your father apprised of any changes in his security status.”

  “You mean, if someone was coming to kill him?”

  Rinehart had the good grace to look sheepish. “Pretty much. At any rate, the group which oversees that back channel reports only to Director Sukhinin and to me. No one else knows it exists.”

  “Which, theoretically, keeps it from being compromised or infiltrated,” Trevor expanded, nodding.

  Connor frowned. “So, because Bannor sent a message that someone was breaking the deal, the deal-breakers sent someone to kill Dad?”

  Caine shook his head. “There’s got to be more to it than that. Firstly, good luck to anyone trying to monitor the updates we get from Bannor. If you don’t know what to look for, or where, you’d have no idea that there’s any communication coming from him at all.

  “Secondly, even if they knew your Uncle Trevor was the one compiling Bannor’s updates, that still wouldn’t tell them where I am.” He studied Trevor’s face, then Rinehart’s. “So the ‘other possible reason’ your uncle mentioned must be something that not only revealed where I am, but caused someone with that information to decide I had to be taken off the game board.”

  Trevor looked down, then nodded. When he looked back up, his face had become unreadable. “The Dornaani have sent a message. About Elena.” He looked at Connor. “They’re the ones who have your mom in surgical cryostasis. And now they want to talk to your dad.”

  Caine forgot his resolve to remain relaxed. “When? Where?”

  Before Trevor could answer, Connor angrily spat out a question of his own. “Wait. You mean someone here on Earth wants to keep us from getting Mom back? Who the hell would—?”

  “Calm, now.” Rinehart’s voice was avuncular yet firm. “We won’t find out by shouting about it.”

  “Okay, so how are we going to find out?”

  Caine looked up, realizing what Rinehart had already deduced. “By determining who knew that I would be notified about the message from the Dornaani.”

  Rinehart nodded. “So you understand.”

  Caine nodded back. “I think so. Word of the Dornaani contact reached you through official channels. Which means it was seen by lots of other people, many of whom knew it would be relayed to me. And one of them learned that the final destination of the message was here on Nevis. So although killing me could be an attempt to preempt my meeting the Dornaani, it’s just as likely that whoever attacked me today already wanted me dead. This was just the first time they had actionable intelligence.”

  Rinehart nodded. “Whether you’ve been on their hit list for years or just a few days, we can’t say. But we do know this: the Dornaani message was addressed to the Proconsul of the Consolidated Terran Republic. It was coded top secret ultra and bounced down to the Commonwealth bloc’s foreign office, to the U.S. State Department, and then finally to us in IRIS.”

  “Since you are nominatively my warders.”

  Rinehart nodded. “Which means the leak is almost certainly in IRIS. None of the upstream organizations have any information about your whereabouts.”

  Trevor’s face had become expressive again. “For an intel organization, IRIS seems to have a lot of leaks.”

  Riordan leaned forward. “When do I meet the Dornaani, and where?”

  “If you go to meet them, you’ll be rendezvousing with a ship of theirs. It will be at a border system in a few months.”

  “If?” shouted Connor. “If he’s goes? And what about me? I should be goi—!”

  “Connor.” Riordan waited until the only sounds in the aircar were the hoarse rush of the thrusters and the flapping of wind-slapped collars and sleeves. “Connor,” he repeated, “even if I was willing to let you miss early admission to the Naval Academy, I doubt the Dornaani would allow this to be a family outing. And as far as my going is concerned”—Riordan turned back to Rinehart—“I suspect my next stop is D.C. and another set of hearings. Isn’t it?”

  Rinehart’s smile was very faint and very rueful. “There’s a rhetorical question if I ever heard one.”

  “Look,” said Trevor, leaning toward Caine, “there’s going to be a lot of sympathy for you. For Elena. And this is the first contact we’ve had about her in over three years. This is what we’ve all been waiting for.”

  As Riordan heard those words, he lost the ability to cont
rol his thoughts. Elena. I might be able to get closer to you. Elena.

  Rinehart looked over at him. “And you’ll be the first human to visit the Dornaani Collective, to see how they live.”

  Riordan knew his answering grin was, at best, crooked. “Somehow, Gray, first contact has lost whatever appeal it held for me.” Riordan had never wanted the job. He had fallen into it. And just like quicksand, it had proven almost impossible to get out of.

  Gray Rinehart shrugged. “Still, the stakes don’t get much higher than this.”

  Caine saw Elena’s face. “No, they truly don’t.” He took a moment to watch the leeward coast of St. Kitts flash past, the gulls wheeling, the waves obliterating themselves in white explosions against the rocks. “The Dornaani message: did it come from Alnduul?”

  “It did.”

  Riordan nodded: another reason for hope. “What else did Alnduul say?”

  “That he has answers to all your questions.”

  Caine smiled. “Alnduul underestimates the magnitude of my curiosity.”

  Cruz banked gently to the right and began down toward St. Kitts’ air terminal, putting the wind fully in their faces.

  Chapter Six

  JULY 2123

  ANNAPOLIS, EARTH

  Connor checked his wristlink, then surveyed the private dining room overlooking the Chesapeake. He had been in this restaurant, the Bosun’s Chair, at least fifty times and it never changed. But somehow, it felt different. After almost two years on Nevis, everything on the mainland seemed impossibly loud, impossibly hasty, and now, impossibly far removed from the dangers at large in the world.

  Less than a week ago, he had awakened early, excited to sail through the Narrows on his own, a rite of passage for a kid who had grown up safe and sound—and was eager not to be. What he got instead was a glimpse into the darker world beneath that safe and sound one, a world from which one never really returns.

  Connor’s turning gaze wound up on his dad, who was watching him from three seats away. They shared a smile, one that Connor had to work at keeping happy. Attending the Academy was all he had wanted for three years, but being separated from his dad—that was hard to imagine now. Just as it was hard to imagine that he had ever felt differently, sitting in this very room, waiting to meet his father for the very first time, and certain—certain—that this late-come parent would never be more to him than an amiable interloper in his real family. And yet, a few months later, Connor decided to accompany this apparently friendly and forthright man into incognito exile. Because it was either that or never get to really know his father.

  Who proved to be patient, persistent, good-natured, deeply interested in Connor’s dreams, and who, above all, radiated parental love like a wood stove: steady, warm, utterly reliable. But now Dad was being whisked away, just like his mother and grandfather had been.

  Connor sighed and rose. His father did the same. Time to go.

  He started toward Caine wishing there was some way to both spend another year with his father and still move forward into adulthood.

  But that was not the way of things.

  * * *

  As Riordan stood, Trevor caught his eye, made exaggerated pointing motions toward the door and then his wristlink. Riordan nodded, turned back toward Connor with as bright a smile as he could muster. “Your Uncle Trevor is eager to get you to your induction party.”

  Connor’s lips crinkled upward. “Well, he ranks me, so I guess I’d better step lively.”

  Riordan gathered his son into a wide-armed hug. “I’m going to miss you, Connor. Very much.”

  Connor’s voice was muffled in his shoulder. “I’m going to miss you too, Dad.”

  Riordan nodded. “I’d ask you to call every week and promise I’d do the same, but I don’t think they have comm service where I’m going.” Riordan managed to keep his smile from crumbling.

  Connor’s dimmed. “It’s okay, Dad. Just find Mom and bring her home. Nothing else matters. Except that you stay safe.”

  “I will. I love you, son.”

  “I love you too, Dad.”

  Riordan watched Connor walk out the wharfside door, his Uncle Trevor on one side, his grandmother Patrice Corcoran on the other.

  From the tap-room behind him, feet shuffled closer. Caine didn’t have to look to know who it was: the two security operatives who’d been sent by IRIS.

  “Yes,” Riordan said, “I’m ready to leave.”

  “Actually, Mr. Riordan, we’re here to tell you that Mr. Downing has been waiting to speak with you.”

  Riordan turned, looked at the guards. The woman reminded him of a panther; the man, a Kodiak bear. “I thought I was traveling with Mr. Downing.”

  “Change of plans, sir. You’re being sequestered in different locations.”

  Riordan nodded, wondered at the significance of the change, entered the tap-room.

  Richard Downing was sitting in one of the dark wood booths, his eyes fixed on a tall glass of seltzer in front of him. His own two minders were waiting at the far end of the bar, close to the door. Caine’s took stools at the other end. They may have exchanged faint nods.

  Riordan slid into the facing booth. “Hello, Richard.”

  Downing looked up, startled. Three years ago, he had been impossible to surprise. “Caine. Good to see you.”

  “And it’s good to see you, too.” Except it wasn’t good to see Richard, not looking like this: bags under his eyes, his face gray, his slender six-foot two-inch frame almost gaunt.

  Downing smiled sadly. “You have always been a poor liar, Caine.” He sipped his seltzer. “I just wanted to say good luck in the days to come.”

  “And you as well. I’ve heard they’re dragging you into sequestration again, too. Why?”

  Downing shrugged. “Not really sure. Wouldn’t be surprised if they want to use me as a watchdog, to alert them when you fail to tell the truth.” He laughed. “If so, they certainly do not understand our prior arm’s-length working relationship. Particularly when it comes to whatever contact arrangements you made with your old crew.”

  Riordan shrugged. “I have nothing to tell them now that I didn’t two years ago.”

  Downing raised an uncertain palm. “Or this might simply be another opportunity for the new Procedural Compliance Directorate to demonstrate their power in IRIS, to spank the Old Guard all over again. Don’t make that face, Caine. They’re all from the Developing World Coalition, so they will take every opportunity to exert, and thereby reinforce, their authority.”

  Riordan leaned back, discovered he needed to change the subject. “So, what about you? What comes next?”

  “I suspect they’re going to take another run at putting my head on a pike, too.”

  “How? By trotting out the same unsupported accusations and fabricated evidence?”

  Downing’s smile was rueful. “Oh, I’m sure they can dress up the leftovers well enough to claim it’s a new dish. They just need to create a strong enough whiff of impropriety and insubordination to ensure that I become a political liability to the powers-that-be. A month after they’re done having at me, I’ll be sent packing. Quietly. With apologies and a poorly attended retirement party.”

  Riordan frowned. Downing was no choir boy. But to watch him get cashiered for finally—finally—putting people before pragmatism? For ensuring the safety of Caine’s crew and the “Lost Soldiers” they’d rescued from Turkh’saar? No. Not acceptable.

  Caine made sure his voice was casual. “So what if we could trick the DWC flacks into thinking that you were on their side? Or, at least, that you were willing to throw me under the bus to appease them?” As he spoke, Riordan shifted in his seat until the guards fell within his peripheral vision: neither pair were properly positioned to use directional eavesdropping devices.

  Downing had looked up sharply. “‘Throw you under the bus?’ What on earth are you talking about, Riordan?”

  “What if, after they’re done grilling me to no avail, you were able t
o tell them how Bannor informed me that their agents were closing in on my old crew and the Lost Soldiers?”

  Richard became very still. “Caine, I appreciate the offer, but I doubt it would help me. More importantly, once they know how Bannor is communicating to you, they’d backtrack along those data streams to find him and probably the Lost Soldiers.”

  “No, they won’t, because there are no data streams left to backtrack.”

  Downing’s eyes widened. “Of course. When Bannor used the channel to send a message to your attention, it also meant he was shutting it down.”

  Riordan nodded. “And Bannor immediately began relocating everyone.”

  Richard smiled. “So there’s no way to reestablish contact.”

  “Precisely. But the inquisitors won’t know that. They’ll think you’re giving them viable intelligence, a channel they can monitor.” Riordan leaned back. “Now, are you interested?”

  “To coin a phrase, I’m all ears.” Downing had pretty big ears.

  Riordan smiled. “So here’s how we managed it. Bannor posted anonymous content on various sites and blogs every month. None of it had anything to do with us. They were weather reports, travel logs, hotel and travel reviews. The only meaningful parts were descriptions of the weather or night skies, all of which directly or indirectly indicated positions of moons or planets.

  “If every one of those astronomical details were correct for that location and that date, it meant no one was closing in on the hiding place of the Lost Soldiers and the others.”

  Downing nodded, smiling. “But an error meant that he and the Lost Soldiers were in imminent danger of discovery. And that you, personally, were to be alerted. Well done, Commodore. And”—his voice dropped—“thank you, Caine. It’s always good to have a trump card.”

  Downing’s minders glanced at their wristlinks, then out at the street, then started toward the booth.

  Richard stood. “I suppose this is goodbye. I hope we’ll see each other again. And if you have to start a war to bring Elena back, I shall gladly serve in that army. Here’s my hand on it.”

  Caine shook Downing’s hand, nodded at the fierce, almost agonized resolve in the other’s worn face, and watched as he made for the exit, a stick-figure framed by dusk-dimmed windows.