Oh, hell, she thought. They’ll want all the details, and I’d rather eat my shard pistol.
Too bad she couldn’t run. Fuckit. Might as well get it over with. With a mental sigh of resignation, Dona strode down the stairs to drop into the seat next to Frieka. It squirmed around her until it cradled her backside comfortably. “Thanks,” Dona told her friends. “I was afraid I’d have to stand all the way through the briefing.”
Riane frowned, assessing her face with that habitual Vardonese attention to detail. Probably analyzing the bags under my eyes and the accompanying ghostly pallor. Dona hadn’t slept worth a damn the night before; she’d been far too busy mentally flogging herself for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty.
“You look like hell,” Riane told her bluntly. “Dammit, when are you going to get it through your thick head—you are not responsible for the actions of your psychotic ex!”
That was the trouble with cyborg friends. Dona was a talented liar, but she’d never been able to fool Riane’s sensors. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?” The redhead glowered. “I swear everybody’s gone nuts! First Frieka staggers in at too-fucking-early after getting plowed with the chief—” She broke off, eyes widening.
Dona silently cursed, watching her too-clever friend put the facts together. The same instincts that made Riane an excellent investigator also made her a real pain in the ass to any friend with a secret. “Oh sweet Goddess!” She turned the heat of her glare on her furry partner, whose ears flattened defensively against his skull. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“Kid, I realize this is hard for you to grasp, but the chief’s love life is not your business.”
“It is when he’s boning my best friend!”
“And if she wanted you to know, she’d tell you.”
Riane switched the glare to Dona, who managed not to cower. She relaxed fractionally when the Warfem’s glare dissolved into a salacious grin. “I’ve got to say, your taste in men has definitely improved. So how was he? I want details!”
“Can we not do this in front of every Enforcer at the Outpost?” Dona hissed, feeling her cheeks blaze.
“What, you think they aren’t going to figure it out on their own? You work with detectives, you twit. Cyborg cops with sensor implants. The half-life of an Outpost secret is about fifteen seconds.” Riane grimaced, obviously thinking the same thing Dona was. “Well, except for Ivar.”
Luckily Dyami picked that moment to stride to the podium.
“There’s the chief. Briefing’s starting,” Dona whispered. Thank the gods.
“Don’t think this means you won’t have to spill,” Riane hissed. “You and I are going to have a long talk. With details. Lots and lots of details. With illustrations. And . . .”
“Hand puppets,” Frieka put in, and snickered.
“Okay, fine,” Dona grumbled. Maybe her friends could help her find a little desperately needed perspective. They always had before, even when Ivar had been doing his best to break her like a Soji egg. Come to think of it, they’d urged her to dump him; both agents had hated his cyborg guts long before he’d been unmasked as a traitor.
And I should have listened to them.
“We,” Alerio announced, jolting her back to the present, “have a problem.”
As Alerio played his neurocomp’s recording of Ivar’s gloating threats, the gathered Enforcers listened in complete silence. Dona could almost taste their collective rage. It seemed to fill the huge room, a fog of raw fury.
She couldn’t help but cringe when their eyes locked on her during Alerio’s vivid description of Ivar’s attack.
“Fucker,” Frieka growled. The word seemed to hang in the air, silently echoed by every agent in the room.
“Yeah, that’s a pretty damned good description of Ivar Terje,” Alerio agreed dryly. “Obviously, we’re not going to hand anyone over to the Xerans’ dubious concept of justice.” His eyes narrowed, and a muscle flexed in his jaw. “But we’re also not going to allow Terje and his band of psycho priests to murder any more tourists. Even if we have to kill every last one of the hornheaded bastards.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Cold determination filled Alerio’s dark eyes as he scanned Main Briefing and its rows of Enforcers. “As of now, we’re all on bodyguard duty. I have assigned everyone to teams of three at a minimum to ensure you can counter any Xeran terrorist squads.
“If any of you do encounter Xerans, you are to immediately courier the Outpost for backup. Obviously, you should report the number of attackers so we can respond in sufficient numbers to neutralize the threat. A trid of the attacking force would be useful. Are there any questions?”
Wulf put up a meaty paw. Genetically engineered for life on a planet with three times Earth’s gravity, the agent was built like a human tank. Yet, big as he was, Wulf was also a damned good criminal investigator, with an instinct for solving temporal crimes that was almost psychic. “What about our current caseload? I’m still working on that da Vinci theft . . .”
Frowning, Alerio leaned an elbow on the podium. The motion made his biceps bunch. Dona stared in hypnotized longing before jerking her eyes away.
“. . . we’re all going to have to back-burner other investigations until Terje and his priests have been apprehended, along with any assassins the Xerans may hire,” Alerio was saying. “The safety of temporal travelers has to take precedence over solving crimes that have already occurred.”
Wulf sat back in his seat, but the big man did not look happy. From what Dona had heard him say over beers in the Outpost Mess, he was tantalizingly close to apprehending the thief responsible for the disappearance of thirty-eight legendary paintings. Leonardo da Vinci’s Leda was the most priceless of the lot; it had vanished sometime during the eighteenth century under mysterious circumstances. Wulf thought that was the work of a time-jumping thief, and he was probably right.
“You’ll get him anyway, Wulf,” Alerio told him. “Even if it takes a little longer, you’ll track the bastard down.”
Wulf’s cheeks went pink at the chief’s praise. In a man the approximate size of an interstellar frigate, the effect was oddly charming.
“I’ve also managed to arrange the temporary transfer of a few more Enforcers from the European office,” Alerio went on. “These are cyborg agents specializing in historical undercover work. I think they’ll prove effective as we counter whatever nasty little tricks the Xerans try.” The chief bared his teeth in an expression more snarl than smile. “I intend to give Terje a surprise he won’t forget.”
The Enforcers rumbled agreement. There was something so feral in those growling voices, even Dona felt a chill. Seven hells, they’re pissed. But then, so am I.
“I’ve sent your assignments to your respective comps,” the chief continued, “along with details of where you’ll be going and who you’ll be guarding. I’ll expect reports on how you intend to cover your protectees by Gamma shift. Include any logistical problems you anticipate so we can address them before you jump. Any questions?”
He nodded at someone behind Dona.
“What are we telling the tourists about this?” the agent asked.
“Not a damned thing,” Alerio said. “And no, I don’t like it either, but Headquarters is concerned about triggering a media shit storm we don’t need. We’ve been lucky so far. If the journos had gotten wind of the Hardin Tours massacre, we’d be ass-deep in trid bots right about now. That’s a headache we do not need. It’s going to be hard enough keeping all those tourists alive without tripping over journos every time we turn around. Not to mention that Terje would just love to kidnap some well-known head-talker he could torture on vid.”