Chapter 5 - The Truth Will Out
Vikram sits in the London base's command center and watches the massive, constantly updating map that takes up an entire wall. He's been staring at for hours now, and it isn't doing anything special, but he can't make himself look away. If he leaves it, something will happen - a cry for help, a suggestion for a counterattack, a message from Isabel or the Boston police - and he won't see it until it's too late. So Vikram sits and watches the map as the red dots that represent Lucian strongholds go dark one by one as they cut their connection to the London base. Most of Asia is dark now, as are parts of Europe and all of the bases in the Americas except Anchorage and New York City, which is still stubbornly blinking as if it hadn't started this whole mess. (New York is still up because they need the comms network, Vikram knows, and he could shut them off with some effort and a few technicians, but it would do nothing now that Spaky and Collins' message has crossed the globe, and Vikram might have some chance for a sneak retaliation if the network's still open.)
"Has anything changed?" Lucy Beckett asks as she comes in, cup of tea in hand. Vikram rubs his eyes; he'd thought it was still the middle of the night, that he'd have a few hours to sleep, but his deputy (and third in line to the position of Lucian branch head) comes in every morning at 6:30 like clockwork regardless of what's happening within or outside the branch.
"We're losing," Vikram says.
"We knew that last night," Lucy says.
"Beijing fell a few hours ago," Vikram says. "It was the last of the major bases besides us and Paris, and Paris is wavering." Quite frankly, Vikram is surprised and perhaps a little touched that Paris is only wavering; he'd thought their leader to be too obsessed with power to stay with Vikram's rapidly sinking ship. (Then again, Thibault believes that there's a vial of Lucian serum hidden somewhere in the city, so he might not have realized yet how tenuous Vikram's power is at the moment.) "Do you have an exit plan ready?"
"There's good business for translators," Lucy says. "Particularly ones who know what not to translate. I'll change my name and go to ground here. Maybe I'll end up back in the foreign relations department in ten years when most of the branch has forgotten my face. Even now, I think they know me by the hair more than anything." Lucy ruffles her brick red hair and shrugs.
"Good," Vikram says. "I've emailed Stevens to prepare to take over all of the art business while I take a trip to discover new artists and styles around the world." He has the fake documents he needs to get himself and Ian and Natalie out of the country, and a few years of disappearing into parts unknown will allow tempers to cool a little and Collins and Spasky to stop seeing him as a threat. Lucy snorts.
"Haven't you used that excuse before?" Lucy asks. "At least four times that I can think of, in fact."
"It still works." Vikram looks at the map; the stronghold in Anchorage has gone dark and that's happened before due to snowstorms and broken solar panels but Vikram can't make himself believe that's the case this time. "I figure we have an hour, maybe two, until Paris falls, and we can't stand alone for long. What can we do to make the transition as difficult as possible for Collins and Spasky in that timeframe?" Lucy grins.
"Quinn in Technical has a couple of answers to that question," she says.
.oOo.
Irina probably should have guessed things were about to go horribly wrong as soon as Anchorage, home base to twenty agents and a pack of mission-trained huskies, finally flipped after twenty-three hours of intense debate. It leaves only sixteen strongholds still allied with Vikram Kabra: London, Paris, and a handful of small satellite bases, three of which are the homes of senior agents and ex-agents, across the UK and northern France. It's a region of influence so small it has to be claustrophobic for someone used to ruling the world, and Irina remembers the time she and Vikram faced a dozen Madrigals in Venice; she knows what happens when Vikram feels trapped. (Namely, a dozen corpses, two burning gondolas, and a bridge that will never look the same.)
It takes fifteen minutes after Anchorage calls New York to say they've turned for all the fire alarms in the building to go off. Thirty seconds after that, as the few of Collins' people still here at one in the morning frantically look for the source of the fire or a way to shut off the alarm, the computers bluescreen simultaneously, error messages frantically rushing past. The large screen at the front of the comms center, a map which shows all the Lucian strongholds and their connectivity status, goes black. Foul-smelling white smoke trickles out from the server room next door.
This isn't a coincidence. This can't be a coincidence. Not after the past day.
"Are we still connected to London?" Collins, having also realized that Vikram must have something to do with this, asks.
"Unless whatever caused this has disconnected us," a very young-looking technician says as he tries to bring his computer back from the brink, "yes, we are."
"Break the connection," Collins says.
"Sir, the comm network-"
"-take us offline; we can reconnect later." The technician shrugs, grabs a fire extinguisher, and goes into the server room; moments later, the map screen comes back to life, and the computers around the room slowly reboot. The clamor in the server room slowly dies down. "Something's happened in London."
"No shit, Sherlock," Beckmann says. "The only question is what. Hey, isn't Linda still stationed in-" Collins has already dialed Hou's number and is waiting for her to pick up.
"Linda, can you go check on the London stronghold?" Collins asks. "Yes, I know it's early - it's not exactly a reasonable hour over here, either - but something's happened here that I think is connected to the London base… He told you to stay away? Just check for me, quickly, please… you owe me one after Beijing… It's deserted? Can you get a look inside…" Collins turns back to Irina and Beckmann. "He's trashed the files. Both the paper ones and his servers. I'm not sure if the same has happened to the other bases."
"Ms. Spasky?" A teenaged girl with a faint Yorkshire accent taps Irina on the shoulder. "Isabel had her own set of files at the London base. They were in a locked steel box in a false bottom in her wardrobe. I don't think Vikram knew about them, so he might not've destroyed them." Collins looks at the girl, who seems to shrink under his stare. "She'd send me on missions sometimes that I wasn't supposed to tell anyone about, and she always put my reports in there when she did."
"Go to Isabel's room on base," Collins says into his phone. "She's in jail over here, so don't worry about her catching you. There should be a wardrobe with a false bottom…"
.oOo.
Ks deposed. New L leader to be Derrick Collins - first council meeting in two days. Servers burned, but Isabel's files left behind.
The message is short and to the point. All of the missives from the agent who calls themself "Andere" are; Grace thinks that, at three sentences long, this one might be the longest message she's received in the nine years Andere has been an agent. That doesn't mean that Andere's report doesn't have some impressively solid information on the current state of the Lucian branch that not even NRR has said yet.
Ks deposed. New L leader to be Derrick Collins - first council meeting in two days.
Those two sentences alone betray a familiarity with modern Lucian politics that Grace thought Andere - a skilled former Lucian agent who the Madrigals mostly used for interrogations or their understanding of Lucian tech - lacked. NRR had mentioned the first call to rebel coming from New York - Collins' home stronghold - but hadn't mentioned him by name or the Kabras being even close to resignation. (On the other hand, NRR had said something about Spasky being involved, which Andere has skirted around confirming or denying.) In a way, the fact that the new head of the Lucian branch is a man who attempted to break into Fort Knox twice doesn't really matter, but it also really does; Grace hadn't thought the Kabras would leave in any way but by their own free will. A coup - a popular uprising, which is nearly unprecedented, no less - is astounding, and that's not even the most ground-shaking part of the message.
Servers burned, but Isabel's files left behind.
Of course Vikram went for the grand "fuck you" gesture and tried to cripple his (now ex-) branch on his way out, but…
Isabel's files left behind.
Isabel's files left behind.
Grace doesn't know what files of Isabel's were left behind, or what's in those files, but she's sure that, within the week, she'll find out.
.oOo.
Just as the New York base starts to look more occupied and Irina wakes up from a well-deserved nap (she can't run solely on caffeine and will anymore, after all), Hou contacts them. Her eyes widen as she recognizes the woman at Irina's side as Beckmann.
"Hey Linda," Beckmann says before Hou can ask what she's doing in the New York base. "What did you call about?"
"I've gotten into Kabra's files," Hou says. "They're all digital, and the encryption took me a while, but you really need to see them to believe it. I just sent the files to your computer." Collins nods and retreats to his office.
"So," Hou says. "The Kabras gone and my old teacher's back from the dead?" Beckmann scoffs.
"I was never actually dead," Beckmann says. "And I wasn't expecting it either. It's been a very interesting week."
"It's been a very long week," Irina says. What's really impressive about it is how it seems to get longer every time she closes her eyes, particularly since it began with her dead.
"So," Hou says. "Where have you been since-"
"Beckmann, Spasky," Collins says in a tight voice. "You need to see this." Beckmann and Irina follow him back to his office, where he's pulled up the first of Kabra's files, the ones Hou marked "important." At a quick glance, Irina can see why; the others are probably reports of murder at Isabel's orders, but these are her reports to a different organization altogether. These are the ones that implicate her betraying her branch to… maybe not the Madrigals - Isabel was certainly vicious towards them - but certainly a shadowy third party.
"Did either of you know about this?" Collins asks. Irina shakes her head. "How was our branch leader a Madrigal without anyone - even her husband - knowing?"
"She wasn't a Madrigal," Beckmann says. Collins looks at her; she looks down and fidgets with her glasses. "She hated them, didn't she? She hated them a lot. And so did Vikram. Plus, there were a bunch of Madrigal incidents we know about in that timeframe that aren't mentioned: no Belgrade, no Venice, no Juneau. And Isabel would have been involved in those."
"Hope said something, right before the fire," Irina says. "At least one of you gives all your information to an organization that isn't even Cahill. And when Cora suggested the Madrigals, she acted like she wanted us to believe it was even though it wasn't. I agree with Beckmann; I think there's another group involved." Collins sighs and put his head in his hands.
"Of course it couldn't be as simple as just the Madrigals," he mutters. "What will we tell the council?" The leaders of the other major bases around the world will be out for blood and power after the Kabras' resignation, and adding evidence of treason to the mix seems like it will only make matters worse.
"The truth," Beckmann suggests. "Maybe imply some foreknowledge that she was a double agent, too. We have the evidence to back it up."
"Assuming they don't think it's forged," Collins says.
"I don't think you can forge digital files that well," Irina says, "and we'd just make her a Madrigal if we did. Should we try to tell the other branches? We're probably not the only ones with this problem."
"If we're worried about the council believing us, then the other branches definitely won't believe us," Collins says. "We could maybe try to contact a few members at a time, but I'm not sure if even that would work."
Irina has an idea how well that would work with Alistair. She looks through the files for any Ekat names or places and comes across a pair. She quickly texts him, Look into Ana & Theodora Kosara. Not Madrigals.
He might do nothing. Me might follow her lead like he did earlier this week at the Trent house. He might find nothing. He might find what they've just found. Knowing which will come to pass is only a matter of time.
Liked it? Hated it? Review and let me know! That wraps up this little arc of the story and also the updates for about a month; my life's going to be a bit crazy during July, and I need to get some rl stuff done, but I'll be back sometime in August.