Chapter 17
It was all Tidus could do to keep from pacing to and fro like a caged animal, waiting for that inevitable phone call. The opera tickets were burning holes in his jeans pocket, but there was no going back now. He made sure that the satellite phone was visible in his hand, though he was also doing his best not to look too conspicuous to the crowds milling by. Somewhere out there, a camera was focusing in on him, and they were planning their next move.
He did not like this situation in the least. He knew Yuna liked it even less. There was an element of lost control that they were going to have to deal with for the time being. They were deliberately putting themselves under a microscope for their enemies to pick them apart, holding on to the desperate hope that they would be able to remain at least one step ahead. Still, as he'd told himself over and over again since last night, this was the only way.
Sure enough, no later than four minutes after he'd swiped Yuna's card, the phone began to ring. Taking one deep breath to steady himself, Tidus lifted the receiver to his lips.
"First things first," he began, not waiting to hear any voice on the other end. "I think it's pretty obvious that I am taking a pretty big risk in reaching out to you like this. Yes?"
"Okay, fair enough. But that –"
"Secondly," Tidus went on, recognizing it as the same voice he'd spoken to before. "This is a peace offering. That means no more hired men coming after me, or Yuna Savard. I want our names cleared. We go free. In exchange, I'll give you the documents I took from the vault, and nobody else has to know about them."
The man on the other end sounded incredulous. After a long pause, he spluttered, "Are you fucking serious?"
Tidus began walking. Nowhere in particular, just moving. It felt too dangerous to stand in one spot for long, no matter how public. "I'm dead serious. No tricks, no games. You can have the file back, no questions asked. Just leave Yuna and me in peace. That's all we want."
"Come on Raines, you can't honestly expect me to just take your word for it."
"Who is this?"
"Jack Seymour, head of the Security and Intelligence Network. You know what that means? It means I've got a lot of people working under me. Dozens of careers are hanging in the balance now, because of you dragging us into this shitstorm."
Somewhere in the vague corners of memory, Tidus recalled the acronym SIN. "Careers? You're defending murder, Seymour. I've looked through the records. I know exactly what kind of people you are."
The other man snorted contemptuously. "You don't even have the slightest clue, soldier. You don't know a damn thing about the work we do. The work we pay you to do."
"Like I said," Tidus snapped, "I am finished with this. I don't want any part of your 'Security and Intelligence Network' ever again. Now either you agree to my terms, or I go to a different Network and see what they have to say about all this."
There was a frustrated pause on the line, and Tidus decided that he was finished talking it over. "You know the when and where. Be there alone and unarmed. If I even think that you might pull something, I'll blow this whole 'shitstorm' wide open. That is a promise."
With that, he hung up and then dropped the phone in a nearby waste bin, never once missing a step.
000
"God fucking damn it!" Seymour snarled as the line cut out. The others around him exchanged nervous looks. Their boss turned away from the screen and laced his fingers behind his head, closing his eyes.
Auron rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I guess we should put a team together. I'll go make some calls."
On his way out, he caught Rikku's eye and offered her a brief, reassuring smile. She chewed her lip and watched him leave before returning her attention back to her agitated superior.
"Any ideas?" she ventured, coming to stand next to him. He dropped his arms and fixed her with a hard stare.
"Plenty. Each one less appealing than the last."
"Are we actually gonna consider going through with this deal?" she asked, somewhat incredulous. He snorted and rolled his eyes.
"Of course not. We can't take that risk. There's no guarantee that he hasn't made copies of the file, for insurance." He paused and took a long, deep breath. "On the other hand, I'm beginning to see that killing him isn't exactly a walk in the park. It'll be damn near impossible to pin him down, especially at the goddamn opera."
"He knows we'll be waiting for him," another technician piped up. "He'll be ready for an ambush."
"Where is Yuna gonna be in all this?" Rikku wondered aloud, drawing eyes to her. "Would he actually put her in the middle of a drop?"
"We don't know the nature of their relationship. Either he'll try to keep her as far away as possible, or . . . hell," someone snorted, "he might even use her as a human shield."
Seymour shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Didn't you hear what he said? 'We go free'. It sounds like he's fighting for her too."
"Which means he'll want to keep her out of harm's way," Rikku continued along his train of thought, "but close enough that he can be sure not to lose her."
Seymour snapped his fingers, gesturing to his assistant Joshua. "You," he barked. "Time to get you out of the office. You ready for your own assignment?"
Joshua's face seemed to light up, and he stood taller. "Yes sir. What's the plan?"
"Assemble a team and do a sweep of every hotel, motel, hostel, and B & B in the city," his boss ordered swiftly. "Look for any signs of a young couple checking in recently. I want this Yuna woman bound, gagged, and in our custody ASAP."
The young man blanched slightly as the enormity of the assignment hit him. "Th-that might take a while, sir, but –"
"But you're gonna do your best not to make me wait too damn long," Seymour cut in harshly. He then turned to Rikku.
"Find Auron and tell him I want a word."
000
He had only been gone for forty-five minutes, and Yuna already felt like she was about to lose her mind with worry. The two of them had never been separated this long, and even though she knew he could take care of himself, it was still nearly impossible for her to sit still. She had gone to look out the window so many times that she could almost see a path forming from the bed to the curtains where her feet had trod. He had told her he would be back within the hour, but as the minutes ticked by, she was getting more and more anxious.
Heaving a frustrated sigh, Yuna flopped down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling fan. Truthfully, she wasn't just worried for his safety. She couldn't help but wonder how long it would take before her own location was found. Zurich was a decent sized place, but it wasn't enormous, and there was certainly not an infinite number of hotels in which to hide. If her instincts were right, these people – whoever they were – clearly had the resources to track her down if they were looking hard enough. She found herself jumping at the smallest noises outside, imagining footsteps and the metallic click of guns just beyond her door.
She shut her eyes and groaned, stifling her face with a pillow. Why hadn't she gone with him? Why did he insist on having her stay behind?
"If I'm not back in an hour, take the file and go to your friend Wakka. I don't know what will happen, but if this doesn't work, then he might be our only chance to make this right."
Yuna's insides ached a little, savouring the unspoken words lying just out of reach. For a man schooled to be a cold-hearted killing machine, Tidus had remarkable emotion in his eyes. Something deep and hungry always seemed to lie just under the surface, yet they were lined with such kindness and warmth too. She had always been rather reserved and shy, but he had a way of knocking down every last inhibition she possessed with as little as one look. No wonder she had turned into such a bundle of hormones since meeting him. Nobody had ever looked at her the way he did.
Of course, there was more to their strange little relationship than just that. She hadn't even begun to wrap her head around the crippling fear that seemed to take hold of her when she thought of him dying, or even just getting hurt. The fear of being without him, of missing his rare little smiles, missing those unbearably sweet moments they managed to share for but a few seconds every day. If being with him meant giving up her old life forever – Marseilles, the hospital, her friends, her father – she was stunned to realize that she would do it.
She rolled onto her side, determined not to drive herself crazy. He'll be back soon, you silly creature. Stop worrying. She had to be more like Tidus, taking it all one step at a time. Deal with the future when it comes, if ever.
Her eyes landed on the file stacked messily on the little table nearby. It was hard to imagine that such a harmless-looking object was at the centre of such a precarious spiral of events and circumstances. The temptation to simply destroy it was sometimes so overwhelming that Yuna had to clench her fists just to keep them still. Would it make any difference at all? Would it make things worse? Could she take such an impulsive step and possibly ruin everything?
Yuna rose from the bed and went over to the table, sifting idly through the papers. Nothing but names, numbers, and dates. Sighing again, she debated putting on another pot of coffee when her eyes scanned briefly across a certain name.
Her chest seemed to constrict around her heart at that moment, trapping the blood in her veins. Her eyes widened.
Renata LaRoche.
For a long time she could only stare in shock, hardly able to process the letters forming that name. It was dated at ten years ago – obviously too long ago for Tidus to have had anything to do with it, but . . .
"Oh my God," she choked, her hand flying up to her mouth. She could still remember seeing that lone pillar of smoke rising in the distance, exactly where the cabin should have been. The smell of it filtering through the trees still gave her nightmares, as did the sight of that one blackened hipbone she had accidentally stepped on when looking through the wreck –
Yuna ran to the bathroom, her stomach churning, but nothing came out as she stood heaving over the toilet.
Auron's face looked positively ashen.
"It was a gas leak."
"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT HER!"
She didn't even know Tidus was back until she felt his hands on her. Stricken, she turned and found herself gaping up at him, her face drenched with uncontrollable tears.
"Yuna?" he whispered, lost. She opened and closed her mouth, but the words came out strangled and weak. She managed to say her mother's name, and that was all it took. He pulled her into his arms and held her flush up against his chest, rocking her as she lost any and all composure she had left.
"You tell me we're going to get them," she sobbed brokenly, bunching the fabric of his shirt so tightly that she nearly ripped through it. "Tell me we'll get them Tidus, promise me we'll get them –"
He dragged her up to meet his eyes, and lips. "Babe," he murmured against her, trembling for her, "they are as good as fucking as dead."
She closed her eyes. He meant every word, spoken and silent.
000
"You're getting in too deep, Auron."
Kelk sounded tired. The man probably hadn't slept in a week, since getting this assignment. He had been waiting for years for a chance to get a closer look at SIN's activities, desperate to find something – anything – that could bring them down. Auron had his suspicions as to why, but Kelk was something of a closed box, locked tightly. It was probably the reason why they understood each other so well.
He found himself chuckling humourlessly. "I've been neck deep in this thing since day one. Can I expect some kind of back up in Zurich?"
"Not without that file," the other man sighed. "Without something solid to go against him, Seymour is untouchable. There are too many people paying him to keep their dirty little secrets under wraps."
"I don't like this. The CIA shouldn't be afraid of a little billion-dollar side project."
"Go to the drop. Do everything Seymour tells you to do. It'd be a shame if that boy has to die, but I think you and I know what's really at stake."
Auron clenched his jaw for a moment. "And Yuna?"
"We're doing everything we can, but you know I can't make any promises."
"If you can find her before SIN does –"
"I told you," his friend insisted, "we're doing our best. If she stays out of the way, there's a chance she can walk away from all this. But from what I've heard, I don't think she'll be willing to cooperate."
A smile came out unbidden. Damn that girl. "True enough. I'll call you when we land."
"Take care."
Auron hung up the phone and paused for a long moment, preparing himself for another seemingly endless trek back to the surveillance room. He then turned around and came face to face with a very astonished-looking young woman.
He froze. Rikku stared at him with those wide green eyes of hers, utterly motionless for such a usually frenetic ball of energy.
"How much did you hear?" Auron found himself asking. His voice sounded hollow and metallic in the little storage closet.
"Everything," she whispered.