Jason stirred. His head pounded. A chopping sound drummed against it, making it worse.
He tried to turn over to get some more sleep.
But when he moved, something jerked against his arm. He opened his eyes, and saw that his wrist was cuffed to the wall. Soldiers surrounded him. And out the window, dark sky floated past—glimpses of the tips of pine trees—
He was in a helicopter. And beside him another man lay, unconscious. James.
He tried to sit up despite the pain in his head and wrist. And encountered Elena, crouched in front of him.
"Elena!" he said. "They took you too?"
She smiled, her eyes dark slivers of amusement. "Oh, you could say that. But I wanted to be taken. Rescued from this assignment."
It all crashed back into him—what he'd thought was a dream—Elena speaking into her watch, her strange, traitorous words….
So it was true. She was one of them.
Still, he couldn't quite get it through his mind. How could Elena be a traitor? She was his beautiful Elena….The lights from the helicopter shone on her face, illuminating the features that he knew so well, only this version was hard as marble, coldly amused, dangerous, not the sweet innocent girl who'd once risked herself for him. That one had dissolved like a mask, revealing her true face underneath.
A chill spread through him.
Elena cupped Jason's chin in her hand. He jerked away.
She laughed. A cold, harsh, ringing laugh. "What's wrong, Jason? Only a few hours ago, you couldn't get enough of me." She brushed her fingers along his chin, a mockery of a caress.
"You betrayed us," he said.
"Yes, I did. But if it makes you feel any better, I was never one of you; I wasn't even part of Munroe's little resistance group, though that was the original target. Then you came along; I thought I'd hit the jackpot on my first real deep cover mission. Then you brought me to the greatest prize of all." She gestured to James. "How can I ever thank you?" She swooped down and kissed his cheek. He yanked his head away; she gave another of her icy laughs, but this time a blow accompanied it, her fist slamming across his cheek; the tang of blood filled his mouth.
"Jason, Jason. Don't be so resistant. If you remain cooperative, I'll make this much more pleasant for you. We'd become so close. Don't spoil what we have together."
"You've already spoiled it," he choked out.
"I am sorry, my dear Jason. But I am doing this for my country. It's just business. Of course, I do like to mix business with pleasure, but it doesn't mean you have to take this so personally. We are both agents, after all. I just have to be the superior one in all respects." She stepped over to James. "I think it's time we woke our sleeping prince up, don't you?"
She nudged him in the side with her boot. He stirred, then froze as soon as his eyes opened. "You—" he said.
"Yes, we've already been over this with Jason. I'm a security agent, I've got you in my power, and all that. Now, the bigger question is, what are we going to do with you? I think my superior, Taran Zahl, will want to speak with you. Then Von Warberg would like an audience with your Highness." She gave a mock bow.
James pushed himself into a sitting position. "I've never lived in the palace. There's nothing I can tell you."
"Oh, we don't want you for information. We want you because you're the symbol of everything we detest. We want to crush you beneath our boot, along with any hope that the Resistance still harbors that the monarchy will rise again." She looked especially gleeful at this prospect.
Clack-ping! The helicopter swerved. "Those idiot Czechs," said Elena. She slipped into the cockpit with the pilot.
More gunshots clattered after them from the ground. Jason peered over the edge as far as the chain on his handcuff would let him. Searchlights strobed the sky; more gunshots pinged off the hull. One zipped into the helicopter, ploughing through the ceiling. Jason dove back to the middle as the helicopter swerved again.
A few moments later, the gunshots faded into the distance.
"Are you all right?" said Jason.
"Yeah," said James. "Except for an awful headache."
"Me too. Listen, James, I'm….so sorry. I led her to the cabin. I should have known. I should have seen, somehow….but I made such a mess of things. Now look where we are."
"I don't blame you, Jason. You were trying to help. Elena fooled all of us."
"It's like the Elena I knew is gone. Like I woke up from a dream into a nightmare."
Elena stepped back into the passenger area.
"What have you done with Tasha?" said Jason.
"Well, let's see. Last time I saw her, she was bleeding pretty badly from a gunshot from yours truly."
Pain cut through Jason's heart. "No," he whispered.
"I'm sorry I shot your partner. But it was either her or me….She'd only get in the way of what we need to do." Elena crouched down, balancing with a catlike grace. "If there's any consolation, my dear, I am a good actress. That was my profession before this. But I wanted to follow in my Papa's footsteps, so I went into the security service. My father's protégé, Zahl, took me under his wing, so to speak."
"Who is your father?" said the prince.
"Max Holt."
"The one who founded the secret police?"
"One and the same. That name doesn't ring a bell for you, Jason?"
"Should it?"
"Well, I don't want to give everything away. We'll have lots of time to get to know each other better."
Elena sat back along the opposite wall among the soldiers. She pulled a bar out of her pack and ate it, ignoring them, for which Jason was grateful. He wished he could shut out the world, go back to sleep, pretend this had never happened. Shame and guilt filled him, along with generous doses of fear, more for James and for Tasha than himself. Perhaps Elena was lying when she said she'd seriously wounded her. Lying was what she was good at, after all.
The helicopter descended. We can't be at Rakima already, can we? thought Jason. Out the window, lights gleamed through the darkness, shining on a large cement building and rows of identical houses. The helicopter landed; two soldiers took Jason, and a soldier and the pilot took James, Elena leading the way. They walked across the grass to the sidewalk; beyond the barbed wire, prisoners in gray uniforms stared at them with dully curious eyes. We're in Zohr, Jason realized.
They yanked Jason inside the building and pushed him down a long hallway. Then they stopped at a vault-like door.
"This one will do," said Elena, her blonde hair blood-red in the lights from the hallway.
They shoved Jason inside. He stumbled, his knees hitting the hard cement. Elena peeked inside the door. "Don't worry, Jason. I'll be back after I take care of some business." She darted back out, and the door clanged shut.
For a moment, Jason just knelt there, unmoving. His whole body felt numb. There was nothing he wanted to do, nowhere he wanted to go. Nothing mattered anymore.
They would probably hurt him. The thought barely registered; he knew he should feel fear, feel something, but right now, he couldn't conjure up the energy to care.
There was a small bunk bed in the room. He gathered his strength and dragged himself over to it, then flopped onto it, and fell asleep.
Clang! The door opened and he jumped up, fear pounding through his veins as the dreams from a few seconds ago fled his mind. Three soldiers surged into the room; they grabbed him before he could fully awaken, and shoved him up against the wall. One of them pressed the cold mouth of a pistol to his temple. He froze, wondering if they were going to shoot him after all. Maybe they'd perform a mock execution; he'd heard that was one of the worst types of psychological torture….
They raised his arms above his head and snapped his wrists into manacles on the wall. He pulled against them, but they held him fast, cutting into his skin.
Then the soldiers filed out, as silently as they'd come.
The door creaked open again.
Elena strode inside, regarded him for a few moments as if studying a scientific specimen. He turned away from that gaze, unable to stand the fact that he'd begun to fall for her. He felt nothing but disgust for himself, for being such a hopeless idealist and ineffective agent. If I ever get out of this, thought Jason, I'll probably have to resign. The NSA doesn't want an agent like this on their team. Someone incapable of doing anything more complex than a routine assignment….Maybe I could do a desk job, but that would make me go crazy….Is there really anywhere I fit in? This is the career I've always wanted. Well, not this exactly….
Elena stepped up to him. "So, Jason, do you want to pick up where we left off?"
"Where was that?"
She grasped the back of his neck. He pulled away, his head smacking against the wall; she forced him down, crushing her lips against his. Her kiss built in intensity; he didn't really know what to do about it—there was nowhere he could escape to. The only thing he could settle for was not responding. Why would she even want to kiss him now? Wasn't the act over? What made her think that he could possibly like her anymore?
She stepped back. "Well, you're not nearly as satisfying as normal. Not that you ever were. As far as kisses go, well, let's just say I've had better." She smiled. "It was a fun game to play, though. Teasing you along, tempting you, pretending I was this sweet little damsel in distress….It put my skills to the test, playing a character that's so different from myself. Then again, I just had to send a smile your way, and you melted." She leaned toward him again; he turned away, and she kissed his cheek. "You really are such a boy, in more ways than one. Your recklessness, your naivety—you're an adorable little thing. But never to be confused with a real man." She whispered in his ear, "It's almost a mercy that I caught you, breaking the delusion you could be any sort of effective agent whatsoever." She laughed, the sound ringing through the cell.
Each of her words cut him to the heart. He knew they were true. He could never have been a good agent; he'd tricked himself into believing this was the path for him to take. Maybe it was good that he'd been captured; it would have happened sooner or later, anyway.
"Where is James?" asked Jason.
"Oh, we're giving him the best of our hospitality."
"Don't you hurt him."
"And what will you do about it? We can do whatever we want with you; he's in the same predicament. There's no one coming to rescue you, Jason; you might as well resign yourself to that fact. I'm thinking maybe I'll keep interrogating you personally; I know your weaknesses after all.
"But all in good time. Before I leave, I want to tell you a story."
She stepped back, her eyes glinting with a faraway light. "Once upon a time, there was a spoiled young prince. His father had died not long before, and the prince was due for his coronation. Erik Von Warberg and my father felt that this was not the kind of man they wanted to lead their country. So they arranged for an…accident, shall we say, which would make the prince miss his coronation—permanently. But when the plane went down, the prince survived, although he was unconscious, and unable to attend his coronation—almost as good of a situation as if he had died. We could show how little the spoiled prince cared about his country, and the man more suited for the job would take power. But it just so happened that a young American discovered the plane, along with two supporters of the monarchy, Doctor Munroe and General Farnham. This young man happened to look exactly like the prince. The three of them cooked up a scheme in which the young man would take the place of the prince during the coronation, thus ensuring the king would then assume the throne.
"So, the coronation went forward, and the conspirators thought they'd gotten away with it. But my father suspected something was wrong, and he headed to the crash site. Not far away, he found a cabin with the prince, the impostor, Munroe and Farnham. He and Erik tried to arrest them, but the young man attacked my father. He raced out the door and escaped; Erik was not so fortunate, for he was captured and put in prison. My father, on the other hand….perhaps he was the less fortunate one. General Farnham hunted him relentlessly, never giving him a moment's peace. He developed pneumonia on his journey. He was only able to return after Erik came into power, and built the security service into the efficient machine it is today. But he was always susceptible to lung disease. He worked harder than anyone in the country, and he ignored his illness until he was coughing up blood.
"On his deathbed, he made me vow that the ones who had forced him into exile would pay. The king, Doctor Munroe, and Farnham were dead by then, so that only left one person." She looked at Jason meaningfully.
"You mean—my father? But it wasn't his fault. If anything, it was your father's fault—"
She held up her index finger. "You don't want to say a word against my father, Jason. It would not be wise when I have you in my power."
"But…why would he ask a little girl to do that? You must have been, what, twelve?"
"I was thirteen. It's because he trusted me more than any of his sons and daughters, even though I was the youngest. But I forgot his request until a few years ago, when Zahl noticed my talents before I did myself. Now I get to follow in my father's footsteps. Get revenge for what happened to him."
"So this is about revenge?"
She shrugged. "Partly, yes. Since your father's still in America, you're the next best thing. But it's mostly about my country. And I want to know that my Papa would be proud of what I've accomplished." She ran her hand down Jason's face again, as if memorizing his features. "You look so much like the prince…and so much like the king—and your father. What would he think of you, Jason? Your father helped put a king on the throne. You helped bring a king into the hands of his enemies. It will be enough of a punishment for him to find out how much of a failure his son was before he died." She gave him a little dimpled smile. Then, she stepped out of the room and turned out the light, leaving him in darkness.
A few minutes—or hours—later, a man walked in, followed by an entourage of soldiers. The light clicked on, flooding Jason's eyes, blinding him.
"Hello, Jason," said a familiar voice. Zahl. "It's good to see you again."