Sonata (North Security 3)

It’s not Liam. I can tell from the timbre of the voice. And the fact that he isn’t calling my name. It’s too soon for him to be back, which means these are the people after me. There is a natural sense of self-preservation. I don’t want to die in this cavern, even if there is a poetic symmetry to doing it where Christine was captured by the Phantom. More than that, I don’t want Liam to live with the guilt. He’d never forgive himself.

I look around for a place to hide. There’s only stone down here. And water.

I press along the wall, scooting back, back, back. My foot slips into a puddle. The splash makes my heart stop. The voices continue, the rhythm unbroken. They didn’t hear. Or they assumed it was a drop from the ceiling into the never-ending caverns.

My foot slips again, this time almost toppling me. I glance back to see the faintest, far-away ripples. It looks like some kind of hole. A well. I’ll be disguised down there. Even now I can barely see any glint of light on the water’s surface.

I turn to kneel at the edge and hang from my hands.

Then I let go.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

After two decades of experimental forms, Debussy finally decided to write in the ultra-traditional form for his first and only violin sonata. Its debut was his last public performance before his death.

Liam

A black form sprawls in the alley. Dark liquid reflects the moonlight. The carnage of a gunshot to the jaw. My stomach clenches. There isn’t any gore that could make me heave, but the thought of my brother threatens my calm.

Calm is everything to a soldier.

I touch two fingers to his temple to turn him. As soon as I do, I know it’s not Josh. The wrong shape, the wrong hair color. Relief almost steals my voice. “Unidentified white male,” I say into my watch. “DOA. Keep looking.”

That night he held Elijah up above the water, I swore I’d never put them in danger again. They followed me into the military because it was the only thing we knew how to do. It wasn’t even the violence that drew us. It was the act of survival. What was life without the constant threat of death? I didn’t want them to join North Security. I tried to keep them out of combat. It didn’t always work, but none of that mattered when it came to protecting Samantha.

Samantha. She’s back in the theater, and any hope that this was a false alarm has been shattered with the discovery of the dead body. Do I head back to the caverns? Or do I find my brother? I’m torn between the woman I love and the man that’s flesh and blood.

I’m not going to let you feel that guilt. Help him.

He might be lying in a pool of blood like this sorry bastard.

“Boss,” comes a voice that I recognize as Webb. “We found something on the roof. One of these angel sculptures up here? It had a false side. There’s enough meal packs in here to last a month. And it smells rank.”

That explains how they got past our defenses. They were already here.

Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.

What if the angels are strangers in disguise?

“Code Omega,” I say, and in case there’s any doubt: “Shut the place down.”

We had a hundred different scenarios. Ten different responses. This one’s the most extreme. The kitchen sink. The French police are going to shit their pants over what happens next, but with my brother and my future wife in danger, I don’t care.

There is a small part of my brain that worries for Samantha when the flashbangs drop into the caverns. I need her to be strong for this. What’s more important is that anyone with her is immobilized. A moan draws my attention farther back in the alley.

I draw my weapon and stride over.

Josh stares down the barrel of my gun. “Hell,” he says.

His eyes are dilated. I check him for gunshot wounds. He mumbles something that I can’t understand. It might be “Bethany.” Without ceremony I sling him over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. I make it back in time to hear the sirens wail. Webb guards the entrance to the caverns. I shove Josh at him, who curses me in three different languages.

I didn’t even know he spoke Arabic.

Then I’m climbing down the metal stairs, fighting the panic.

“Samantha!”

Fear.