Rogue Commander, Leo Maloney [classic books for 11 year olds TXT] 📗

regaining its strength, Lily found her mind still reeling. “Well,” she managed. “They say that politics is the cake that’s fed to the masses, while the real powers rule the world.” She was trying to be clever, but then she saw the look in Smith’s eyes. He seemed to be studying the way he would a prize pupil...or a pinned butterfly. “Oh,” she realized. “Is that you? The real power?”

Smith lowered his head. Whether it was with false or real modesty, Lily couldn’t decide.

“Oh, I’m not sure about power,” he said. “But, yes, if I, and others like me and the general, left the world’s matters to politico egos, we’d all wind up as singed ashes in a wasteland.” He looked up with calm, sad eyes. “Even with us, we may still.”

“So,” Lily continued, emboldened by her rescue and the food. “You’re actually Aegis?”

Smith’s placid demeanor remained unchanged, but he did look up to survey the incongruous city. “What do you know of Aegis?”

“I actually haven’t heard much,” Lily said. “I’m merely a pawn.”

“No, no.” Smith smiled. “A knight, at the very least. Certainly no damsel in distress.”

“Thank you,” Lily said. “But at the moment I’m feeling as deadly effective as a rag doll.”

“You’ll be fine,” Smith assured. “Your efforts unearthed a rat from his hole. This Colonel Hyo has evil intentions, but we’re onto him and his friends now, thanks to you.” Smith became serious. “However, his top operative and agents are still in play. You’ll have to go back and help out.”

Lily stopped and looked at Smith. “Enver Lukacs,” she whispered.

Smith stopped beside her, but his manner returned to one of diffidence “Yes, and others of his ilk. Some we might call traitors. However, their betrayal of the peoples’ trust is not of my concern.” He removed his sunglasses and looked fully at her with a pair of ice-blue eyes. “I am not a government man, Lily. I am not a politician of any stripe or a spy or warrior like you.”

“Then what are you?”

“A man of means who associates with other such men and women and patriots such as General Kung. We all love our countries, and wish for the world to remain inhabitable, nothing more. This is the task of Zeta and our most talented and trusted operators, such as yourself.”

“I understand, I think,” Lily said. “Sort of a power consortium.”

“Correct,” Smith said. “And given the trial you’ve been through, I thought you deserving of an explanation, which might also provide you further incentive to stay in our game.” He raised a finger. “However, I do expect your discretion.”

“Cross my heart,” Lily said without the slightest bit of humor, and she did.

“Very good,” Smith said. “You are a strong and admirable young woman.”

Lily smiled her thanks in return. Suddenly she found herself standing by a gleaming black Hongqi limousine. Smith turned and looked at it too.

“And speaking of my associates, I believe this is your ride.”

The limousine’s uniformed driver got out and opened the rear passenger door. A tall man dressed in casual clothes emerged from the back and pushed his sunglasses up into his messy blond hair.

Lily’s mouth fell open.

It was Scott Renard.

Her mouth remained open until she was seated beside her boyfriend in the back seat. But before she could leap into his arms, or inundate him with endless questions, Smith pinioned her green eyes with his icy blues a final time.

“Good luck, Ms. Randall. Do me proud.” That should have been it, but Lily heard one more thing before Smith closed the door. “By the way, of your organization, only Ms. Bloch has my confidence. Only Ms. Bloch. Remember that.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Zeta headquarters had its own medical clinic.

It was a small affair, just an infirmary really—designed with the thought that wounded operatives might have to avoid a bona fide hospital and all the ensuing questions. A Boston-based surgeon and a registered nurse, both veterans of Special Forces, were contracted to be on call twenty-four-seven. But Zeta also had its own in-house medic, so, to date, their services hadn’t been used.

The clinic was square in shape, and white from ceiling to walls—with a morgue-style, smooth, tiled floor, complete with drains for spilled fluids. To the left and right were two Stryker hospital beds with standing EKG, blood pressure equipment, and pulse rate monitors, along with defibrillators and other lifesaving accouterments, plus a pair of low steel cabinets on casters, containing every imaginable scalpel, syringe, and surgical probe.

And, last, in the open space between the two beds, sat a Steelcase table stretched left to right, and a matching chair on the far side—convenient for any doctor’s administrative tasks. However, both were bolted to the floor because the clinic also doubled as Zeta’s interrogation room.

“No sense in wasting good real estate” as Paul Kirby often said.

Morgan sat in the chair, his wrists behind him at the base of his spine, cuffed to the thick metal uprights. All of his professional possessions—pistol, cell, ear comm, and boot knife—had been removed and locked up somewhere. He wore only his T-shirt, black jeans, and gym shoes, and the tattoo serpent slithering over his bicep seemed to recoil from the fury of his expression.

The door to the clinic was positioned to the left, but Morgan faced forward, across the table toward the clinic’s fourth wall, which was a top-to-bottom two-way mirror. Behind that was an anteroom, half again the infirmary’s size, with two rows of chairs, and a single, slim, table mounted with recording devices and two-way audio.

Zeta personnel had dubbed the clinic “the Cage,” but they called the anteroom “the Zoo.”

It was crowded tonight. Lincoln Shepard manned the controls, wearing a pair of large earphones. He was perched before a microphone, like a World War II radio operator from Rangoon or a disc jockey in Vietnam. Behind him, in the back row, sat Bishop, Spartan, and Diesel—all looking vaguely uncomfortable. Karen O’Neal held the end of that row, alone, taking notes on her laptop, while Peter Conley