Playing God (Helford #2)

(19) Allegiance

I had been in the American embassy in Moscow, Russia, about three times before, but it had always been as a different person looking to talk to someone different, even though I ended up always speaking with the same person anyway. It was nicely decorated, but completely government, and it had never bothered me before. After thinking all of a sleepless night about the fall of an empire and what the government is going to do in response, being somewhere the government had a secure hold in kind of made my stomach turn.

I ran my hand through my hair, taking a deep breath.

I opened the doors to Woodburn's office-they were big doors, heavy doors-and pushed my way inside, biting my lip. Woodburn took one look at me before he bounced onto his feet and grabbed for his coat and his scarf, frowning.

"Liesel," he called to his secretary, "we're going for a walk."

And before long we were out in the cold air, pushing our way through the beginning of a good Russian snow, our hands in our pockets and our heads ducked against the unforgiving breeze, neither of us speaking because none of us needing to rush into it. We both knew that it was something bad, and something permanent. It wasn't necessary of immediate action-I wouldn't have dropped everything and travelled here personally if it was an emergency.

Woodburn knew me well enough to tell that something was wrong. He walked me to a park, an old one with a plaque stamped with the Soviet insignia, and he waited, not prompting me.

I didn't need him too-I told him everything.

I told him about what happened at the warehouse, everything, even from the things I had seen in dreams. I told him about getting shot and Shawn recognizing me, and how I didn't remember most of the ride to the safe house. I told him everything I had seen there, from Valerie to Jonathon's demands to understand Caitie so he would feel better about getting to know Nina. Woodburn didn't even laugh, even though I was sure he wanted to. He just kept walking with me and listened, and when I had talked myself into a full circle and ended up here in Moscow, I breathed in deeply, waiting for what he would say next. Woodburn took a moment.

"There isn't much of an option of what we can do at this point," he admitted.

"I know," I said.

"If Shawn is out of control, and if he knows that you're alive and that we are going to win the fight over Helford, there is no other choice. We have to do something about Shawn."

"We have to kill him."

"Well, we have to find him first," Woodburn pointed out, and I nodded. He took a deep breath before letting it out just as heavily, looking tired as he slowed to a stop in the middle of the park. I swung around to face him, not saying anything. He looked me in the eye and told me, "Dispatch the message to all of the agents that we are officially at war."

"Should I tell them with who?"

"Tell them that it's the company upstairs, but notably Shawn Masterson. Let everyone you can get to know that, if they have a clear shot on Shawn Masterson's head, then they are to take the kill shot. I want to put this guy down as quickly as I possibly can. I don't trust this guy, and I have no idea what damage he could do when he lets himself become completely unstable."

"It isn't going to be pretty," I agreed with him, taking a deep breath as well. "Shawn's going to raise hell."

He nodded. "Tell the spies," he started, and then stopped, reaching up to rub his eyes. "Tell them to pick an allegiance. Tell them to choose quickly, because soon the bullets are going to fly and I don't want to have any miscommunications. I want them to cut all ties from either organization as soon as they can. I'm going to issue a direct threat to the directors that we have left ruling over at Helford and see what they do next. We outnumber them-we have more international support. I would like to see them consider what they are going to do before we start storming their shores."

He started walking again, and I stoically followed him. Both of us were moving on autopilot, our minds in a million different places at once. It suddenly struck me how old Woodburn really is-his hardened face looked like cracked and crumbling stone, like a good blow could knock him down.

Fear flooded through me. I had never worried about Woodburn before-he was so powerful and influential that I never felt like I had to-but now I was realizing that this kind of stress took a toll on people like him. And, sometimes, hearts rebelled. Sometimes gunshot wounds knocked you down more than they would have when you were twenty-three.

Woodburn put his hand back into his pocket and turned to face me, having something to say. I looked away from him as I expected him to know what I was thinking, as if I should be embarrassed for thinking that Woodburn would be too fragile to handle running a war. I looked back to him in time to watch him laugh humorlessly through his nose, shaking his head.

"I hate to break it to you," he said, "but I need Caitie Alastair for this one."

And there was the order I knew would eventually roll in. People knew Caitie Alastair, and they knew her as the rebel. When people see the rebel fighting, the fight gets a little more real for them because they know their name, their story. They understand exactly what they are fighting for and they cease to be someone on the frontlines, another soldier. They become a person.

Am I going to be the pawn? Yes. Did I know that when I signed up for this? Of course I did. I had thought about it long and hard more than once, and I had accepted that it was worth it if I got a good spot to fight from. I got the spot that everyone was looking at and, if I went down, an explosion would follow me.

I normally would have been torn into abandoning Nina Abraham, but I felt like I had almost outgrown her. I needed to get some more air, needed to become more rebellious. I needed to become who I know I have been all along, but no one has been able to see. I want to be the girl that everyone talks about that haunts Helford like a bad habit. I want to be the girl that they know will take them down.

I breathed the cold air in deeply and said, "Yes, sir."

"Then you know what else you have to do," he said, turning to face me.

I stopped and turned to face him as well and, for a moment, we just looked at each other. And then Woodburn extended one of his hands for me to shake, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, and he told me, "It's been a privilege working with you, Caitie. I'm sure it's going to be even more entertaining to fight next to you."

"Try not to have a heart attack, old man," was all I said, because I'm not good with sentimentality.

Woodburn burst out laughing and rolled his eyes at me before he clapped me on my shoulder, smiling genuinely and happily at me, almost fondly, like I was his daughter and I was growing up. I looked into his eyes and I saw something like that, something I expected a father would look like, and I smiled back.

I watched Woodburn as he walked away. I had this horrible feeling in my stomach that this would be the last time I would see him.

~*~

A manila folder and everything I would need to complete my transformation back into Caitie Alastair were waiting for me when I got back to my hotel room. I shed my coat and sat down, reaching for the manila folder. I looked down at it, ripping off the Post-It note stuck on it, reading it quickly.

I froze. And then read it again.

The note slipped from my fingers and onto the floor.

In Woodburn's careful handwriting, he had written:

Geronimo is on.