LITMIR.BIZ

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away, tossed her in this cell, and left her here for two days in the sweltering heat. He had her one suitcase and hobo bag, and worse, the Terminator. He could keep the rest, but that she needed.

      She gripped her head. I’m so screwed. No one knew she was here. All that sage advice from her dad, “Clancy, honey, look before your leap and look hard,” went right out of her head. She’d walked right into the danger without considering the consequences.

      What did she really think she could do? Look for skilled Marines who didn’t want to be found? Once she found them, would they be so jazzed on the effects of the pods that they’d ignore her warnings? Would they even believe her? They’d volunteered for this; surely Yates had informed them of the risks.

      Suddenly a thought occurred to her. Guinea pigs.

      The military were used all the time to test new drugs. It wasn’t common knowledge; the government had hid it for years but it had happened. Every time they forced her to have a flu shot, she got sick and not with the flu.

      Her head shot up when she heard footsteps, and she pushed off the concrete floor. She adjusted her clothing, brushed off the dirt. She had to get out of here. Calling the embassy or consulate wasn’t really an option. These guys didn’t have phones. Only radios. Not that anyone from the embassy would come for her when she’d arrived under a slightly false passport. She felt the real one sticking to her skin down the back of her pants where she’d stashed it. The Grace Murray one was out there with her money. The copies of the Marines’ files—what little she could get at the time—were folded and in a plastic baggie inside her boots. The packet made her feet sweat.

      A man, Richora, appeared from the small hallway and unlocked the cell. He grabbed her hands and slapped on bright silver handcuffs, then motioned her ahead. Clancy moved past him, thinking someone probably just bought her for the whopping sum of fifty pesos. Two men had come to look her over last night. They hadn’t said a word, just looked at her in that creepy lip-smacking, “I’m gonna have fun with you” leer.

      Richora gripped her arm, pushing her forward.

      She yanked free. “I can walk, ya know.”

      “Basta ya,” he snapped, keeping hold of her elbow as he ushered her through the police station. It was an old house, really old. Water-stained walls and ceilings, worn desks, and a bulletin board with yellowed wanted posters near a drinking fountain that was stained with rust said just how old. There was so much dirt on the wood floors that it kicked up as she walked. Clancy stretched her neck to see out the windows. It had been nighttime when they dragged her in, but all she saw now was a cracked fountain in the courtyard, overgrown grasses, and great, a stone wall surrounding it. The green land beyond practically made her mouth water.

      Richora forced her into a room, and she wasn’t prepared when he pulled out a chair, told her to sit, then took out a small pad of paper. They were actually going to ask her for the truth? When they’d left her in jail for two days?

      “What are you doing in my country?”

      “Sightseeing.”

      “How did you know those men? The Sendero Luminoso.”

      Oh God. The Shining Path? “They’re disbanded.”

      “Is that what they tell you in your America? That we have conquered them?” He shook his head. “No, they merely hide better than before, senorita.”

      “Not really,” she said. “I found them easy enough.”

      “You are a woman. They wanted your body more than your mind.”

      “At least I have both.”

      His scowl darkened, winging his brows low over his dark eyes. “It would be wise to be polite to me.”

      Perhaps, but she didn’t think good behavior meant anything in a place like this. “Are you charging me with something?” Was he a real cop or just pretending, going through the motions? Then she remembered he’d killed Fuad in cold blood.

      “We are collecting evidence.”

      “Like what? I was forced from my jeep and you raided it two minutes later. What do you think I know? Or saw?” Nothing, she thought, all this got her nothing.

      “Why do you insist on lying?”

      “Why are you being an asshole?”

      He laid his hand on the table, and when it came away, Clancy saw the Terminator, a gizmo she’d created to destroy the pods without destroying the brain. She lifted her gaze.

      “Explain it.”

      “It’s an MP3 player.”

      He nudged it toward her. “Prove it.”

      The cuffs scraped the desk as she picked it up and turned it on its back. The slim pale gray device was shaped like the nanopod, an oval, almost teardrop, yet flatter. It did a lot of things, but it didn’t play music.

      She turned it on. The miniscreen flashed open and it asked a series of questions. Then the key for the high-frequency pulse radiated at a decimal level no human or animal could hear. It would do nothing to them, only the technology, and she had to be touching the troops to use it.

      She handed it back, the figures on the screen in the language of computer science.

      Richora glanced, frowned, clearly confused. Clancy was hoping he was too proud to admit he didn’t understand.

      “Explain this as well.”

      It was classified. To do so was treason and she’d already pushed her limits to get here. “No.”

      Suddenly Richora grabbed it and threw it against the wall. Clancy flinched as it hit and shattered. She closed her eyes, unable to look. “You bastard.” About a million bucks’ worth of hardware was in pieces.

      “If it was expensive and worthy, then neither of us has it.”

      He just killed the Marines. Destroying the pods was the only way to save their lives, and with no Terminator to alter the implants, Clancy was helpless. She couldn’t re-create it, and even if she found the men, what could she do now?

      Then Richora pulled her purse from the floor and dropped it on the table. “Why do you have a tracking device in your handbag?”

      Her head jerked up. “What? No, there isn’t.”

      He turned the bag over, spilling her things, and she grabbed for some before they rolled off the table as he pulled the handbag inside out. There was a slice in the lining, obviously restitched, and Clancy’s eyes widened as he pried for a second, then held up a small rectangular chip encased in plastic.

      They’ve been watching me all this time.

      “You are CIA.”

      I wish. “If I was, I’d be out of here by now.”

      “Not necessarily.”

      This man was different from the others, more refined, his accent heavy, but his diction was perfect. “Who are you?”

      “That is unimportant.”

      “You could be a cop on the take with the dealers, for all I know.” Though that seemed kind of obvious right now.

      “I am not, let me assure you.”

      “It doesn’t.” She rose and moved to the room’s only window. There were no two-way mirrors, one window, one exit. She peered out the window, judging the distance to the ground, then inspected the sill. Painted shut.

      “Sit down.”

      “I’ve been sitting for two days. Give me a phone. I’ll call the U.S. consulate and get out of your hair.” She had to get out of here now.

      “They will not get involved.”

      “Guess again.”

      “They do not know you are in this country.”

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