She had to remind herself that he had a lot to make up for. The puppy dog worry in his eyes was touching, though. She stiffened, trying hard to keep her own emotions from bubbling to the surface. “I’m a big girl.”
He became serious and his grip on her elbows tightened. “If things get hairy, I want you to hide out at the missile silo. No one knows about it, not even the Prophus. It’s stocked with food and ammo for years and depending on how bad your shot is, you can hold off the Canadian army for at least six months. Got it?”
“All forty Mounties?” she laughed, trying to brush off the awkwardness of the moment.
“Front entrance and the mainframe are all authenticated single sign-on via retina. You can override with the master phrase ‘Baby Bear versus the Big City’. The arms locker is Cam’s birthday in reverse. There’s a hidden exit in the back connected to the third silo. The key to that is behind the ant farm.”
“You have an ant farm in your underground bunker?” she chuckled. “How poetic.”
“Can’t keep anything else alive down there,” he grinned. “Feed them if you can.” He gave her a peck on the lips and held her tightly. “Be safe,” he murmured before running off.
Baby Bear versus the Big City? How childish.
Jill stood there for a few moments, running that last moment over in her head. “I like it.”
It is asinine. I wonder what it means.
“Cubs versus the Yankees. Our first date.”
That is strangely romantic in a juvenile way, I guess.
Jill allowed a small smile to break on her face. It was as much of a compliment as Baji was willing to offer Roen. She watched as he disappeared with a group of agents, presumably off to Taiwan, and prayed that she’d see him again.
She left Command and walked down the newly redusted corridor toward her car, bottling her emotions back up. It had been over a year since she last saw him. And just like that, he was gone again. As she got into the car and pulled out of the garage, her thoughts raced in circles about the man she had once loved. Did she still love him even after the decisions he’d made?
You forgive too easily.
“Who says I forgave him? Trust me, Baji, I just want to kill him myself.”
What Roen did, choosing Tao over her and Cameron was unforgivable. She still remembered those nights begging him to stay home instead of running off on his little crusade, but Tao had already convinced him it had to be done. He had no choice, he said. It was during those moments that she realized that he would never truly be hers as long as Tao was with him. And Tao would always be with him. His wife would always be a distant second to his Quasing and to the ghost of Sonya Lyte. And that broke her heart more than anything else.
For Roen and Baji, it all went back to Sonya. Jill looked at herself in the rearview mirror and wondered if there was any part of Baji’s previous host in her. She had only met Sonya briefly when they were captured by the Genjix at Monaco. They were in adjacent cells and it was Sonya’s steady voice that had kept her sane through the ordeal. She hadn’t known about the Quasing then. She didn’t even know what Sonya looked like until they were brought to the helipad at the Capulet’s Ski Lodge. Sonya Lyte was breathtakingly beautiful. It was just another thing Jill could never live up to.
She heard later on that Roen was forced to kill Sonya in order to save Jill from becoming a Genjix host. He had never forgiven himself. To make matters worse, Roen and Tao fed off each other’s vengeance. Tao had hundreds of years’ worth of revenge to draw upon, while Roen tried to absolve his guilt for Sonya’s death by killing the enemy. In the end, they only hurt themselves and the ones they loved. Even her own damn Quasing couldn’t get past how poor a substitute she was for Sonya.
It is not that way, Jill. I do not hold you responsible for Sonya. You are two different souls with different strengths. I never intended to compare you two.
“You never intended to, but you do. You can’t help it. Hell, everyone does.”
Jill got out of the car and took the elevator to the condo that she and Roen had once shared. Coming into her quiet home was a harsh reminder of all that she’d lost over the past few years. There used to be a husband and squealing baby in here once. Being a single parent now, she couldn’t take care of Cameron while working the hours she did for both the Prophus and the senator. Sending him to her parents was even harder than locking Roen out of the house. He had returned home after being gone for a month, and she had changed the locks. He had pleaded outside the door for her to let him in. Huddled in a ball on the other side of the door, she waited him out with tears streaming down her face. It took him six hours to leave. Those were some of the longest hours of her life. She had half feared he would break his way in, but that wasn’t his way with her.
Jill kicked off her heels furiously and watched them bounce off the walls. She wandered to the living room, stripped off her dress, and threw it into the trash. It was pretty much ruined anyway. Jill made one trip around the entire apartment, turning on every light. It was a ritual she did every time she came home; she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it made her feel less alone. Maybe she hoped to find her husband and child waiting for her. With a sigh, Jill went to the shower to wash off the previous night’s madness.
On the plus side, Roen did seem like he was suffering almost as much as she was. In a rather sick way, it made her feel better. She was still furious with him and he would have to work hard to get back into her good graces, but it comforted her to know that at least he was just as miserable without her. Maybe, if she ever saw him again, she’d make him sweat it out for a year or three before forgiving him. It would serve him right. Jill let the warm water from the shower rain down on her face as she pulled her hair back. Then she froze for several moments. The thought of not seeing him again seized her with a sudden terror.
It made her feel better that Wuehler was in charge of the mission. He was a competent commander who wouldn’t take chances like Roen would. She had met the man a few times. He was stuffy and by-the-books, having risen through the ranks of Prophus military and earned an equally stuffy and by-the-books Quasing named Ramez. They were an odd couple to match with Roen and Tao. Jill hoped that the more level-headed man could keep Roen alive long enough for her to torture him for a few more years.
Jill got out of the shower and looked at the time: 8.43am. She had to get moving. The Hart Senate building was on the other side of DuPont Circle and traffic was murder at this hour. She threw on a suit, applied ample makeup to cover the nasty cut on her cheek, and headed to work.
At precisely 10am, Jill knocked on Senator Wilks’ door and walked in. James Wilks was a four-term senator and the chairman of the powerful Senate Committee on Appropriations. The Prophus had long considered him a kindred ally and much of the committee’s pork barrel spending that the senator allocated was steered toward Prophus projects. Jill was assigned to his office by Command soon after she became Baji’s host.
“God, Jill, what happened to your face?” Wilks looked concerned. “It wasn’t that low-down husband of yours, was it? Because I’ll make a call to the Hoover Building and have him put on the Most Wanted list faster than that worthless son of a bitch can take a piss.”
James Wilks was an elderly statesman who looked every bit a career politician. He just never sounded like one. Tall and distinguished-looking, with a full head of graying hair and a jawline to make all the ladies swoon, he looked like one of those older models on hair dye boxes. When he spoke, though, people either immediately identified with him or couldn’t stand him. Rough around the edges, he might seem out of place in Illinois politics, but his constituents loved him just fine.