Chapter 5 #4
"I need one."
Nika settled back in his chair. "Need is a dangerous word. It convinces men that answers are owed to them."
Pyotr's jaw tightened. "She is MI6, but that is not her true allegiance."
"You sound certain."
"I'm certain enough."
"Then why come to me?"
"Because you know something."
Nika exhaled slowly. "I know many things. Fewer than I should. More than I want."
"About Carly."
"I do not know Carly St. James's allegiance."
Pyotr folded his arms.
Nika watched the old irritation move through his son. It was familiar. Almost comforting.
"I know you think I'm holding back," Nika said.
"You are holding back. I thought we had moved past that."
Nika nodded once. "So did I."
Pyotr waited.
"She is young," Nika said at last. "Imprudent. Clever enough to be useful. Angry enough to be careless. A bit like your friend, the Sparrow."
"I wouldn't call Claire Brackett a friend."
"No?"
"She's a?—"
"Your ally."
Pyotr's mouth closed.
Nika leaned forward. "Do not mistake affection for friendship or usefulness for loyalty. But do not undervalue the person who stands beside you when the room turns against you."
Pyotr looked away.
"You trust her," Nika said.
"Yes."
"Good."
"We are not talking about Claire."
"Perhaps we should be." Nika's gaze moved briefly to the wall, as if he could see beyond it. "Perhaps Claire is the best person to assess Miss St. James."
"Carly was in France this week. With her father."
"No doubt meeting with President Durand."
Pyotr nodded. "She also met with Anna Piotrowski."
Nika went very still.
It was a small thing. The tightening near his eye. The faint pause before his next breath, but Pyotr saw it.
"You know something," he said.
"I know Anna."
"Popov isn't behind that meeting," Pyotr said. "He has no use for her. No trust in her."
"No," Nika agreed quietly. "He would not."
"Then who is she answering to?"
Nika looked toward the ceiling. There were no windows in this place, no sky to consult, no horizon against which to measure a thought. Only stone, concrete, steel, and the low mechanical breathing of machines that kept dead men hidden.
"Father."
Nika stood and walked the few steps the room allowed him. This was his cage—a cage that did not need bars to be understood.
"The Eagle handled Anna," he said.
Pyotr’s mouth went dry. "The Eagle is dead."
"He is."
"Then Anna should have scattered."
"Perhaps she did," Nika replied. "And then was called."
"Called by whom?"
Nika turned back. "That is the question."
Pyotr's face darkened. "You're telling me Edmond Callier controlled more than we knew."
"I am telling you that Edmond Callier understood systems. Biological. Political. Financial. Human." Nika's mouth tightened. "Most men collect secrets because secrets make them feel powerful. The Eagle collected dependencies. Much more useful. Much harder to kill."
Pyotr considered the older man's words.
"Which means," Nika continued, "you need the Sparrow."
"Claire doesn't hold the reins at Technologie Applique yet. She has access, but she doesn't have control."
Nika laughed softly.
"You disagree?" Pyotr asked.
"I think you are confusing titles with power."
"I don't underestimate Claire."
"Yes, you do."
Pyotr looked offended.
Nika chuckled. "Do not sulk. Everyone underestimates Claire Brackett at first. It is part of her utility."
"Claire is not a child.”
"No. But many people still see a wounded girl. Or perhaps only a constructed asset: The daughter of one ghost, and a dead man still walking. The child still seeking her place. The woman paired with a woman she was meant to betray.”
Pyotr said nothing.
Nika's voice lowered. "They see pieces of who she has been. They do not see who Claire Brackett has become. That makes her dangerous."
"Dangerous to whom?"
"To anyone who underestimates her."
A drop of water fell somewhere beyond the wall.
Pyotr shifted in his chair. "Not everything lies in the hands of the Collaborative."
Nika laughed dryly.
"You disagree?"
"No," Nika said. "But the Collaborative can reach almost anything. Governments have borders. Corporations have jurisdictions. Intelligence agencies have rules, even when they pretend otherwise. The Collaborative was designed to live in the spaces between."
"And Brackett and Toles?"
"There is a reason the Admiral and the Eagle worked so hard to keep them apart. To make them enemies."
"I've heard the story."
"No," Nika said. "You've heard the version men tell when they need history to sound manageable."
Pyotr's gaze hardened. "They are just agents," he said.
Nika looked at his son for a long moment.
"No," he said quietly. "They are much more than that. More now than ever."
"Because of McCollum?"
"Not only McCollum."
"Then because of Cassidy?" Pyotr asked.
Nika did not answer.
"Why? Who? Who fears them?" Pyotr pressed.
Still, Nika remained silent.
Pyotr stood. "What aren't you telling me?"
Nika's expression turned tired. For the first time since Pyotr had entered the room, he looked like what he was: a man who had outlived his own death and found no peace in the victory.
"They do not know the history they are chasing," Nika said. "That is why so many fear them."
"Alex and Claire?"
"Their generation. Alex. Claire. Carly. You. Others." Nika's gaze drifted toward the door. "You are all walking through rooms built before you were born, touching wires without knowing who laid them or what things they still power."
Pyotr's anger eased into something colder. "And Carly?"
"Blaire's stepdaughter is useful to many people. MI6. Popov. Perhaps to anyone who makes her feel the most... powerful."
"You mean who plays to her vanity."
Nika smiled.
"And you think Popov is pulling her strings?"
"I think men like Yuri Popov do not need allegiance when leverage will do."
Pyotr sighed. "And Anna?" he asked.
"If Anna has appeared, you need to look closer within your own ranks."
"At ASA?"
Nika nodded. "And Technologie Applique."
"You think we have been penetrated."
Nika looked around the room. "I think you are standing in a tunnel asking where the darkness begins."
This was something he shared with Claire Brackett. The man who had long claimed her spoke in fairytales. And the man who had long denied him offered wisdom in riddles. He'd learned to read the meaning.
Pyotr looked toward the door. The hum behind the walls deepened, or perhaps he only noticed it now. Electricity. Water. Heat. Air. Systems built beneath systems. Cities depended on things most people never saw until they failed.
"What are they planning?" Pyotr asked.
Nika did not answer immediately. He walked back to the table and picked up his coffee. It had gone cold. He drank it anyway.
"You fear war," he said.
"I fear many things," Pyotr admitted. "War is among them."
Nika nodded. "They are not planning a war."
"That's reassuring."
"No. War has flags. Speeches. Enemies a population can recognize. It is transparent. Seen. Even when it is ugly."
Pyotr's brow furrowed. "Then what?"
"Confusion creates chaos. Chaos creates fear. Fear opens opportunities."
"What are they planning?" Pyotr repeated.
Nika set the cup down.
This time, when he looked at his son, there was no evasion in his eyes.
"Darkness."
"Darkness? Where?" Pyotr asked.
Nika's voice dropped until it echoed like the tunnels beyond the walls.
"Everywhere," he said.