Annum Guard: Blackout Part 17

"Secretary Howe has made only two official visits to Boston in the last six years. As you no doubt know, he's been the secretary of defense only for the past three years. What you may not know is before that, he was CEO of National Defense."

I do know that. We found it out last night with a simple Internet search. National Defense manufactures war goods. Exactly the kind of thing Eagle does. National Defense also has a mercenary soldier wing. Private soldiers the US can rent when it needs military help.

"In addition, Senator Wharton made a highly unusual trip to Boston six years ago, around the time the blackout memo was auth.o.r.ed. The senator was not here on official government business, and his travel log seems to be deliberately vague. He came in on a morning flight, had a lunch meeting, and flew out again the same day. I know we should be focusing on Howe, but there's something about the visit that seems off. I think we should investigate."

Yellow and I nod in agreement.

Red crosses his arms over his chest. "That's one mission. The other two involve Secretary Howe. His first visit was just recently. An anniversary celebration for the USS Const.i.tution. The secretary was in town for that and, it appears, happened to take a detour to meet with a few of his old friends from National Defense. Definitely worth following up on.

"And the second is the jackpot. Six years ago, there was a fundraiser at the Back Bay brownstone of John Leighton."

He pauses like we should know who that is.

"Of Leighton Capital."

Another pause.

None of this is ringing a bell. I look over at Yellow, and even though she's nodding along, she's doing that wrinkled nose thing she does when she's confused.

"It's one of the largest real-estate investment firms in the country," Red says in his mildly annoyed tone. "Leighton made headlines last year when he tried-and failed-to buy the Red Sox."

"Oh, okay." I remember reading about that.

"Anyway, Leighton held a private party at his home to benefit the reelection campaign of Congresswoman Barbara Trabandt." He shakes his head. "That's unimportant. What's key is that Howe, Wharton, and Caroline Caldwell were all in attendance."

"Wow," Yellow says.

"She wasn't the vice president yet," Red points out. "She was a senator who was probably already looking ahead to the next presidential election, although nothing official had been announced. But yes, all three of our prime suspects were under one roof for one evening."

"Wow," I echo.

"That's clearly our most important mission, so I really want to focus on that one. I want three people covering it. Iris, I need you on this. I'm going to send Blue and Green with you, but you're most familiar with the situation, so you're leading it."

I nod, but Abe and Green? Really? One person who's barely speaking to me and another who isn't going to like me leading.

"And I'm going to put two people on Howe's National Defense meeting. I'm thinking Indigo and Violet. Yellow"-Red turns to look at her-"that means you'd have to fly solo on the Wharton mission. I'm really hesitant to send anyone alone because of the blackout team-whatever it is-floating out there somewhere."

"I can handle it," Yellow says.

"I know you can," Red says. "You're the most senior Guardian now. That's why I'm choosing you. But be careful." And then he reaches over and gives her hand this little squeeze that's really toeing the line between personal and professional, but Yellow doesn't flinch. In fact, she kind of relaxes into his touch. I pretend not to notice, but Yellow and I are going to have a serious conversation later.

"When are we doing this?" I ask.

Red pulls his hand away and clears his throat. "Tonight. Indigo's due back from the Treaty of Portsmouth mission around four this afternoon, so we'll just have to throw him back in."

Yellow's eyes get big. "Whoa. Tonight? Seriously?"

"How is that going to work with Bonner?" I ask.

"You guys aren't going back very far. Just six years. There won't be a lot of catch-up time. You'll lose maybe twenty minutes. If I send you all back at one a.m., even if it takes you hours, you'll return by five. Bonner will be asleep the whole time. I have the codes to wipe your trackers from the log. We should be fine."

I raise an eyebrow. "And if we're not?"

Red sighs. But it's not a sigh of frustration. It's more like resignation. "Then I take the fall. I orchestrated this."

"But you didn't," I protest. "If anyone should get the blame, it should be me."

"Let's not worry about that now. For now, let's focus only on success." Red slides a piece of paper and a lighter toward me. "The address of the catering company that John Leighton hired for the fundraiser. This is your ticket in. Memorize it and burn it. Yellow, your meeting takes place at L'Espalier. I a.s.sume you know it?"

"Of course," Yellow says, and I'm not surprised that she's familiar with one of the most expensive restaurants in Boston.

"Good," Red says. "And good luck."

It's hard to concentrate on the boxes upon boxes of doc.u.ments after that. I spend most of the afternoon mindlessly glancing over them. For every twenty pages I flip through, I maybe read one. I scribble down a few notes that are probably completely irrelevant. Because all I'm thinking about is tonight.

After dinner, I lie on top of my bed and stare at the clock. 11:00. 11:30. 12:00. 12:30. 12:45. 12:50.

Close enough.

I slip on jeans and a light jacket and head downstairs to find that I'm not the only one who's antsy to get started. I'm the last one to arrive besides Red. Everyone has the same look of nervous energy, except Indigo, who has bags under his eyes and his chin tucked into his chest.

I pause at his seat. "How are you doing?"

His head jerks up. "I have never wanted to take a nap so badly in my life. Bonner made me start on my mission report right after I got back, and it took flipping forever."

I've never seen Indigo look worse. His eyes are bright red and watery, and his pupils are dilated. He's looking in my direction but through me, and he's swaying in his seat.

I touch his arm. "Indigo, are you okay to do this? Violet could probably handle the Howe mission alone, or I could lose Green on mine if-"

"I'm fine," he interrupts.

"You don't look fine. I don't want you to put yourself in any extra danger."

"Iris. I'm fine."

The door opens behind us, and Red walks into the Sit Room. He scowls. "I said one o'clock, people." Then he sighs. "Whatever. Let's do this."

One by one, we follow Red to the gravity chamber.

"Be careful," he says. "We don't know who or what is waiting for us out there, but it would be naive to think we're not being monitored on some level."

"Someone wants to black us out," I say. We're all thinking it.

"Maybe," Red says. "Yellow, you first." He hands her a necklace, and in a flash, Yellow is gone. "Indigo and Violet." I hold my breath as Indigo projects-and then only Abe, Green, and I are left. Red doesn't say a word as we slip our necklaces over our heads and step into the chamber. He doesn't have to. We already know this mission is do or die.

Green lingers behind, and I turn to Abe. "Hey. We need to be a team today. Deal?"

Abe's face softens, and I see so much going on behind his eyes. Thoughts and hopes and everything I need to see. "We're always a team," he says.

He gestures to let me go first. I close my eyes, shut my watch, and I plummet.

CHAPTER 16.

I land inside the broom closet six years in the past.

Six years.

That means Alpha is upstairs. He's probably sitting in his office scheming how to make more money off of missions. All it would take to end this thing would be a quick trip upstairs and one shot. But I would never. First, it's wrong. And second, like Ariel said, time is too dangerous to just mess with it like that. If Alpha dies when I'm eleven, Peel might not have recruited me three years later. And if I don't go to Peel, I don't meet Abe. And that's a life I won't imagine, even now.

There are two loud zips, one right after the other, and I snap myself out of it as Green and Abe land next to me.

Abe looks uncomfortable. He still hasn't gotten used to the projections. But then he relaxes his shoulders and shrugs it off. Green powers out the door like we're wasting time.

"All right," Green says, as he holds open the door for us. He taps his foot against the old brick road of Joy Street. "First order of business-"

I hold up a hand. "Nope. First and only order of business is to listen to me. I'm leading this one."

I pause to see if he'll test me. I can tell he wants to-his mouth opens and he sucks in his breath-but then he stops himself. He simply says, "Okay."

This is the biggest victory I've had in weeks, which is completely pathetic, but I'll take what I can get. "We're going to Hub Catering, where we're going to steal uniforms and set up shop at John Leighton's house. He owns a whole brownstone on Commonwealth Ave., in between Berkeley and Clarendon."

"Nice chunk of real estate," Abe notes.

"No kidding," I say. "He got it in 2002 for the bargain price of fourteen million."

"d.a.m.n. We're in the wrong line of work."

Green huffs. "Where's Hub Catering?"

"The office is downtown. We can walk."

And so we do. It's a quick stroll across the Common. The midafternoon sun s.h.i.+nes on the park. A guy tosses a Frisbee to his dog, not-so-subtly checking out the two college-aged girls lying on the gra.s.s nearby in tiny shorts and bikini tops. We pa.s.s a number of office workers eating a late lunch on the benches outside the T stop, then cross the street and head to a brick building on Summer Street.

"Plan of attack?" Green asks as we step out of view of the front window.

"You and Abe go in and ask to see sample menus and a rate chart. I'll slip in, grab a few uniforms, and we'll get out."

"And how exactly are three randoms going to blend in with a bunch of employees who probably all know each other?" Green asks.

I narrow my eyes just enough to let Green know he shouldn't underestimate me. "Do you know how much turnover large catering companies have? This place isn't exactly a mom-and-pop setup." I gesture to the three floors of the building. "Besides, there are easily fifty people staffing this thing tonight. Chefs, bartenders, servers. We're going to be fine."

Green waves his right hand in the air, like this is 1890 and he's dismissing a servant. "Fine. Yeah, let's go."

I'm about to snap back at him, but then Abe puts his hand to the small of my back. It's a let it go gesture. I've gotten it a lot from him in the past few years-whenever our Practical Studies professor would ride me for blowing a cover or messing up a tail, whenever a sparring partner tried to carry the fight off the mat, and, these days, whenever Bonner so much as glances in my direction. For some reason, his touch right now annoys me. It feels like I'm being undermined. I shrug away because I don't want to say or do something I'll regret.

"What are you guys waiting for?" I say.

I hang back and let Green and Abe go inside. A few minutes later, I peek in the window. Green is gesturing wildly while a woman at a desk is bent over, rifling through a filing cabinet. Abe catches my eye and motions for me to enter. I do and slip past the desk into the back. The woman doesn't notice a thing. That was ridiculously easy.

I make a left and find a woman with short, spiky blonde hair standing in an industrial kitchen. Nearly everything in here is stainless steel-appliances, countertops, a giant mixer. The woman is piping icing onto a wedding cake. She has a full sleeve of colorful tattoos on her left arm.

"Oh, hey," I say casually. "I'm a new hire. I was told to pick up a uniform?"

"You need Alberto," she says without looking up. "Second floor."

"Thanks." I sprint up the stairs. On the second floor, I pa.s.s several people: two older women arguing about brie; a guy with headphones on, bobbing his head as he rolls silverware into napkins; a man loading dingy white tablecloths into the largest was.h.i.+ng machine I've ever seen.

And then I see a closed door with a sign marked "Linens" next to it on the wall. Maybe this? I rap my knuckles against the door, preparing my cover story. But no one answers. I try the handle. The door swings open, revealing a small room, dark and empty. Even better.

I'm inside in a second and shut the door quietly behind me. I flip the light switch, and then I'm faced with a sea of color. There are floor-to-ceiling shelves neatly organized with tablecloths, napkins, and chair covers in every color you could dream of. I keep looking.

And then, there it is. The last shelf-naturally-is lined with uniforms, but I'm not sure what to do. The chefs' jackets are easy to recognize, and I skip over those, but what are waiters supposed to wear? There are s.h.i.+rts and vests and pants and bow ties, and I'm so confused. I grab a bunch of stuff, then slip out the door and head back down the stairs.

I pause before the door that leads to the front office, straining to hear what's going on in there. Waltzing in with an armload of stolen uniforms might not be the best idea.

"Hey!"

I whirl around. It's the woman with the spiky hair. She's now adding tiny pink cherry blossoms to the base of each cake layer.

"We don't go out that way." She jerks the hand holding the piping bag toward the opposite end of the building, back behind the staircase. "Service entrance for employees."

I breathe a sigh of relief. A service entrance. That's a million times better. "Thank you," I tell her, and I mean it. I squeeze the uniforms tighter and disappear out the door into the warm spring sun.

Abe and Green find me outside. One quick change later, and we're on our way to the fundraiser. I didn't do such a great job at eyeballing sizes. Abe could fit two people in his vest, while Green can barely get his s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.toned. My pants are a little short, but I sling them low on my hips and it's pa.s.sable. I use my ponytail holder to gather Abe's vest in the back. That's going to have to do.

We duck behind a group of similarly dressed people heading into the back of the house from an alley off Comm. Ave. A guy in his early twenties swivels around. "New?"

"Yep," I say. "Our first event."

His eyebrows shoot for the sky. "They gave you this as your first event?" Then he laughs and turns back to the group. "Can you believe that? Throwing baby cubs to the wolves like that?"

I roll my eyes at his back because, seriously, dude, a catering job is hardly the most difficult thing I've done in my life. And "baby cubs" is a totally superfluous expression. But correcting someone's grammar is completely Bonner-esque. Plus, there's no sense in making enemies.

We shuffle inside the house, where we enter . . . a room. I don't really know what it is. A parlor? Some other type of room that only rich people have? There's burgundy carpeting, silk drapes, and a bunch of tables and chairs. I have no idea how you're supposed to use this room. From the looks of it, no one else does either.

There are three coordinators for the event, and each of them has a clipboard with a list of names. Green, Abe, and I duck into the kitchen next door. It's way bigger than my kitchen in Vermont, which is a glorified closet with seventies-era appliances. This kitchen is even bigger than the one at Annum Hall. There are professional-grade appliances like the ones at Hub Catering, stone countertops, and what I a.s.sume is the finest cutlery on the market.

Abe nudges me, then looks toward the coffered ceiling. "And I'm willing to bet this is only the catering kitchen."

Catering kitchen? As in there's more than one kitchen in this house? How do people afford this stuff? "Okay," I whisper to my teammates. "I think we should split up and each tail one of the suspects. Abe-Blue-you take Senator Wharton. Green, you take the vice president. I've got Howe."

"Apps are ready to start going out!" one of the younger chefs yells.