Blue Maneuver Read online

  He smirked. No doubt the knucklehead had misinterpreted my blush. “UED records indicate that you’ve lived in the neighborhood for more than two years and have never visited the park before. Yet on the very day when UED’s latest WitSec steward is murdered, you appear and appropriate his CeeBees.”

  All this for ham radios? Blackness circled the rainbows surrounding my vision. I didn’t let that stop me from glaring at him. Unfortunately, I think the shakes vibrating my body undermined the effect. Either the knock on the head or the brainwashing had made me sick. I wanted nothing more than my bed and warm blankets.

  And I was willing to admit to being a total loser to get it.

  “I wasn’t at the park to meet Mr. Tall, D… to meet Victor Konstantin. I was there to get exercise, but my stupid personal trainer never showed.”

  Tobias’s forehead wrinkled and his lips compressed as if he had swallowed something nasty.

  I shrugged. So my confession didn’t exactly earn me brownie points. All I wanted was to go home and sleep.

  “I had nothing to do with any murder or stealing.” I shifted on the hard wooden chair and leaned toward him. “Search this place if you don’t believe me. I don’t have your precious Citizen’s Band radio.”

  He smiled.

  I doubted it was from humor. In fact, I’d bet the rest of my savings that Red Riding Hood’s grandmother had seen that smile right before the Big Bad Wolf ate her.

  “Yes. You do.” With a tap of his fingers, the hologram burped an image of three blue lights.

  A memory shimmered to the fore. Aw snap. The lightning bugs spazzing on pixie dust. Arching my back I glanced down at my chest where the first one had hit. Where I had a welt and Tobias had given me a gold dot as a stripper’s pasty.

  He obligingly held out my shirt to give me a clear view.

  Definitely a douche. “You mean these Cee-Bee things are inside me?” I inhaled then my nose started to tingle and itch. Oh no. “They’re making me sick.”

  “The cerebral bots, or CeeBees, cause an infection-like response while they’re incorporating.” He flashed his pointy canine teeth. “Obviously the CeeBees were not part of Konstantin’s plan.”

  Plan. Schman. I shifted on the seat while my manacled arms twitched. The light bands dug into my skin. I yanked harder. I needed a doctor, antibiotics, and a blood transfusion.

  Tobias crossed his arms and smirked down at me.

  That was real helpful. Not! I jerked my body up and twisted. The chair hopped on the tile with a loud click and angled toward him. “Get them out of me!”

  He shrugged, uncrossed his arms and reached for the fake MP4 player. “Right now the CeeBees are merging with every cell in your body and integrating their operating code into your DNA.”

  The hologram fell dark and he snapped the gold circle filled bottom to the back of the display.

  He couldn’t be packing up and leaving. Not after casually announcing he had infected me.

  “No.” The chair’s legs screeched against the tile as I hopped sideways toward him. My muscles jiggled and my joints creaked but I didn’t care. He wasn’t going to leave me like this. “No. I won’t allow it. You put them in me; you need to get them out. Out, out Spam dots!”

  I flinched at my father’s favorite interpretation of Shakespeare.

  His mouth turned down at the corners. And for a moment, his blond eyebrows met in a vee above his nose. Clearing his throat, he turned away and tucked the MP4 player in his back pocket. “Can’t.”

  “Yes. You can.” I’d become his personal cheerleader if he’d change his mind. I really needed him to change his mind. I sniffed up the unmentionables tickling my nose. I’d had a cold like this only once before and I’d ended up in the hospital for three weeks. This time I didn’t have insurance. “You created the Spam dots. You get them out or turn them off. Surely the fancy pen or cell phone can do that.”

  I jerked my head toward the brass pen. He hadn’t used that yet. Surely Big Brother had a cure for something they created. Unless… Oh God. I stopped moving my chair. Unless they sterilized the infected.

  “UED didn’t create the CeeBees. We stumbled across them on our first contact.” Tobias set his cold hand on mine. “As far as we know, they created themselves and keep on making more of themselves, improving and adapting with each generation. Although we’ve used them for nearly a thousand years, we have yet to understand how the CeeBees work.”

  He lifted his hand and wiped it on his jeans.

  First contact. A thousand years. Had the Spam dots effected my hearing now? Was I beyond curing? Tears stung my eyes. My fever disappeared under a wave of chills. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know, obecht.” He tucked the pen into his shirt pocket, right above the city logo. “And maybe we could have left you alone but now that you’ve become involved with Konstantin…”

  “I’m not involved with him!” My voice became hoarse as a dozen frogs played Cirque du Soliel with my vocal cords. Geez, if Mr. Tall, Dark and Latino stood between me and the cure… “I’ll give him up, swear off men, join a convent or take a vow of celibacy. Just don’t let those things kill me.”

  Silently, he picked up his cell. He tilted his head to the right while turning the Smartphone round and round in his hand. “I’ve never heard of the Cee-Bee’s killing anyone.”

  I collapsed against the chair’s wooden slats. Praise Buddha. I was going to live. My internal celebration died a quick death. Tobias didn’t actually seem filled with warm and fuzzy thoughts at the news. What was he not telling me? “But?”

  “Given your association with Konstantin, UED cannot allow you to carry the CeeBees.” The screen of his phone lit up. He glanced at the name and ran his fingers through his short hair.

  I sniffed. And that got him upset? Seemed like a win-win situation to me. “So they’ll remove the Spam dots and I’ll be okay.”

  “The CeeBees can’t be removed.” Using his thumb he accepted the call and raised the phone to his ear. “The only viable solution will be your immediate termination.”

  Chapter Four

  “Killing me is not a viable solution.” I shouted at Tobias’s back. Despite the waves of fever crashing over me, I was clear-headed enough to know that I wanted to live a long and happy life. “Look it up in the dictionary. Viable is the opposite of death.”

  Tobias Werner UED shrugged his broad shoulders. Instead of responding to my shouts, he spoke into his cell phone and faced away from me into the living room. “Werner.”

  Pretentious douche bag! Answering with only his last name like everyone on God’s green Earth knew who he was. I jerked my wrists but the light bands holding me to the arms of the cane back chair didn’t budge. And just what was up with his name? Werner pronounced Verner. Aside from being a cold-blooded killer, he was also a letter bigot.

  Oscar the grouchy cat stretched across the polished cherry dining room table. His orange body contrasted with the beige drapes covering the small room’s wall of windows. He closed his eyes as his head reached a patch of early morning sunlight. Shadows from the fichus on the patio danced against the semi-closed shades of the French door.

  Stupid cat. The least he could do is try to gnaw through the funky light bonds. After all, I had fed his fuzzy butt for the last seven days. I tugged harder. My skin bunched around the bands but I couldn’t free myself. Crap on a cracker! I’d never get out of here, if I didn’t think of something quick.

  “Being infected by Spam dots and having the hots for Mr. Tall, Dark and Latino is no reason to terminate me.” I shouted at his straight back. Not even a muscle twitched but I knew he heard me. He wasn’t deaf.

  “And who actually speaks like that outside of horrible Sci-Fi movies? We’re going to terminate you.” I shuddered more from the implication than from my bad German accent. I did not want to start my day dead. “Who do you think you are? Arnold?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He wedged his fingers through his close-cropped hair and traced patter
ns into the open living room’s plush carpet with the toe of his boot. “I have the subject contained.”

  Subject. Oh no. I wasn’t even a person to him just an obstacle. That wasn’t good. Objects and insects were easy to snuff out. I bounced in my chair. The wooden legs screeched against the tumbled marble tile of the dining room.

  “Hey! My name is Rae. Rae Hemplewhite. I’m not a subject; I’m a human being. With family and friends.”

  Tobias covered the mouth piece with his fingers and pivoted around to face me. “Shut. Up.”

  A muscle throbbed in his jaw and he narrowed his green eyes.

  Under other circumstances I might have been intimidated. Right now I felt like I’d touched a thousand volt wire. I bounced a few more times in my seat. The chair legs screeched in protest and hurt my ears but at least I’d gotten his attention.

  “I’m on trial for my life. I should have the right to speak in my defense.”

  He stiffened and his gaze cut from me to the curtains.

  Hope tattooed a beat onto my heart. Had he seen something? Was someone there? Could the cops actually be about to breakin and rescue me?

  In two strides, he crossed the short distance from the carpeted living area to the French door and depressed one of the metal slats of the blinds to peer out. “Yeah, she’s definitely involved with Konstantin. Fancies herself in love with the cretin.”

  My leg jerked. Only my bonds saved the douche bag from an ass whooping.

  “I never said I loved him.” Lust, definitely not love and if he was the cause of my predicament, I wasn’t even sure if I liked Mr. Tall, Dark and Latino as much as I did a mild case of the flu.

  Tobias released the slat. Metal rattled before the blinds settled against the French door. “The CeeBees recorded the contact between the two.”

  Heat blossomed over my skin and a low ache throbbed in my joints. And speaking of the flu, I’d almost forgotten his stupid little seeds of infection. The little tattle-tale thingies may have recorded me talking to Mr. Tall, Dark and Latino, but they got nothing else on me.

  I was innocent.

  Tobias sauntered across the tile into the living room. Turning slightly, he propped a hip against the back of a Queen Anne’s chair and stared at me.

  I was done being intimidated.

  “I’m not a spy.” I hopped my chair another inch across the tile. At this rate, I’d reach the carpeting in an hour or so. I needed another plan. I glanced up at my captor. No emotion flashed in his green eyes. They were dead. But what did I expect from an assassin?

  “I’ll have to wait until the CeeBees are fully integrated to learn how she was involved in Pascel’s murder.”

  “I’m not a killer either.” I hopped another two inches. Maybe if I could get close enough, I’d land on his toe. Somehow, I doubted he’d stay put for the week or so the journey would take. “And you can’t prove otherwise.”

  Unless he made something up. I froze. Could he do that? Absolutely. Big Brother lied all the time. But would he?

  He cocked his head a little to the left. “Yes, that’s her.”

  The people on the other end of the cell could hear me? I’d detected no noise coming from the phone. I almost believed he was acting, trying to scare me into doing something like confessing. My hands clenched into fists. To have someone actually giving orders to kill me…

  Anger engulfed every red-blooded American cell in my body.

  “I have rights you know. Constitutional rights!” I slapped the chair’s arms with my open palms. “I demand a fair trail.”

  “Yes, ma’am. If you’ll give me a moment.” Tobias Werner UED covered the mouth piece again and shook the cell phone at me. “You have the right to remain silent. If you lack the ability, I will gag you.”

  I was sick of his threats, sick of being tied to a chair, and just plain sick thanks to his Spam dots. “I will not be quiet!”

  I raised my chin and glared at him. Take that in your gag order and smoke it.

  “And I will not sit quietly.” I’d had enough. I rocked from side-to-side in the chair, yanking on my tied limbs and lifting the legs off the floor in the process. The legs landed against the tile with a teeth jarring-thump. I welcomed the pain and used it to focus.

  “Nor will I allow some government douche bag to decide my fate over a flippin’ cell phone.” Take that Werner with a V.

  In two quick strides, he reached the dining room table and snatched up his triangular key fob. He aimed it at me.

  I jerked to a stop. Oh snap. I’d forgotten about the keychain. Still the green light hadn’t silenced me before, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t boil my brain in its juices. “Don’t you dare!”

  “I always do what I say.” A smile flickered across his lips. He pressed the opal embedded in the silver metal and a four-inch rainbow shot out of the tip pointed at me.

  A rainbow? I blinked. Good heavens what was next? Flower petals? Laughter bubbled up my throat before strangling off. Son of a monkey’s butt! I’d forgotten about the light handcuffs. Hoping to dodge the thing, I tossed my weight to the right. The chair teetered on two legs.

  The rainbow veered in my direction.

  Oh no! I twitched and over-balanced. For a moment, my stomach fluttered up my throat then I landed. The contact played through my bones like a mad xylophone player. While the clatter ping-ponged inside my head, the band of light flit above me, before alighting on my face. Feather soft caresses tickled my lips and cheeks. I tried to open my mouth and felt a slight tug on my cheeks. He’d actually done it. He’d gagged me!

  Smirking, Tobias righted me and my chair before tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear. “Okay, I’m back.”

  Bastard! The gag muffled the swear word. I jerked on my ties. To heck with the swear jar. I was fighting for my life here. Tobias Werner Underwear Eating Douche bag’s wide shoulders shook under his orange shirt. So the toe-jam eating son of Satan thought it was funny, huh? Just wait until I got out of my bonds.

  I tugged harder on my arms. The wood didn’t even wiggle. Dang it, why did he have to tie me to the one piece of furniture that had been made to last? Where were the made-in-China pieces when I needed them?

  The amusement evaporated from his green eyes and his whole body stilled. “No, disposing of her wouldn’t be a problem.”

  It would be for me. My sweaty hands slid on the arms of the chair. Heart hammering inside my chest, I rocked back and forth in my chair. The leg screeched.

  He tossed me a murderous look. His wide mouth and blunt cheekbones had all the softness of chiseled marble.

  I dug my damp fingers into the wooden arm and tried to hop back to the table. That’s when I felt it—a slight give in the chair’s right arm. I tossed my head, flipping it defiantly and surreptitiously looked down. Yes! A sliver of pale wood winked back from where it had worked free of the joint. But my rocking made it too slow.

  If I tipped myself over, maybe the chair would break and I could slip off my light manacles. And maybe knock myself out in the process. Sweat pooled under my arms. I dug the toes of my sneakers into the grout line and pushed back. My thighs trembled as I balanced my weight.

  Tobias’s eyes narrowed and he straightened. “American culture is rife with opportunities for fatal accidents.”

  I shook my head. Wood creaked in protest. I took a deep breath. Just a little more and I’d be falling. I could fall, falling was easy. Landing was the hard part. If I passed out again…

  “How quickly do you want the body found?”

  Body. No. No. I didn’t want to die. I could do this. If I didn’t escape, I was as good as dead. My toe slipped out of the grout line and I landed hard.

  “No, ma’am I don’t think it matters.” He glanced down at the silver key fob in his hand. His thumb worried the opal. “Konstantin already knows we found the body. They set up their rendezvous at the drop site.”

  Calmness cloaked me. Gone were the fever and chills, the joint aches and throbbing bones. Taking
a deep breath, I braced myself against the grout line and leaned back. The chair slid back without tipping. Dang it.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll hold.” His eyes narrowed and he covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “If you don’t stop struggling, you will hurt yourself.”

  I’d rather be hurt than dead. I flipped him a double bird and pushed against the floor with my toes. The chair balanced on its hind legs. I pressed my torso against the curved back and fell.

  Success! My body tensed for impact.

  “Son of a bitch!” Footsteps whispered against the tile as the G-douche rushed forward.

  My stomach floated into my mouth then the chair back clattered to the floor. Round spindles dug into my back and air whooshed from my lungs. My head snapped back. Despite hitting the carpet, stars danced in front of my eyes.

  “Are you trying to kill yourself?” He loomed over me and the shadows swallowed his features.

  What? Was he afraid I was poaching on his territory? I jerked on my restraints. An eighth of an inch of unstained wood appeared in the arm joint. Excellent. A couple more falls and I should have one arm free.

  Pinching his phone against his ear with his shoulder, he swept his fingers down the back of my skull. “You don’t even have the sense of an obecht.”

  I winced when he touched the knot on the back. Maybe not, but I had the self-preservation of a Rottweiler. And if I didn’t succeed in escaping, all the bruises on my body would raise some questions that couldn’t be explained away as an accident.

  Shaking his head, he clasped the back of my chair and hauled me, chair and all, upright.

  I clamped down a surge of victory. Ha, he didn’t know it but he’d just helped me big time.

  He swept a hand down his face before wagging an index finger at me. “Behave.”

  Yeah like that was going to happen. I’d behaved all my life and look where that had gotten me.

  “I’m serious.” He plucked the silver key fob off the tile and aimed it at me. “I can restrain you in other, less pleasant ways.”

  What did he think this was—a walk in the sunshine? I glared at him and worked the chair’s right arm back and forth in its joint. As soon as I broke free, I would beat him with it.