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  Finally she turned away, allowing his chest to unlock. “All of you, inside.”

  3

  Sean found an exquisite pleasure in stripping off his grey Attendant uniform. The campus had an unwritten policy that all first-years were to wear nothing else, not even when off duty or back on their home world. Their identity was supposedly being reframed around the Human Assembly. But as Sean’s home was an outpost world, such rules meant very little.

  As he hung his outfit in the closet, Sean glanced at his brother. Dillon stood at parade rest in the exact place where he had arrived. The changes to his brother went a lot deeper than the battlefield-green uniform. These transformations had become much more evident since Dillon and Carey had broken up. On the rare occasions when the twins were together and off campus, Sean had the distinct impression that Dillon was intent upon leaving every vestige of his old life behind.

  Sean took a quick shower, then selected clothes he had not put on since Elenya stopped showing any interest in his home planet. She had shopped with him and picked the outfit back when things were good. Brooks Brothers grey slacks, black hounds-tooth jacket, starched white shirt, black loafers. Dillon filled him in as he dressed. Carey had been fitted with a signaling device that connected with whichever team of Watchers was assigned Earth duty. Twice she had tried to give it back, and Dillon had refused. The last time they met they argued over it. Dillon related the quarrel with a military-grade flat tone. As though the breakup had not shattered his existence.

  Until recently, outpost worlds were scanned by Watchers only every few years. Which was how Dillon and Sean had not been identified until just before their eighteenth birthdays. But since then the alien enemies had changed tactics. They had targeted Sean and Dillon, the first-ever assault on an outpost world. Now there were Watchers on constant duty for every world that did not specifically forbid the Assembly’s presence.

  Sean asked, “Do I need a tie?”

  “Probably a good idea, since you’ll be meeting with the senator,” Dillon replied.

  Sean selected one of knitted silk, then returned to the loft’s living area. Dillon stood between the dining table and the stairs, looking out the French doors to the balcony, the sunlit lawn, and the main house almost hidden beyond the summertime green.

  Sean asked, “How long since you were back?”

  “Six months. Longer. Not since Carey and I . . .” He shrugged. “No reason to return and a lot of them to stay away. You?”

  “Dinner with Carey and her dad. Couple of months, maybe longer.” He inspected his brother. “Are you changing clothes?”

  “No. I won’t be going in.”

  “Okay.”

  “The uniform also serves as body armor.”

  “So . . . we’re going after the bad guys.”

  Dillon gave him five seconds of tight focus. “You have a problem with that?”

  Actually, Sean did. Not so much from the standpoint of doing what it took to bring Landon home. But Dillon’s attitude troubled him at a deep level. “Anything more I should know going in?”

  “No time.” Dillon reached out his hand. “Grab hold.”

  They transited to the back garden of Senator Teddy Evans’s Georgetown residence. Dillon remained behind the derelict shed and motioned Sean forward. “Find out what you can. When you’re ready, I’ll be here.” He seated himself on a rusting lawn chair. “Go play diplomat. It’s what you’re good at.”

  The house and rear patio were fashioned from crumbling firebrick. Dillon had been here once for an awkward family gathering. The wife of Senator Evans was a Washington socialite who had put Dillon into a total snooze with her description of the home’s history, how it had belonged to a signatory of the Constitution whose barges had plied the canal that framed the back garden. The house had been burned in the War of 1812, then rebuilt and expanded. Now it belonged to Senator Evans, his party’s rising star and presidential hopeful.

  Carey spotted Sean through the living room’s French doors and rushed out to greet him. “Where’s Dillon?”

  “Sulking behind the shed.”

  She bit her lip and shook her head, but all she said was, “Come inside.”

  Sean heard an argument through the open doorway. “What’s going on in there?”

  Her response was cut off by the senator’s wife. “Carey, how did your boyfriend get in our backyard?”

  She kept a firm grip on Sean’s hand, like she was afraid he’d bolt. “This is Dillon’s brother, Sean.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, you look just like . . .” The senator’s wife rapped bloodred fingernails on the pearls strung around her neck. “Why ever didn’t you use the front door?”

  Carey’s father, John Havilland, sat in a padded window box, partly hidden by the massive brick fireplace. He leapt to his feet at Sean’s arrival and came rushing over. “Thank heavens. I was getting worried.”

  “I don’t understand, John.” The senator’s wife wore so much hairspray it reflected the light. “What possible difference could this young man make?”

  “Let’s just say Sean and his brother have become experts at the impossible.”

  The living room swarmed with an alphabet of Washington security. FBI, police, Secret Service, even some bespectacled geek from NSA handling the phone tracking. Their gazes were laser tight on Sean, and they radiated a unified hostility. The senator with the boyish good looks rose from his position on the sofa. “That’s just not good enough, John. I want to know what this fellow brings to the table.”

  “Maybe nothing.” John led his daughter and Sean into the front hall. “Where’s Dillon?”

  “Out back.”

  “How absurd. Carey, go invite him in.”

  “Dad . . . please, no.”

  John grimaced at his daughter’s response, but he merely asked Sean, “What do you need?”

  “Privacy,” Sean replied. “And something to eat. I missed a meal.”

  John led him to an upstairs bedroom. Carey brought a ready-made sandwich from the kitchen, and they took turns filling Sean in as he ate.

  The details were sketchy at best. The handheld computers with which FedEx drivers scanned each package’s bar code also updated their schedules. Drivers were required to code in between each drop-off and delivery. Landon had missed four different alerts, then failed to answer when the depot manager followed up by phone. Even so, the depot had been slow to become worried because of Landon’s near-perfect record. Then Landon’s shift ended with eleven pickups outstanding. When Landon still did not answer his phone, the Virginia state patrol was finally alerted.

  Every FedEx truck was fitted with two GPS units. One was clearly visible when the hood was raised. This had apparently been located and destroyed. The second was hidden behind the gas tank. According to the FBI agent downstairs, this second transponder was a closely held secret. The highway patrol had used this transponder to locate the truck on an isolated stretch of a Virginia county road. The door was open and the motor cold. Because Landon was over eighteen, officially the authorities were required to wait twenty-four hours before issuing a missing persons alert. But the depot manager was also Landon’s friend, and he knew about Landon’s famous uncle and the internship, so he called Washington. But by then the senator’s security had been alerted.

  Because the kidnappers had already phoned the senator’s home.

  The senator’s wife had been warned that Landon would be killed if the police were brought in. But the senator had insisted, and now the place swarmed with them.

  “We need to keep our voices down,” John said. “Landon’s mother is in the next room.”

  “Okay.” If things went according to plan, Sean soon wouldn’t be speaking at all.

  “She’s been put on heavy sedation.”

  “I understand.” Sean had often heard about Carey’s favorite cousin. After Carey’s own mother died, Landon had stayed close throughout the grieving process. Then Landon’s mother started her soft descent into drug-addle
d isolation, and Carey had been there for him. Not daily, when she was living on the other side of the galaxy. But a lot.

  Sean outlined what they needed, then sent Carey back downstairs. When his daughter left the room, John glanced at a photo of the senator and Carey’s mother on the mantel and said, “The golden boy downstairs blames me for my wife’s death.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Of course it is. And they know it. But logic doesn’t play any role here. Neither Teddy nor his wife thought I was right for her. They think if my wife had just listened, maybe somehow . . .” John shrugged miserably. “Family.”

  Sean nodded. Family.

  “I worry that maybe all these past issues have left Carey unable to commit to her relationship with Dillon.”

  “No. That’s not it.” Sean could see John wanted to argue, so he went on, “Carey hated everything about the Academy.”

  “She called it a black lava prison,” John recalled. “Even so, disliking a temporary residence is hardly reason—”

  “Carey would have put up with it, no problem,” Sean said. “She left because of the changes in Dillon.”

  “I saw Dillon less and less as time went on. All I had to go on was what Carey told me, which was not much, especially their last couple of months together.” John had a professorial gaze, sharply intent and very intelligent. “The changes in him are so great?”

  Sean did not want to discuss Dillon and his changes. The whole issue was very upsetting. And Sean had no one to talk with about his own breakup. The other students treated him as an unwelcome oddity. Most resented him and the attention he drew from every senior Assembly official who visited the Institute. Sean Kirrel was half of the twins who had vanquished the aliens. Who had saved a world and been decorated by the Assembly. And, if the rumors were true, who were also genuine Adepts.

  John took Sean’s silence as the answer he clearly expected and feared. He said, “Their breakup is tearing Carey apart.”

  Carey’s footsteps could be heard racing up the stairs. She rushed into the room. “It’s happening.”

  4

  Logan had never been in the commandant’s office before and was mildly disappointed to find nothing there of any interest. No battle flags, no warrior’s gear, no tribute to past glories. It was as austere as the commandant himself, who retreated to the sofa in the far corner. General Brodwyn resumed her seat behind a desk as bare as the room save for three files. Two of the folders were quite thick, but the central one, the one that was open, held only a few meager pages. Logan felt his gut freeze at what he knew was coming next.

  “Once every few years, a cadet wins both top honors,” Brodwyn began. “It is customary for this cadet to be granted his or her preferred assignment. But before we discuss what this great quest of yours might be, I wish to know more about the young man I address.”

  Logan had feared this was would happen. He had spent sleepless nights debating how to respond. Now, in this instant, he still remained uncertain. “I don’t like talking about my past, General.”

  “Nonetheless, I am ordering you to do just that.”

  Anything Logan said was a gamble. And he despised games of chance. He loved taking risks and wrenching a good result from bad odds. But only when he had control.

  There was no certainty here, no control. His mind felt frozen with the tumble of unknowns. And yet, his gut told him to reveal the hidden truth.

  Logan said, “I come from here, General.”

  He felt the rustle of surprise surround him. Only the general seemed at ease. “And yet you carry no hint of the local accent.”

  “I . . . My father died when I was very young. My mother and I moved to Radnor. I was raised in the capitol.”

  Brodwyn made a note on the top sheet of her file. “How did your father die?”

  The tone was easy, a simple conversation between the two of them. But the way she avoided meeting his gaze, the hint of control beneath her smooth speech, was all the signal Logan required. He had done right to speak as he did. Because the general either already knew or suspected.

  He said, “On a raid, General.”

  “So. Your father was a marauder. One who sought to drag your home province back into the endless war.”

  “Just so.”

  “His name?”

  “He preferred to be known simply as the Count.”

  “So your grandfather . . .”

  “Ruled this province until the Aldus invasion. I am the supposed heir of Hawk’s Fief.”

  The suppressed tumult that filled the chamber left the general untouched. She repeated, “Supposed heir.”

  “Hawk’s Fief is no more. All I have, all I am, is what I win for myself.”

  The commandant muttered, “Had I known this, I would never have granted him entry into officers’ training.”

  “Then it is good that you did not know.” The general had no need to raise her voice to silence him. Her gaze never left Logan. “I am curious. You feel no need to wreak vengeance on your victors?”

  “Two thousand years ago, if the legends are to be believed, my forebears wrested these lands from an army of dragons. Our world’s legacy is one of victors and the defeated. Hawk’s Fief is no more. The title is dead. My father preferred myth to reality. There is no dishonor in calling him wrong.”

  She studied him for a time, then turned her attention to the two subalterns standing a pace behind Logan. “Were either of you aware of his past?”

  “No, General.”

  “Not a hint, my lady.”

  “Why is that, I wonder?”

  When Nicolette remained silent, Vance said, “I suspect Logan wanted to be judged on his own measure.”

  The general nodded her agreement, then turned back to Logan and said, “So you moved to the capitol.”

  “My mother sold herself into servitude with a merchant clan. I was allowed to study with their children.”

  The general added another note to her file. “Which explains your near-perfect scores on the entrance exams despite the absence of formal schooling.”

  “I was tutored.” Logan recalled the beatings from two men who despised teaching one lowlier than themselves. One day, he swore silently. Then he realized the general still inspected him, and added feebly, “I studied very hard.”

  “Heir to a vanished throne becomes son of a slave. Then the servant’s child is taught princely ways. You are indeed a rarity.” She made another note. “Why the military? Surely the merchant’s clan would have offered you a posting.”

  Because Logan was both ambitious and a fighter. Because he carried a lifetime of rage. Because the traders expected him to remain what he was in their eyes—a lesser mortal. Most of all, because of the secret Logan had hidden from everyone, even his mother, for seventeen long years.

  He replied, “There is no other home for me, General. This is where I belong.”

  She leaned back. “I am satisfied with this young man’s responses. I assume they carry sufficient merit to satisfy you as well, Commandant?”

  “General, if I may—”

  “Excellent. Very well, Logan. What position do you wish to apply for?”

  He took the longest breath of his entire life. “I ask permission to establish a beachhead in the Outer Rim.”

  Logan managed to shock even the general. Yet he found no pleasure in this, for she could still refuse his request. And she had every reason to do so.

  “You are aware,” she said, “that our last effort to bring order to the Outer Rim ended in disaster.”

  “Yes, General. I am.”

  The general’s aide, Gerrod, spoke for the first time since Logan had entered the room. “This is madness.”

  “On the surface, I agree.” She turned to his two compatriots. “A marauder’s son volunteers for an impossible duty. He brings with him two officers. One is the son of an earl—”

  “Fourth son, if you will excuse the interruption, General.” Vance’s cheerfulness was spiced now
with bitter ire. “And little good that does me. My eldest brother despises the ground I walk on.”

  “So the acquisition of a staff appointment . . .”

  “Would certainly be possible, if my elder brother would spend the required gold. Which he will not.”

  She turned her attention to Nicolette. “And beside the earl’s son stands the daughter of the district’s chief of police. Does your father know of your volunteering for this operation?”

  “He does, General. And he disapproves. But it is within my rights—”

  “And it is within my rights to deny your request.”

  Nicolette struggled with the emotions that boiled to her face. “Don’t. Please.”

  “A more unlikely trio I have never seen. And a more bizarre request . . .” She studied them in turn. “What makes you think you can succeed where far more seasoned troops failed miserably?”

  That was one question Logan could not answer. Not yet. Not and survive.

  Thankfully, Vance replied for him. “General, Logan has a plan.”

  Gerrod barked, “Our last attempt was led by one of our most seasoned officers. He lost an entire battalion.”

  Brodwyn said, “I assume you don’t expect me to sacrifice hundreds more.”

  “All we want,” Nicolette replied, “is a squad.”

  “All volunteers,” Vance said, extracting a list from his pocket. “Here are their names.”

  The commandant had moved up to stand beside the aide. “You obviously failed to tell them of their chances.”

  “Which are nonexistent,” the aide said.

  “With respect, sirs, we disagree,” Nicolette replied. “And to answer your question, Commandant, our volunteers are all aware of what happened to the battalion.”

  The general said, “So tell me this plan.”

  Logan had told his two officers everything. They were the first to know his secret, and trusting them had been the hardest act of a very difficult life. They had seen what it had cost him and responded as he had desperately hoped. They had demanded to see the secret for themselves. Then they had agreed to join him.