I told him what Jolene had discovered from the viber reading and added, “No such thing as secrets. One guy drinks a little too much, followed by pillow talk bragging, and your secret’s not a secret anymore. You had to know word got out about the ship and the dark riders want it.”
Anse didn’t reply.
“Did they ask for the comms you gave them or the Bug stuff?”
“Both.”
“I see. If they show back up, tell them Beckett is dead and that I took the Bug stuff. That’ll lead them away from you. Understand?”
“We still got a deal?”
I chuckled, the tone sour. “You mean because you didn’t tell me everything and tried to use me to get your girl back but keep all your goodies? What makes you thinkI’vetoldyoueverything?” I stood and said, “You get your injured kid into the dark rider’s triage med bay when Cupcake is done. We’ll bring back what I said we would. We’ll take away what I said we would. Trading partners. Intel sharing. Help in times of trouble.”
“Mother Mary comfort me,” Anse muttered. I lowered my brows in confusion and he shook his head in a non-reply. “An old song.”
It meant nothing to me. Exhausted, not sure when the sun had set, I sought a place to sleep.
???
After additional trading for vegetables, salt, and a small pre-war water purifier that ran on solar power, we packed to head out. We had accomplished a lot. We’d gotten Eloise back. Healed a dying kid in a functional med-bay. Killed bad guys. Sent a tracking device back with the remaining bad guys, though it had ended up in the middle of nowhere outside Charlotte, N.C.
And we had information. Jagger had questioned Beckett and my prisoner thoroughly and obtained enough intel to make sense of the location of the dark rider’s HQ, which was in an abandoned waterpark. We might have gotten more, but Mina had walked in and slit the man’s throat. I’d have to deal with Mina soon. Very soon. But that was another day’s worries.
We had also acquired new trading partners and extra shooters for the coming skirmish. All in all, pretty good. But a lot weighed on me. I was silent as we tooled out of Logan and headed toward our miner trading partners, and then home.
???
Cupcake, looking pale but once again wearing her pink, was well enough to handle negotiations at the mine, as long as she stayedin the quad, sitting, her spangled legs propped up. We left food, salt, and the water purifier with the miners, along with a promise to return.
At the small diner, we divided up, Mina and Jacopo heading back Marconi’s base in Charleston, West Virginia. Marconi had received vid of his daughter. He knew he had to deal with the girl or the other clubs would. Or I would.
Bengal sped off, his unmuted war-bike roaring back to his territory.
Jagger settled in beside me in the diner, our backs to the wall, our upper arms touching. “Ask your questions,” he said.
I shrugged. “Why should I? You retired. You unretired. Your choice.”
“Wrong.”
“Not playing guessing games here, Asshole. You got something to tell me, then tell me.”
He chuckled, the vibration shaking me where our upper arms touched. “Most women like that game.”
I slid my 2 Gen glasses down my nose to the tip and my orange irises met his gaze above the rims. I didn’t speak.
“Point taken. You’re not most women. When we got back after the Battle of Warhammer’s Nest, I had a message waiting to meet McQuestion in Naoma. He has a guy in military intelligence who informed him that there had been a pulse of Bug energies from the general vicinity of the junkyard.”
I had used the Bug ship’s weapons and shield to fight off Warhammer the first time I met Jagger. Jolene and I had thought the satellites that monitored for such things had been below the horizon. Had we been wrong?
Jagger ordered more of the swill that passed for coffee here. The waiter-cook-kid on duty poured for us and slunk back behind the counter.
“I assumed he meant an energy pulse from when we were fighting off Warhammer that first day. But it wasn’t. It was comms. The Bug ship sent out a communication signal. We don’t know where it went or if any Bugs were in the vicinity to receive it. We don’t know if there might be a passive receiver satellite that would send it on to a passing Bug ship. Basically, we don’t know anything. But McQuestion offered me the chance to protect you and gather intel if I stayed in and worked both sides.”
“Unilateral decision, Asshole.”
“What?”
“It’s such a guy thing,” I grouched, sipping the vile brew. “You made a unilateral decision, all big strong macho man protecting the little lady, and you didn’t discuss it with me. You’re an asshole. Pure asshole.”
