Secrets of PEACE Read online

  SECRETS OF PEACE

  Copyright © 2016 by T. A. Hernandez

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written consent of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover art by T. A. Hernandez

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Excerpt

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Every step Zira took across the moonlit floor sounded to her like a hammer slamming against a concrete wall.

  She took a breath and let it out slow through parted lips. It’s just the adrenaline, she reassured herself. Even if anyone else in the house had been awake—and they weren’t—they couldn’t possibly have heard her. She took a few more deep breaths to slow her heart, which was beating so fast it threatened to force its way out of her chest, then turned her attention back to the door at the end of the hall. She closed the distance in a few quick steps and twisted the knob.

  She could see the shadowed outline of her target in the bed at the center of the room. Arion Dreyfus, as successful a businessman as it was possible to be these days. Most of his wealth could be attributed to the illicit drug trafficking operation he ran down the entire Pacific coast—an operation which flourished due to his uncompromising brutality. He looked harmless enough sleeping peacefully in front of her now, but Zira’s mission file had contained photographs of his most recent executions. Her upper lip curled as she remembered the violence. She padded across the floor with the carefully controlled movements of a wildcat and stared down at her prey.

  Dreyfus was not alone. Zira didn’t recognize the woman curled up next to him, and her file had said nothing about a wife or girlfriend. A one-night stand, then, or an escort of some sort. She probably didn’t even know about the horrors committed by the man sleeping beside her. Or maybe she did. Either way, Dreyfus wasn’t the sort of man you said ‘no’ to if you wanted to keep your head firmly attached to your neck.

  Zira considered her options. The Project made allowances for situations where leaving a witness might compromise the mission; she would be within her rights to execute the woman along with Dreyfus. And it would be so much easier.

  She frowned. No. Whoever she was, the woman was innocent. Or at least innocent enough that she shouldn’t have to pay for Dreyfus’ crimes.

  Zira slid a suppressed pistol out of the holster at her hip and held it just an inch above the man’s chest. She flicked the safety off with her thumb, took a breath, and held it in as she put two rounds into the drug dealer’s heart.

  The woman jolted at the sound, but by the time she understood what she’d heard and looked in the right direction, Zira was gone. A shrill scream followed her as she walked out the front door and vanished into the night like a ghost.

  * * *

  The following afternoon, Zira’s plane landed at the South Central Regional Airport in Amarillo. She collected her bags and left in the same black sedan she’d arrived in several days before. The compound wasn’t far from the airport, but the road was monotonous, cutting across miles of barren, monochrome terrain. Zira selected the destination from the car’s autopilot system and leaned her seat back for a quick nap.

  The car stopped thirty minutes later when it reached the perimeter of the PEACE Project’s property. “Caution,” said the robotic voice of the autopilot system. “Restricted area. Please reset destination.”

  Zira rubbed sleep out of her eyes. A familiar red sign warning against unauthorized visitation stood at the beginning of a dirt road, which veered away at a diagonal into the flat landscape beyond. The walls of the compound rose up on the otherwise empty horizon a few miles away. “Override restriction,” she said. “Unit E-2, Zira.”

  “Authorization confirmed. Continuing to final destination.” The car pulled onto the dirt road, and Zira watched the walls grow larger as she approached. The dirt turned to asphalt at the parking lot, and the car maneuvered itself into a spot at the end of a row devoted to unit E-2’s black vehicles. “You have arrived,” it announced before shutting itself off. Zira removed the key and took her bags, then walked towards the compound’s front gate.

  The tall concrete wall cast a long shadow over her. It reached towards the sky five stories high and extended for more than a mile on all four sides. The wall enclosed the entire area that made up the compound, though the Project owned much of the surrounding land as well. The only way inside the compound was through the single gate on the east side, which had a complex security lock and a guard on-duty at all times. Zira approached that gate now, passing a large granite sign that read “PEACE Project Headquarters, est. 2095.”

  She pushed a button on the panel to the side of the gate and waited as two red beams of light shot out and scanned her entire body. The beams crossed over each other several times before Zira realized she’d forgotten something. In the same moment, the guard’s voice came through the speakers below the panel. “Your armband?”

  “Just a minute,” Zira said, rummaging through her bag to find it. She was so used to wearing it at all times that when she removed it outside the compound, she often forgot to put it back on when she returned. She slipped the simple black band into place over her upper left arm and waited patiently while the red beams scanned her again. They turned green upon finishing, then disappeared.

  “Thank you,” said the guard. There was a soft mechanical whirring as the gate slid into the wall, leaving an opening wide enough for two vehicles to pass through. Zira walked in and the gate closed behind her. She headed towards the apartments along the northern wall to drop her things off at home. Her stomach rumbled; she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. Food first, then a shower. Her written mission report to Chairman Ryku could wait for a few more hours.

  A girl with long brown hair and a radiant smile detached herself from a group of friends and called to Zira as she rounded the corner of an apartment building. The red band around her upper arm designated her a member of unit C. “Zira—wait.”

  Zira raised a hand to greet her best friend. “Hey, Aubreigh.”

  “You going to dinner? We can head over there together.”

  “Sure. Let me drop off my stuff first.”

  Aubreigh fell into stride beside her. She was average height, which still put her several inches taller than Zira. She eyed the bags Zira carried with a curious spark in her eyes. “Where were you?”

  Zira kept
her voice flat and her response vague. “Mid Pacific Region.” She already knew where this line of questioning was going. They’d been through a hundred different versions of it since Zira had been placed in unit E-2 when she was eleven.

  “You going to tell me what you were doing this time?”

  Zira rolled her eyes. “Right. You’d love that.”

  Aubreigh shrugged and grinned. “It was worth a try.”

  “Of course it was.” They stopped in front of Zira’s apartment door and she pressed her thumb to the print scanner to unlock it. Trying to figure out what Zira did as a member of unit E-2 seemed to be a game to Aubreigh. Zira couldn’t blame her for that; if their roles had been reversed, she’d be just as curious. That didn’t stop her from wishing Aubreigh would drop the subject, though. Each time her friend asked, Zira felt a little guiltier about not being able to tell her anything.

  She set her bags just beyond the threshold and locked the door again. “Aren’t you going to unpack?” Aubreigh asked. “I’ll help you, if you want.”

  Zira cocked an eyebrow, wondering what Aubreigh’s reaction might be if she saw the contents of her luggage. Bloodied gloves, a long knife, ammunition, the pistol she’d used to kill a man in his sleep—not the sorts of things a nice girl like Aubreigh would appreciate. If she ever learned the truth about what Zira really was, it could destroy their friendship forever. She was much too selfish to jeopardize that, even if it meant keeping secrets from the most important person in her life. “You’d do anything to get a clue, wouldn’t you?”

  Aubreigh put a hand over her heart and gave Zira an exaggerated scowl. “Now that hurts,” she said. “I was just trying to be nice.”

  Zira shook her head and shifted the conversation to a more comfortable topic as they walked to the cafeteria in the center of the compound. They’d almost made it there when a strong voice called to her from behind. “Zira, stop.”

  Both girls turned, and Zira easily picked out the speaker among the other people who walked about the compound. The young man approached them with long, brisk strides. “He’s huge,” Aubreigh whispered. Her voice had a slight tremor that sounded like a mixture of fear and awe.

  Zira nodded. She’d had the exact same reaction the first time she’d seen Jared. His hardened expression would have been unnerving on any man, but Jared’s size and obvious strength only made him that much more intimidating. He was well over six feet tall, with a broad, muscular build and deep brown skin. He carried himself with strength and confidence and had the reputation of being unit E-2’s best operative.

  Zira held her head a little higher as he approached, surprised and a little flattered that he even knew her name. “Chairman Ryku wants to see both of us,” he said.

  “Now?” She couldn’t imagine what this might be about.

  “Now.” Having delivered his message, Jared turned and walked back in the direction of the chairman’s office.

  Zira sighed. Dinner would have to wait a while longer. She muttered a quick goodbye to Aubreigh and scrambled to catch up with Jared. “Do you know what this is about?”

  His face was deadpan. “I’m sure he has a lot to say to you after your screw-up last night, but I have no idea why he’s dragging me into it.”

  Zira’s steps faltered for an instant. She ran through all of the previous night’s events in her head but couldn’t see whatever screw-up Jared was talking about. She’d done everything exactly like she’d learned in her training; this had to be some sort of misunderstanding. The knot in her stomach tightened, but she didn’t dare ask Jared anything else. If she had made a mistake, she wanted to hear about it from Ryku himself.

  They reached the small building that served as the chairman’s office and living quarters, and Jared rapped on the door. Ryku swung it open wide a few seconds later. A middle-aged man with short black hair and dark eyes, the chairman’s default scowl held the power to quiet a room in an instant. Zira studied his face, trying not to stare at the thick scar that ran in a jagged line from his brow to his cheekbone. His stern expression did nothing to ease her anxiety.

  Ryku led them down the hallway a few feet and through the first door on the left. The office was simple, but elegant. Two black couches faced each other on a simple carmine rug in the center of the room, and a long window framed the sleek desk near the back wall. Ryku gestured for Zira and Jared to sit down on one couch while he took the one across from them. “You’re probably both wondering why you’re here,” he said. His tone was even, but there was something sharp in his eyes as he looked between the two of them. “I’ll get right to the point. Zira, did you get a chance to watch the news before you flew back this afternoon?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It seems there was a problem with your assignment. You killed someone in front of a witness.”

  Zira crossed one leg over the other and folded her arms, feeling inclined to justify her actions even though she knew it would be useless. “I was gone before she even saw me.”

  “Regardless, the story was all over the news before unit E-1 had a chance to pull it.”

  “The things we do make the news all the time.” The words hadn’t even finished coming out before she realized how childish the excuse sounded.

  “Not like this,” Ryku said. “Not when it’s avoidable.”

  “So I should have killed her.”

  “Why? She was innocent. We don’t kill innocent people if we don’t have to.”

  “Exactly.” Her tone was more antagonistic than she had intended, but Ryku’s reprimands were unfair. He had authorized her to kill Dreyfus and she’d been forced to make a decision in the moment. If he didn’t trust her to make those decisions, what was the point of even sending her on assignments in the first place? Still, a bad attitude wasn’t going to help anything. She sighed and tried for a little more humility. “Tell me what I should do next time.”

  “There might not be a ‘next time’ for you if you do something like that again,” Ryku said. “Unit E-1 is going to have a hard time convincing the woman and local law enforcement to drop this, and I’m even more concerned about your future decisions. Mistakes like this at the wrong time or place could jeopardize the entire Project.”

  Zira nodded and tried to conceal her annoyance at having to ask her question again. “What was I supposed to do?”

  “You were supposed to wait for the most opportune moment to strike. You’ve been taught that throughout all your training. If the circumstances weren’t right, you should have backed out to wait for a better time. Did you even know she was there, or did you just rush in without a plan?”

  Zira’s mouth started to open in protest, but she stopped herself. He was right, though she hated to admit she’d made such an obvious mistake. Her shoulders slumped and she averted her eyes. Even though she couldn’t see his face anymore, she could sense Ryku’s disapproval burning into her. “I’m sorry, Chairman.”

  “Was I wrong to promote you from training when I did? You were so young. Perhaps I should have waited.”

  Most people in unit E-2 weren’t promoted from training until they were at least eighteen or nineteen, but Zira had been a few months shy of her eighteenth birthday. It had caused a bit of a stir, but completing training early wasn’t unheard of, and everyone trusted Ryku’s judgment enough not to dispute the decision.

  “No,” Zira insisted, meeting his gaze with fierce confidence. “You weren’t wrong.”

  Ryku regarded her through narrowed eyes, then sighed. His voice took on a gentler tone. “I know how much you wanted to prove yourself to everyone who said you weren’t good enough to make it. I gave you that victory because I knew you could handle it. But if you’re going to waste the opportunity on such irresponsible mistakes, I can’t help you.”

  “I know, sir. I won’t let you down again.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ve been on your own until now because I hadn’t yet found a good partner for you. That’s changed.” He motioned to Jared.

  J
ared snapped out of a bored daze and stared at the chairman with almost comic disbelief. He started to say something, but Ryku cut him off. “You’ve been doing solo work for almost two years now. That’s long enough. There are plenty of missions that require your skills, but even you need someone to watch your back.”

  “With respect, Chairman—” Jared said.

  “The decision is final.” Ryku’s tone left no room for argument. Jared sat back, his hands clasped tight as he glared at the floor. The chairman turned back to Zira. “I’m giving you a new assignment, and I expect you to fully cooperate with Jared. Follow his lead and learn from his experience. He will report back to me on your performance. If everything goes well, we can put your recent lapse in judgment behind us. If he sees any problems, there will be further consequences. Termination of your status as an operative is not out of the question. Do you have any objections?”

  Of course I have objections! This was degrading and unnecessary. Most E-2 operatives worked in pairs as their assignments frequently required or benefitted from teamwork. She’d always known it was only a matter of time before she was partnered with someone. This, however, felt more like a punishment. Jared had been explicitly instructed to supervise her work, and her future in the unit depended on his assessment of her performance. She’d completed her training more than three months ago and had already proven her ability to carry out assignments. She didn’t need anyone holding her hand.

  She couldn’t say all of that to Ryku, though, and instead settled for resigned acquiescence. “If that’s what you think is best, sir.”

  Ryku turned to Jared, who gave a brusque nod that said he still didn’t approve of the idea.

  The chairman stood and walked to the desk, then pulled out a large envelope and handed it to Jared. “Here’s the assignment. I want to see both of you again when it’s finished. You’re dismissed.”

  Jared stormed out of the room, and Zira followed like a dog slinking away with her tail between her legs. Once outside, he wasted no time sharing his feelings. “This is ridiculous. I don’t need some useless amateur screwing up my missions.”