The Phoenix Project (The Liberty Box Book 3) Read online

  They’ve re-targeted her. She’s being brainwashed all over again.

  The Potentate began to go on and on about Jackson: how he’d captured her, how he was the enemy, how he was using her against the Republic. He’d killed members of the Tribunal yesterday.

  He had? Somehow we must’ve missed that broadcast.

  “MacNamera has held you captive for so long now, and brainwashed you so thoroughly, that you believe you’ve actually come to care for him,” Voltolini said, apparently directly to Kate now. “It’s a well-documented psychological phenomena, and you're not to be blamed for it. But he’s using your feelings for him against you. I urge you to examine your memories with him. See if what I say isn’t true. We care about you, and you need our help. I personally offer you full pardon for your participation in terrorist activities—in exchange for the life of Jackson MacNamera.”

  The seal of the Republic appeared on the screen, and it went blank.

  We had the right of way, but we just sat in the idling car. All of us stared at the now-blank silver screen and did not speak.

  “Boy,” said Alec at last. “He wants Jackson bad.”

  Alec’s words woke me up a little. “We have to find her,” I said, and pointed at the screen. “We have to find out where that broadcast came from. We have to find her before the agents do!”

  “Dude,” said Alec flatly. “No way we’d get there before the agents. Ten to one they’re already there.”

  “Plus there are only three of us to break the remaining seventy-nine repeaters—” Jean began.

  I cut her off. “I have to find her!”

  Alec shook his head at me in disgust. “Are you an idiot? We already lost Nick to a pointless mission to find a dead woman!”

  I almost punched him in the face. But instead I said something that I knew would hurt almost as much. I pointed at the screen and said, “If that had been Maggie, would you hesitate?”

  Alec half lunged at me from the driver’s seat, and Jean cried out, which seemed to check him. He sat back and huffed, glaring at me with daggers in his eyes.

  After a long pause, Jean said in a tentative voice, “We can find her location in the control center files. I’m sure she’ll be long gone from the broadcasting studio by the time we can get there, but it doesn’t look like the Potentate intends to kill her anyway. Not yet. So we can just find out where they take her. And maybe we can still break a few more repeaters on the way.”

  “Two against one,” I told Alec through gritted teeth. “Get me to a net screen. Now.”

  Chapter 1: Ben Voltolini

  Voltolini stood on the roof of his palace beside the helicopter landing pad, hands clasped behind his back, looking at the tiny dot in the sky blossom into his yellow helicopter as it approached. He was barefoot, in linen trousers and an untucked shirt, allowing the breeze to ruffle his hair. For once it was not slicked back, but flopped casually on either side of his face. He wanted to put his guest at ease—to give her the impression that she was at home.

  Behind him, he heard a pair of footsteps approach. He did not turn around, but waited for them to stop beside him. They did, and he knew their owner waited for his invitation to speak. He sighed. It had already been such a victorious day. He dreaded to ruin it with news.

  “Say what you came to say,” he said at last, glancing over his shoulder to see Williams, the head of Secret Service.

  “Sir, I am sorry to inform you that we have lost control in Crystal City and Pensington. Both of them.”

  This took Voltolini a moment to register. “Lost control? What do you mean?”

  “Agents in both places report very strange behavior from the people. More than a few appear to be in a state of shock, unable to function. No riots yet, but fights have broken out in pockets. It seems so far they are fighting each other—they’re just volatile, and they don’t know who to blame. Rioting will probably follow soon, though.”

  “Do we have teams in to diagnose the problem?” Voltolini demanded.

  “Not yet, sir. I just received word and told you before we did anything. I await your orders.”

  “Get Barrett on it,” Voltolini barked, referring to his Chief Technology Officer. “Have her send two of her best to the control centers, with whoever else they need. Then send platoons to each city to help the agents crush any rebellion, if and when it arises.”

  Williams repeated Voltolini’s orders into the microphone on his lapel, but when he had finished, he did not disappear.

  As the helicopter grew closer, he said, “Sir, may I ask what you plan to do with Kate Brandeis?”

  “Nothing right away,” Voltolini replied. “Eventually she’ll be a weapon for our side, but she’ll need to be watched closely to make sure she stays stable first. That’s why I want her staying in the palace with me.” He arched an eyebrow at Williams over his shoulder. “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.”

  Williams either did not catch the implication, or chose to ignore it. “And MacNamera?” he asked. “I assume you’ll have him executed on the air and have Brandeis do the voice-over for it.”

  “Of course, but not yet,” Voltolini sighed. Williams was all business, all the time. “Strong emotions of any kind may destabilize our hold on her. Before we let her back on camera at all, we’ll have to make sure she’s our girl again.”

  “If you’re trying to prevent strong emotions, with all due respect, sir, do you not think it would be wise to keep her away from yourself as well?”

  “No,” Voltolini said firmly. “Naturally I will evoke strong emotions too. But above all else, Kate must adore me again. I am the Republic. She’ll desensitize to me quickest if she’s around me all the time.

  “Besides,” he added, “even if I thought she was stable enough to leave her alone, which I don’t, her old apartment and her old life would also act as triggers. There would be photos of her fiancé, photos of her parents and brother, etcetera.”

  “So we can’t just send her back and pretend nothing happened,” surmised Williams. “She’d have too many questions.”

  “Precisely. I want her to remember what happened to her, but remember it my way: she did go into hiding, and she did start to see the world differently—but only because MacNamera abducted and brainwashed her.”

  “So we have to make sure she has no contact with him, then,” said Williams. “At least not unless the meeting can be controlled.”

  “She won’t have contact with him,” said Voltolini, just as the helicopter hovered over the landing pad in its final descent. “I’ll instruct the guards not to let her in to see the prisoners under any circumstances.”

  When the blades of the helicopter slowed and the doors opened, Voltolini told Williams to send a couple of servants to the roof for his orders. Then he broke into a broad grin, jogging up to the door himself and offering his hand to help Kate descend. She cringed away from him at first, but he pretended not to notice. At last, reluctantly, she placed her hand in his, and allowed him to help her down. He kissed her on the cheek, looking over her shabby blue moth-eaten dress.

  “My dear Miss Brandeis,” he drawled. “You’ve had a long day, I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

  Kate didn’t respond, nor did she look at him. But he’d expected this. He looked up and saw his housekeeper Ingrid standing too far from the landing pad to hear him. He beckoned her with his finger, and she obediently jogged over to meet him.

  “Draw up a bubble bath for Miss Brandeis,” he said, “and have the kitchen prepare a late lunch—do you like duck, my dear?” He looked at Kate, who blinked at him, terrified. He turned back to Ingrid and said, “Duck and champagne. And…” he plucked at Kate’s dress with his thumb and fore-finger, “…what about those gowns imported from Paris? I’m sure a few of them must be in Miss Brandeis’s size. What size do you wear, my dear?”

  Unable to ignore him, she whispered, “Four.”

  He nodded at Ingrid. “Fin
d a four. In silk.” He turned back to Kate, noticing the trails of mascara down her cheek.

  “You’ve been crying.” He brushed the streaks with his thumb. She flinched away from the tender gesture, taking a step back from him.

  Like a cornered animal, he thought. Casually, he added, “I’m so grateful we have you safe now from the influence of that nefarious criminal MacNamera.” He noted that her eyes widened at his name, and her breath came in shorter gasps. Voltolini added, “I know how confused you must feel right now, Kate. You have been pretty thoroughly brainwashed. But you’ll feel better once you’ve bathed and eaten, and slept too. We’ll soon get you reoriented to the world as it is, I promise.” He dropped his hand from her cheek to her fingers, and clasped them firmly enough that she could not pull them away, though she tried.

  Ingrid put her arm around Kate’s shoulders, but Voltolini did not release her.

  “I won’t let you go until you tell me we are friends,” he told Kate with a wink.

  “What have you done with Jackson?” she asked, pleading.

  Voltolini’s smile faded. “He’s somewhere where he cannot hurt you anymore.”

  Chapter 2: Jackson MacNamera

  Of the nine agents who caught up with us in Greensborough, seven of them stayed with me while only two escorted Kate away. When the agent who had put his arm around her at first helped her into the back of a shiny black sedan, she turned around and looked at me through the rearview window. Her eyes were wide, and a few silent tears caught the light from inside the car. I watched as her face grew smaller and smaller, both wondering why the seven agents remaining with me allowed me to just stand there, and also wondering why the inside of my chest felt like it was cracking open.

  As soon as the black sedan rounded the corner and Kate disappeared, the agent directly in front of me kicked me in the stomach, and punched me in the jaw. Another kicked the backs of my knees, and I fell forward. I couldn’t catch myself because my hands were handcuffed behind me, so I fell on my face, scraping it on the pavement. Then the fists and feet seemed to come at me from all sides. I spat blood upon the ground, wincing and groaning as one of them placed a blindfold on me. I heard the sound of a trunk opening, and two of the men grabbed me, one by my shoulders and the other by my feet as they unceremoniously tossed me inside. The trunk shut. Then I heard the car start, and begin to move.

  It was a long time before I thought at all, other than registering pain.

  They don’t want me to know where I’m going. Obviously that was the point of the blindfold and the trunk. Why they beat me up, I didn’t know. Why not, I suppose. It would make it harder for me to resist them later.

  After a fight with a rival tribe in Iceland as a teenager, in which I’d been cuffed and beaten up, Grandfather had made me learn how to escape from handcuffs. All I needed was a long, straight piece of metal. I thought I still had some stiff wire left over from making the signal disruptors in the satchel I’d carried to the palace with me, along with rope and weapons, and the agents had tossed the satchel into the trunk beside me. I could feel the canvas behind me with my fingers. All I had to do was find it, straighten it and create a little bend at the end, and then insert the curved end into the small slot portion of the cuffs keyhole. Pull down when the wire hits metal, jerk it to the right, and boom, they’d pop open.

  The car idled, probably stopped at an intersection. In a strange mix of pain and apathy, I mentally rehearsed what I might do once I got free of the cuffs—should I care enough to bother. Trunk locks were never terribly strong, so once my hands were free, I could roll over to all fours and push on it with my back. Ten to one, it would open. If it didn’t, I could roll over and kick it open, or even kick out the backseat, crawl in and then kick out the backseat windows. The agents would shoot at me as I fled, of course, with their real bullets this time, but it’s hard to hit a moving target. I’d still have a good chance of escape.

  But to what end? That was the problem.

  Even if I broke out of the trunk and escaped, I had no signal disruptor: Kate’s parents had mine. The agents would find me again in no time by tracking the brainwaves they had on file. Even if they didn’t, where would I go? Who would I try to meet up with? What would I do next?

  The car hit a rock or something and my head hit the top of the trunk. For a stretch of what might’ve been dirt road, I couldn’t think much at all, but eventually the drive smoothed out again.

  Okay, I sighed. Review the facts, Jackson.

  Apparently I’m in love with Kate. I didn’t know it until she’d betrayed me, but now I understood the meaning of the expression “broken heart.” I actually felt like something inside of me was physically broken… although that might be my ribs, I thought. I actually laughed a little at this, wincing as I did. Hurts worse with laughing. Noted.

  So, that was one fact, but it didn’t really change anything at the moment, and it didn’t help me to dwell on it. What else do I know?

  There was nobody left in Beckenshire: I could see that from the broadcast after Uruguay Stone’s execution, showing it leveled to the ground. No point in going there.

  The hunters might be alive somewhere, but I didn’t know where. They’d been in Friedrichsburg when I left them, but surely they weren’t there now. Still, that’s where I’d sent Charlie and the broadcast team, in an attempt to meet up with them.

  I could attempt to find Charlie and the broadcast team, but I hadn’t a clue where I was at the moment, and wouldn’t know where to begin. The chances that I could actually intercept them, starting from no knowledge of my whereabouts whatsoever, were slim to none.

  And then, again, there was the matter of my lack of a signal disruptor. I wouldn’t get far, no matter what I did.

  But the agents didn’t kill me. They took me prisoner. I knew that had to be because they intended to broadcast my execution. I suspected they wanted Kate to be present for the broadcast, too. What poetic justice, from the Potentate’s viewpoint. If they want her to be their ‘it’ girl again, what better way to solidify it in the eyes of the public?

  I gritted my teeth at the thought of myself in front of a firing squad, with Kate shouting “Fire!”

  Stop it, Jackson.

  We hit another bump, just jarring enough to disrupt my miserable thought loop.

  Wait a minute, I thought. There’s another way to reframe that scenario. If the Potentate wanted Kate at my execution, that meant I’d have to see her again… even if it was a bit last-minute. If I didn’t escape, but let the agents take me wherever they were taking me, I could count on seeing Kate at least that once more. I might still be able to help her. I’d have one more chance to set her free.

  And she didn’t truly betray me, I reminded myself. It wasn’t the real her that let the agents take me away. It was the brainwashed version of her. The real Kate was still in there somewhere. The real Kate loved me. She said so last night.

  Wow. Was that really last night? It seemed like a year ago.

  Presently the car stopped, and the engine shut off. It was a few minutes before I heard the trunk open, and sunlight filtered through my blindfold. Rough hands grabbed me by the shoulders, forcing me to sit up and climb out. I thought about kicking the agent who handled me, but I’d already decided against that. It would serve no purpose. Besides, after the beating I’d sustained and the rough ride, I doubted I could win.

  My feet found the ground, and I walked down what felt like a grassy slope. I heard birds in the trees: there were a lot of trees around me, I could tell that much. I heard some distant shouts which seemed like orders: agent to agent. To my right was the ever-so-faint flutter of a piece of cloth: a flag?

  I knew exactly where I was. They’d taken me back to where all high profile executions go to die.

  The Potentate’s palace dungeon.

  Chapter 3: Kate

  I felt naked. The maid, Ingrid, who said very little, put me in a backless blue silk gown with a plunging
neckline after my bubble bath. I asked her if she had anything less revealing that I could wear, but she just looked at me in the mirror as she plaited my hair, her mouth set in that hard, down-turned line of hers, and shook her head no.

  “The Potentate awaits you for supper,” she barked when she had finished, setting out a pair of matching blue silk mule slippers.

  “Why?” I blurted.

  Ingrid blinked at me, repeating, “Why?”

  “I—I just can’t understand why he’d want to have supper with me…”

  “He wishes what he wishes,” was her enigmatic reply.

  I looked down at myself, blushing, and pleaded, “Do you have a sweater I can wear or something?”

  “You will not need it,” Ingrid said, her voice flat. “The temperature is quite nice.”

  I walked down the long hallway to the main stairwell, following Ingrid’s directions. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying in vain to cover up a bit. The Potentate waited for me at the bottom of the stairs, his hair slicked back as usual, and his teeth gleaming in a broad grin as his eyes roved over my body. I couldn’t explain the wave of nausea that rolled over me.

  This is the Potentate, I admonished myself. He’s a perfect gentleman.

  “Kate. You look gorgeous, my dear.” He extended an arm as I reached the landing beside him. I had no choice but to take it. I’d never had a panic attack before, but as I looped my arm through his, for about the fourth time that day my vision began to narrow. My chest felt like it was constricting, and my fingers started to go numb.

  “Breathe, my pet,” the Potentate told me, stroking a stray tendril of hair behind my ear and making me shiver. Then he joked, “I know I’m a sight to behold, but you are white as a sheet.”

  I closed my eyes, and focused on my breathing. In—two, three, four… out—two, three, four…. in—two, three, four… I started to feel my chest release, and the tingling in my fingers subsided. Who had taught me to control my breathing like that? It was right on the tip of my mind, a memory just out of reach…