Malichai closed his eyes and just let himself think about Amaryllis while Rubin performed the impossible—psychic surgery. She’d chosen him. She could have chosen anyone with her looks and her intelligence, but she had thrown her lot in with him. Right now, she wore his ring. He put his thumb on the ring he’d given her and rubbed back and forth over the top of it as if it could magically transform his life and what was happening to him.
He thought about the house he’d been building. Had he considered what his woman would want in the house? He had looked at it from every conceivable line of defense. Even the windows. He liked the outdoors and often felt cooped up inside a house, so he needed a ton of windows. Bulletproof windows. Tinted windows. Windows he could see out of, but few could see into.
“If we talk, is that going to disturb him?” Amaryllis whispered.
He shook his head. “Everyone just likes to observe him.”
“Observe him?” she echoed. “I can’t tell that he’s doing anything. Every now and then there’s this flash of light and then nothing at all. When Joe heals it’s so cool because you can see everything so vividly.”
Malichai caught Rubin’s small flash of a smile. It was rare to catch a Rubin smile. Malichai had once asked him why there was so little light or heat when he worked. Rubin said he conserved as much energy as possible in case he had to perform multiple surgeries on several patients or just on one. That made sense but it wasn’t as flashy. Rubin explained it wasn’t about flash, it was about control. The healer had to get a handle on the gift.
“Should I give everyone the day off that day?” Amaryllis whispered. “All my workers. If they are here, cleaning rooms, or working in the kitchen, they’ll be at risk, won’t they?”
It was mesmerizing to watch the colors burst out from under Rubin’s palms from time to time. It was dark in the room and the color would flash momentarily and then be gone. Because it was impossible to know when the phenomenon was going to occur, Malichai couldn’t take his eyes from Rubin and the way he inched his palms over the leg. It felt like laser points moving along in a crooked, almost drunken pattern.
Ezekiel answered Amaryllis. “Honey, Rubin isn’t actually going to set the bed-and-breakfast on fire or kill your guests. We might decide it’s necessary to fake their deaths, just to draw out Callendine and his crew, but we’re not going to set this place on fire. The workers aren’t going to be in danger.”
Amaryllis laughed nervously. “I didn’t think that through. Of course no one is going to set the place on fire.”
Malichai brought the ring to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “This has been your home for the last year and it’s Marie and Jacy’s livelihood. Naturally, you’d be worried about it and all those here.”
“What do we have on this aide to the vice president?” Mordichai asked.
“Liam Hamilton is the vice president’s go-to man. He served with distinction in the Army and has medals and commendations up the wazoo,” Gino said. “He was known to be friends with Billy Leven and more than once pulled him out of a bad situation after Billy’s wife died of cancer. The vice president in particular thought highly of him for helping his friend.”
“You know this how?” Mordichai challenged.
“I’m reading it right out of the newspaper article that was leaked to the press a few years back,” Gino said. “Unlike you, I actually do read.”
There was a snicker from the back of the room and Malichai managed a smile. They were trying to distract him. He was grateful, but he knew the leg wasn’t going to hold and his team needed him. Amaryllis needed him. Rubin might as well have told him to stay in bed. The control room wasn’t a place he was comfortable in. He was a soldier. A man of action. He wouldn’t know what to do just sitting on his ass.
“Did the vice president issue the order for Callendine to go into the field and take down terrorists?” Ezekiel asked. “Is that how this was sanctioned?”
“Major General was able to get an emergency meeting with the VP and he doesn’t believe that any such order was given verbally, but there is a signed order in existence,” said Joe. “The VP claims many papers are put in front of him dozens of times a day to sign by his aides and he signs them.”
“Without looking at them?” There was both derision and disbelief in Gino’s voice.
“It’s possible,” Ezekiel speculated. “You work with a man long enough, you trust him to have your back. You’re in a hurry, you just start signing fast.”
“This is the security of our country we’re talking about,” Gino snapped. “The VP can take time to glance at a paper and see what the hell he’s signing, especially if it means sending some of our men to kill innocent citizens.”
“I suspect those men are handpicked by Callendine,” Joe said. “Just as Violet Smythe despised any female GhostWalker Whitney had spliced insect or snake DNA into, and was determined to stamp them out, I think there is a faction that views anyone opposed to a strong military as treasonous.”
Malichai thought Joe could be onto something. Billy had been very disparaging when he talked about anyone who had anything to do with the peace conference. It was simply a way to bring people together to share ideas, and he was opposed to it. On the other hand, he felt very strongly about those in the military. While Callendine hadn’t hesitated in issuing the order to kill him, Malichai knew that for a fleeting moment he’d regretted that he had to.
“That’s a big leap, Joe,” Ezekiel said. “To think the solution is to bring down a convention for ideas on peace and kill hundreds, possibly over a thousand, to make what kind of point?”
“The military goes in, cleans it up, declares it a terrorist attack, we need more money, hell if I know what they’re looking for,” Joe said. “We all know the military could use money, but that’s not the way. That’s not the way any of us want to up the budget.”
“After talking to Billy,” Malichai said, hoping to distract himself from the grimness creeping around Rubin’s mouth, “I’d say he practically idolized those in the service. He might do anything to make their lives easier. If his friend at the White House told him they were trying to expand the budget for military families and get equipment that would save the lives of soldiers, but these—he called them hippie-dippie people—were taking that away, I can see Billy deciding that it would be worthwhile to help. Callendine could be persuasive. And this Liam had helped Billy numerous times when he needed it.”
“I can’t see Callendine buying into that reasoning,” Ezekiel said.
“You’re right, Zeke. I don’t think money for anyone is Callendine’s motivation. He isn’t all that sympathetic even toward soldiers. He was willing to torture me for information if he had to. He was also willing to kill me. This, for him, isn’t about money. I think he despises those people and he wants them dead. He’s happy to kill them, and the men with him are like-minded thinkers. Mills had zero hesitation in kicking the shit out of my leg when he knew I’d injured it rescuing soldiers. Callendine and most likely those with him have served their country and taken hits for people for too many years and they feel unappreciated or whatever. I don’t know what the hell they want, but the disdain for anyone talking peace is apparent.”