Cold Allies by Patricia Anthony Read Free Book Online Page A

care.”
    Sabry gave a dismissive wave, indicating that he wished to change the subject. He asked, “And as to the roadway across the mountains?”
    “Secure,” Wasef said. He pushed aside a memory of corpses lying in a buttercupped meadow like children napping on a bedspread. “When we disable the last military satellite, we can begin troop movements. Yours is a brilliant plan. The French are complacent. They will never expect a flank attack.”
    “Good, good,” the general said with a vague nod, ignoring Wasef’s praise. “Better to get our inevitable victory over with quickly than to obtain it by attrition. Better for both sides.”
    “The Americans have a new weapon,” the colonel told him.
    Sabry grimaced, as though Wasef had committed a dreadful faux pas.
    “A surveillance weapon, I believe,” the colonel went on.
    “So far, it has not fired on us.”
    Sabry drew his hands down his swarthy cheeks. “We know of the small remote vehicle,” he said. “You surely don’t mean that.”
    “No, sir. A pilotless airborne.”
    The general hefted his bulk from the chair, walked to the window, and looked out to sea. A white pigeon flew up from the street, flashing across the teal sky like a scrap of errant paper.
    “A blue light,” Wasef added, speaking to the old man’s back.
    Sabry muttered something into the open window, but the freshening wind blew the words away. Wasef lifted his head and drank in the breeze, as though his lungs were thirsty as the Nile Valley.
    “What, sir?” Wasef asked.
    The general turned to eye him. In Sabry’s round, bearded face Wasef read a weary lack of surprise. Whatever the blue light was, the general had already heard of it.
    “Have you fired on the light?” Sabry asked.
    “Yes, sir.”
    Sabry closed his eyes a moment, then opened them. They were sad. “Have you hit it?”
    “Not yet, sir.”
    “Don’t fire on it again, colonel,” he said. “It is my belief that the blue light is not American. In fact, I think the blue light belongs to no one we know.”

    DULLES AIRPORT, VIRGINIA

    Whoosh, they’d taken her from her apartment. Whoosh, they’d driven her to the airport. At Dulles, Mrs. Parisi tried to engage the agents in conversation, but the pair didn’t seem interested.
    “I had a young boy looking after my dog,” she told the green-eyed agent. “I told him I’d be back Sunday. Lord only knows what Lacy will do for food.”
    The man cast a mildly sympathetic look in her direction.
    The agent with the green eyes was the nicer one, she decided. The easier to work on.
    “Don’t worry, ma’am. We know about the dog. We’ve made arrangements,” he told her.
    “He needs to go out, too. Oh, my. He can make such a mess.”
    The man gave her an impartial smile and turned away, attention and charity depleted.
    Doodles, she thought in irritation. Mrs. Parisi was a master manipulator, had earned her stripes in cuteness as a child and junior officer rank by her sex appeal as a teenager. Now that she was getting on in years, fragility had given her a stunning new weapon. It frustrated her when foiled.
    Her gaze was drawn to the window and the planes queued up in the darkness. She couldn’t con these men, and in twenty-three minutes—whoosh—she’d be swept off to Spain. Asleep in her apartment one minute, on her way to Europe the next. It took one’s breath away.
    One’s breath.
    A sly grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. The two agents were seated tensely, surveying the airport as though they thought the ANA or the Eridanians might be sneaking up on them.
    With a subtle gasp—it was important that the scene not be overplayed—Mrs. Parisi put her hand to her chest.
    The nicer agent looked at her, and his expression changed from blankness to alarm. “Are you all right?” he asked.
    “Oh, I’m fine,” she told him in a squeezed voice. And began gulping air.
    The agent motioned to the second man. “Kevin,” he said.
    Through shuttered eyes, Mrs.