Truth Behind the Mask Read online

  “Rogue!” Pagan said, realizing she was being teased. She lowered her face into her hands. “How cute?” she mumbled.

  “Really cute, to be honest. Something akin to the cute you had as a little girl when we caught you doing something you shouldn’t and you tried to wheedle your way out of it.”

  Pagan groaned. “I can’t be cute. I’m a Sentinel, for crying out loud!”

  “Hey, Sentinels can be cute. That is why we get all the neatest uniforms.” Rogue stood and then helped Pagan to her feet.

  “Do I display this cute face often?”

  “No. But I for one am very happy to see it.” She put an arm about Pagan’s shoulders and hugged her close. “Go shower, then we can eat. We have a busy night ahead.” She bumped Pagan along with her hip. “Think you can be cute out there tonight while we go patrol the city?”

  Pagan sighed. “I’ll try, but I’m not promising much. I was aiming for the mean and menacing look this evening.”

  “Whatever works for you, kid, whatever works.” She steered Pagan in the direction of the shower. “Now, about this tattoo business and you getting any ideas…”

  *

  Briskly toweling off her hair, Rogue went in search of Melina. She found her in the security office, sitting before her work computer but working on something from her laptop.

  “Am I interrupting?” Rogue leaned over to brush a kiss on Melina’s forehead. Melina leaned back to press her body into Rogue as she wrapped her arms about her.

  “Never. Hmm, you smell nice. Have you two finished sparring?”

  Rogue nodded against Melina’s hair. “Yes, we—” Rogue saw what Melina was researching. “Why have you hacked into the Department of Motor Vehicles database, sweetheart? I thought you were working on the payroll.”

  “I was, but this is a whole lot more interesting. Pagan said that Ammassari’s car was taken last night, even though the lot was full of vehicles just as easy to steal. So I contacted our friends on the force, and word along the police vine is that it wasn’t the only car taken last night. Now normally, that wouldn’t raise any alarms for me, but I heard some interesting gossip from our man in blue.”

  “Have you been flirting with the Sentinel insider at the department again?”

  Melina just laughed at her. “Considering he’s as old as your father, flirting is all that Chief Cauley can handle!” She checked her computer screen and directed Rogue’s attention to it. “I just ran the license plates to see if there is any rhyme or reason to their all being stolen.” Melina printed out the computer’s findings. She placed the four registration details on the desk for Rogue to see.

  “These are all very fancy and expensive high-performance cars.”

  Melina’s finger underlined something else for Rogue to see. “And they were all taken from the same car lot.”

  “Now why would five cars, all linked to Ammassari, go missing on the same night?”

  “Coincidence, maybe?”

  Rogue snorted. “There’s no such thing as coincidence in Chastilian.”

  “Is this why Tito has been so anxious to get alarms set up at his premises? Is he another victim, or is he using his own car as a smokescreen to deflect us from what he’s doing?”

  “Maybe he’s stealing the cars back to change their appearance and sell them again.” Rogue mused for a moment. “But his reputation is a solid one. What do we honestly know about Tito Ammassari?”

  Melina flicked between the windows on her laptop and began typing into the police database. Rogue shook her head at Melina’s audacity to just hack into wherever she pleased.

  “Do the police know you can do that?”

  “I’m merely putting into practice what you set in motion. You got the Sighteds hooked up to the city’s CCTV cameras so we have a view on the street. And you furnished us with high-tech computers so the Sighteds and Sentinels can all keep in touch. Admittedly, not all the Sighteds hack. That’s my domain thanks to you rubbing off on me, Ms. Cyber Genius!”

  Rogue laughed at her impudence. “Just so long as you play safe and leave no footprints.”

  “I take all necessary precautions. I’m a little cyber Sentinel, slipping in and out like a shadow.” She typed in a password and opened up the criminal database for Chastilian. She quickly entered Tito Ammassari’s name. A teenaged Tito dolefully stared out from the screen.

  “This says he has a record for misdemeanors, thieving and vandalism, all with a gang of other juveniles.” Rogue read the rest silently. “And then…nothing?” She frowned at what she was seeing. “What? He just started on the road of hoodlum only to suddenly see the light and become a model citizen selling cars?”

  “You don’t buy it?” Melina printed off the report sheet and then backtracked out of the system.

  “It sounds too good to be true.”

  Melina shut down her laptop and turned to face Rogue. She tugged Rogue down by the towel that still hung over her shoulders. Melina’s fingers speared through Rogue’s hair. “It’s a good thing I like my women tall, dark, and cynical.”

  Rogue let Melina’s fingers work their magic against her scalp.

  “Try to be home at a sociable hour tonight?”

  Rogue laughed. “Ever the optimist!” She brushed her lips over Mel’s, waiting for her to open her mouth, and when she did, Rogue ran her tongue inside. She felt Melina tug her even closer as their kiss intensified. It was with some reluctance she pulled away. “I’d better go before you distract me any further.”

  Melina slipped a few buttons on her shirt free and opened the fabric to reveal tanned skin.

  Rogue groaned. “You do not play fair.”

  Melina smiled seductively at her. “I have to have some way of competing with the others in your life. The city is a harsh mistress. I can’t afford to let her take you away from me.”

  Rogue tugged Melina up from her chair and into her arms. She kissed her with a passion that was almost bruising, their exchange heated and raw. Rogue wrenched her mouth away from Melina’s neck. “I’m yours alone. Not the city’s, nor anyone else’s. Yours.”

  Melina cupped Rogue’s face. “I know. That’s why I’ll let you go now, because I know you’ll come back to me.”

  “Right back to your side, sweetheart.” Rogue nuzzled at the sweet point that pulsed in Melina’s neck. “That’s where I belong.”

  Chapter Six

  Pagan always felt the slightest hesitation when she climbed over a roof edge to prepare to fly from tower to tower. No amount of training prepared her for the split second of sheer terror before launching herself into the air. She eased herself out onto the ledge that skirted the rooftop, watching as Rogue threw herself off with a graceful dive. Rogue swiftly swung from the wire that was attached to the wall behind Pagan and firmly embedded in the wall of the building she was heading toward. Pagan marveled at the mechanics and the machinery that Rogue had fashioned that allowed them to traverse from building to building on a single length of wire. She toggled a button on the gun and shot the wire into the concrete behind her, then aimed for the tower across. Pagan knew that to the untrained eye it appeared that the Sentinels flew from one skyscraper to another, able to climb untethered, like spiders drifting on their invisible thread. She snorted softly. Were that it was that easy. It’s all done with sheer guts and endless wires.

  Pagan watched as Rogue’s wires drew her to the tower directly opposite the one they had been standing on, pulling her with great speed toward the wall. With another slight movement, Rogue was able to slow her descent. The tether beside Pagan disengaged from the wall and shot across the divide. Rogue detached the wire keeping her close to the tower and dropped, coming to land on a fire escape, agile as a cat.

  Pagan secured her wire gun to a strap on her wrist and palmed the machine. She stepped off the ledge without another thought. Pagan could feel the rush of air as she dove down. She calculated her own landing on a small ledge that could easily take her body weight. Setting down with a gentle thump,
she felt the wall’s coolness when she found her face pressed almost too close for comfort against it. Pagan patted the wall in gratitude as she caught her breath. She really had to work on being quicker on depressing the button to slow her descent. She could hear Rogue’s soft chuckle nearby and knew that was a lesson to be repeated by her mentor.

  As Pagan half listened to Melina’s broadcast, she thought back to her first flight. She remembered Melina’s utter horror as Rogue had strapped Pagan to her chest and climbed out onto the roof of an apartment building.

  “If she’s to be a Sentinel, she needs to know how to fly,” Rogue had said simply.

  Pagan could still remember the excitement of the silent fall, all the time safe in Rogue’s grip, the moon lighting their flight.

  “What are you grinning at?” Rogue asked.

  “Just remembering our first flight together and how quiet it was, even more so than usual to me then.”

  Rogue smiled. “You needed to learn. No better way to learn to fly than to take that first jump.”

  “I think our Sighted would have preferred you had jumped from a lower-floored window for my first experience,” Pagan said, and chuckled as she heard Melina fervently agree over the comlink.

  “You loved it.” Rogue shared a conspiritorial grin with her.

  “I knew I was safe with you,” Pagan replied seriously. “I never doubt that.”

  Rogue knelt down to put her gloved hand over Pagan’s. “You ready to see what the night has in store for us?”

  “Are we going high or low?” Pagan asked, looking down on the city. The tops of the street lamps were burning a path along the roads leading to wherever the city would direct them that night.

  “Let’s climb a few walls,” Rogue said. “If we go too high we’ll miss the fun, too low and we’ll be easily seen.”

  “Middle ground it is,” Pagan said. “I need to break in these boots a little more on the walls. They’re kind of noisy.”

  Rogue pulled Pagan up beside her in an amazing show of strength. “Race you up the wall, squeaky.”

  “You have a better grip,” Pagan grumbled, climbing up onto the metal fire escape to stand alongside a waiting Rogue. Pagan aimed her wire gun into the air and shot out a seeking wire. When the device signaled it was attached, Pagan suddenly launched herself into the air.

  “Hey!” Rogue called after her. “What happened to a countdown?” She sprang after Pagan.

  “I decided on a competitive edge,” Pagan called back as she rode the wire up the tower wall.

  “Sighted, we have spawned a shrewd Sentinel here,” Rogue muttered in her comlink for Melina’s ears. Pagan, linked into the same frequency, heard every word, as she was meant to.

  “She gets the shrewdness from me. The sneakiness she un-doubtedly gets from you,” Melina replied sweetly.

  Pagan burst into laughter at the blustering she could hear from beneath her, laughter that was swallowed into the night by the noise of the city below.

  *

  “Rogue, I think you and Pagan might want to head over to where Casper and Earl are situated,” Mel said over the comlinks half an hour into their watch.

  “Where are they?”

  “According to their Sighted, they are currently watching four cars racing around the Do or Dice Casino parking lot.”

  “I didn’t know those boys did traffic duty on the side.” Rogue took out her handheld screen and tapped out the directions for the casino.

  “They thought it was just another case of youthful exuberance until they recognized the license plates as the ones belonging to Tito’s stolen cars,” Melina said.

  Rogue and Pagan traded looks and then raced across the rooftop.

  “Tell them we’re on our way.” Pagan readied her wire gun and once again took to the air.

  *

  The Do or Dice Casino was ostentatious and richly decadent. The gold brickwork was lit up, marking out its territory as Chastilian’s number one gambling palace. Huge pillars framed the entrance. Above a canopy, two dice were affixed, rolling and tumbling in endless gyrations. Above them, the casino name beckoned in neon to those who wished to be parted from their money. The casino occupied the first two floors of the building, while the exclusive hotel stretched high above with forty floors of rooms for those whose streaks ran lucky.

  Pagan shielded her eyes against the glare of the lights that ran like searchlights up and down the building.

  “Sighted, we are in position,” Rogue said, then took out her high-powered night vision binoculars.

  “Hey there, glad you could join the party,” Earl called in his deep voice as he and Casper joined them. Earl was broad-shouldered and imposing, while Casper was slender and wiry, and appeared almost too slight to be a Sentinel. Both wore the customary leather suits, as well as masks that covered most of their handsome features.

  “We thought we’d come see what has caught your attention over here.” Rogue clasped Earl’s arm and then nodded toward Casper, who returned the greeting with a grin before he went to join Pagan at her sentry point.

  Pagan was enveloped in a warm hug. “Long time no see,” she said.

  Casper, mute from birth, signed to Pagan. I think you and Rogue will like what we have spotted. He gestured for Pagan to follow him and they both hunkered down to watch what was happening in the parking lot below.

  “Can you believe it? From small gambling dens to a casino worth millions. Louis Miller certainly exceeded his humble beginnings. Not all thieves get to become multimillionaires legitimately.” Earl gestured to the grand casino. “I wonder if he stole someone else’s luck to make this place so successful.” He leaned over the wall to point down toward the car lot. “We were watching the parking lot on our rounds and were surprised to see your stolen vehicles come driving in. They started out just circling the lot, but that soon escalated to a more dangerous game of excessive speed in a small area.” Earl leaned against the wall Rogue was peering over. “The police can’t stop them. They’re dodging every spike strip employed to shred their tires.” Earl pointed to another vehicle. “And while we have four cars using the lot as a speedway track, car number five seems to be waiting for something.”

  A bright red car, with huge wheels and a body to match, stood idling. Even from their position, Pagan could hear the engine roar, a deep, guttural sound.

  “Mel, any word out there from the other Sighteds?” Rogue asked, training her binoculars on the parking lot.

  “Nothing yet. We’re all watching you four.”

  “Then I hope we’re keeping you all entertained.”

  Pagan’s attention was fixed on the red vehicle. She watched as someone got out of the car and stepped away. The engine, however, kept on revving. She took out her binoculars and focused on the driver. Pagan was surprised to see that the man was much older than she’d expected. His hair was thinning, but in the garish lights from the casino, she couldn’t make out what color it was. In his hand was what appeared to be a box with control rods.

  “I think we have a problem,” Pagan said. “Mel, warn the police down there. I think our idling driver has a remote control system in his hands. The other cars must be distractions. I think he is our primary target.”

  The words had barely left her lips before the red car’s engine revved to a high pitch, the tires squealing at being held back. Pagan could see the car shake against the restraining brake. With a spin of its tires, the car was suddenly set free.

  “It’s heading for the casino doors,” Earl said.

  The car hurtled forward, scattering people in every direction as it headed for the casino entrance. The bouncers who flanked the doors scrambled to get out of its path. The car mounted the pavement and smashed through the doors with a deafening crash. It came to a stop wedged in the door frame, the casino design effectively barring it full entrance.

  Pagan immediately readied her wire gun to swing over to the stricken building, but she was rocked back by the explosion that ripped through the car
and blew out the front of the casino.

  “Rogue, we need to get down there. People will be trapped.”

  Rogue pointed toward the casino, directing their flight. “Aim high and then lower yourselves to the fifth-floor balcony. We’ll get in through there.”

  Pagan heard the screams of the injured in the parking lot and the accompanying wail of sirens as fire trucks were called to the scene. She shot her wire and felt it snag into the casino’s golden tower. She fixed the gun firmly to her wrist catch and let it pull her off her feet and across the divide from tower to tower. She followed Rogue’s lead, Casper and Earl behind her as she reached the building’s side and then lowered herself to the balcony. They recoiled their wires and moved on to their next task: getting inside the building. Earl kicked open a service door, and they were in.

  Rogue opened another door that led to the hotel rooms and heard the chaos below.

  “We need to split up. Casper, you and Earl get everyone out of their hotel rooms. They’ll have to use the fire exits. We can’t risk them in the elevators or inside the casino itself. We’ll go below and see what damage has been done. It’s the only chance we’ll get to see for ourselves.”

  Casper and Earl banged on the hotel room doors to get as much attention as possible over the wailing of the hotel’s fire alarms. Terrified people stumbled out of their rooms. They were quickly gathered together, then steered toward the back of the building and to safety by the two men. Pagan and Rogue ran down the stairwell in silence until they reached the casino’s upper floor. There was a terrible roaring coming from behind the door. Rogue looked at Pagan.

  “You ready for this?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Rogue pushed the door open, but the sound made them step back. The fire alarms in the casino had activated and the sprinklers were on, for all the good they did. The fire from the floor below was licking up through the huge gap in the front wall of the casino. Most of the upper floor was still intact except for a huge chunk of the front wall closest to the blast below. Through the thick smoke Pagan could barely see out the windows into the parking lot. The contrast between the dark of night and the furious fire raging below seemed almost surreal. She edged forward carefully to a spiral staircase that was still miraculously intact. The hole, however, was much bigger after the explosion.