Toys

Chapter 79

When Lizbeth arrived at the sparkling glass palace known as Agency Headquarters, the atmosphere was more celebration than anything resembling regular police business. In fact, two dozen of the Elite government’s highest-ranking officials were gathered in the main briefing room, sipping wine and cocktails. The conversations were charged with giddy anticipation of 7–4 Day.

Jax Moore met her as she came in and took her aside. “What’s the update on Hays?” Moore asked quietly as he held a trademark cigar aloft.

“Exactly what we want it to be, Jax: he thinks everything’s the same as always. He believes his hospitalization and healing followed his fall with that skunk motorcycle rider. He has no memory whatsoever of Europe. There was a blurred memory of voices overheard saying he was human, but I got him settled down.”

A smooth smile eased across Moore’s chiseled face. “I can imagine.”

Lizbeth smiled back archly. “You don’t have to imagine, do you, Jax?”

“You did your duty. Well done. President Jacklin will be very happy,” Jax Moore said then. “Now we send him after his half sister, and no matter which one kills the other, we win.”

Her smile stayed, but the slightest trace of unhappiness came into her eyes. “Of course we win. Elites have been winning every battle for thirty years. How else could this turn out?”

Moore didn’t seem to notice Lizbeth’s slight frown. “You’re the bright star tonight, Lizbeth,” he said. “Let’s get you a drink, then it’s time for you to take a bow. This augurs well for 7–4 Day.”

He snapped his fingers and an obsequious robot waiter hurried over to offer her a perfectly made martini. Then Jax Moore turned to address the other guests. Their talk stopped, and everyone watched expectantly.

“As you know very well, we don’t usually hold Agency briefings in the form of cocktail parties,” he began, then waited for a ripple of laughter to quiet. “But this isn’t an ordinary occasion. It’s really a surprise party-except the surprise isn’t for us.

“On the coming 7–4 Day, our human neighbors are going to get the biggest surprise the modern world has ever seen. My friends, in just eighty hours, the human race will be completely eliminated. The greatest threat the earth has ever known will be gone. Hear, hear!”

“It has been a long time coming,” Lizbeth added. “Too long.”

Another excited murmur rose from the audience-the closest these reserved Elites ever came to cheering, or any such show of emotion.

“Let me add that we owe much of our upcoming success to the genius of this lady,” Moore went on, draping an arm around Lizbeth’s shoulders. “A toast to Lizbeth Baker-as brilliant as she is beautiful. No one has sacrificed more.”

Glasses clinked together like chimes, and there was a chorus of hearty congratulations.

Lizbeth raised her own glass in gracious acknowledgment and flashed another brilliant smile. But then she moved quietly out of the limelight, to have a moment alone. The thrill she should have felt was smothered by the distress that was tightening her stomach. She lived by her steely intellect, and she scorned people who were soft in any way. But now she’d fallen into that sort of mess herself, hadn’t she?

She wasn’t bothered in the least by wiping out the nauseating human race. They were no more than insects to her-or worse- and the sooner they were eliminated from earth, the better for everyone, perhaps even for the humans themselves.

But tonight underscored what was troubling her: Hays was the problem.

When she’d first learned that he was human, she was, of course, outraged. She’d vented by making him a pawn against his own kind-then blocking his memory of those events. One way or another, he’d be dead in a matter of hours-loving husband and father, genuine hero for the cause, a man who had enriched her life in countless ways. The sense of loss was already cutting deep, and there was nothing her intellect could do about it. Dammit, she still loved Hays, didn’t she?

Shake it off, Lizbeth! she told herself fiercely. Hays is pitiful-a human.

As she started to rejoin the crowd, a hand patted her from behind. She turned and looked into the face of the hulking McGill-Hays’s former partner and friend. He was smoking a cigar, just like his mentor, Jax Moore.

“So what’s it like jumping in the sack with a skunk?” McGill cracked, leering at her breasts as he always did. He’d obviously had far too much to drink already.

“We need to keep him happy as long as he’s useful. Until 7–4, certainly,” Lizbeth answered coolly. “I do what I have to-it’s called being professional. It’s my duty.”

“Let me know when you’re ready for the real thing-with another professional.”

I’d sooner sleep with a baboon was her first withering thought-a comparison that wasn’t far off. But then again, what better way to take final revenge against a husband who had weakened and confused her totally?

“Well, a widow may need consoling,” she said and, for the first time in days, smiled in a way that felt genuine. Her true self was taking charge again: logical, selfish, brutal when necessary.

“I’ll be there for you,” said McGill, and then he added, “It’s my duty too, and I’m very good at it. I’m all Elite, Lizbeth.”

She laughed at that one-and lit up her own cigar.