Chapter One
Sandy
I awakened from a nebulous nightmare to cotton mouth and a sense of dread. I bolted upright, flung off a silvery cover, and sprang for the exit, finding it sealed tight. I pounded on the door and then pressed my fist to my mouth.
Where the hell am I? Industrial-gray walls squared into a tiny cell, accommodating only a bunk—its frame bolted down and topped by a thin mattress—and a commode wedged in the corner.
The jab! I clapped a hand to my neck. Oh god! It wasn’t a dream. I’d been drugged and abducted! No wonder I felt woozy and off-kilter like I’d crashed after an all-nighter. Leaving for vacation, I’d entered the hovercraft garage, when I sensed someone watching me. I’d run, but somebody had grabbed me, injected me, and I’d gone out like a light.
How long had I been unconscious? What had happened to Hal Caruthers, the Secret Service agent assigned to protect me? Had he been taken prisoner, too? Or had he been killed so they could get to me? Jesus! He had a wife and a baby on the way. He’d been mere steps behind me when I’d entered the garage.
Who had kidnapped me? An enforcer? Or somebody else? I eyed my cell for telltale clues, sweeping my gaze along the intersection between wall and ceiling. High in the corner, I spotted the tiny eye of a camera lens.
They’re watching me.
Aware of an uncomfortable fullness in my bladder—an indication I had been in custody for a while—I glanced at the exposed commode then at the camera. I’m not going to pee in front of you, whoever you are, you creepy perv. Reluctance stemmed more from stubbornness than shyness. I’d pulled a lot of stunts over the years with little concern for modesty or propriety.
Besides that, everybody was under surveillance. Even ordinary citizens had little expectation of privacy, and, for me, it had never existed.
But if I’d learned anything in forty-three misbegotten years, it was that interrogation went hand in hand with incarceration. My captors could appear at any moment, and my now-urgent bladder would sell me out.
The silver cover I’d tossed on the floor gave me an idea. As I stepped toward it, I became aware of a slight pulsation through the soles of my shoes.
Dropping to my knees, I pressed my palms against the cold metal floor. A definite vibration…like the throb of thrusters…on a spacecraft.
I’m on a spaceship? Where are they taking me? I had a hunch it wasn’t to the swanky Lunar Eclipse resort on the moon.
I moved to the commode, tossed the cover over my head, undid my slacks, and urinated. A paper dispenser and hand sanitizer popped out of the wall. After completing my business, I tossed the coverlet onto the bunk and considered my options.
It didn’t take long. I didn’t have any.
My imprisonment on a spaceship suggested maybe I hadn’t been taken into custody by an enforcer. I could be wrong, but, to my knowledge, the government did not have a prison colony or penitentiary off planet.
So, who had abducted me, and why?
I could not envision a good answer. If I’d understood my situation before getting out of bed, I might have feigned unconsciousness, except I’d promised myself I wouldn’t hide anymore. I’d discovered the hard way you couldn’t outrun your problems. Trouble always caught up with you. Having gotten clean, I’d vowed no matter how bad shit got, I would face it head-on and deal with it.
Avoidance had gotten me addicted to stardust. Stardust blunted the pain. Unfortunately, the drug blunted everything, and I’d lived most of my adult life as a zombie. Kicking the addiction had been the hardest thing I’d ever done, but it had shown me how strong I was.
I planted my hands on my hips and glowered at the camera. “I am Sandra Jodane, the daughter of the president of the United States. I demand you explain yourself.”
* * * *
Quint
“She’s not what I expected,” Gunner commented.
We watched via closed-circuit camera. Sensors in the bed had alerted us when Ms. Jodane had awakened.
“What were you expecting?” I asked, although the president’s daughter had surprised me, too.
“Someone…older.”
“She’s forty-three—only two years younger than me,” I said.
“No kidding? She looks decades younger than you—” He winced. “Shit, I didn’t mean it like that.”
At twenty-five and one of the youngest rookie cyborgs in my C-Force unit, Gunner probably considered me ancient. It wasn’t just the age difference. I’d been born mature—an “old soul” I’d been called—and the tragedies I’d witnessed had aged me further.
“She does look young,” I admitted and studied the woman. Springy curls framed a heart-shaped face. Thickly lashed large brown eyes gleamed with intelligence, ire, and wariness. She had the regal high cheekbones and near-flawless mocha complexion any woman would kill for, let alone a woman her age. “She’s been addicted to stardust for more than twenty years. I expected her to appear a little more …hardened, too.”
He nodded. “Rode hard and put away wet.”
“You have a way with words,” I commented. “I trust those words will go no farther than this room.”
“No, sir.”
Gunner’s mouth often left the gate ahead of his common sense, but his crude comment wasn’t inaccurate in light of her reputation as a druggie and sex addict. Her addictions were an open secret in political circles, although they weren’t widely known among the public. However, while her drug abuse had been proven to be fact, C-Force had been unable to find any evidence to support a sex addiction. The background check had yielded a brief marriage and a couple of boyfriends. If promiscuous, she’d hidden it well—and Sandra Jodane certainly hadn’t hidden her drug exploits.
Gunner stroked his chin. “She doesn’t look anything like her mother.”
“Not physically,” I agreed. While she resembled her late African American father in appearance, the acorn hadn’t fallen far from the maternal tree with respect to behavior. Sandra had been a willing participant in political payola schemes. The drug addict First Daughter knew nothing about energy or real estate, yet companies in those fields appointed her to their corporate boards and paid her an outrageous stipend, much of which funneled into her mother’s pocketbook. In exchange, the companies got access to the president. A win-win—oligarchs received favorable treatment from the government, and the Jodanes got rich off corporate payola and insider trading.