He stopped suddenly, tugging me back when I tried to keep going. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I said. “If there’s someone at the end of the tunnel, we’ll tell them who we are, and—”
“No need, Kitty.” A woman’s voice sounded only a foot away from me, and I heard the click of a gun behind me. “I know exactly who you are.”
VI
Sacrifice
It had been months since I’d seen her face-to-face, but I would have recognized Celia Hart’s voice anywhere. Even underground in a black tunnel, with my heart pounding and adrenaline rushing through my body like I was in a race, I could picture her in my mind, clear as anything. Dark hair so unlike her daughter’s, blue eyes, the porcelain Hart skin; tall and athletic, with a strong jaw, a beauty mark below her left eye, and a look of disdain for anyone who dared to get in her way.
“Is this really necessary?” said Knox calmly.
“Yes, it is. And get your hand off your weapon,” she said. “There’s another soldier behind you, ready to pull the trigger if you so much as unholster it.”
She must have been wearing night vision goggles, I realized. No wonder she’d been able to sneak up on us without either of us figuring it out. Now that I knew she was here, I could smell her shampoo and sense the heat of her body in the cool air.
“We’re not the enemy, Celia,” said Knox. “There’s no reason for this.”
“There’s every reason for it when I’ve gone to the trouble of stabbing my fake brother in the heart and hanging him up by his neck, only to discover it wasn’t my fake brother after all.” She nudged the small of my back with her gun. “Start walking, Kitty.”
I stumbled forward in the darkness, not letting go of Knox’s hand. “You think we’re Masked?”
“If you really are who you say you are, you didn’t tell me you were coming,” she said. “You gave no indication you had any desire to visit D.C. And considering we have a strong family tradition of forcing other people to look like us for money, rank, or so-called patriotism, yes, I think it’s a strong possibility that the impostor would have gone to this sort of trouble.”
There were a thousand things I could have said to prove to her I was who I claimed to be—we’d had enough private conversations that it wouldn’t have been hard to pull up some small scrap of memory only the two of us would have. But Knox would have been able to do the same, and yet he didn’t. So for now, I stayed silent.
“How do we know you’re really who you claim to be?” said Knox. “The Celia I know would never point a gun at my head.”
“I’m not pointing my gun at you. I’m pointing my gun at Kitty,” she said. “Goulding is pointing his gun at you.”
“Ah. Morning, Goulding,” said Knox. “Or afternoon now, I suppose. It’s been a while. How’s Jessica?”
“Good,” grunted a low voice behind us. “Due any day now.”
“And you’re still making the poor man work, Celia?” There was an easygoing quality to his tone, the sort that was supposed to relax everyone. I’d heard it before, when he’d been trying to calm me down or get on my good side, and I’d thought I was immune to it by now. But even with Celia digging the barrel of her gun into my jacket, I couldn’t help but breathe a little easier. Whatever this was about, we would get it sorted out soon enough.
The tunnel was long—nearly a mile, if I had estimated correctly, but in the darkness, it felt three times that. Finally, Celia warned me about the upcoming staircase, and I took the steps two at a time, eager to get my vision back.
As Knox had predicted, a pair of guards stood waiting at the secret entrance—or not so secret anymore, I supposed—to Somerset. I only saw them when one pushed open the door, and light flooded the tunnel at last. Even though itwas barely brighter than candlelight, I squinted.
“Kitty, Goulding will take you to Knox’s old room,” said Celia, and I frowned.
“Don’t you want to make sure it’s me first?”
“I can tell it’s you,” she said. “You’re not nearly as mysterious as you think. Knox, you’re coming with me.”
“I would rather not be separated from Kitty, if you don’t mind,” he said. “It’s been a rough night and day for both of us.”
“Too bad. Once I debrief you, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to relax,” she said. “I assume that’s why you came, after all. To discuss the ground my team gained last night.”
“We’re all part of the same team,” he grumbled, then glanced at me. “All right with this?”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Knox,” I said testily. Besides, that would give me plenty of time to retrieve the file while Celia was distracted. It wasn’t exactly what we’d planned, but it wasn’t the first time we’d had to wing it, either.