Page 53 of Concluded (The Bureau #13)

A man sitting to Dee’s right cleared his throat loudly.

He had a grandfatherly air, with snow-white hair and thick-rimmed glasses, but there was no warmth in his blue eyes.

“This is wasting time. Either he’s capable of doing what we want or he’s no good to us.

He doesn’t need to know any of these things. ”

Dee might have responded, but Irina reacted for the first time, putting a hand on Spurling’s shoulder and speaking. “Darling, if he has a better understanding of our goals, then?—”

“Not now, Irina.” Spurling shrugged away from her touch and a subtle expression flashed across her face. It was too quick for Dee to interpret, and he didn’t really know her expressions well anyway, but he thought she might be angry.

“Show us what he can do,” said a bald man wearing a button-up shirt over a gray tee.

“I’m not a new gadget,” protested Dee, but nobody paid him attention. Instead, Spurling picked up a black remote control and poked at it, after which the room lights dimmed and a beam shone from an overhead projector that Dee hadn’t previously noticed. A world map appeared on the wall screen.

“Are you familiar with these countries?” Spurling used a laser pointer to indicate two neighboring countries to the east of Italy.

“No.” Dee had a poor grasp of geography.

“Doesn’t matter. I wish for the northern one to attack the southern one. Immediately. Specifically, I want bombs dropped on the capital.”

Dee tried not to shudder. “Why?”

“It doesn’t matter .”

“But people will die.”

Spurling made a sour face. “People always die. Nobody there is important. The countries have nothing to offer—no resorts, no interesting sites to visit, very little foreign investment. But they’re both backed by the same European countries.

Their conflict will destabilize things in that region, which is what we want. ”

Dee was aware that world powers played these kinds of games all the time. But it was jarring to hear someone speak about it so plainly, so matter-of-factly. As if it were nothing more than, say, paving over a garden to make a patio.

“That’s asking a lot,” Dee said, stalling. “Affecting an entire army thousands of miles away.” Actually, he wasn’t certain that this was beyond his abilities, but he had no intention of saying so.

“We don’t need to affect an entire army—just the person in charge of it.

The president. I’m going to wish that he orchestrates the attack right now.

By the time anyone tries to stop him, it’ll be too late.

” The screen changed to show a panoramic view of a small city with green mountains behind a scattering of high-rises.

Most of the tall buildings looked a little run-down, but the surrounding houses were cute, with red tile roofs.

A river wound lazily through the town, its riverbanks lined with parks.

Cars, buses, and pedestrians crossed on several small bridges.

And then suddenly one of the high-rises turned into a pillar of fire and smoke, then another, then a swath of the little houses and two of the bridges. Dee realized he was watching the city being bombarded.

“AI simulation,” explained the bald man proudly. “My company makes the software. Looks real, doesn’t it?”

It did, sickeningly so. Some of the people in the room started cheering whenever a bomb hit its target. It was like they were watching someone play a video game. When the attack stopped after about five minutes, nothing was left of the city except fires and piles of rubble.

“See?” said Spurling. “Nice and quick. They’ll retaliate, of course, and various other countries will step in, and things will get very interesting.”

“People will die.” Repeating it didn’t help, but it felt necessary.

Spurling waved a dismissive hand while other people in the room huffed or rolled their eyes.

“People will die,” Spurling agreed. “Nobody important, though. Both of these countries are takers . They suck up our tax dollars and give nothing back. There are lots of countries like that, Dee, and lots of people in this country. At one time they might have been useful as laborers, but we don’t need that any longer.

Computers and machines will take care of that for us. ”

It didn’t sound like hate. Didn’t sound evil. If you removed all emotion, it was entirely logical.

“Move this along,” said the grandfatherly man. He was looking at something on his phone.

Spurling nodded. “It’s time, Dee. Show us what you got.

Grant my wish so we can move our agenda forward expeditiously.

” He turned, clicked the remote, and a photo of a man appeared onscreen.

He was middle-aged, white, and blocky, with impressively bushy eyebrows and a thin-lipped smile.

His name was printed underneath the photo.

“That’s the president. He’s in his country’s capital right now.

We can give you the geographic coordinates if you need them. ”

Dee didn’t need them. Standing there in the stupid meeting room, he knew he could grant this wish.

It was just a little nudge after all, and perhaps this president was already inclined toward such action.

Maybe the guy stayed awake at night, imagining giving the orders and watching—no doubt from somewhere safe—as his weapons did what they were made to do.

The overhead lights brightened and Irina walked over, heels silent on the ugly carpet.

She stopped when she was just a few feet away, and for the first time he noticed how thin she was.

She was tiny, really. But he could see the corded muscles in her arms and the firmness in her jaw.

With her gaze firmly locked on Dee’s, she slid a ring off her finger and handed it to him on outstretched palm.

“That’s an expensive charm,” he remarked. Inane, but it was the first thing that came into his head.

“Plenty more where that came from.”

“Does anyone ever grant you wishes?”

Very briefly, her mask slipped and her face almost crumpled. But she quickly regained her composure. “Only you, Deedee. That one time.”

“And you granted my only wish too. My dog—Happy Meal. He was a good friend. The only one I ever had, until Achilles. I wish I was with Achilles now.”

She answered quietly. “You can be, when this is all over. I’ll make sure of it.”

Yes, she probably could. Spurling didn’t seem to care much about Bureau agents as long as they were no threat to his plans.

Dee and Achilles could remain untouched by the chaos, and no creatures would come along to disembowel Achilles or shoot him.

Dee and Achilles would be comfortable. And Dee would wield true power instead of lurking on the edges of society and worrying about paying his rent or getting thrown in jail.

All the bad things that would happen to strangers, those wouldn’t be his fault.

The world wasn’t his responsibility. He hadn’t asked for any of this.

Dee could picture it: he and Achilles in a nice house with lots of bookshelves and a big yard.

Dee would learn how to garden. They could get a dog.

They would spend hours together in their big bed and take lazy walks through the countryside.

Achilles might be resistant at first, but he had wanted to quit the Bureau, after all.

Dee and Irina could give him a little nudge or two as well.

And anyway, what was the use of refusing? Spurling and his gang were ultimately going to win. They had all the money, all the power. There was no point in taking a stand when you had nothing to gain from it.

Irina closed her hand around the ring as if reluctant to part with it. Despite her flippant dismissal of its value, she probably treasured it anyway. She had always liked shiny things.

Dee took it from her.

“Come on ,” said one of the men. “If I want drama, I’ll watch Netflix.” Several others mumbled their agreement.

Irina turned and walked back to her spot. Her stance was confident and businesslike. If she hadn’t been standing behind the seated Spurling, she would have looked like a CEO. Except for her hair, which was in the process of escaping her bun as if it wanted nothing to do with present company.

Dee held the ring so tightly that it dug into his skin.

“I wish,” said Spurling loudly, “for the president to immediately launch an attack on the capital, as we saw in the video. Is that specific enough for you, Dee?”

“Yes.” Dee’s own voice seemed to come from far away. From someone else. He would grant this wish and Achilles would understand, eventually. It was the only way that Dee could save him. They could have a life together.

And it would be as hollow and bitter as if it were the result of a love charm.

“It’d be better just to die,” Dee said. To Irina, because nobody else would understand. To everyone else, he said, “I’d rather be in the black hole with the man I love than help you monsters.”

A jolt went up his arm, his body felt so flattened that his heart and lungs didn’t work. And the world went black.