Prophet, p.46
Prophet, page 46
He looks at Rao. Turns in his seat and looks. Sunil Rao, bane of Adam’s career, world saver, royal pain in the ass, and genuinely the love of Adam’s life. Healthier than he’s ever looked since Adam’s known him. Breathing and alive. Filling his car with his stupid cologne.
“Complicated?” Rao offers with a smile Adam knows is meant to be charming. It just looks nervous. Adam could kill him.
“You . . . Do you understand why I didn’t take you up on that crazy offer?” Adam asks. The facility in Nevada, snow in the sand, lights all around them, nearly freezing to death as Rao showed him jewels. He’s not imaginative enough to have made any of that up, and that’s the only thought that keeps him sane most nights. It must have happened, because Adam’s dull. Too dull for it not to have happened.
“I’m sorry that I said—” Rao starts, but Adam has no time for his apologies.
“Do you understand why I didn’t take you up on the offer, Rao?” Adam hardens his voice in an attempt to get Rao back on task. It works. Maybe, even when out of practice, he still knows what he’s doing.
“Loss makes us who we are,” Rao intones. He’s thought about it, and he doesn’t like the answer he reached. “If you’d lived a life without the loss you had, you wouldn’t be you. I understand, love, I just wish that I could—”
“I chose you,” Adam interrupts him again. Rao looks at him, silent. Adam goes on. He has to now. Adam chose Rao, and Rao was supposed to survive. “I was always going to choose you. You know that. You’ve known that. Haven’t you?”
“I know how you feel about me, yes,” Rao whispers, like it’s still a secret. Adam was ready for him to lie about it, but hearing him admit the truth feels a lot . . . worse, and better, than the cologne. He knows hearing Rao say it will stick to him, in one way or another, for the rest of his life. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You’re going to.”
“I’m going to, yes.” Rao smiles, a brief quirk of lips. “Why don’t you ever want to hear how I feel about you?”
That should be obvious. “I know you think that I’m devoid of emotions—”
“Adam—”
“But I genuinely think I wouldn’t handle hearing the truth out loud very well,” he finishes.
“The truth,” Rao repeats.
“Your favorite topic.”
Another brief quirk. “Yes. On that subject, in fact, I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned it, but you are aware of how I can’t tell with you?”
Adam closes his eyes. Here we go. He’s going to get some beautiful and devastating poetry about how Adam is a black hole in Rao’s universe. “Yes, I’m aware.”
“This extends to statements about you,” Rao goes on. But Adam knows this. When Rao asked anyone anything about Adam, about his life or professional details, no truth would stick, no matter how hard Rao concentrated. He’d grill people, back when they first worked together. Adam remembers some assuming that Rao was trying to find dirt on him, that he was working an internal audit of some kind. “So I could say anything at all about you and wouldn’t be able to run it.”
“I knew that, Rao.”
“Funniest thing is,” Rao continues like he didn’t hear Adam. His voice sounds almost nostalgic. “Since I woke up in that field, I’ve been able to take a run at two statements. I’ve been able to run them successfully.”
The bastard pauses for effect. Adam could kill him, alright.
“I still hear you, from that time, in my head.” Rao’s voice dips. Not lower in register, but softer. Serious. “Hear you telling me you hated me. And I can taste it, Adam. It was a lie. You don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Rao. I’ve never hated you.”
Rao nods. After a while, he frowns. “Are you going to ask about the other statement?”
“Are you going to tell me if I don’t ask?”
Rao looks away. Turns and looks out the window. The day is nice. Not too hot, but the sun is shining all the same. A real blue sky, no haze. Gentle breeze. Even in the parking lot, it’s a nice day. Adam hadn’t seen it before Rao looked away.
“Can we go back inside? I don’t want more beer.”
“Neither do I,” Adam lies. “Let’s go back in.”
*
He follows Adam when they leave the car. He’s not been around Adam again for more than an hour, and things between them have already shifted at least three times. Everything feels familiar. But the changes in Adam are killing Rao. New lines and bags under his eyes. The way his hands shake sometimes. Rao leans against the wall by the door while Adam jingles his keys, a quick search for the one to the apartment, and studies his hands. They’re funny. Weapons. But right now, the way those weapons are fumbling with a bunch of keys puts Rao in mind of a teenager on a first date. Nerves making it difficult to get fine motor functions to work.
Oh.
He looks at Adam just as he gives up, sighing. “Rao, could you just—back off? For like a full second. Let me fucking think.”
Rao speaks quickly. Takes his chance. “And if I don’t?”
Adam stills. Nerves, if they were nerves, gone. Licks his lips in thought.
Rao stares at him, floored by his sudden understanding of who Adam is. How he acts. What he feels.
“If you don’t back off, then I won’t be able to think,” Adam says clearly. It sounds like he’s saying something else. Rao can almost hear the words he doesn’t say. He fights a shiver. He’s taller than Adam by several inches, but it doesn’t feel like it. Slowly, like he’s reaching to take a gun from a madman, Rao takes the keys from Adam’s hands. As soon as they’re free of that distraction, as though they were the very last barrier between them that Adam could deploy, one hand grips Rao’s wrist.
It hurts, for an instant, like a static shock. Skin-to-skin electricity. It hurts, and then it’s gone. A pinch, a spark, and then the circuit is closed. Adam sucks in a breath. That’s enough. Doesn’t say a damn thing and Rao still feels he can almost hear the words in the air.
**
Since the day Rao died, he’s had dreams. Longing fantasies. Nightmares. Torture. All about a kiss that never landed. He’s replayed the moment over and over. Thinks that if there were any Prophet left in the world, and if he pulled the same act he did back in Rhodes’s lab, he’d manifest the room where Rao died.
Regret. It’s an old friend of Adam’s. And he knows, standing on the balcony outside of an apartment he didn’t choose for himself, his fingers wrapped around Rao’s wrist in a desperate attempt to keep him exactly where he is, that he won’t be able to live with himself if he racks up another wasted chance in his life.
Not this time.
He pulls, telling himself that he’ll feel sorry about not being gentle later, pulls until Rao bends, bows, close enough for Adam to close the distance between them. He thought that he had imagined it, a weird current through his fingers and arm when he took Rao’s wrist, but then their lips meet—
**
—it’s an SSTV transmission. Tones searching for an image. His brain misfiring, then chasing after the feeling. Known, that desperate hunger, but never for another human being. Not like this. Because this is love, isn’t it. The thought of it. The pure fucking rush of the absurdity of that fact as it turns, solid and true, in Rao’s head. He’s off-balance, but he’s not complaining in the slightest. For all he’s got wrong about Adam, he was right about him taking charge. It’s perfect. All Rao wants is to open the kiss, so he does. Adam lets him, and it’s another uncontrollable rush until—
**
—he bites down on Rao’s bottom lip. He’s not thinking. Can’t think. Just searching for the next sensation. The only thing Adam knows for sure is that he wants to know what it feels like to have Rao gasp into his mouth.
It feels like the balcony is too public. Rao is still happy to bend for the kiss, but he arches, the gasp nearing something more—
**
—which is when Adam takes his keys back and pulls out of the kiss.
“Excuse the fuck out of me?” Rao demands a touch breathlessly. “You can’t stop there, love, I was just—”
“Shut up, Rao,” Adam says, as solid as Rao’s heard him since he turned up at his door. “Get inside. Nobody’s stopping anything.”
“That’s a promise, yeah?”
“You’re still talking.”
Rao laughs and lets Adam push him into the apartment. Once the door is closed, Adam steps into Rao’s space. Doesn’t push. Doesn’t shove. It’s sudden. One step and he’s sharing Rao’s breath. Arresting. His eyes look up at him, knife sharp. Rao shivers. Then Adam’s face softens. “Are you sure about this, Rao?” he asks quietly.
Rao’s eyebrows rise. “I’m genuinely offended by this temperature check, love.”
“I’m asking because—” Adam pauses. Thinks about his words. “I’m not a gentle person. That might not be what you want.”
Rao can’t hold in the bark of laughter that provokes. “Fuck’s sake,” he manages eventually. “Do you even know me?”
Adam’s brow furrows. His eyes search Rao’s face. Then he nods, slowly, infinitely seriously.
“I think so, yes. Yeah. I think I do.”
Glossary
AFO Authorised Firearms Officer: Trained UK police officer operationally permitted to carry a firearm.
AFSOC US Air Force Special Operations Command.
ARL-M Airborne Reconnaissance Low - Multifunction: A reconnaissance and surveillance system carried on a modified De Havilland Canada DHC-7 aircraft.
ATC Air Traffic Controller.
BDU Battle Dress Uniform.
BFR Big Fucking Rock (military slang).
BMT Basic Military Training (a.k.a. boot camp).
C4 (a.k.a. Composition C-4): Malleable plastic explosive.
C-17 (a.k.a. Globemaster III): Large US Air Force transport aircraft.
CC Combat Controller.
Charlie Mike Continue Mission (radio jargon).
CIA Central Intelligence Agency (USA).
CONUS Continental United States.
Creech Creech Air Force Base, Nevada: Base for unmanned aerial vehicles/remotely piloted aircraft operations.
CRT Cathode Ray Tube.
CUCV Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle (USA): Old-style military truck.
DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency: US Department of Defense agency for research and development into emerging technology for military use.
Dash 7 De Havilland Canada DHC-7 four-engine turboprop aircraft.
DCU Desert Camouflage Uniform.
Delta 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (a.k.a. Delta Force): Special Operations force of the US Army.
DFAC Dining facility on US Air Force bases.
DIA Defense Intelligence Agency: Intelligence agency of the US Department of Defense.
DU rounds Depleted uranium munitions used for armor penetration.
EIO Extranatural Incident Office (fictional): Clandestine US government agency investigating unexplained phenomena.
EPGO (fictional) EOS PROPHET Generated Object.
F-15 US Air Force multirole strike fighter.
Fingerspitzengefühl German term meaning “fingertip feeling,” connoting instinctive flair and intuition.
FOD walk Foreign Object Debris walk: Routine examination of flight line to remove objects that might damage aircraft on takeoff or landing.
Fort Meade Fort George G. Meade: US Army installation in Maryland, home to the National Security Agency, US Cyber Command, and over a hundred other agencies focusing on cyber operations, intelligence, and information gathering.
FVEY Five Eyes: Intelligence alliance among Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters: UK signals intelligence organization headquartered in Cheltenham.
H hour (a.k.a. zero hour): Time at which a scheduled tactical operation is set to launch. US military.
HK Heckler & Koch: German small arms manufacturer. See also MP5.
HVT High Value Target.
Langley Town in Fairfax County, Virginia; location of the George Bush Center for Intelligence, CIA headquarters.
M9 Beretta 92FS semiautomatic pistol: US military service weapon since 1985.
Medevac Medical evacuation.
MI5 (a.k.a. the Security Service): UK domestic counterintelligence and security agency.
MI6 (a.k.a. the Secret Intelligence Service or SIS): UK foreign intelligence agency.
Mil-spec Military specification.
MoD UK Ministry of Defence.
Moskvich 2140 Car manufactured by Soviet carmaker AZLK between 1976 and 1988.
MP5 Heckler & Koch machine pistol.
Nellis Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.
NNSS Nevada National Security Site.
NTK Need to Know.
NVG Night Vision Goggles.
Oscar Mike On the move (radio jargon).
OSI Office of Special Investigations, US Air Force.
Peary Camp Peary: Military reservation in Virginia including the CIA training facility known as “the Farm.”
Pentonville Category B Prison in Islington, UK.
PET scan Positron emission topography scan: 3D imaging method using radioactive tracers to investigate metabolic and biochemical functions of tissues and organs.
PHOTINT Photographic Intelligence.
PX Post Exchange: Retail store on US military installations.
Quindar Tones The beeping tones heard on NASA Apollo radio transmissions.
Red Zone Unsafe areas in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
RTO Radio Telephone Operator.
SAP Special Access Program. US Department of Defense program established for special classes of highly classified information that imposes access requirements exceeding those for regular classified information.
SAS Special Air Service: Special Forces unit of the British Army.
SNCO Senior Non-Commissioned Officer.
SSTV Slow Scan TV: Method of sending and receiving static images via radio.
T1 line Historically fast digital data connection.
Telltale (fictional): Animate, moving EPGO.
UAZ Russian utility vehicle manufacturer.
UN3373 International packaging code for Biological Samples B (human or animal tissues, blood, excreta, etc.).
USMC United States Marine Corps.
VQ Visitors Quarters.
Zhen Xian Bao An ingeniously folded paper container from China, most typically used to store needlework items in Miao, Dong, and Yao traditions.
Acknowledgments
Deep thanks to Bill Clegg for his encouragement, critical brilliance, expertise and wisdom, Simon Toop for his genre-saviness and infectious enthusiasm, and everyone else at the Clegg Agency in New York. Huge gratitude to Elisabeth Schmitz, who took this book under her wing, and to Morgan Entrekin, Deb Seager, John Mark Boling, Judy Hottensen, Lilly Sandberg and all at Grove Atlantic. It’s a privilege to be published by them. Thank you, Paula Cooper-Hughes and Alicia Burns, for your expert eyes.
And it’s a privilege to be published by Jonathan Cape in the UK. Michal Shavit, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support and enthusiasm. Special thanks also to Alex Russell, Alison Davies, Suzanne Dean, and everyone on the Cape team.
This book grew from the inspiration, support and assistance of many people, many of whom read and commented on early drafts. Helen would like to thank Tom Adès, Ray Barry, Nick Blackburn, Casey Cep, Sarah Dollard, Paraic O’Donnell, Emma Gilby, James Macdonald, Debbie Patterson, Cornelius Prior, Kathryn Schultz, Anindita Sempere, Andrew Sempere, Grant Shaffer, Murray Shanahan, Denis Villeneuve and Lydia Wilson. Sin would like to thank Peter Breen, Francine Blaché-Breen, Áilbhe Hines, Eben Bernard, Adam McGhee, Ruth McCartney, Moira Purvis, Brodie Smith, Bebhinn Hare, Lauren Mehl and Frank Hicks for all the cheerleading and willingness to listen to the highs and lows. Special thanks to Rachel Purvis, who would have loved being on this journey with us.
Special thanks from both of us to Christina McLeish, Toby Mayhew, Phil Klay, Dan Franklin, Bharat Tandon, Sarah Phelps and Abigail Elek Schor. And a special thanks also to the fic writers of AO3 and the internet.
Helen Macdonald, Prophet
