Betrayer: Foreigner #12 Read Online Free Page A

clothes.”
    “Best here that you wear exactly what you’re wearing.” Atevi dress was far less apt to excite comment. “We can ask staff to try to find you a change. Child’s sizes will work.”
    “I haven’t my makeup!”
    “Next time you’re kidnapped, try to pack.”
    “Don’t joke, Bren!” There were the tears, just under the surface. “I look like absolute hell.”
    He’d gotten wary of saying things to Barb. No, you don’t look like hell, was the automatic reassurance, but he’d had enough trouble disengaging Barb after their several-year relationship. And of all people on earth he could have shared close quarters with, Barb wasn’t his choice of roommates.
    Of all people on earth he could have underfoot during a lifeand-death diplomatic mission, Barb wouldn’t be his choice, either: not Barb and her emotional reactions—and not the aggressive inexperience of the young Guildswoman who’d turned up with her.
    “Were you at all able to speak to anybody?” he asked her. Barb understood far more Ragi than she spoke. “There were no Mosphei’ speakers among them, were there?”
    “No,” Barb said, and her lip trembled. She held the atevi-scale teacup in both hands, elbows on the table, and took a steadying sip. “I tried to talk to them, and they hit me.”
    “The kidnappers? Or the people here?”
    “The kidnappers.”
    “So the locals have treated you fairly well?”
    “Fairly well, I guess,” Barb said. “But they wouldn’t listen, either.”
    “What did you try to tell them?”
    “I’m not too fluent.”
    “Well, but what did you want them to know?”
    “I tried to say I was from Najida, and I mentioned your name and the aiji-dowager. I hoped they’d phone you.”
    Interesting point. Barb had drawn a mental difference between her kidnappers and where she was now. It might not be a real difference; but somewhere in Barb’s subconscious, it might signify that she had, in fact, seen a difference.
    But he didn’t bet their lives that nobody on Machigi’s staff had a few words of Mosphei’, either, and the room was undoubtedly bugged. So it was worth being careful and steering Barb away from certain topics.
    “Well, but by then we were out trying to find you. Did you stop at any house, even a shed, a fueling station?”
    “We just drove. Forever.”
    “Didn’t stop at a fuel station.”
    Shake of her head, gold curls moving. And a wince. “Ow. No. We didn’t.”
    So they’d come prepared, maybe with a double tank. “Did you hear any names?”
    “I couldn’t hear much. I was in the back of the truck, and this man—he didn’t talk. Just sat there with a gun in his hands.”
    “Rifle?”
    A nod.
    “Guild uniforms?”
    A nod.
    It confirmed Veijico’s story. The truck had been moving incredibly slowly, but it was still moderately impressive that Veijico had managed to intercept it afoot. It was much more impressive that she’d taken them out.
    He was certain that the truck had been trying to draw attention to itself and get a reaction, wanting to be tracked into Taisigi clan territory. What they might not have anticipated was the desperation and outright rule-breaking lunacy of one young Guildswoman tracking them. They’d have expected her to follow Guild procedure: contact authority and track them until they chose to lose her.
    Their mistake.
    And the behavior added points to the dowager’s theory that it wasn’t Machigi who’d ordered that kidnapping. Machigi had been a bit more subtle than that.
    The Taisigi had reportedly closed in immediately after Veijico had shot the kidnappers, so they had been watching, too. Guild were not prone to emotional reactions or personal retribution. But there was a limit to that professionalism, if Veijico had just shot down a number of their partners.
    The fact was they had not shot Veijico, roughed her up, or even questioned her closely. They had handled her as someone attached to Barb and kept her with Barb, proper treatment for