Page 80 of Dark Gambit: The Play

After listening to Kian repeat what they had reported, Turner asked, "Did Sofia volunteer the information, or did Eleanor compel her to talk?"

"She volunteered it," Marcel said. "She was so excited about the possibility of contacting her father and letting him know that her death would be faked and that she was not really going to die. I didn't have the heart to ask Eleanor to verify that she'd told us the truth. It would have been insulting."

Turner chuckled. "I can see why you are no longer a Guardian. You think with your heart and not your head. She could've fed you all a bunch of lies."

Kian felt offended on behalf of Marcel. Guardians were not cold-hearted. Hell, he wasn't cold-hearted either. Did Turner suggest that having emotions made him an ineffective leader?

"Come on, Turner. Emmett and Eleanor were right there with her. Sofia knew that they could force her to tell the truth, and if they caught her in a lie, that would have looked really bad for her, and she would have been forced to tell the truth anyway."

"That might be true, but I would have verified the information, nonetheless. Are you willing to risk the lives of your men because you don't want to hurt the girl's feelings?"

"Good point." Kian sighed. "Emmett or Eleanor should verify the information. You can tell Sofia that I demanded it."

"It will be done," Leon said. "I'll have Eleanor go over everything with her tomorrow."

"I have no problem being the bad guy," Turner said. "Tell her it was me, and make me look really cold and ruthless. She's terrified of Igor, and it wouldn't hurt to let her believe that there is someone just as ruthless on our side."

Kian chuckled. "Am I not intimidating enough?"

Turner was cold, but he wasn't ruthless. After all, he was in the business of saving people, and he derived satisfaction from that, and not just because he was good at what he did.

"Using Turner as the bad guy will work better," Marcel said. "I've spent a lot of effort convincing Sofia of our moral superiority, praising our leadership for the good work it does, and emphasizing the checks and balances we employ. I think that was instrumental in her volunteering information, and I would hate to see all that work go to waste. I would much prefer to have her on our side voluntarily."

"It's good that you did that," Turner said. "You showed her the carrot. But it's also good to have a stick. It makes persuasion much more effective."

63

MARCEL

Marcel didn't want to show Sofia the stick. When he returned to the bunker, he planned to tell her who he was and what he could potentially do for her. If that didn't pull her fully over to their side, a stick wasn't going to do it either. But he couldn't disobey Kian.

"What are we going to do with this information?" Leon asked. "Are we going to start a rebellion?"

"A plan is starting to formulate in my head," Turner said. "It's a combination of what you suggest, Merlin's potion, and Toven. The question is what we are going to do once we liberate the compound. Are we going to leave Jade in charge? Who's to say that she wouldn't turn out to be just as dangerous of an adversary as Igor? So far, they don't know that we exist. Once they do, will they consider us a threat?"

There was a long moment of silence as everyone contemplated his statement.

"We still don't know how many Kra-ell communities are scattered around the globe," Kian said. "What they were sent here for, and if any more are scheduled to arrive. Jade might know the answers to that, and if we help her liberate her people, she will owe us. Emmett and Vrog claim that she's an honorable female, so she might feel obligated to share the information with us, and if not, we can have Toven get it out of her. The bottom line is that we can't leave things as they are and hope the Kra-ell will never discover us." He chuckled. "Worst case scenario, we can let the Doomers know about them. They would take care of the problem for us."

"I didn't think I would live to see the day when we cooperate with Navuh," Leon said.

Kian huffed. "Who said anything about cooperation? I will never trust that fucker not to turn around and stab me in the back. But he's a known entity, and he has the force to deal with the Kra-ell. If they pose a threat to us, I would be very happy to get them to fight each other while we stand back and watch."

So many suggestions had been flying back and forth that Marcel was confused as to what step they were about to take next.

"What is the play, then?" he asked. "What's our next move? Does Sofia keep feeding Igor nonsense about a paranormal community and its breeding program? Are we grabbing the guards?"

"Grabbing the guards might be one of the first steps," Turner said. "Or we might employ a shortcut and drive the cat around. If we are lucky, the tracker we took out of Sofia has a pureblooded tail, and we might be able to collect the information from them before Onegus's team even leaves for Karelia. For that to work, though, we would need Toven to return to the area and be on standby. It's imperative that Igor doesn't find out that we captured and interrogated his men, and no one other than Toven is capable of compelling them into pretending that nothing happened and keep reporting as usual. He would probably need Mia's help to override Igor's compulsion."

"That's risky," Kian said. "If Toven fails, or if they manage to send a signal before we incapacitate them, we won't be able to implement any of the other ideas we discussed. Igor will lock down his compound, and if he's a coward like most despots, he might escape with his inner circle."

"That would be a good thing, right?" Marcel asked. "Maybe we want him to find out, so he leaves the compound, and we just walk in and take over."

Kian huffed. "He might blow it up to prevent us from taking anyone alive, and he would either kill Jade or take her with him."

"He would take her," Marcel said. "Sofia says that they have a daughter together and that he wants a son from her. Apparently, Jade is the most powerful pureblooded female he has, and that's why he keeps her as his main breeder even though she makes no secret of the fact that she despises him."

"He still might kill her if he believes that she betrayed him," Turner said. "And since his men will be captured while trailing Sofia's tracker, he will rightly assume that it had to do with Jade."