Carina Mitela is a young Praetorian officer in Roma Nova and she’s messed up big time. The problem is that she’s married to her boss, Conrad – awkward, to say the least. Now he’s offering her a chance to redeem herself. Will she take it?
Outside Conrad’s door I dithered, summoning up the courage to knock on the polished dark wood. I took a good breath and did it.
‘Come.’
He looked up and stared at me for a full minute. The natural daylight was sinking fast and the low sunlight reflected in his hazel eyes, making them look like agates. I didn’t have a clue what he was thinking.
‘Sit down,’ he said in a terse voice. He picked the file on the top of his in tray and flipped it open. He looked up at me. ‘Has the adjutant given you any details?’
‘No, he just mentioned it was overseas.’
He touched his screen, swivelled it round so I could read it. His hand brushed mine. We both looked down, but the moment passed too quickly.
‘Conrad, I’m so sorry,’ I said in a low voice. ‘Not for the climb,’ I added in a firmer tone. ‘But I didn’t think there would be any effect on the unit.’
‘No, you didn’t think.’
‘I can only repeat that I’m sorry.’
He didn’t say anything, but looked at me, his eyes more liquid and face less tense.
‘I wasn’t angry just for the unit and you know that.’
‘Yes.’ What else could I say?
‘I can’t run a unit efficiently when two of the most promising juniors can’t exercise some self-control. I think it would be calming for us if you were away for a bit. Then we can review your future here.’
Oh, Juno, he really was thinking of throwing me out. My stomach spasmed. Maybe he would say more when we got home. I loved this man and I knew he loved me. He was able to split work and the personal sides of his life. I found it near impossible.
‘Have you read the mission parameters?’ He tapped the edge of the screen. I scanned the ten lines, not really taking them in. I looked over at him.
‘République Québecoise?’ I said. What in Hades was going on in Quebec? Pleasant, old fashioned and full of polite French speakers.
‘Country in the Americas, east of Canada, north of the Eastern United States.’
‘Don’t be sarcastic,’ I retorted.
He raised an eyebrow.
‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. This was the trouble working with your spouse who outranked you professionally by several steps. Outside in civilian life, it was the other way around.
‘Read this.’ He pushed the file across his desk.
The file cover was marked with a diagonal red stripe with ‘CELATA’ across the top. Not a red ultra file which I’d never seen and wasn’t cleared to see, but the next category down. I took it gingerly and opened it with respect. I read it through, then reread the major points. It was a simple recovery of a criminal so she could go on trial.
‘What’s the timescale on this?’
‘Active now.’
I glanced at him.
‘There’s no possibility I have to cross the border into the EUS?’ I tried not to sound as nervous as I felt.
‘No, not unless the subject does a runner. But she thinks she’s safe. However, Flavius will go with you and he can take over if she, and it, goes south.’
I rubbed the margin of the file sheet between my thumb and index finger.
‘I presume you’ve been north? As a child?’ Conrad said.
‘We went to Toronto in Canada once to go to Niagara Falls. Dad said it was better from that side. But apart from that we mostly went to Quebec for holidays.’ I half closed my eyes. ‘I remember the old stone houses and the wooden clapperboard cottages. Sometimes we went to Montreal and I remember swimming in the Lac Saint-Pierre.’
‘Bit cold, wasn’t it?’
‘Freezing, but good.’
‘Did you go as an adult while you were living in New York?’
‘Are you kidding? I had no spare money to travel.’
The best I’d been able to manage was a vacation rental with four friends one year in Montana. My dad had died when I was twelve and I’d been uprooted from our house in New Hampshire to the open plains of Nebraska to live on an isolated farm with my joyless cousins. The day after graduating high school, I took the bus to New York and worked in various offices for peanuts until, at just shy of my twenty-fifth birthday, I’d fled to Roma Nova where my mother had been born. That was over four years ago.
I pointed at the file. ‘So what’s this Vibiana done that’s so bad?’
‘Need to know, and you don’t. Just bring her back.’
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Is Carina’s mission successful Is it the end of the case? To find out, buy the book from Amazon Kobo Apple B&N NOOK Paperback
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A complete story in a long novella and the second in the Carina Mitela Roma Nova adventures
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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