Predatory Game
Page 44
Logan and Neil burst out laughing.
“Go to hell, both of you.” Jess poured a cup of coffee. “You’re a couple of boneheads. Are we working here or what?”
“I brought this for you.” Neil pulled a disk from his pocket, the smile fading from his face. “I’m going to let you listen. It took a while to clean it up and get the conversation. There’s still some background noise, but I think you’ll recognize a couple of voices.” He pushed the disk into the computer. “I’m saving the original and you’ll see why.”
There was a moment of silence and then the sound of footsteps. “We can’t afford to let any of them live, Senator, not one. I don’t care if they’re out of it or not. You’ve got to shut that program down. The biggest danger to us right now is that megalomaniac, Whitney, and the abominations he creates.” The voice was muffled, and a little distorted, but Neil had managed to amplify the sound enough to catch the words.
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder. Whitney knows about us. He’s going to find a way to bring us down and you’ll go down with the rest of us, Senator. We’ll all be charged with treason and my guess is, some of us will be taken out and shot before we ever go to trial. Do you think the president is going to want anyone to know that we’ve been selling secrets to terrorists and funding them for years on his watch? No one is going to want that information made public. They’ll kill us all, and Whitney’s supersoldiers will be the ones pulling the triggers. The man’s mad as a hatter but they won’t terminate him. We’ve got a few people in key places who feed us information, but it isn’t enough. You have to find a way to take him down.”
“I’m doing my best.” The voice was clearer, as if perhaps he was the one with the voice-activated recorder nearest him.
Jess leaned in to pause the recording. “That’s Senator Ed Freeman. This had to be made before he was shot. Who’s the other man?”
Neil shook his head. “I have no idea. I’ve been trying to match the voice with voice prints I have, but so far, no luck.”
“The senator sounds almost as if he’s afraid.”
“Listen to the rest of it,” Neil suggested and once more activated the sound.
“Whitney’s going to keep going until he’s killed. There’s no other way to stop him. You’ve got to kill all the women in his breeding program-all of them. We can’t have them adding to this mess.”
“He doesn’t trust me. I think he’s trying to have me killed.”
“He must know you were instrumental in sending out a couple of his GhostWalkers to the Congo. Get it done. And when I say all the women have to die, I mean all of them.”
“Violet is helping us,” the senator hissed.
“She’s the one who told him about Higgens. If she hadn’t tipped him off we would have gotten the bastard then. Instead, Higgens is dead and Whitney is in the wind.”
“She didn’t…”
There was the sound of a knock on a door, hinges creaking, and then more footsteps. Both men went silent instantly. Chairs scraped.
“No, no, keep your seats.”
The recorder went off abruptly. Jess and Logan looked at each other. The tension in the office rose.
“Was that who I thought it was?” Logan asked.
“That was the vice president,” Jess said. “He has a very distinctive voice. He just walked into that room. You don’t think whoever was talking to the senator is in the White House, do you?”
“Could the rot really go that high up?” Logan took a deep breath. “They’re talking about selling out our country from the White House.”
“We’re dead men,” Neil said, “if we don’t find these people.”
“They’re traitors,” Jess snapped. “Fucking traitors and we’re going to find them. Isn’t Higgens the man Ryland had to kill?”
“He must have been part of a much larger ring and we thought we got it, but we didn’t even get the tip of the iceberg. When you’re talking senators and someone working in the White House…”
“Or the Pentagon. The recording could have been made there as well.”
“We know the conversation takes place somewhere the vice president would visit. Neil, can you isolate any background noises?”
“I tried. The recording was damaged. I don’t know who could have put the recorder into Louise’s private safe.”
“The senator’s wife? She’s a GhostWalker. But she also had made some kind of deal with Whitney to save her husband’s life. Whitney put out a hit on him. When she made the deal, she sold out the girls in the breeding program.”
“It was one of Whitney’s soldiers who put a bullet in his head,” Jess confirmed, “although any of us would have been happy to. The senator is responsible for Jack and Ken’s capture and torture. He handed them over to Ekabela in the Congo. Prior to that, Whitney had targeted the senator for assassination using Saber. She escaped instead of carrying out the order.”
Jess took another drink of coffee, his frown deepening as he tried to puzzle it out. “So we’ve got two factions. We have Whitney who is a madman, making weapons for his country and thinking he’s as patriotic as all get out.”
Logan nodded. “And we’ve got some group, small or large-I’m guessing large-selling our secrets to the highest bidder. They’re in top government positions and we know they’re also in the military-at least some of them.”
“The bastards who went after my sister were army,” Jess confirmed. “We need to talk to Ryland Miller as soon as possible and get this information to his team.”
“Whoever was talking to the senator is the one giving orders to the admiral and the general, sending our teams out on suicide runs. It has to be him. We’ve got his voice now. We should be able to nail the bastard,” Neil said. “I’ll keep working to clean it up and see if I can enhance it even more.”
“And try again to get something on the background noises, see if we can maybe figure out exactly where the conversation is taking place, which building,” Logan added.
Neil nodded. “I doubt I’ll get too much more. It wasn’t easy cleaning it and pulling up what I did get.”
“Was there any more of the conversation?”
“Not that wasn’t damaged beyond my abilities to recover. I can ask Flame, she’s a genius with this kind of thing, but I wouldn’t count on getting much more. I think the man must have been standing a distance from the recorder.”
“He couldn’t have known the conversation was being recorded,” Logan said.
Jess snapped his fingers. “But the senator might have. Listen to the things he said. Short answers. Nothing too incriminating. He might have been the one recording it. Violet would be likely to urge him to get some insurance. I don’t know how the senator got involved with them, but I’ll bet he wanted out.”
“Then he tries to bargain with Whitney, an exchange of information-especially if the senator’s wife is targeted to be killed,” Logan filled in. “Whitney didn’t sell out those women, nor was the senator going to rescue them, he was trying to show Whitney what he knew, that he’d keep quiet in exchange.”
“Then why did Whitney have him killed?” Neil asked.
“We don’t know if he’s dead.”
“It was a confirmed head shot. I doubt if he survived, and if he did, he’s a vegetable.”
“Then Violet is going to want revenge. She can’t go home to Whitney and she can’t come to us. She’s out there alone with everyone wanting her dead,” Jess said. “So what’s she going to do? She plants the recorder in Louise’s office, because she’s heard the rumor that I’m conducting some kind of investigation.”
“We’re making a big jump here,” Neil said.
“Maybe,” Jess agreed, “but it fits.”
“Talk about a pissed-off woman,” Logan said. “See, I have a point. She’s a loose cannon and no one knows whose side she’s going to come down on. In the meantime, everyone had better watch their backs. Now you see what I’m talking about with these women. Gun or no, she’s dangerous as hell.”
“At least she’s got good cause, and you ought to be happy, Logan, she was protecting her man,” Jess said.
“Too bad she had the wrong man. What a waste.”
Jess burst out laughing. “You’re such a hypocrite, Logan. You say the women shouldn’t be enhanced, but if they are, you don’t want to share them with anyone.”
Logan shrugged. “I’m a complicated man.”
“You’re a nutcase.”
The smile faded from Jess’s face. “You’re a smart nutcase, Max. Before Saber escaped, she was in Whitney’s office and she found two files out. One was on the senator. She didn’t talk much about it, but when I ask her tonight, I’m going to bet she’ll tell me it documented treasonous acts.”
“That would at least confirm our speculations.”
“And there was a file on bionics. Both files were in English, typed out and left right on the desk for her to find. Whitney always, always, uses mathematical code. I asked Lily and every single time she’s accessed a file on the computer it’s in code.”
“Which means he wanted her to see those files,” Logan said.
“Exactly, but why?”
Logan studied his face. “I think you already know.”
Jess was silent for a moment. “You’re wrong about her.”
Logan looked startled. “That was an abrupt change in subject.”
“She saved Patsy’s life. There was something wrong with Patsy’s heart and Saber knew it. Patsy had a heart attack, Logan. She would have died without Saber. She might be able to kill with a touch, but she can give life as well. You might want to think about that. It could be your life she has to save one day.”
Logan held up his hand in surrender. “I don’t know why or how we circled back to this, but I’m more than willing to be wrong. I don’t like risking you, but if she was mine, I’ll admit, I’d risk everything for her.”
“We’re good then?”
“We’re good.” Logan shoved out of the chair and set his coffee cup aside. “I’m taking off. It’s getting late and she’s going to be up soon. She won’t want us here.”
“She doesn’t like you knowing about her past,” Jess conceded. “But she’ll get over that.”
Neil placed his mug beside the coffeepot. “I’m heading out as well. I’ll get the recorder to Flame and see what she can do with it. You know we’re close if you need us. Martin’s taking the watch tonight. And I’d like to point out, and you can tell her, that I don’t know, nor do I care, anything about her past. She’s one of us.”
“Thanks, Neil. I’ll make her aware of that.” He grinned up at Logan. “It’s only Max she has to avoid. And great work, Neil. I couldn’t get anything off that piece of junk.”
Neil laughed. “Our strange little skills come in handy.”
“Yeah, they do.” Jess thought of his sister as the men went out. If Saber hadn’t zapped her heart to get it going, she’d most likely be dead, or her heart irreparably damaged. Saber could do things with her talent-good things. And he had an idea that that was the reason Whitney had left that file in plain sight for Saber to read. He had a feeling convincing Saber of what needed to be done, though, was not going to be easy.
He sat for a long while observing her sleep. She was curled up like a kitten, her springy curls blue-black against the pillow, matching the color of her feathery lashes. He enjoyed seeing her in his bed. She looked a little lost without his body beside hers, but he liked that as well.
“Go to hell, both of you.” Jess poured a cup of coffee. “You’re a couple of boneheads. Are we working here or what?”
“I brought this for you.” Neil pulled a disk from his pocket, the smile fading from his face. “I’m going to let you listen. It took a while to clean it up and get the conversation. There’s still some background noise, but I think you’ll recognize a couple of voices.” He pushed the disk into the computer. “I’m saving the original and you’ll see why.”
There was a moment of silence and then the sound of footsteps. “We can’t afford to let any of them live, Senator, not one. I don’t care if they’re out of it or not. You’ve got to shut that program down. The biggest danger to us right now is that megalomaniac, Whitney, and the abominations he creates.” The voice was muffled, and a little distorted, but Neil had managed to amplify the sound enough to catch the words.
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder. Whitney knows about us. He’s going to find a way to bring us down and you’ll go down with the rest of us, Senator. We’ll all be charged with treason and my guess is, some of us will be taken out and shot before we ever go to trial. Do you think the president is going to want anyone to know that we’ve been selling secrets to terrorists and funding them for years on his watch? No one is going to want that information made public. They’ll kill us all, and Whitney’s supersoldiers will be the ones pulling the triggers. The man’s mad as a hatter but they won’t terminate him. We’ve got a few people in key places who feed us information, but it isn’t enough. You have to find a way to take him down.”
“I’m doing my best.” The voice was clearer, as if perhaps he was the one with the voice-activated recorder nearest him.
Jess leaned in to pause the recording. “That’s Senator Ed Freeman. This had to be made before he was shot. Who’s the other man?”
Neil shook his head. “I have no idea. I’ve been trying to match the voice with voice prints I have, but so far, no luck.”
“The senator sounds almost as if he’s afraid.”
“Listen to the rest of it,” Neil suggested and once more activated the sound.
“Whitney’s going to keep going until he’s killed. There’s no other way to stop him. You’ve got to kill all the women in his breeding program-all of them. We can’t have them adding to this mess.”
“He doesn’t trust me. I think he’s trying to have me killed.”
“He must know you were instrumental in sending out a couple of his GhostWalkers to the Congo. Get it done. And when I say all the women have to die, I mean all of them.”
“Violet is helping us,” the senator hissed.
“She’s the one who told him about Higgens. If she hadn’t tipped him off we would have gotten the bastard then. Instead, Higgens is dead and Whitney is in the wind.”
“She didn’t…”
There was the sound of a knock on a door, hinges creaking, and then more footsteps. Both men went silent instantly. Chairs scraped.
“No, no, keep your seats.”
The recorder went off abruptly. Jess and Logan looked at each other. The tension in the office rose.
“Was that who I thought it was?” Logan asked.
“That was the vice president,” Jess said. “He has a very distinctive voice. He just walked into that room. You don’t think whoever was talking to the senator is in the White House, do you?”
“Could the rot really go that high up?” Logan took a deep breath. “They’re talking about selling out our country from the White House.”
“We’re dead men,” Neil said, “if we don’t find these people.”
“They’re traitors,” Jess snapped. “Fucking traitors and we’re going to find them. Isn’t Higgens the man Ryland had to kill?”
“He must have been part of a much larger ring and we thought we got it, but we didn’t even get the tip of the iceberg. When you’re talking senators and someone working in the White House…”
“Or the Pentagon. The recording could have been made there as well.”
“We know the conversation takes place somewhere the vice president would visit. Neil, can you isolate any background noises?”
“I tried. The recording was damaged. I don’t know who could have put the recorder into Louise’s private safe.”
“The senator’s wife? She’s a GhostWalker. But she also had made some kind of deal with Whitney to save her husband’s life. Whitney put out a hit on him. When she made the deal, she sold out the girls in the breeding program.”
“It was one of Whitney’s soldiers who put a bullet in his head,” Jess confirmed, “although any of us would have been happy to. The senator is responsible for Jack and Ken’s capture and torture. He handed them over to Ekabela in the Congo. Prior to that, Whitney had targeted the senator for assassination using Saber. She escaped instead of carrying out the order.”
Jess took another drink of coffee, his frown deepening as he tried to puzzle it out. “So we’ve got two factions. We have Whitney who is a madman, making weapons for his country and thinking he’s as patriotic as all get out.”
Logan nodded. “And we’ve got some group, small or large-I’m guessing large-selling our secrets to the highest bidder. They’re in top government positions and we know they’re also in the military-at least some of them.”
“The bastards who went after my sister were army,” Jess confirmed. “We need to talk to Ryland Miller as soon as possible and get this information to his team.”
“Whoever was talking to the senator is the one giving orders to the admiral and the general, sending our teams out on suicide runs. It has to be him. We’ve got his voice now. We should be able to nail the bastard,” Neil said. “I’ll keep working to clean it up and see if I can enhance it even more.”
“And try again to get something on the background noises, see if we can maybe figure out exactly where the conversation is taking place, which building,” Logan added.
Neil nodded. “I doubt I’ll get too much more. It wasn’t easy cleaning it and pulling up what I did get.”
“Was there any more of the conversation?”
“Not that wasn’t damaged beyond my abilities to recover. I can ask Flame, she’s a genius with this kind of thing, but I wouldn’t count on getting much more. I think the man must have been standing a distance from the recorder.”
“He couldn’t have known the conversation was being recorded,” Logan said.
Jess snapped his fingers. “But the senator might have. Listen to the things he said. Short answers. Nothing too incriminating. He might have been the one recording it. Violet would be likely to urge him to get some insurance. I don’t know how the senator got involved with them, but I’ll bet he wanted out.”
“Then he tries to bargain with Whitney, an exchange of information-especially if the senator’s wife is targeted to be killed,” Logan filled in. “Whitney didn’t sell out those women, nor was the senator going to rescue them, he was trying to show Whitney what he knew, that he’d keep quiet in exchange.”
“Then why did Whitney have him killed?” Neil asked.
“We don’t know if he’s dead.”
“It was a confirmed head shot. I doubt if he survived, and if he did, he’s a vegetable.”
“Then Violet is going to want revenge. She can’t go home to Whitney and she can’t come to us. She’s out there alone with everyone wanting her dead,” Jess said. “So what’s she going to do? She plants the recorder in Louise’s office, because she’s heard the rumor that I’m conducting some kind of investigation.”
“We’re making a big jump here,” Neil said.
“Maybe,” Jess agreed, “but it fits.”
“Talk about a pissed-off woman,” Logan said. “See, I have a point. She’s a loose cannon and no one knows whose side she’s going to come down on. In the meantime, everyone had better watch their backs. Now you see what I’m talking about with these women. Gun or no, she’s dangerous as hell.”
“At least she’s got good cause, and you ought to be happy, Logan, she was protecting her man,” Jess said.
“Too bad she had the wrong man. What a waste.”
Jess burst out laughing. “You’re such a hypocrite, Logan. You say the women shouldn’t be enhanced, but if they are, you don’t want to share them with anyone.”
Logan shrugged. “I’m a complicated man.”
“You’re a nutcase.”
The smile faded from Jess’s face. “You’re a smart nutcase, Max. Before Saber escaped, she was in Whitney’s office and she found two files out. One was on the senator. She didn’t talk much about it, but when I ask her tonight, I’m going to bet she’ll tell me it documented treasonous acts.”
“That would at least confirm our speculations.”
“And there was a file on bionics. Both files were in English, typed out and left right on the desk for her to find. Whitney always, always, uses mathematical code. I asked Lily and every single time she’s accessed a file on the computer it’s in code.”
“Which means he wanted her to see those files,” Logan said.
“Exactly, but why?”
Logan studied his face. “I think you already know.”
Jess was silent for a moment. “You’re wrong about her.”
Logan looked startled. “That was an abrupt change in subject.”
“She saved Patsy’s life. There was something wrong with Patsy’s heart and Saber knew it. Patsy had a heart attack, Logan. She would have died without Saber. She might be able to kill with a touch, but she can give life as well. You might want to think about that. It could be your life she has to save one day.”
Logan held up his hand in surrender. “I don’t know why or how we circled back to this, but I’m more than willing to be wrong. I don’t like risking you, but if she was mine, I’ll admit, I’d risk everything for her.”
“We’re good then?”
“We’re good.” Logan shoved out of the chair and set his coffee cup aside. “I’m taking off. It’s getting late and she’s going to be up soon. She won’t want us here.”
“She doesn’t like you knowing about her past,” Jess conceded. “But she’ll get over that.”
Neil placed his mug beside the coffeepot. “I’m heading out as well. I’ll get the recorder to Flame and see what she can do with it. You know we’re close if you need us. Martin’s taking the watch tonight. And I’d like to point out, and you can tell her, that I don’t know, nor do I care, anything about her past. She’s one of us.”
“Thanks, Neil. I’ll make her aware of that.” He grinned up at Logan. “It’s only Max she has to avoid. And great work, Neil. I couldn’t get anything off that piece of junk.”
Neil laughed. “Our strange little skills come in handy.”
“Yeah, they do.” Jess thought of his sister as the men went out. If Saber hadn’t zapped her heart to get it going, she’d most likely be dead, or her heart irreparably damaged. Saber could do things with her talent-good things. And he had an idea that that was the reason Whitney had left that file in plain sight for Saber to read. He had a feeling convincing Saber of what needed to be done, though, was not going to be easy.
He sat for a long while observing her sleep. She was curled up like a kitten, her springy curls blue-black against the pillow, matching the color of her feathery lashes. He enjoyed seeing her in his bed. She looked a little lost without his body beside hers, but he liked that as well.
