Текст книги "The Judas Strain"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

5
Lost and Found

JULY 5, 1:55 A.M.

Washington, D.C.

“This is as far as we dare go,” Gray said.

He had spent the last seven minutes creeping and edging the Thunderbird through Glover-Archibold Park, following an old weedy service road, bushes scraping against the flanks of the convertible. The left front tire was a punctured ruin, slowing them, making steering damn near impossible.

Though most people considered Washington, D.C., to be a place of historic buildings, wide parade malls, and museums, it also featured one of the longest, interconnected series of parklands, threaded throughout the heart of the city, covering well over a thousand acres. Glover-Archibold Park marked one end, terminating at the Potomac River.

Gray had headed away from the river. It was too far and too open. Following a back alley that paralleled the park homes, he had wended north with his headlights off, discovering an old fire road that led deeper into the dense woods. He took it. He needed to stay lost, yet the Thunderbird was on its last legs.

Recognizing he could go no farther, he slowed.

They were at the bottom of a ravine. Steep wooded hills climbed on either side. Ahead, an old abandoned train trestle crossed the narrow valley. Gray edged the Thunderbird under the bridge of rusted red iron and wooden slats. He braked next to one of the cement walls holding the trestle up. The wall was scrawled with graffiti.

“Everybody out. We go on foot from here.”

On the far side of the trestle, lit by stars and a sliver of moon, a wooden trail marker indicated a hiking trail. The path looked more like a tunnel, cutting into the heavily bowered forest.

All the better to hide them.

Off in the other direction, the sirens of emergency vehicles wailed. Gray spotted a flickering orange glow in the night sky. The fiery rocket blast must have started a house fire.

Closer still, the woods were dark, painted in shades of black.

Gray knew Nasser and his assassination team could be anywhere.

Behind them, ahead of them, closing in already.

Gray’s heart pounded. His fears gathered tight around him – not for himself, but for his parents. He needed to get them somewhere safe, to put distance between them and the dangers circling around him. The only way to do that was to get Seichan patched up.

And he had to do that away from all eyes.

Even if he still had his scrambled cell phone, he dared not contact Sigma or Director Crowe. Lines of communication were compromised, as evidenced by the ambush at the safe house. Protocol dictated he go cold and dark. There was a leak somewhere, and until he had his parents holed up someplace safe, he wasn’t going to lift his head above the weeds.

So that meant they’d have to seek an alternate means to care for Seichan. His mother had suggested one option and had already implemented her plan, making two calls on her personal cell phone. After that, Gray had her remove her cell phone’s battery, lest someone use the device to track them.

“The morphine seems to have relaxed her,” his mother reported from the backseat.

During a short stop, Gray’s mother had shifted into the backseat with Kowalski. Seichan lay draped between them. His mother had injected Seichan with a premeasured morphine syrette, taken from some medical supplies at the safe house.

“If we’re going to make it,” Gray said, “we’ll have to carry her from here.”

“I’ve got her.” Kowalski waved everyone out of his way.

Gray’s father helped his mother exit the convertible. Once out, his father eyed the state of his car and shook his head, swearing under his breath.

Kowalski stood up, hauling Seichan in his arms. Even in the dark beneath the trestle, Gray noted the black stain on her belly wrap. The movement stirred Seichan awake. She struggled a moment in Kowalski’s arms as he clambered out, startled, dazed. She cried out and struck the heel of her hand into his cheek.

“Hey…!” the large man exclaimed, avoiding another strike.

Seichan began to yell, an angry stream, an unintelligible mix of English and an Asian dialect.

“Quiet her down,” his father said, glancing at the dark forest.

Kowalski tried to muffle her mouth, but almost got a finger bitten off. “Son of a bitch!”

Seichan’s agitation grew more fierce.

His mother moved closer, searching in her large tote. “I have another dose of morphine.”

Gray shook his head. “Wait.” With Seichan’s blood loss, he feared the respiratory depression that accompanied morphine. A second dose might kill her, and he still needed answers.

He held a palm out toward his mother. “Smelling salts.” He remembered Kowalski had mentioned them as among the contents of the emergency medkit.

His mother nodded. She reached to her bag, fumbled a long second, then handed him a few capsules. Gray grabbed one and stepped to Kowalski’s side.

The guard now bore a long bloody scratch down one cheek. “Christ, do something about her!”

Gray grabbed a fistful of her hair, arched her neck, and cracked the capsule under her nose. Her head wrenched, fighting, but he kept the capsule at her upper lip. The delirious cries cut off, replaced by gagging.

A hand rose to push him away.

He held tight.

“Enough…” Seichan coughed out, and grabbed Gray’s wrist.

He was surprised at the strength in her fingers. He let his arm drop.

“Let me breathe. Set me down.”

Gray nodded to Kowalski. He didn’t have to be told twice. He settled Seichan to her feet but kept an arm under her shoulders. She’d overestimated her own strength. Her legs sagged. She hung in the large man’s arms.

Wincing, she glanced around her. Gray read the confusion in her eyes, behind the war between pain and morphine. She quickly focused back to him.

“I…the obelisk…” she said with strained worry.

Gray was tired of hearing about the damned obelisk. “We’ll have to get it later. It broke after you crashed. I left it back at the house.”

His words seemed to cause her more pain than her bullet wound. But perhaps his earlier lapse was a bit of luck. Maybe Nasser had gone after the obelisk rather than pursuing them.

His mother, overhearing their conversation, stepped forward. “You’re talking about that broken black pillar.” She patted her large purse. “I picked it up when I went inside to get the bandages. It looked old and maybe valuable.”

Eyes closing with relief, Seichan nodded to both those assessments. Her head hung in exhaustion. “Thank God.”

“What’s so important about it?” he asked.

“It could…it might save the world. If we’re not too late already.”

Gray glanced to his mother’s tote, then back to Seichan. “What the hell do you mean?”

She waved an arm weakly, fading again. “Too complicated. I need your hel p…can’t…not alone…we must, must get away.”

Her chin dropped to her chest as she slipped into unconsciousness again. Kowalski caught her weight on his hip.

Gray was tempted to use another capsule of smelling salts, but he feared exerting her any further. Fresh blood trickled from her bandage.

His mother seemed to make the same assessment. She nodded to the trail. “We can’t be far from the hospital now.”

Gray turned to the dark path on the far side of the trestle. It was the other reason he had taken the Thunderbird north through the woods, following a suggestion from his mother. On the far side of Glover-Archibold Park spread the campus of Georgetown University. The school’s hospital bordered the edge of the forest. His mother had former students who labored there.

If they could reach it in secret…

But was the destination too obvious?

There were a thousand exits out of the park system, but Nasser knew his quarry bore a seriously injured woman and that she needed immediate medical attention.

It was a huge risk, but Gray saw no way of avoiding it.

He remembered Nasser’s eyes as the bastard asked about the obelisk. Hungry, ruthless. The Egyptian had believed Gray’s assertion that the obelisk had been left behind – mostly because Gray had believed it. But which was more important to the man: obtaining the obelisk or seeking revenge?

He stared around at their small group.

All their lives balanced on that answer.

2:21 A.M.

A half hour later Painter stalked the length of his office, a hands-free headset fixed to his ear. “They’re all dead?”

Behind him, the plasma screen displayed live feed of the fiery blaze of three homes, along with a section of the neighboring parkland. It had been a dry summer, turning forest into kindling. Fire engines and emergency personnel swarmed the cordoned-off area. Television vans were already raising satellite antennas. A police helicopter circled above, floodlight spearing down, searching.

But it was too little, too late.

Neither the convertible Gray had driven to the safe house nor the hijacked medical van was among the wreckage. The raging fires hampered further investigation.

The only solid news was bad. The original med-van team had been discovered in an abandoned field, each shot in the head. He had four folders on his desk. He sank to his seat. On top of everything else, he had four hard calls to make before dawn. To their families.

Painter’s aide, Brant, wheeled into his doorway. “Sorry, sir.”

Painter nodded to him.

“I have Dr. McKnight holding on your third line. He’s available for phone or video conferencing.”

Painter pointed a thumb at the fiery screen. “I’ve seen enough of this for the moment. Patch Sean through.”

Painter peeled the headset out of his ear. He swore he might as well have one surgically implanted. He swung around to face the screen as the emergency scene dissolved away, replaced by the face of his boss.

Sean McKnight had founded Sigma but had since been promoted to the head of DARPA. Painter had placed a call to him as soon as Seichan had crashed into Gray’s life. Both for his advice and expertise. But also for one more pressing reason.

“So the Guild is back on our doorstep,” Sean said. He combed his fingers through his graying red hair. It was mussed, and it looked like he had been summoned directly from his bed. But his white shirt was creased and pressed. A navy pinstripe jacket lay over an arm of his chair. Ready for a long day.

“The Guild may be more than on our doorstep,” Painter said. “Current intel suggests they may be through the door already.” Painter tapped a folder behind him. “You’ve already read the sit-op.”

A nod answered him. “Plainly the Guild knew about the safe house. Knew Gray was headed there with their AWOL operative. We have a leak somewhere.”

“I’m afraid we have to assume that.”

He shook his head. If true, it was disastrous. The Guild had infiltrated Sigma once before, but Painter would swear his organization was clean now. After the last mole had been exposed, Painter had burned Sigma to its roots and rebuilt it from the ground up, with hundreds of safeguards and countermeasures.

All for nothing.

If there was still a leak, the very foundation of Sigma might be suspect. It could mean the dissolution of the organization. An internal audit was already under way, a cost-benefit analysis of Sigma’s basic command structure, under the guise of unifying U.S. intelligence-gathering services within Homeland Security.

But worst of all, there was a more intimate cost.

Painter had the four folders waiting on his desk to remind him.

Sean continued. “It is not just our division that is plagued by this terrorist-for-hire network. Two months ago, MI6 cleared a cell that had infiltrated a British Aerospace’s black-ops project outside of Glasgow. They lost five agents in the process. The Guild is everywhere and nowhere. Here at home, the NSA and the CIA are still trying to figure out who the Guild’s Osama is. We know next to nothing about their leader or their main players. We don’t even know if they are called the Guild. The derivation of that name came out of a nickname by an SAS officer, now deceased. Still, apparently the various cells have taken on the name as their own, at first mockingly, then perhaps more genuinely. We know thatlittle about the network.”

He left this last hanging.

Painter understood. “And now we have a defector.”

Sean sighed. “We’ve been trying to get a foothold in the organization for years. I’ve proposed several scenarios. But nothing as efficient as having an operative, one of the Guild elite, drop into our laps. We must secure her.”

“And the Guild will try just as hard to stop that from happening. They’ve made that plain. To eliminate her, they’ve chosen to expose their own infiltration into Sigma. A costly choice. And to carry it out, they’ve sent their best and most elusive operative. Another of their elite.”

“I saw the video of the man at the safe house. Read his dossier.” Sean grimaced.

Painter had read the same. The Butcher of Calcutta. His true origin and allegience was unknown. Of mixed descent, he had posed in the past as Indian, Pakistani, Iraqi, Egyptian, and Libyan. If Seichan had a male counterpart, it would be this man.

“We have one lead,” Painter said. “We were able to pick out his name off the video feed. Nasser. But that’s the best we could manage.”

Sean waved a dismissive hand. “His aliases are as numerous as his assassinations. He’s left a bloody trail all around the world, mostly concentrating in North Africa and throughout the Middle and Near East. Though just recently he’s extended deeper into the Mediterranean. The garroting of an archaeologist in Greece. The assassination of a museum curator in Italy.”

Painter’s attention hardened back to the screen. “In Italy? Where?”

“Venice. A curator found shot in the prisons below the Duke’s Palace. Nasser – or whatever his real name is – was seen in surveillance footage of the piazza outside.”

Painter rubbed his chin, hard enough to burn the stubble. “I received a call earlier from Monsignor Verona at the Vatican. The details should be in the sit-op report. There is a good chance that Seichan was also attempting some action in Italy at around that time.”

Sean’s eyes slowly narrowed. “Interesting. It’s a coincidence that bears further investigation. Both assassins in Italy. Now they’re here. One hunting the other. Two master assassins, the best of the Guild. And if nothing else, Nasser has driven Seichan into our arms.”

Or rather into Gray’s arms,Painter added silently.

“We need that woman in custody. Immediately. To lose this chance is beyond acceptable.”

Painter understood the severity of the situation, but he also knew Gray, how his mind worked. If anyone had a level of paranoia equal to his own, it was Gray. Custody could prove to be a problem.

“Sir, Commander Pierce is on the run. Ambushed at the safe house, he must suspect a leak like we do. He’ll go into hiding with her. Lay low until he feels it’s safe to come out of the cold.”

“We may not have that long to wait. Not with the Butcher of Calcutta hunting them both now.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Commander Pierce must be found, brought back in with her. I have no choice but to expand the search, to contact local authorities and the FBI. I’ve already ordered a search of all hospitals and medical facilities. We can’t let him go to ground.”

“Sir, I would prefer to give Commander Pierce some leeway to address the situation. The more light shone in his direction, the more likely it will draw the attention of Nasser.”

“If so, then we attempt to apprehend twoGuild operatives.”

Painter could not keep the shock from his voice. “By using Gray as bait.”

Sean stared out of the monitor. Painter read the stiffness of his posture. He also noted again the pressed jacket and shirt. Painter suddenly realized he had not been the first one to have Sean’s ear this night.

“This decision was made by Homeland. Signed by the president. There will be no countermanding it.” Sean firmed his voice. “Gray and this Guild agent must be found and brought in by whatever force necessary.”

Painter found no words to argue. There could be none. It was a new world. He slowly nodded. He would cooperate.

Still, in his heart, he knew Gray.

On the run, hunted by both sides, the man would prove formidable.

He would hide deep.

3:04 A.M.

“I spotted a Starbucks in the lobby downstairs,” Kowalski mumbled. “Maybe it’s open now. Anyone want a cup of Joe?”

“We stay put,” Gray said.

Kowalski shook his head. “No fucking kidding. It was a joke.”

Ignoring him, Gray continued to examine Seichan’s broken obelisk. They were gathered in the small reception room of a dental office. At his elbow, a table lamp illuminated the cramped space, decorated in the typical cookie-cutter manner: months-old magazines, generic watercolors, an anemic potted ficus plant, and a dark wall-mounted television.

Forty minutes ago the group had followed the woodland trail to the edge of Glover-Archibold Park. It had ended at a street that separated the park from the Georgetown University campus. At that hour, there had been no cars, no traffic. They had hurried across the street, slipped between two darkened research buildings, and reached the university’s Dental Annex. The hospital proper lay beyond, lit brightly. They had dared not go that far, risk that level of exposure.

So they made other arrangements.

Across the dental-room reception, Kowalski swore quietly and folded his arms, plainly bored but still on edge. They all awaited word.

“What’s taking so goddamn long?” Kowalski grumbled.

Gray had learned the man was a former seaman with the U.S. Navy. He’d been recruited into Sigma following his assistance with a Sigma operation in Brazil, not as an agent, but as muscle. He had tried to show Gray his scars from that mission as they waited, but Gray declined. The man did not know how to shut up. No wonder he’d been assigned to guard duty. Alone.

But Kowalski’s ongoing commentary had not fallen on deaf ears.

Across the room, Gray’s father lay sprawled over three chairs, eyes closed but not sleeping. It took an effort to maintain that deep frown.

“So you’re some sort of science spy,” his father had said earlier. “Figures…”

Gray still didn’t know what his father meant by that, but now was not the time to confront the issue. The sooner he could get Seichan patched up and away from his parents…the better for all of them.

Gray continued his examination. He turned the obelisk around, studying every surface. The black stone was ancient, pitted and scored, but was otherwise nondescript. It looked Egyptian, but it was not his area of expertise. Even his assessment of origin might have been clouded by the failed assassin’s Egyptian accent.

But one feature of the obelisk was definitely not natural to the stone.

He turned the broken top section on end. Protruding from the bottom was a bar of silver, about the thickness of his smallest finger. He touched it. Gray knew it was the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Something had been hidden at the heart of the obelisk. Looking more carefully at the broken end, he was able to make out an old cemented seam in the stone, invisible from the outside. The obelisk was really two pieces of marble craftily glued together, hiding something within. Like carving out the pages of a book to hide a gun or valuables.

He remembered Seichan’s words.

It might save the world…if we’re not too late already.

Whatever she meant, it was important enough for her to come seek him out, to betray the Guild.

He needed answers.

The creak of the door drew his attention. Gray’s mother pushed into the dental suite. She pulled a surgical mask from her face.

Gray stood up.

“She’s damn lucky,” his mother said. “We’ve cauterized the bleeding and hung a second unit of blood. Mickie thinks she’ll do fine. He’s finishing her dressing.”

Mickie was Dr. Michael Corrin, a former teaching assistant of his mother’s who had gone on to medical school, largely based on his mother’s recommendation. The depth of their relationship and trust extended to this midnight house call, a secret rendezvous at the hospital’s neighboring dental facility. A quick ultrasound revealed the night’s first bit of good news. The bullet hadn’t pierced Seichan’s abdominal cavity. The shot had passed just lateral to her pelvic bone.

“When can she be moved?” Gray asked.

“Mickie would rather she spend a few hours here, at the very least.”

“We don’t have that much time.”

“I explained that to him.”

“Is she awake?”

A nod. “After the first unit of blood, she grew more responsive. Mickie’s loaded her with antibiotics and analgesics. She’s already sitting up.”

“Then it’s time to go.” Gray went to push past his mother. He had observed the ultrasound, but he’d been chased out when the doctor set to work on the wound. No amount of arguing would make the doctor budge.

Gray hadn’t liked letting Seichan out of his sight, so he’d left with the broken obelisk. Seichan was not going anywhere without it.

With the two pieces of the obelisk in hand, Gray shoved through the door. His mother followed. Gray crossed to the first dental suite. He almost ran into Dr. Corrin as he was stepping out. The young doctor stood as tall as Gray, but he was sandy-haired and whip-thin. A manicured line of beard traced his jawline. Wearing a scowl, Dr. Corrin nodded back to the room.

“She yanked her catheter and asked that I fetch you. And an ultraviolet light.” He waved a hand toward the rear of the dental office. “My brother uses one to cure dental composites. I’ll be right back.”

With the way open, Gray entered the suite.

With her back to him, Seichan was sitting in a dental chair, naked from the waist up, struggling to pull a borrowed Redskins T-shirt over her head. A steri-drape lay crumpled at her feet. Even with her bare back to him, Gray read the strain of the effort. She had to catch herself on the armrest.

His mother sidestepped him. “Let me help you. You shouldn’t be doing that by yourself.”

Seichan resisted. “I’ve got it.” She lifted an arm to ward off any help, but flinched with a gasp.

“Enough, young lady.”

Gray’s mother went to her side and helped her tug the T-shirt over her bare breasts and bandaged midriff. Turning around, Seichan discovered Gray standing there. Her face darkened, abashed. But Gray suspected her embarrassment lay not in being almost caught naked, but in showing weakness.

She slowly stood, face hardening against the pain. Leaning her rear end against the reclined chair, she rebuttoned her pants, still tight to her hips.

“I need to speak to your son,” she said to Gray’s mother, voice hoarse, dismissive.

His mother glanced to Gray. He nodded to her.

“I’ll go check on your father,” his mother said coldly, and left.

Down the hall, the muted sound of a television started. Apparently Kowalski had found the remote.

Alone now, Gray and Seichan stared at each other. Neither spoke, both taking a moment to size the other up.

Dr. Corrin stepped to the door with a handheld lamp. “This is all we have.”

“It will do.” Seichan tried to raise a hand to ask for it, but her arm trembled.

Gray accepted it, cradling the pieces of obelisk in one arm. “We’ll need a minute.”

“Of course.” Dr. Corrin followed after Gray’s mother, sensing the tension in the room.

Seichan’s eyes had never left Gray’s face. “Commander Pierce, I’m sorry I put your family at risk. I underestimated Nasser.” She gingerly touched her bandaged wound. Acid entered her voice. “I won’t make that mistake again. I thought I had lost him in Europe.”

“You didn’t,” Gray snapped back.

Her eyes narrowed. “I didn’tbecause Sigma command is compromised. The Guild used your own resources to track and expose me. The blame does not fall squarely upon me.”

Gray had no argument against that.

She touched her forehead as if she had forgotten something, but Gray suspected she was stalling, weighing what to say and what to leave out. “You must have a thousand questions,” she mumbled.

“Only one. What the hell is going on?”

Her left eyebrow lifted. A strangely familiar gesture, a reminder of their shared past. “To answer that, we have to start there.” She nodded to the obelisk. “If you’ll set it on the instrument table…”

Needing answers, Gray obeyed, balancing the broken piece atop the base.

“The lamp…” she said.

A moment later, with the overhead lights off, Gray bent over and studied the rows of illuminated letters glowing upon the black stone, across all four surfaces.

He did not recognize the lettering as any hieroglyphs or runes he’d ever seen. He glanced across at her. The whites of Seichan’s eyes glowed in the ultraviolet backwash.

“What you’re looking at is angelicscript,” she said. “The language of the archangels.”

Gray’s brow crinkled with his disbelief.

“I know,” she said. “Insane. The script’s origin traces back to both early Christianity and ancient Hebrew mysticism. If you want to know more—”

“Skip it. I’d rather find out what you meant when you said that the obelisk could save the world.”

She leaned back, glancing away – then her eyes flicked to him. “Gray, I need your help. I have to stop them, but I can’t do it alone.”

“Do what alone?”

“Go against the Guild. What they are attempting…” Again there was that flash of fear from her.

Gray frowned. When he’d first run into Seichan, she had been attempting to explode weaponized anthrax over Fort Detrick. Considering such callousness, what would scare her now?

“I helped you in the past,” she said, trying the guilt card.

“To defeat a mutual enemy,” he countered. “And to save your own skin.”

“And that’s all I’m looking for here again. Cooperation to defeat a mutual enemy. And it’s not just my life in jeopardy this time. Hundreds of millions are threatened. And it’s already started. The seeds are planted.”

She nodded to the obelisk’s glowing writing. “All that is stopping the Guild is locked in this riddle. If we could solve it first, there would be some hope. But I’ve gone as far as I can alone. I need fresh eyes, someone with more knowledge.”

“And you expect the two of us to be able to solve what thwarts the Guild with its vast resources. If we brought all of Sigma into the picture—”

“You’d be handing the Guild their victory. There is a mole in Sigma. Whatever Sigma learns, the Guild will know.”

She was right. It was worrisome, to say the least.

“So you propose we go it alone. Just the two of us.”

“And one other…if he’ll cooperate.”

“Who?”

“When it comes to dealing with angels and archaeology, there is only one other person I respect.”

Gray knew immediately to whom she was referring. “Vigor.”

She nodded. “I left Monsignor Verona a calling card, a mystery to begin solving on his own. If you cooperate, we’ll continue on.” She touched the obelisk, wobbling the broken half. “To the next step on the angelic path.”

“And where is that?”

Another shake of her head. She certainly was not going to make this easy. “I will tell you when we are away. As it is, we must get moving. The longer we sit in one place, the greater risk of our exposure.”

She reached for the obelisk.

Gray beat her to it. He snatched up the larger half of the broken obelisk and raised it over his head. He’d had enough.

“Destroy it if you want,” Seichan warned. “I still won’t tell you anything more. Not until we’re safely away and you agree to help.”

Gray ignored her. “I assume you already made copies of the script here, probably even photos.”

“Several in fact,” she said.

“Good.”

He brought his arm down and smashed the obelisk against the floor. It shattered into several pieces, skittering across the linoleum. A small gasp of surprise escaped Seichan, indicating she had no clue anything was hidden inside the statue.

“What…what have you done?”

Gray bent down and picked through the pieces to retrieve the chunk of silver from the debris. He straightened. In his fingers, he held what was hidden inside the stone. He was momentarily stunned silent.

He lifted the large silver crucifix.

Seichan’s eyes widened with recognition. She jerked closer, oblivious of any pain. “It cannot be. You found it.”

“Found what?”

“Friar Agreer’s cross.” Her voice lowered, both angry and mortified. “I had it all along.”

“Who is Friar Agreer?”

“Friar Antonio Agreer. The priestly confessor to Marco Polo.”

Marco Polo?

Tired of the riddles and half statements, Gray snapped harshly. “Seichan, what the hell is going on?”

She waved to a side chair, where her ripped leather bomber jacket had been tossed. “We have to get out of here.”

He refused to move, blocking her as she stepped toward the chair.

She lowered her chin, her eyes going hard. “Gray, make up your damned mind. I don’t have the time.” She made to push past him.

He grabbed her upper arm. “And what’s to stop me from just turning your ass over to Sigma.”

She twisted free. All the freshly transfused blood was now in her face, livid and furious.

“Because you know goddamn better, Gray! If the Guild catches me, I’m dead. If your government captures me, I’ll be locked far away forever, beyond any ability to stop what’s about to happen. That’s why I came to you. But fine. I’ll sweeten the deal. Make you a trade. How’s that? Help me, convince Vigor of the same, and afterward I’ll give you the name of the mole at Sigma. If saving lives isn’t good enough…the wolves are already at Sigma’s door. You may not know it, but the powers that be are seeking to castrate you all, to put you all out to pasture, and now that another mole – a secondmole – is hidden in your midst, they’ll burn you down and salt the ground. End of Sigma. Forever.”

Gray found himself swaying. He had indeed heard of such rumors, engendered by the internal audit by NSA and DARPA. But he also remembered a different Seichan, bent over him, gun in his face. She had attempted to kill him when they’d first met. How much could he trust her?

Before the standoff could be resolved, a shout came from the reception area. “Commander Pierce! Come see this!”

Gray swore under his breath at the man’s loud bark. What about covertdidn’t Kowalski understand?

Gray met Seichan’s gaze. She was still burning with raw anger, but it failed to lay waste to what he’d first heard in her voice, bleeding across his parents’ driveway. Terror.

He stalked to the side chair, picked up her jacket, and handed it to her. “We’ll do it your way for now. But that’s all I’ll promise.”