Night Watch (Kendra Michaels #4)(89)

“That’s what worries me,” Biers said quietly.

“Every physical and psychological trick,” Kendra repeated numbly. “Psychological. That’s why they tried to take me. They must be having trouble getting him to talk. The threat of violence might not work on him, but they think it might if it was directed at someone he cares about.”

He nodded. “Possibly. From what I’ve heard, there are few people on Earth he cares for more than you, Kendra. You became the symbol of everything he wanted to accomplish in his career, then you became his friend and ally in the fight.”

Kendra dug her nails into the railing. “This can’t be happening. We have to do something.”

“We’re doing it,” Jessie said. “Everything we can.”

“How can you say that? We don’t even know where Dyle is keeping him. What they’re doing to him right at this minute.”

“We’ll find out,” Jessie said gently. “I can see what this is doing to you. But at least we know what’s happening. We can call Griffin and ask him to go after Dyle.”

“And what if Dyle stalls him? What’s Waldridge going to go through while Dyle tries to get that information from him? He could die.”

Jessie turned back to Biers. “But we do have time, right? This all means that they have to keep Waldridge alive.”

“Not exactly.”

Kendra whirled on him. “What in hell does that mean?”

“There are years of documentation, formulas, and result reports. If they have to reverse-engineer our process, they might be able to do it with enough time and money. They’d probably prefer not to do it, I’m sure. But it could possibly be done. If they decide Waldridge is too much of a liability or just a pain in the ass, they might go that route.”

Kendra stared at him, stunned. “So if torture doesn’t work, they might kill him. This keeps getting better and better.”

“I know,” he said sympathetically. “I wish I could give you better news. But you want the truth.”

“Yes.” But this truth was sending her spiraling into terror.

Detach. Concentrate. She couldn’t let her emotions rule her now. Not when Waldridge might need her most.

“I’ll call Lynch and tell him what’s happening,” Jessie said. “This all started in London, so maybe he can find something or someone there to get a lead to Dyle.”

“No, I’ll call him.” Kendra took out her phone and moved down the pier. She could feel the panic rising through the haze of bewilderment surrounding her after listening to Biers’s incredible words. “Someone’s got to do something. We’ve got to do something. We can’t let him die. I won’t let that happen.”





CHAPTER

15




“IT’S PRETTY MUCH WHAT I thought could be happening,” Lynch said slowly when Kendra had finished. “After I found photos in Rye’s cloud account that showed incubators with organs in a lab at that factory. It could have been harvesting, and I don’t have the medical knowledge to prove that it wasn’t. But that wouldn’t have been in keeping with the man you believed Waldridge to be, so I had to trust your judgment.” He added ruefully, “Which meant I had to discard what seemed the obvious answer and look in another direction. You thought Waldridge was a miracle man, so I had to take a wild leap and start looking for miracles.”

She stiffened. “You didn’t tell me about any other photos.”

“The situation is a little dicey here with SOCA. They’re pretty skeptical of miracle cures and wanted to issue warrants for harvesting. I was having trouble convincing them to hold off until I could find some kind of proof one way or the other.”

“We still don’t have proof. We just have Biers’s story. I’ve been pushing Griffin, but he’s not been able to pull up anything on Dyle that’s not clean as the proverbial whistle.” She shivered. “Harvesting. It’s the furthest thing from what Waldridge would ever do. For God’s sake, he was trying to save lives. Yes, I thought it was a miracle what he did for me. But this is in an entire different class.”

“No, just on a bigger scale.” He paused. “But I can see how it would increase your hero worship to match that scale. Hell, I’m impressed.”

“Then find a way to get those British authorities to stop trying to build a case against him.” Her mind was leaping forward to scenarios that were far from pleasant. “All he needs is to have Dyle decide he needs a scapegoat, preferably one that permanently disappears, so that Dyle can bring out the Night Watch Project a few years down the road as his own creation.”

“Easy. I knew you’d be this upset. That’s why I didn’t call you until I could give you something concrete that was positive.”

“I could use positive at the moment.”

“It won’t be this moment. But I enlarged the photos of those incubators at the factory lab, and there were minute ID numbers on the sides. I traced the numbers to Cartwright Plastics in Brighton. It’s a small company, and there can’t be too many orders of the magnitude that Night Watch would need. But they’re not real efficient, and they’re dragging their feet. I’m driving down there as soon as they open in the morning and applying a little pressure to get them moving.”