Predatory Game (GhostWalkers, #6)(69)
CHAPTER 12
“Okay, now is the time, while I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy toward you, for you to tell me how you ran after me using your own two legs.” Saber tilted her head back to look up at him. She couldn’t talk about love. Not without feeling like her heart was going to be ripped out.
“It’s classified.”
“No kidding? What a shocker. You are classified, Jess. I’m classified. Of course whatever you’ve done to yourself this time is classified as well.”
“But technically, you aren’t in the military because you don’t exist.”
“You have my file,” she pointed out with a small sniff of disdain. “And so does your lady friend.”
“Lily. Lily Whitney-Miller.”
Saber turned away from him and stared down into the bubbling water. “The doctor’s daughter.”
“Don’t you start on Lily too. Lily gave the file to me, not the other way around. And she’s trying to find the other girls—women—that her father experimented on. She saved my life, Saber. I got to know her and I’m telling you, she isn’t in league with him.”
“How lucky for you that you’re so certain.”
His eyebrow shot up. “That was sarcasm.”
“You bet it was.”
“If it’s any consolation, she doesn’t trust you much either.”
Saber burst out laughing. “Actually, that does make me feel better. If she pretended to accept me immediately, I’d be alarmed.” She tipped her head back to rub against his shoulder. “What is she doing to you? Dr. Whitney’s daughter and the other one. What are they doing?”
“Dr. Eric Lambert,” he supplied. “Eric and Lily saved my life.”
“And?” she prompted.
He sighed, but really, if Whitney already knew about his legs, what did it matter? “I’m in an experimental program for bionics.”
She whirled around, splashing water in all directions. “You’re what? I saw Whitney’s…” She trailed off. “Lily Whitney asked you to do this?”
“No, she wasn’t involved at all in the beginning. Eric and I were looking at the idea of using the external bionics the army is experimenting with. Eric made a few cracks about a couple of old television shows and how it really was possible to have internal bionics. He said that it had already been tried using a ‘smart sleeve’ to pick up and register movements of the existing muscles and use that to trigger movement of the appropriate part, but in theory it was possible to regenerate or stimulate existing nerves so the bionics would work completely with my own brain and body. The idea took off from there.” He caught her chin when her gaze dropped away from his. “What did you see in Whitney’s office? What were you going to tell me?”
She closed her eyes briefly, shaking her head, not wanting him to know, but realizing she had no choice. Not if she was going to keep him safe. She was beginning to realize that loving someone was really difficult. She scooted away from him just in case, because she was going to have to confess to planning a premeditated execution. If Jess condemned her, if he couldn’t understand, then there was no hope at all for them. She stared down at the bubbling water.
“Whitney gave me orders to take out a United States senator and his wife. I knew I had to escape. There was no way Whitney would just let me go. Eventually he’d run me down and either kill or reacquire me, so I decided that since I was an assassin and the best way to save my life was to kill Whitney, I would have to do it before I escaped.”
She stole a look at his impassive face. Jess waited in silence, giving her no hint of what he was thinking or feeling. She moistened her lips and forced herself to continue. “I knew his schedule at the facility, so I waited for him to come back. He always went into his office late at night to work. The security was unbelievable and he had his own personal guards—enhanced soldiers.”
“How many do you think take orders from Whitney personally?”
“Maybe ten enhanced. He has two teams that he keeps with him at all times. They travel with him and answer directly to him for his personal use as well as for his protection. He has others, but they’re sent out on assignments for the government. The men who are with him are completely different.”
Jess sucked in his breath sharply. “So you’re saying aside from Ryland’s team and ours, there are others?”
“At least two other teams that I know of for certain and then Whitney’s guards. The men on the teams aren’t your enemy, Jess. They’re in the same situation you are. They’re military and they run covert missions.”
He nodded. “Keep going. What did you see when you went into his office?”
“He had a couple of files lying on his desk. One was a file on bionics.”
Jess shifted, his eyes sharp and piercing. “What was the other file?”
“The senator and his wife. My targets. He had a picture of them circled with a red marker and the file was very thick.”
The only sound was the flow of the jets and the clock ticking on the wall. Jess’s gaze met hers. “Could you read the files?”
She nodded her head. “I did. I thought I’d wait for him to come back, so I positioned myself beneath his desk and spent the time reading. He didn’t come back. Apparently he had locked the office and left the facility on other business.”