Shadow Game (GhostWalkers, #1)(44)

"He did ask to see me," Colonel Higgens admitted. "I went to speak with him and he did say something along those lines." He rubbed his forehead. "The cage was securely locked when I left that room. The cameras will bear me out on that."

"The cameras were on the blitz again," Thornton said.

There was a sudden hush in the room. All eyes were on Colonel Higgens. He sat back in his chair, glaring at them. "I'm telling you the cage was locked. I wouldn't have unlocked it with or without an armed guard present. In my opinion Captain Miller is a dangerous man. With his team, he is nearly invincible. We're going to have to send everyone we have against him."

"I hope you're not implying that we should terminate these men." The general stared hard at Higgens.

"We may have no choice," Colonel Higgens replied.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," Lily interrupted. "There is always a choice. You can't abandon these men because they did something in desperation. They were under tremendous strain. I think we need to step back from this situation and try to figure out how we can help them."

"Dr. Whitney, do you have any idea how long they will be able to survive without insulation from the noise and emotions of people around them?" Phillip Thornton asked. "Are we sitting on a time bomb?"

Lily shook her head. "I don't honestly know."

"What will happen if these men turn violent?" the general asked. He was twisting a pencil in his fingers. He tapped the lead on the table, the pad of his thumb striking the eraser, as if that would somehow stop what he was hearing. "Is that a possibility?" He looked around the faces at the table. "Is that a viable possibility?"

Lily twisted her fingers together tightly. "Unfortunately these men are highly skilled in combat conditions. They have had every advantage the military could give them through special training. There was an incident the first year of field training involving one of the men. I viewed the training tape." She took a cautious sip of tea.

"I don't think I'm going to like what I'm going to hear," General McEntire said.

"One of the trainees became disoriented during a mission in Colombia and along with the targets, he went after some of the innocent populace. When Captain Miller attempted to restrain him, the trainee turned on Miller. The captain was given no choice but to defend his own life and protect the other members of his team. They were friends, close friends, and he was forced to kill." She had watched the attack on the film and it had been gory and grim.

Even worse had been the tapes of Ryland Miller afterward. Although she was watching film she could almost absorb his emotions. The guilt, the frustration, the anger. He had been despondent, hopeless. "You have to understand, sir, paranormals are subject to and respond to different stimuli than we can sense. They live in the same world, but in a different dimension, really. So, the line we draw between clairvoyant and insane is very thin and sometimes nonexistent. These men are unlike any soldiers you've ever trained. You have no idea what they're capable of."

Lily took another sip of tea, savored the warmth as it settled in her stomach. The general couldn't conceive of the power the men wielded. But she knew.

"Why would they want to leave if they knew the risks in leaving?" The general scowled at them all, his eyes raking the room. "What conditions were they living in?" The implication of abuse was there and Lily fought down the urge to blurt out the entire story to him. How the men were isolated, even from one another, cut off from their command, studied like animals in cages. Subjected to continual tests.

The pencil between the general's fingers snapped in his fingers, one end sailing toward Lily, the other still in his hand.

Lily caught the end of the pencil before it rolled off the table, her thumb sliding over the eraser, automatically absorbing the textures, absorbing the heavy emotions. She stiffened, her gaze sliding to touch the general, then away. She wasn't telling him anything he didn't already know. He was tamping down his fury that Ryland Miller and his team had escaped. There was money to be had. Ryland stood in the way.

The emotions swirled together, a mixture of violence and impatience over a thwarted plan. General McEntire was up to his bushy eyebrows in deceit and treachery. Lily folded her hands carefully on the table, looking as serene and confident as she could when she wanted to leap at McEntire and brand him a traitor to his country and demand what he knew of her father's death.

"The living conditions, Colonel Higgens: Why would these men feel they needed to escape?"

"They were isolated from one another." Lily forced her voice to work.

"For their own good," Higgens snapped. "They were growing too powerful together, they could do things we didn't expect. Not even your father expected their combined powers to be what they were."

"That was no excuse for forgetting dignity, Colonel. They are human beings, men who were giving service to their country, not lab rats," Lily objected coolly.

"Your father was solely in charge of this experiment," Colonel Higgens shot back. "He's responsible for the results."

"As far as I can ascertain," Lily said calmly, "my father, Dr. Peter Whitney, conducted the experiment in good faith. When it had become apparent it was harming the men, he immediately called a halt to enhancing the rare talents, immediately trying to find ways to help them cope with the repercussions. He sought ways to make the men more comfortable. Unfortunately, no one listened to him. I read your direct orders, Colonel Higgens, and Phillip Thornton signed those orders, insisting the men continue. On your say-so, Colonel, Captain Miller ordered his men to follow your command and he and his men did so. Your orders, sir, were to continue training under a variety of conditions and the men, being who and what they are, followed orders despite knowing they were deteriorating rapidly, their control unraveling even as they grew in power and ability. It is well documented that my father objected, that he laid out the repercussions, and that when you ordered the men to be isolated from one another he told you they would have a much more difficult time. You ignored everything he said and you have the results of your own foolish decisions."