Street Game (GhostWalkers, #8)(54)

“I don’t know exactly what he’s doing, but he takes his orders from Colonel Wilford and Wilford takes them from someone who consults with Whitney. What do you think? I’ve studied Whitney. He’s very removed from human feelings. He isn’t going to kill his soldiers outright. If they die, they weren’t good enough to live. But he’s going to keep putting them in harm’s way because they’re the most expendable. He knows Griffen gave them an order. He told them they weren’t to discuss what they saw at Whitney’s compound with anyone. And they haven’t.”

“Kane told me there’s a breeding program.”

“Because the rumor was already going around. Team Two has a woman from the program married to one of their members. That isn’t exactly news.”

Mack sagged against the desktop. Had he trapped them all in a web of intrigue? He wasn’t the intrigue type. Point him at a target and he could take it out without hesitation. He was hell on wheels in a fight, but not this kind of deceit. Friends betraying friends. There was a code of honor. A standard. Sergeant Major was the man who directed his team as well as a personal friend. They relied on each other. Nothing worked if there wasn’t honor.

Jaimie moved closer to him. He felt the warmth of her body, inhaled the scent that was uniquely Jaimie. Her fragrance brought back a flood of memories. He wrapped his arms around her before he could think too much about it, and pulled her into his body. There had always been something peaceful about Jaimie he had never found anywhere else. His body always wanted action, but with Jaimie, he found a haven, a place of quiet where he could truly relax, where the coiled tension in his body simply let go.

Jaimie. His refuge. His secret sanctuary that always gave him renewed energy and strength. His everything. She’d walked out on him and he’d been so shaken at the realization that she’d been the one to have the hold on him, not the other way around. He had been determined to live without her unless she’d come back to him on her own. She’d just about killed his ego and pride and everything he believed himself to be. The leader. The untamable. He was not anything he’d believed himself to be.

Jaimie was stiff at first, but he refused to let go, simply holding her, asking nothing at all but comfort. She relaxed into him, her body all soft curves and heat. He missed her so much. He missed this. Simply holding her. Having her next to him. Breathing her in. When she smiled, everything in his life turned to sunlight. She could make him see the world in an entirely different light. One touch of her fingers on his body wiped out every bad place he’d ever experienced. He’d thought she’d always be there. He’d taken her for granted. It had all been so easy when she was with him.

He buried his face against her soft neck, his hands tunneling through the waves and curls of her hair. Turning his head, he kissed the side of her neck, lingering to savor the feeling of her soft skin and the scent of her.

For a moment, Jaimie leaned into him, but as if catching herself, she pulled herself straight, almost rigid, and stepped away from him. Mack looked down at his hands for a moment, working at keeping his mind and body under control. Abruptly, he changed tactics.

“I want you to do a little experiment for me, Jaimie.” Mack sank back onto the computer desk. “I want you to find each of the men. All of them. Exact position.”

“Why? You know I can.”

“But not Gideon or Spagnola. I want to find out why. If there are two of them, there could be more. I need to know. And I don’t want the others to know. Don’t document it.”

“Or tell Sergeant Major?”

Shadows crept into his eyes. “No one.”

“Whitney would take them, wouldn’t he?” Jaimie guessed.

“I believe he would and if you’re right and Griffen is working with him, then he can’t know. We’ll figure out how they’re hiding from you ourselves.”

“It has to be their energy, Mack. Nothing chemical or genetic that Whitney did to them. I read energy. I can feel how someone is feeling. For instance, Javier and Kane are upstairs in the kitchen area and they’re amused. It’s genuine amusement.” She shared her first real smile with him since he’d come to talk to her. “I fear for the lasagna.”

“They’d better not do any of the things they were suggesting,” Mack said.

Jaimie sat on the computer desk beside him and swung her feet. “I’ll bet both Joe and Gideon have similar psychic abilities and something they have naturally protects them from me reading their energy. And if they have a natural protection, someone else will too. Of course, no one will know it because as far as I know, no one else can pinpoint location in the same way I can. That’s why Whitney was so interested in getting his hands on my data and why Joe is protecting me.”

“Wait a minute.” Mack scowled at her. “I thought you said Whitney wanted you dead.”

“Not him. Neither does Sergeant Major. Maybe the ones above them do, but they aren’t going to let anyone kill me. They want answers. I opened a can of worms when I began searching out Whitney’s supporters. They don’t want to be exposed. One of them wants me dead.”

“I want to try something, Jaimie. Just go along with me,” Mack said, hopping off the desk and holding out his hand to her.

She hesitated just one moment and then with reluctance put her hand in his and allowed him to tug her off the desk. Mack chose the center of the room where it was open, away from the windows and the spill of light around her computers.