Finally, Leslie had said what everyone else was thinking—and at that very moment, the doors to the Situation Room flew open and Lantern came bursting in. “I found her! She’s on the move. In New Jersey.”
Lantern took his place at the table and triggered a digital readout at its center. “Just a few moments ago Rachel’s nano-tracers registered on the digi-sphere.”
“What’s a digi-sphere?” Drayger said sheepishly.
“You’re looking at it,” Ward said.
“How come she gets nano-tracers?” Sophia asked pointedly.
“You’ve all got them,” Lantern said.
“They were sprayed into your uniforms a month ago,” Leslie said. “They work their way into your skin over time. By now they are in your system.”
Ward grimaced and looked down at himself.
“They’re not harmful,” Leslie said.
“As far as you know,” Ward replied, scanning his arms as if he was searching for lice. “Any long-term trials?”
“Each has a unique signal that only I can trace,” Lantern said. “Stealth’s signal was blocked at Freedom Rise and during most of her journey to Jersey, but now it’s come online.”
Moments earlier...
Rachel had been thrown into the van, her hands slip-cuffed behind her. A clunky metal collar had been fastened around her neck. She’d never seen anything quite like the device. It reminded her of those white plastic collars they put on pets to keep them from licking a wound after surgery. Given that Kendrick “X-Ray” Ray had been the one to put it on her, she surmised it was probably some kind of cloaking device designed to keep the Suns from knowing her location. She could only hope that Lantern would be able to beat it.
And if that wasn’t what it was, she sure as hell wasn’t going to be anybody’s “pet,” if that’s what they had in mind.
Her lip was swollen and bloodied, but Clay Arbor had been surprisingly easy on her. It was almost as if there wasn’t really any information he wanted to get from her. Or was he just leaving the dirty work to others?
They had removed her cloak, leaving her clad in only her tight white midriff-bearing tee, black leather pants, and fashionable hiking boots. The Guards who had been assigned to watch her were doing just that.
That’s about all they were doing.
Clad in only their dress uniforms instead of the normal battle armor the Guard usually wore—a sign they did not consider her a physical threat—they’d ogled her from the moment their superior had left them for the van’s passenger seat. Every now and then one would whisper something and they would all smirk and snicker.
And then return to leering. Even the one female.
Of course, that meant they were on her turf.
Rachel knew she needed to get the collar-thing off in case it was cloaking her location from Lantern. She also wanted to get to her cloak—though in a moving van, going invisible was not going to be all that useful. It was lying on the floor of the van between her and the lustful eyes of the half dozen Guards.
John Bailey had taught her a useful technique for situations like this, a long time ago. Use whatever advantage you’ve got.
Whatever she did, she would need to get out of the cuffs first. She did her best to try to wriggle out of them—but she had to be careful. With practically every eye in the vehicle trained on her, she had to try small movements—and make sure the Guards kept looking at any part of her body other than her hands. She pulled her shoulders back, seeming to stretch from her awkward position. When she did so, her tight, white half-shirt rose, and the Guards eyes locked on her.
One of them actually started sweating.
Her wrists were thin, but the cuffs were formfitting and very tight. She could feel the circulation leaving her hands the more she struggled.
One of the Guards finally noticed what she was really up to. “Hey, just what do you think you’re doing?”
Rachel froze. Her guilty eyes went noticeably wide.
“Stand up,” he told her, lust still burned across his face.
She stood, clearly terrified.
“Turn around.”
She turned, thinking she really needed to get out of these fucking cuffs and get that cloak on, glancing at it out the corner of her eyes. They all saw what she was eyeing.
“Oh, no you don’t.” The Guard swaggered up behind her, his mouth right against her ear. “It’s our job to watch you, little piggy. It’s a long ride to where we’re going. With a body like yours, I bet you’ve taken a lot of long rides, haven’t you?”
“I can certainly think of several ways I’d like to screw you, if that’s what you mean,” Rachel said with a throaty menace that threw the man for a moment.
The Guard laughed finally and put his hands on her bare waist. The skin was warm and smooth. He began to slide his hands up, and he could feel Rachel’s breathing quicken. He stopped before he reached the base of her half-shirt.
He turned to the others. “She seems like she’s hiding something. I think it’s time for a strip search,” he said, nodding for them to give him a hand.
Four Guards rose and came over. They made quick work of cutting through her slip-cuffs. They then went to pull her shirt off, and Rachel turned, mortified, so that none of them could see her nakedness. The Guards laughed, including the woman.
Traitor. She would give her an extra kick in the teeth as soon as she got the chance.
They lifted her shirt, and she did not resist, but it wouldn’t pull over the bulky collar. “Take that damn thing off,” said the first Guard, eyeing the collar.
“We’re not supposed to,” said the female Guard.
“We’ll put it right back on,” said the first Guard.
Someone unclasped the collar and it was pulled from her neck.
And it was at that exact moment that Lantern, three hundred miles away, caught the signal from her nano-tracers, no longer blocked by the collar. And once the block was removed, Lantern was also able to figure out what its digital signal had been.
They could put the collar back on but it wouldn’t matter. Now he knew how to read past it.
The digi-sphere was a three-dimensional recording. Lantern used the various spy satellites constantly passing overhead as relays for his signals. And he stored the recordings for later viewing. So, even though the collar Rachel was wearing was designed to block things like the nano-tracers by creating a blank or digital static in their place, Lantern could still find her.
By playing back the moments before Rachel’s signal appeared on his recording, he could identify the precise digital signature that disappeared, isolate it, and lock onto it should it appear again. The very effort to conceal her would now reveal a gap that shouldn’t be there. Lantern then broke down the digital content of that gap, programmed his scan to find the signature, and then when it appeared again, he would know it was Rachel.
Dumbasses. Flash ‘em a little boob and they lose their minds.
They forced her arms over her head. She knew what was coming next. As soon as she felt hands brush against her shirt, but before they could slip beneath it, she made her move.
She kicked her boot straight up and caught the Guard standing behind her in his groin. He crumpled and fell backwards, and she drew her arms straight down, bending at the elbows, and the boney points slammed into the throats of the two Guards at her sides.
Who says skinny girls can’t fucking fight?
Of course, CIA operative field training in anti-interrogation and self-defense didn’t hurt either.
She could tell from the sound one of the Guards made that it had been the woman Guard, so she glanced over and gave her an extra elbow straight into the nose. Blood gushed. And Rachel’s elbow burst with pins and needles.
Whoever had named it the funny bone was a total fucking idiot.
The last two Guards tackled her to the ground, and she felt the air leave her lungs. This was going to be the test of her strategy.
“Goddamn bitch!” the fi
rst Guard yelled, and Rachel looked up just in time to see the guy she had kicked in the balls pull back his leg to crush her face. She didn’t have the strength to stop him; her lungs were on fire, her arm was numb. She waited for the blow.
“Hey!” screamed a voice from the front of the van. “Cut that shit out! Dr. V. wants her unharmed.”
The kicking Guard nearly fell over, but he stopped himself in mid-kick. “Yes, sir,” he said with hate seething out of his throat.
Passed the test. Rachel let her false persona fall away.
The Guards all backed away from her as she managed to pull her shirt back down They’d seen more than enough of her for one night. Not that she minded that shit. They were all probably too stupid to realize that she’d gotten a bigger thrill out of that than they had.
Dumbasses.
That’s when she noticed that they were forgetting about the collar. This was working out even better than she’d hoped.
But no sooner had she realized that than the woman Guard doubled back, grabbed the collar up, put a pistol to Rachel’s head, and told one of the others to come over and refasten it to her neck.
The guy in charge from the front seat leaned back and grinned at the imbecile she’d kicked in the balls. “Nice work, by the way,” the leader teased.
“Screw you. She’s tougher than she looks.”
You have no idea. She’d probably just signed their death warrants, she’d gotten an ego boost from their lustful idiocy, and she got to elbow that bitch in the fucking face. For being a captive, she was kind of having fun.
They left her alone for the rest of the ride. Night had fallen outside, and talk turned to the worsening weather. The hurricane was getting closer. The wind had picked up, and even in the large van, Rachel could feel the driver fighting the increasingly powerful gusts.
By the time they arrived at their destination, a driving rain was pounding the van. Rachel was shoved out of the doors and plunked down into ankle-high water—making her thankful for her boots. The rain was blinding. All she could really tell was that she was in a large yard with high bright lights illuminating a tall modern-looking steel building. She was shoved forward into a doorway. Her world went black as someone threw a hood over her head and jostled her down the hall.
Presently, in Boston...
Ward took a deep breath. “Trenton, New Jersey, is in the direct path of Hurricane Ana,” he said. His words were like those of a condemned man.
“Yes, it is,” said the Revolution. “A very fortunate turn of events.”
Ward groaned. “Yeah, I feel blessed.”
“He’s being serious,” Leslie said. She’d already given her consent to the plan. Given that it was a direct response to an action already approved by COR, she’d decided there was no need for the Members to approve the issue—a decision that could easily come back to haunt her, given how unhappy they were over New York. The line between her own authority and that of the Revolution was fuzzy at best. The same could be said for the line between herself and COR. Failure would bring charges of abuse of power aimed at both of them. They were probably risking everything.
“Uh, come again?” Ward couldn’t see the angle on that one. A hurricane complicated Rachel’s rescue immensely, no two ways about it.
“It will give us a strategic advantage. No one will expect an assault in the middle of a hurricane,” Revolution said.
“Hold on a minute,” Ward said. “Can we really handle that? I mean, I know we’re superheroes and all, whatever that means, but come on. We’re not superheroes!”
“You and Sophia will fly Ben and myself in, and Lantern will lead the way with the Hollow,” the Revolution said. Then he turned to Drayger. “Your device works best when there is an outside stimuli to focus the fear on, correct?”
“Yeah, that’s the basic idea. It’s always better to scare an already scared person.”
“There are few things scarier than a hurricane that’s headed right for you,” Leslie said, catching on. “Especially these freak storms we’ve been having the last few years.”
“Wait a second,” said Sophia. She peered over at Drayger. “No offense.” Then back to Revolution. “But we don’t know anything about him,” she said, nodding her head toward Drayger.
“We know he saved your lives,” Leslie said. “And we know he’ll give us a strategic advantage,”
Sophia scoffed. “Personally, I don’t need any boosts of confidence from—”
“Mr. Drayger’s going. It’s my call,” Revolution said with finality.
Drayger beamed a serious shit-eating smile.
“Neuro is a probationary member,” Revolution said, turning to the young man. “You prove yourself, you’re in.”
Ward shot Drayger a thumbs-up. “Don’t worry, kid. I was on probation once. All it took to get off was a trip to prison, torture, electrocution, becoming a fly ball for a monster robot, and, oh yeah, watching the woman I loved get blown to bits right in front of me.” Ward shrugged. “Piece of cake.”
Sophia snickered and considered leaning over and giving Ward a high-five, but thought better of it. She was kind of second-in-command now. Better act the part.
“He’s just the first problem, anyway,” Ward said, pointing to Drayger. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to hold on to either of you,” he said, looking at Revolution and Drayger. “It would take everything I have just to get myself through. Plus, hurricane-force winds will play havoc with my wings. They’re fueled by oxygen—sure. But I’ve never flown them in those kinds of conditions. I can’t even guarantee that they won’t malfunction. It’s suicide.”
No one said anything for several moments. Tension hung in the room.
“Lantern,” Leslie said finally, changing the subject, “what do we know about this facility?”
“Not much. But there are a lot of encrypted signals coming out of it.”
“What does that mean?” Sophia asked.
“Based on what I can observe, either a communications outpost of some sort or exotic weapons storage. Probably,” Lantern said.
“Why take Rachel there?” Leslie asked.
Lantern shook his head. “The cloak? If it’s a weapons facility, that might make sense.”
“I just don’t think this is a good idea,” Ward said, unable to tear his mind from the monstrous freak hurricane. “We need to know more about what we are going to face. We need to know we can get there without all dying. We need—”
“That’s enough!” Revolution said, and the room fell quiet. “We survived Man-O-War by the skin of our teeth. Without Fiona we wouldn’t have. We all know that. The Council got us to walk into the heart of their fortress and humiliated us. Even COR is losing faith in us. If we don’t move now the Resistance could crumble.”
The Revolution turned to the big screen at the end of the room and stared at the facility Rachel was being held in. “We are going in through the cover of this hurricane. I don’t care how we do it.” He turned back to them. “Find me a way.”
He marched out of the room with his cape billowing behind him.
The room fell silent again. They sat there for what seemed like an eternity. No one could deny that attacking under the cover of the storm was brilliant. It just couldn’t be done.
Could it?
A loud voice from just outside the door startled them all. “The Vortex engines!”
Young Willard, Leslie’s tall, lanky assistant, came bounding into the room.
“Will, how many time do I have to tell you, these meetings are confidential.”
“I know, I know! I’m so sorry! But...the Vortex engines!” he shouted again. “That’s the answer to our problem!” Willard was yelling, wild eyed. Almost out of control, they thought. “It’s the answer to our dilemma!”
Leslie’s mind shot back to the failed Vortex experiment. Not enough draw into the engines, she had said. “Hurricane-force winds—they’ll provide all the draw those engines can handle!”
Willar
d beamed the broadest grin, as if to say, Exactly.
“Call back the General!” Leslie told him.
Ward could barely remember it. She’d told Roosevelt they were “testing the Vortex engines” the day he’d come in to talk to Revolution about being in the Suns. It was only a few days ago, but it already seemed like forever. He remembered the failed experiment in the lab when the guy had tried to fly with a pair of the engines on his hips. He’d not given it another thought.
“Something tells me I’m about to fly through a hurricane?” Drayger said.
“Um, not so fast, guys,” Sophia said grimly as she stared into her RDSD. “We’ve got another big problem.”
“How big?” Ward asked.
“Like the size of Delaware.”
CHAPTER 22
NEW YORK CITY
FREEDOM RISE
Bannister Tarleton beamed. “They performed very well.”
“I told you they would,” William Howke said.
“I still don’t know why you didn’t let them just kill them all. It would have been easy.”
Howke glanced around the room of aristocratic opulence. Hardwood floors covered in the finest Persian rugs: royal red, deep gold, and silver. Intricate hand-carved wooden walls ran along the sides of the great room. Rare, priceless artwork adorned them. Pure gold and platinum statues, urns, and planters stood all around. In contrast, high-tech communication devices were hidden within the room’s various sitting areas.
A main wall of television screens faced the throne seat at the very center of the room. Howke’s predecessor, Thomas Sage, was known to sit in that chair for hours watching the coverage of his company on the wall of televisions.
But not Howke. He was a nervous man by nature. He preferred to pace, as he was doing now. But the coverage he was watching did calm his nerves somewhat.
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