by LENA DIAZ,
Kade hesitated before pulling the last door open. “The rest of this place may seem like a slum. But prepare to be impressed with this room.”
He opened the door and they all followed him inside.
The door clicked shut behind them and the electronic lock engaged. Lights flickered on overhead, and all of them froze except for Kade, who pulled up a seat at one of the banks of computers. He massaged his aching thigh for a moment, then straightened and went to work keying in something on the computer keyboard.
Jace sat beside him, keeping a close eye on what he was doing. Devlin and Mason took their guns out and swept the room, looking in every doorway. But Bailey hung back with Terrance, taking it all in.
“What the hell is this place used for?” Terrance asked, his voice low.
“Supposedly for Kade’s research to find Enforcers. Seems like a waste doesn’t it?” Bailey counted at least forty computers in several rows of long, semicircular white tables that faced an enormous screen at the front of the room. The tables were auditorium style, but instead of individual seats on each row, there were tables, sort of like a NASA control room. An aisle ran down the middle and both sides, with a much wider aisle along the back wall where she and Terrance stood.
Mason and Devlin met at the front of the room. Apparently having decided they were truly alone and things were secure, they holstered their guns and headed up the center aisle to where Kade was typing at a keyboard.
Terrance moved to the door to stand watch, looking through the glass with his gun drawn.
Bailey debated where to sit and finally decided to sit beside Kade. She was just too curious not to be a part of the action.
“What kind of a portal is this?” Bailey asked, looking at the reports that had automatically opened on his desktop after he keyed his ID and password. “Wait, isn’t that the Sarin gas investigation that was on the news last week? The FBI shut down a sleeper cell in the warehouse district, right? They had stockpiles of Sarin and some freaky lab where they were testing it. But thankfully never got a chance to deploy it. Why do you have that report?”
Devlin and Mason crowded closer, leaning over Kade’s and Bailey’s shoulders to see the screen.
Kade’s jaw tightened at her question, and Bailey realized how suspicious her question had probably sounded, given the way things stood between them right now.
“Kade, I didn’t mean to imply that—”
“Since my EXIT missions have to be kept secret from any other agents running missions in the area, I have to keep up with who is where and what they’re working on. Traffic cop stuff, really. To make sure we don’t run into each other. The Sarin gas incident was even more important to me, though, given that it’s exactly the kind of thing that an Enforcer might feel compelled to get involved with. They might want to go after the terrorists themselves rather than rely on the FBI to put them in prison. So I’ve kept tabs on what’s going on and where the terrorists were taken.”
Bailey could well understand his concerns. She’d been tempted herself to follow up on where the terrorists had been taken, to ensure they couldn’t harm anyone else in the future. But she’d been too busy running for her life and trying to find the Ghost, all at the same time.
“I know all about Sarin gas,” Mason said. “Wicked, deadly stuff. Had to take down a terrorist cell overseas during one of my missions so I had to learn everything there was to know about it. What happened with this cell?”
“Shut down, like the report says.”
From the look on Kade’s face, Bailey suspected that he knew a whole lot more than that. But he wasn’t volunteering any extra information. Plus, that wasn’t why he’d brought them here. He’d brought them here to prove that he wasn’t part of the battle against Enforcers, among other things.
Kade punched a button and a document flashed up on the monitor.
Bailey leaned forward to read it. “It’s your life insurance policy.”
He nodded and scrolled through. “Since Jace painted me as a liar about being married, I figured I’d show him where I made Abby the beneficiary in my benefit plan.” He stopped scrolling, and blinked at the screen.
The beneficiary line was in the middle of the page. It was filled out. And it didn’t say Abby Quinn.
“Who is Nicholas Quinn?” Bailey asked. “Brother?” She swallowed. “Son?”
His gaze flashed to hers. “I don’t have any children or siblings.” He looked back at the screen. “This doesn’t make sense. Nicholas is my father. But I changed the beneficiary after I got married. I can see it in my head, me sitting here filling out the forms. I know I changed that.”
His words hung in the air but no one said anything.
He punched up another document from the directory that he’d navigated to earlier. This one was his W-4 form, the one he’d obviously filed with his employer to set up tax withholding. On the box for marital status, the one labeled “married” was blank. There was only one box with an X in it. The one marked “single.”
He punched up more forms, checking each one for the beneficiary line, or marital status, depending on the form. Everything he brought up, from his 401K savings plan to his long-term disability, all revealed the same thing.
Kade Quinn wasn’t married. There was nothing here to prove that Abby Quinn had ever existed.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he whispered, as if to himself.
Bailey reached for his hand, instinctively wanting to comfort him. But he pulled it back as if she’d stung him.
“I’m not lying about her,” he said. “And I’m not crazy. I didn’t just . . . imagine that I had a wife. I can see us in front of the judge when we got married. I can picture her next to me as we walked into a movie theater. At a restaurant across from me, laughing when she spilled spaghetti sauce down her dress.” He pressed a hand to his temples, as if recalling the memories made his head hurt. “And I see her beside me in the car, begging me to save her.”
“I believe him,” Bailey said.
Kade lowered his hands and stared at her in surprise.
“I do,” she said. “I believe everything you’ve said. I can see the truth in your eyes, hear it in your voice. Something isn’t adding up, and we need to figure out what it is.”
“He made up Abby to get your sympathy,” Jace said from behind her. “That’s what’s going on. We never expected him to be able to prove otherwise. Which is why we brought Austin. Move out of the way, Kade. Let the whiz kid see what he can find out about who’s calling the shots with your mission and how high it goes.”
Bailey frowned as Kade got up and moved back, with Mason keeping pace with him, his gun out and down by his side at the ready.
“Wait,” Bailey said. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on,” Kade said, his voice sounded tired, resigned, “is that your friends only wanted to get into the lab so they could comb through the EXIT databases.” He crossed his arms. “I could have told you it would be a waste of time. The truly damning stuff about EXIT has already been destroyed. The only thing left here are the files that I use to research where to find the remaining Enforcers. Mission critical info is all gone.”
“All we want are names,” Jace said, as he bent over Austin’s shoulder, watching him power through screen after screen of information.
Bailey backed up beside Kade. With Mason behind them, standing guard, she couldn’t really have the conversation that she wanted. So, instead, she tried to show Kade what she wished she’d been able to tell him back at the hideout—that she believed in him and had been an idiot to doubt him for even one second. She’d known that as soon as she’d stormed out of the interrogation room. Jace had twisted everything around, specifically trying to influence her. And it had worked, but not for long.
She moved sideways until her shoulder touched his biceps. When he didn’t adjust his stance or move away to break the contact, she took that as a good sign. She reached out with her right hand and feathered her fingers over hi
s. He hesitated, then turned his wrist, and they were suddenly holding hands.
She let out a deep breath in relief. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, for his ears alone.
He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he squeezed her hand, and then his thumb brushed lightly across the backs of her knuckles. It was a simple caress, butterfly-soft. But she felt it all the way to her soul.
“What the hell?” Austin said.
Everyone drew closer to the monitor. Bailey half expected Mason to stop Kade, but he didn’t. He simply followed the two of them as they crowded around the screen.
Instead of word-processor types of documents like the ones that Kade had brought up a few minutes ago, Austin’s screen was full of video files.
“Do you know what these are?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at Kade.
“No idea. I don’t have any video files.”
“Who else has files on this system?” Bailey asked.
He shrugged. “My boss, for sure. But I can’t access them. They’re password protected. They don’t even come up on my menus.”
“Amateurs,” Austin said. “No one hides files from me. Let’s see what we have, ladies and gentlemen.”
He punched some buttons. The first video opened on the enormous movie-type screen at the front of the room and began to play.
Bailey’s eyes widened in shock.
Mason swore behind them.
The others simply stared, riveted to the movie playing out in front of them.
Kade’s gaze was glued to the screen and his face had gone alarmingly pale. Bailey forced her own gaze from him back to the screen.
It was an elaborate video, obviously shot as if from Kade’s point of view, showing the inside of a car driving at a high rate of speed, trying to outmaneuver another car. The second car pulled up alongside and the man had a gun. Bam! Bam! Bullets ripped through the door. The car careened to the side, then slammed into a tree.
And there, screaming, crying, begging Kade to save her, was the woman he’d told them about. The same woman in the picture that Bailey had taken from Kade’s wall. There wasn’t anyone else in the film, just the woman. As if someone else was in the car beside her but watching her through their eyes. Bailey recognized the video for what it was—staged. And the only reason it would have been filmed this way was for Kade to think this was something he was seeing, experiencing, when it never really happened.
Austin punched up another video, then another, and another—fake Abby again, saying wedding vows in front of a judge, walking into a movie theater, sitting in a restaurant eating spaghetti, laughing when she spilled it onto her dress. There were even videos of insurance forms, 401K forms, and others, showing a single name on the beneficiary line—Abby Quinn.
And then Austin punched the last video up on the screen. This one was an interview with a psychologist, explaining his techniques and how a combination of drugs—including Vicodin—could induce a fugue state. Showing the semiconscious patient a specific type of video over and over again, if done correctly, could trick the brain into thinking the videos were actual memories. It was the latest advance in the area of mind-control, more commonly known as brainwashing.
The screen went blank. The room went deathly silent. As one, everyone turned to look at Kade.
He was still staring at the blank screen, his posture rigid, and somewhere along the way he’d let go of Bailey’s hand.
“Fake,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Everything I thought was real is fake. She doesn’t exist. She never did.”
“Well,” Austin said. “Technically the woman in those videos does exist. I imagine she’s an actress that was hired to—ouch.” He rubbed the top of his head and glared at Jace who’d just smacked him.
“Shut up, Austin,” Jace said. “For once. Just shut up.”
Austin’s face reddened but he didn’t say anything else.
Kade’s face, which had been so pale before, was now a mottled purple. His blue eyes had turned nearly black and his entire body seemed to shake with rage. He suddenly turned around, grabbed the nearest chair, and slammed it against the wall.
Bailey jumped and pressed her hand against her throat, not sure what to do.
“Give him space,” Mason said beside her, his voice low. “Let him work through it.”
Kade ignored all of them, cursing beneath his breath as he stalked across the room, pacing like a caged tiger. His limp was less pronounced than usual, as if the adrenaline pumping through his system dulled the pain. He looked every bit the dangerous predator Bailey had thought him to be the night they’d first met. The softer side, the quiet side, the polite side he’d shown her since then had disappeared. In its place was a man on the edge, brimming with fury, his fists curled at his sides.
He finally stopped pacing in front of Jace, who stood beside his chair, watching Kade with a wary stillness.
“All right, Atwell,” Kade said. “You win. You were right. Everything I believed in was a lie. Which means I’m probably wrong about the Enforcers and have been a tool in their deaths without even knowing it. I’m in this with you and your team now, all the way whether you want my help or not. You really want to look through the computer banks? You think your little computer geek found everything?” He laughed without humor. “Not even close.”
He waved his hand toward the rows of computer monitors. “Consider yourself in. I’ll show you everything I’ve got. And I’ll give you names—the names of everyone I’ve ever met or even read on a report since this whole thing started. Alan Faegan is my boss’s full name. His boss is John Majors. I can give you an org chart all the way to the freaking President of the United States. We’re going to stop this so-called mission right now, right here.”
Jace stepped forward, standing toe-to-toe with Kade. Bailey reached for her gun, not about to idly stand by while Jace acted like a jerk to him yet again, especially after these earth-shattering blows that probably still had Kade’s mind reeling.
“Don’t.” A hand clamped around her wrist.
She looked up to see Mason staring down at her. For the first time since meeting him, she actually saw him smile.
“Give him a minute,” Mason said, keeping his voice low. “This is Jace’s first turn as sole leader on one of our missions and he’s been a bit over the top with it. He just needs to settle into the role.”
“I’m not standing by again while he treats Kade like crap.”
“Just wait. Give Jace a chance to do the right thing here.”
She tugged her hand and he let her go. But he remained by her side, watching her.
She turned back to Jace and Kade, and raised her brows in surprise. Jace had his hand on Kade’s shoulder and was shaking his other hand. It looked like he might actually be . . . apologizing.
Cursing sounded from the door. Bailey realized she’d completely forgotten about Terrance. He’d been posted as lookout, watching through the glass.
“We’ve got company,” he said. “There’s a whole team of men in FBI flak jackets marching down the hall.” He peeked out the corner of the window, then flattened himself against the wall. “Damn it. I count at least twenty, heavily armed.”
“How did they know we were here?” Jace demanded.
Kade shook his head. “Since my boss has been playing me all along, I’m guessing he has more eyes on this place than I knew about. I reviewed the security for this facility and even beefed it up when I started my mission. Obviously that was all fake. He’s probably been monitoring every move I make. As soon as I swiped a badge or logged into a computer, he knew about it.”
“Fifteen feet away,” Terrance announced. He yanked his gun out and backed up, aiming at the door.
Kade ran to where Austin was perched in front of the computer and grabbed the keyboard.
“Hey,” Austin complained.
Bailey rushed over beside Terrance and drew her gun, flanking him as they waited for the expected breach. Devlin crouched down, aiming his weapon at the door a
s well. Mason had followed Kade to the computer and looked far too calm for the situation.
“They’re right outside the door,” Terrance whispered.
A buzzing noise sounded, like an electronic lock being released. Bailey tensed, her finger on the trigger. But the door didn’t open. The buzzing noise sounded again. The door rattled, as if someone was shoving it, but stayed closed.
“I’ve disabled the badge system and the security panels,” Kade announced. “But it won’t keep them out for long.” He typed something else, then punched Enter. He looked toward the door, and shook his head. “Terrance, you don’t have to keep ducking under the window. It’s one-way bulletproof glass. We can see them. They can’t see us. This place is soundproofed, too. So they don’t actually know you’re all in here. As far as they are aware, based on the badge swipes and security codes I used, I’m the only one in here. Which means, you all have to disappear.”
Bailey moved past Devlin and the others and stopped in front of Kade. “I don’t think I like how this is starting to sound.”
“Sounds like you’re talking about a safe-room,” Mason asked, joining them.
“Behind the screen. If they even think anyone else might be in here with me, they’ll tear this place apart—including the safe-room. This is only going to work if you’re out of here when they bust down that door.”
A pounding noise sounded behind them, emphasizing his words. They were already trying to break in.
Kade swore. “Go. I already unlocked the door from the terminal. Once you’re inside and the door is closed, it blends in with the paneling.”
“You’re not staying here to face them by yourself,” Bailey said, glaring up at him. “I’m not about to let you do that.”
“I assume once someone is inside, the controls automatically switch to whoever is in the room? No overrides?” Mason asked.
“Exactly. Wait half an hour or longer before coming out. That should give me enough time.”
