Strangely enough, the expression that she made was so strong it made him want even more to pick her up and cradle her. “There’s a lot back there, Liv. A lot of people you can help.”
“I can help a lot here too.”
He sighed. The argument was going nowhere. “Want to tell me how you escaped? I’d like any tips you can give me.”
She didn’t laugh, but she wanted to, despite the inappropriateness. She’d always appreciated gallows humor.
She shifted, leaned her back against the wall as fat drops of rain began to splatter against the roof and the dry ground beyond. “There was a fail-safe security system that locked us in and everyone who wasn’t supposed to be there out. And in case of emergency, we were to evacuate immediately and the building would … take care of itself.”
“The building was wired to blow?” Zane asked.
She nodded. “Funny, but it didn’t seem to bother anyone but me, you know? And we all learned the system—we had to be able to activate it. We were one big damned team. There was a woman there—another doctor, a third-year resident. She’d failed all her exams but DMH hired her for an insane amount of money. It was her first day on the job. I knew the body thing would confuse them, as she’d arrived at the clinic a day early, before the new patients were scheduled to arrive. I was the only one who knew that, shuffled her into the break room, activated the bomb and left the building, saying I needed a cigarette. By that time, the guards knew me well enough.” Her voice trembled, her body shook as she relived that day. “The doctors were all so greedy. Ignoring their oaths. This wasn’t about people consenting and selling their organs. That’s an altogether different debate. No, this was murder in some cases. I’m just grateful I was the one doing the transplanting and not the harvesting.”
“You went through hell.”
She turned away. “Maybe I’m no better than any of them. I had no right to be judge and jury on those people.”
“You did what you thought was right at the time,” Zane told her. “Whatever happens after that—”
“Is on my conscience,” she finished. “I made sure there were no patients in the building. Not one.”
“The two doctors who died in that bombing, they’d both been doing illegal organ harvesting for years. They weren’t forced or drugged. They lured people into their offices. It was greed. Murder. Just like you said.” His voice was fierce when he told her that.
She wanted to believe that with every fiber in her being. And couldn’t. “Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve stayed inside that building too. I almost did.”
“Liv, no …”
She stared at him, her eyes crystal clear. But she didn’t say anything else.
“Did you hear about any other clinics?” he asked.
“There are two more. I was never able to find out their locations. The one I was in was the biggest, from what I gathered.”
She paused and then, “Am I in trouble for blowing it up?”
“Yes. And no.” Zane ran a hand through his hair. “It’s the least of your problems, Liv. That can get sorted out.”
She almost snorted, but raised her eyes to his face at the last minute and was stunned by the sincerity in his eyes. There were no lies there.
He meant what he said, and she wasn’t sure why that scared her so much, more than it should.
“Is there anything else you need to tell me?”
DMH was like an insidious poison she wanted out of her bloodstream. Maybe the more she talked, the faster it would leave her. “One of the doctors, he would check out the girls who’d been kidnapped and sold. They were mostly American girls. Young—between eighteen and twenty, he said—lured at the idea of being models or actresses or meeting rich men abroad. He would get them ready. Make sure they were perfect.”
She stopped then, felt drained. Her head began to throb.
Zane simply gathered her against him, paying no mind to the heat. “It’ll be okay, Liv.”
But it had never been okay, not really, since that horrible day twenty-five years earlier. She’d always suspected that had been a warm-up, some kind of taunt from the universe. Had prepared for it since then as if it had been fact and not simply theory and speculation. Had waited for it, trained for it. And then it had come true.
And when it had, she’d fought like hell to get away again.
“It’s over,” Zane continued to murmur. But no, Olivia knew it was just beginning.
When the alarms rang out as he was readying to move into the new quarters with Vivi, Cael assumed it was a drill. Training on-post had stepped up immeasurably in past years, and so he automatically reached for his phone to double check with Noah before he went back to Vivienne Clare.
But it was far from an exercise.
Security had been breached and the post was on instant lockdown. Caleb’s orders were instantly changed, via Noah.
Get her the hell out of here and use a secure line only.
Vivienne was to be taken to a safe house off-post in order to make the software safeguard usable in order to stop DMH from using the program. Even though the area where Delta comms were housed was infinitely secured, Noah decided that keeping Vivienne Clare there was too much a threat to the rest of the families in the immediate vicinity.
“You really think this is all about her?” Mace asked in between the blare of the alarms. He’d come into the hallway while Cael was on the phone with Noah, prepared to help his teammate.
“You saw the video feed from her house,” Cael said as he handed his first line gear to him. “DMH needs her.”
“Maybe. But why didn’t they kidnap her when they took the software—cross their t’s and dot their i’s and all that shit, you know? They’re not known for being sloppy.” Mace still didn’t trust any of this—out of all of them, he was the most suspicious, the one who asked so many damned questions that sometimes they wanted to strangle him.
Most of the time though, they were damned grateful for the way his mind worked.
“Things change. They’re getting nervous.”
“Don’t trust her, Cael. Not yet,” Mace warned, and dammit, Cael wasn’t the trusting type, but he did live and die by his instincts.
“I don’t,” he said shortly. But he did—why, he wasn’t sure, beyond a gut reaction.
The possibilities of what cyber warfare could do to the infrastructure of the United States was no longer just theory—no, in fact, hackers had threaded their way in far too often—and easily—over the past years. So far, the government had been able to keep it quiet so as not to alarm the American public, but news outlets were leaking information faster than the government could plug the holes.
Vivienne Clare could be a part of the problem as easily as she could be part of the solution.
What bothered Cael more was the intrusion on a secure post. “If this is for Vivi, how the hell?”
“We weren’t followed back here,” Mace muttered, but that didn’t matter now. Gray had Vivi’s computer equipment in a truck waiting out front. Mace headed out with the gear. All Cael needed now was Vivi.
Even if this current threat could be neutralized quickly, it didn’t mean there wouldn’t be more. Taking down a power plant—or several—could simply be the beginning of DMH’s plan, and the extra security now in place to stop an attack wouldn’t hold forever. They had to disable the program, one way or the other.
Caleb stared at the door for a moment, knowing that Vivi would have to know everything sooner than later. How she would react to the pressure, he couldn’t be sure.
His hand was on the knob when Gray came barreling down the hall.
“They put tracking devices in her computers,” he said. “I’m running tests now, but I’ve given you new computers to take so she can keep working. I’ll bring you hers when they’re clean.”
“Shit. At least we know how they found her,” he said. “Takes a set of balls to break in here, though.”
Gray nodded. “Noah said to go now—back gate.
He’ll get the word out that you can leave, but you might get there before he can do so, given the current confusion.”
That meant Noah was basically giving him permission to break out of the post if orders didn’t filter down fast enough to the MPs who guarded the gates. Keys in hand, truck packed, he needed to grab the most important part of the equation and make tracks.
Vivi tried the door when the alarms first started ringing, worried that there was a fire somewhere and she was trapped. But there was no smoke she could smell and she’d been forced to wait at least five excruciating minutes until the door opened and Caleb walked in.
Her heart thudded hopefully, because he was alone, and then hope shrank because of the look on his face. Tight, and not all that unreadable. There was a major problem. The tension between them was palpable and the alarms were louder now.
“You need to come with me. No questions,” he said, his voice abrupt, and she didn’t argue. Her feet moved despite the fact that dizziness from rapidly dropping blood sugar made her off balance. It didn’t matter, since Caleb’s hand closed around her arm, the other held her lower back and ushered her out a door and into a waiting black truck that could’ve been the same one she’d ridden in earlier.
She strapped the seatbelt on as Caleb did the same in the driver’s seat. When he pulled away, she realized they were alone in the car and headed away from the sirens.
No questions.
As she stared out the window, she caught sight of her surroundings. She couldn’t be sure, since the truck was moving fast, but it looked like a military facility.
She turned her attention from the side window to the front one and nearly screamed, because the gate they were rapidly approaching was indeed closed. She shifted in her seat to get a better look, saw the soldiers in front of it, waving Caleb to stop.
“Not a word,” he warned.
She nearly bit her tongue off as they got closer, and maybe this was some kind of test of her courage. She wanted to close her eyes but couldn’t. Instead, she braced herself and stared straight ahead.
And prayed a little.
Caleb muttered something—a curse maybe, or perhaps a prayer of his own—and his arm shot out protectively across her chest.
The men moved out of the way at the last minute, opening the gate as they did so, and the truck was able to continue barreling down the road at top speed.
Relief washed over her and she released a breath, hadn’t realized she’d been holding it and gripping her hands together tightly.
His arm moved away and he ran a hand through his hair.
“Can I ask a question now?” she asked finally, and so much for following the rules.
“We’re on lockdown,” he explained. “No one’s allowed on or off post.”
“Except you.”
“Looks like it took them a few seconds too long to get the orders.” He gave a small smile and Vivi realized he liked trouble, judging by the way he’d been ready to crash through the gate without attempting to slow down.
Well, at least she knew she had been on a military base … and that the man next to her was a soldier of some sort. Army … Army had posts, Navy had bases. One of her stepfathers had been a History Channel buff.
Obviously, getting her off-post was extremely important. A wave of fear washed over her, made her throat dry. She managed to croak out, “Was that … about me?”
“Maybe.”
She realized she wouldn’t get more than that, supposed she should be grateful for that bit of information, but it only made the dizziness worse. “Is there any water in here? Or soda, because …”
She was aware her voice faded a bit and felt Caleb’s hand on her cheek and then her forehead. “You’re burning up. How long have you been sick?”
“Um, the last few minutes?”
She heard the crack of a soda can, although the truck was still moving fast. “Here, drink this—I’ll hold it.”
There was even a straw, miracle of miracles. And she took long pulls of the sugary drink until the dizziness lifted somewhat.
“Are you diabetic?” he asked.
“No.”
“When was the last time you ate?”
“What time is it?”
He cursed loudly, and then in a much gentler tone than he’d used since she’d met him, he said, “Vivienne—Vivi—I’m taking you someplace safe. You’ll be comfortable there.”
“You’re staying with me, or will I be handed over to some other man in black who won’t answer my questions?”
“You’ll be with me. And I’ve answered a few.”
“The devil you know,” she muttered, and heard him snort. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
She grabbed the soda can from him and drained it, the sugar working to clear her head. “How long will I be there?”
“That depends.”
“On what? Who’s after me, Caleb? I have a right to know why I’m in trouble.”
He was silent for a long minute, and then, “It’s about your father’s program.”
Something had changed in Caleb’s demeanor. There was an urgency—as if he wanted to continue believing her but was torn and he was looking for assurance. “What are you talking about?”
“You need to fix the safeguard so it works.”
“InLine Energy sent you to collect the software?”
“No.”
The thought of her constant failures in trying to rectify the safeguard was enough to tie her stomach into knots again. She didn’t like failing.
When it became obvious Caleb wasn’t going to tell her more, she finally said, “I’ll work as hard as I can to fix it.”
He nodded, obviously pleased with her answer. “Tell me something—isn’t the point of the program itself to be unbreakable?”
“My father didn’t take anything for granted. He didn’t trust anyone.”
“Not even you?”
The question was like a knife to the heart; the answer, one she knew all too well. “Not even me.”
After she said that, she heard Caleb swear under his breath and she didn’t want to ask or answer any more questions.
While she stared out the window, lost in her own thoughts, Caleb drove them north on the highway for maybe an hour through North Carolina before exiting and cruising through a residential area she wasn’t familiar with.
He pulled into the garage of a house on a typical suburban-looking street, let the garage door come down before he said, “Wait here. I’ll check out the house.”
Alone in the garage, in the dark, she started to panic a little. The dark had never bothered her before—although she now realized that most of the time, she wasn’t in total darkness, but rather, bathed in the comforting light of a computer screen.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour but was no doubt closer to five minutes, Caleb came back to the garage and to her side of the car. He opened her door for her.
“All clear.”
She climbed down with his help and entered the house. The soda’s sugar rush had helped her feel less shaky, but he kept a firm hand on her arm. Earlier, she would’ve assumed that was to keep her from making any false moves, but now the touch was gentler.
He was making sure she didn’t fall. When she got inside, she noted that the house was clean and well furnished. And no doubt secure.
“Have a seat,” he told her, and she did, sinking gratefully into a kitchen chair while Caleb went back out to the garage.
He returned less than a minute later, carrying a large bag and two laptop computers she’d never seen before.
“Can you get started setting these up?” he asked as he placed them on the kitchen table. “They’re brand new, should be fully loaded. I’ve got your father’s program saved.”
“What about the wireless system? I don’t need to go online, but for security purposes, it needs to be protected.”
“It is. Your IP won’t be detected.”
“Where are my computers?”
“Checked?”
He ignored the implied question and instead held another soda out to her. “I hope you’re okay with pizza.”
She nodded. It didn’t matter what she ate. She just needed fuel so she didn’t drop from the combination of exhaustion and fear. Her body and mind were essentially numb and she didn’t feel like she could process light conversation, never mind complicated software conversions.
Discovering she’d been on a military post eased her fears somewhat, but she knew she was in trouble. She’d seen her father get railroaded when she was younger—he never got over that. It was the beginning of a long, downward spiral that left him bitter, and Vivi cut off from much of the world.
She’d just started to live for herself, and now she was being drawn back into her father’s problems. Truth be told, she’d never actually gotten out from under them, but finally taking time to actually date someone, even if it hadn’t worked out—and then nearly selling her own system to the military—had been a big step forward.
When Caleb sat down next to her, she readied herself for more questions.
And two steps back.
Talking about all of this was a good first step for Olivia to take. Zane had always known that catharsis was good for the soul, even if he didn’t believe in it for himself worth a damn.
But for Liv … now that some of it was out in the open, she slept.
He knew her conscience should be clean, that she’d never truly been given a choice by DMH, but he wondered if she’d ever feel the same way.
When the sun went down, they’d travel for as long as they could manage. But he had the uneasy feeling that Olivia wasn’t nearly as convinced as he was that she needed to leave this country and get herself into some serious protection for a while.
He moved toward the window and looked up at the sky. It had clouded up nicely, dissipating some of the heat. A nice soaking rain for the rest of the day would be helpful, but it would suck if it continued through the night.
Just then, one of his two phones rang, a low staccato echoing from deep inside his pack, where he’d stuck it hurriedly last night, along with the DMH guy’s cell.
Promises in the Dark Page 8
