Smokescreen (20 page)

Grateful for the sunglasses she was wearing because they kept the other agent from looking into her eyes, Christie felt embarrassed and cocky at the same time. “Must have been the night air. They have great night air out here.”

“Yeah, I bet. Well I just want you to know that I never seen night air that would make a person look so smug. And I just want to warn you that I hate secrets. I always find out what I want to know.”

Christie enjoyed the bantering, enjoyed the glow she had somehow maintained after last night and would have enjoyed baiting Lorna, but she also dreaded what Dalton planned to do this morning.

She finished her coffee, nibbled at a bagel and wondered how Dalton was going to handle his talk with Dr. Reynolds. Either way it went down, she knew things were going to be hard on him. But both of them knew it was the only way to save Grace Reynolds and her son.

The DARPA shipment arrived at the compound at 10:07 a.m. by helicopter. The transfer between the cargo
guards and Dalton’s team went off without a hitch. The Seek-n-Fire prototype was delivered inside a time-locked security container coded to release a strong acid followed by an incendiary device for self-destruction if it was intercepted. Only Dr. Reynolds had the passcode.

The technology on the box was top-notch. And even if the Bronze Tigers—or anyone else—had succeeded in intercepting the prototype, Dr. Reynolds’s research was necessary to make stealing the tech worthwhile. After that, the device and the bio-linking technology could be reverse-engineered by whatever company was undoubtedly bankrolling the Chinese Triad.

Without a doubt, the tech would be reverse-engineered at some point, but the difference between now and then could mean billions of dollars. On top of that, many of the Enhanced systems—including ones that Christie had embedded—were safe-coded to fail out and destruct if tampered with. As soon as a cracker had gotten past a system’s defenses, new security was encoded or implanted, and new systems replaced old ones quickly. Being Enhanced was a constant process of being upgraded.

After the delivery took place and the cargo helicopter departed, Christie anxiously waited an hour for Dalton to tell Dr. Reynolds what he was going to do.

Finally at 11:19 a.m., she saw Dalton striding from the Reynoldses’ home with a suitcase. Christie fell into step with him as they walked toward the parking area in back of the house where Dr. Reynolds and Dalton kept their private vehicles.

Dalton was grim, locked in tight behind his wraparound sunglasses. He hadn’t shaved that day either, which was totally out of character for the spit-and-shine
image he generally wore. He wore jeans, square-toed motorcycle boots, a black muscle shirt and a brown bomber jacket. A Braves baseball hat shadowed his face.

Not exactly going for the professional look today, are we?
Christie thought with some annoyance. He also didn’t look like he was ready to take up where they’d left off last night. Either on the intimacy or the stand he was going to take with Dr. Reynolds.

Dalton opened the door of the powerful shortbed 4x4 midnight-blue pickup he drove when he wasn’t riding his motorcycle. He tossed the suitcase in and started to climb in after it.

“Dalton.” Christie caught his arm. For a moment she thought he was going to brush her off. He froze like a deer in headlights, not even looking at her. “Talk to me.”

“Nothing to say.” Dalton tried to pull himself into the pickup again, but she restrained him, using her Enhanced strength this time.

“Talk to me,” she said, feeling bad about what she was doing and what she was going to say.

“Let go of my arm. I’m leaving.”

“You’re not leaving until you talk to me.” She searched his face and saw the pain and fear there. Maybe most people wouldn’t have seen those things, but she had been paying attention to him and getting to know him. Her voice tightened and she knew she was risking whatever trust he’d found in her last night when she went on. “If I have to, Sergeant Geller, I’ll put you under arrest. Don’t you think for a second that I won’t.” She took her hand back, releasing him, but she was sure both of them knew he wouldn’t be leaving without her assent. Even if he got past her, she had guards on the gate, too.

Dalton let out a pent-up breath. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“The suitcase means there’s plenty to tell.”

“Grace—Dr. Reynolds—fired me this morning.”

That surprised Christie. She let him go. The pain in his face, that she
felt
in him, was raw.

A
pang of sympathy burst inside Christie as she heard the hurt in Dalton’s announcement, but she shoved her emotions away. That had to have been hard for Dalton, but she had a job to do. “Why did Dr. Reynolds fire you?”

“She heard me talking to Michael, telling him what I was going to do. That I was going to come clean with your office and tell them about her contact with Sammy Bao and the Bronze Tigers.” Dalton took another breath. “She went ballistic. Fired me on the spot just a couple minutes ago.”

“You expected that. You can still testify and get her and Michael out of here. We can put them beyond the reach of the Bronze Tigers.”

“No, we can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because while we were figuring out how we were going to finesse this situation last night before we got…distracted, we didn’t think of what Grace could do.”

“What did Grace do?”

“She told me if I try to betray her—and that’s her word, Special Agent Chace,
betray
—then she was going to deny everything I said and tell the DARPA chief that what I said was all bullshit and the talk of a disgruntled employee.”

“You work for the military, Dalton. You’re not a disgruntled employee.”

“That’s not how she’s going to tell it.” He turned his dark-lensed gaze on her. “She’s also going to tell my commanding officer that I made improper advances on her.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Hell no. She’s my best friend’s widow. Michael’s
mom.
”

“They won’t believe her.”

“Belief doesn’t count with the military. There’ll be an investigation. Even when—and really I should say
if
because living there inside that house with them leaves me compromised—Michael will hear all about it.” His voice tightened and he couldn’t speak for a moment. He shook his head. “I’m not going to have Michael go through that. He’s been through enough.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong. His mother—”

“His mother is scared, Special Agent Chace. Her son has been threatened. She’ll do anything she feels she has to do in order to protect him.”

And so will you,
Christie thought. Confused, she searched for a way around the situation. Couldn’t find one.

“Even if I’m cleared of the charges, I’m not going to be in a good place with the Army,” Dalton said. “I’ve got a lot of years in with the Rangers, even counting the duty here. The military has been a home to me longer than this place. I don’t want to lose everything.” He took another deep breath and let it go. “And I’m not going to have Michael deal with the fallout from this situation.” He looked away from her, swinging his gaze back to the pickup. “
Now
can I go, Special Agent Chace?”

Feeling guilty, Christie stepped back. Her mind reeled and she faulted herself. She should have remained professional. Both of them had deserved that. Dalton had been on an emotional roller coaster with everything that had been going on for weeks. She should have kept her head.

She folded her arms across her breasts and kept her game face on. She could be professional now. Maybe it was a little late, but she could do that. “Sure,” she said.

Dalton climbed into the truck and started the engine.

“Sergeant Geller,” she said.

He looked at her. His face was clean of emotion, as smooth and hard as Kevlar armor.

“I’ll put in a good word with your commanding officer. You ran a tight operation here. I can back that up. Maybe it will help.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

Christie felt cold and distant inside. Part of her, she knew, was pissed at him. They’d been intimate last night, now there was no mention of it. He could have at least been a little more—
tactful
—about that and not so much with the
Special Agent Chace.

“No problem,” she said. She watched him drive away, checking through the security that he’d set up around the compound. In a few moments, the pickup disappeared around the tree-lined road and into the forest.

Lorna radioed for her over the Enhanced telecom/recording unit inside her right jawbone. “Hey, wasn’t that the night wind I just saw leaving?”

“That,” Christie said, “was Sergeant Geller departing. Evidently he’s been relieved of command here.”

“Oh.” Lorna sounded embarrassed. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No.” Christie couldn’t be still anymore. She started walking, and she wasn’t surprised when her steps took her toward Dr. Reynolds’s office.

Standing outside Dr. Reynolds’s office, Christie buzzed the video intercom inset in the wall beside the door. The screen cleared almost immediately. Dr. Reynolds sat at her desk studying a 3-D holograph of a complicated array of wiring and computer strands threading through a human spine.

Seeing images like that, knowing she carried a lot of the same hardware inside her own body, sometimes made Christie uncomfortable. She never felt the Enhanced equipment that allowed her the special abilities she had, and the pain of the surgeries was long forgotten. But seeing the systems and subsystems jarred her.

“Special Agent Chace,” Dr. Reynolds said. “You’re interrupting my work time. I don’t tolerate interruptions.”

“I understand, Dr. Reynolds.” Christie forced herself to remain polite. It was hard to do knowing that the woman had fired Dalton and threatened to keep him and Michael apart. The two needed each other. Only an idiot would not see that. “I wanted to talk to you briefly.”

“About what?” Dr. Reynolds stared at her through the screen.

“Sergeant Geller.”

Dr. Reynolds steepled her fingers. Her face was as much of a mask as Dalton’s. “Sergeant Geller no longer works here.”

“I know that. I thought that we could talk—”

“Any concerns you might have about the security of this compound should be taken up with Gerald Abrams. Mr. Abrams is the new chief of security here.”

Well that didn’t take long,
Christie thought sarcastically.
Throw out your husband’s best friend, the guy who’s been raising your son while you’ve been too busy, and just slip someone else in.

Gerald Abrams was the number two man in Dalton’s group. An ex-cop with an impressive record in Ohio who had gone into government security work. His promotion was a no-brainer. But it was immediate and bloodless, and damned cold.

“I’m sure you’ll find Mr. Abrams a suitable replacement for Sergeant Geller,” Dr. Reynolds stated crisply. She used a laser projection glove to touch points on the holograph, opening three-by-five card representations in the air by the image.

“I’m sure,” Christie began.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do here,” Dr. Reynolds said. “If Mr. Abrams can’t help you with whatever it is you want, we’ll talk at a later time.”

The screen blanked, leaving only glassy ebony that held Christie’s reflection.

Sure Abrams is going to be a good security officer,
she thought bitterly,
but who’s going to pitch Michael’s batting practice?

Christie walked, marshaling her thoughts and checking her options. What she’d wanted to do was kick down Dr. Reynolds’s office door and tell the woman what a big mistake she’d made and how wrong she had been hurting Dalton.

And how unfair it was to the man and her son.

Cursing to herself, Christie reminded herself that
fair
rarely ever entered the real world. Memories of last night warred with batting practice and seeing Dalton playing
in last Sunday’s game, and they mixed up with how driven and deadly he’d been in the warehouse the night Arturo Gennady had been killed by the Bronze Tigers.

He was like no one else she’d ever met.

Before she knew it, she’d ended up at the empty ball field. Standing in the sun, she looked at the batter’s box and the pitcher’s mound.

Dalton’s words from the previous night haunted her as much as his kisses and the feel of his hands on her body.
You get all the rules in baseball, you know. When to run, when to slide, where to throw the ball. When to sacrifice. But that’s all for the good of the team. And at the end of it, even though you’ve sacrificed, you still get to be part of the team.

The ball field didn’t look the same without Dalton and Michael there.

When to sacrifice.

The feeling that something was wrong nagged at Christie. She tried to figure out what it was. Something about Dalton?

She closed her eyes and replayed the video that automatically recorded while she was on the job, giving her access to hands-on memory and automatic uploads to her case files unless she erased them. She saw Dalton walking again, carrying the suitcase.

The
suitcase.

If he were leaving, would he be able to pack all his belongings in a single suitcase? Would he give in without fighting?

Only he hadn’t fought because he hadn’t wanted Michael to have to deal with repercussions. He was thinking about Michael first, putting the boy first.

Suddenly, Christie’s eyes opened. She stared out at the ball field. Where the hell was Michael? She hadn’t seen him all morning.

Christie’s phone rang inside her head as she jogged back to the Reynolds’s house. Caller ID opened a window in the vision of her left eye. The caller was Dalton Geller. The number wasn’t one she had listed for him.

“Dalton—” she said, intending to take control of the situation immediately. She hated being played the fool.

“Not Dalton,” a deep male baritone informed her. “I’m a friend of his.”

Christie immediately executed a trace-back protocol with a GPS locator on the incoming call. “What friend?” she asked.

“We don’t have time for a lot of horseplay, Special Agent Chace.”

The trace-back bounced back with an immediate answer. According to the information the computer came up with, Dalton Geller was calling from inside the house here on the compound. She didn’t believe the finding and immediately ran the program again.

“The trace-back is only going to give you the information you see,” the man went on.

The trace-back program was FBI encrypted. If the man talking to her had spoofed it, then he was good.

“You’re another minute behind,” the man said. “You put together that Michael was missing. I’m impressed. Dalton said you were good. That makes me feel a little better about what we’re doing because he left a lot hanging in the balance for me. And you.”

“You’ve got my attention,” Christie said, turning and looking around the compound.

“I’m not there, Special Agent Chace. I’ve been watching you via satellite since this morning.”

A satellite recon? Christie was even more impressed. “Where’s Dalton?”

“Making the drop with the Bronze Tigers.”

Christie accepted that immediately. There could be no other way. “He’s got the Seek-n-Fire prototype.”

“And Dr. Reynolds’s research, yes. They told Dr. Reynolds that they would kill her son if she didn’t give it over. After they killed Arturo Gennady last week, Dr. Reynolds believes them.”

Christie believed them, too. The Chinese Triad had concentrated on making believers with that strike at the scientist and her team. “What happened?”

“The Bronze Tigers had two men inside the operation here.”

“Two of Dalton’s men?” Christie had trouble believing that. Dalton was good and no one would have easily gotten past him.

“Not Dalton’s guys. Two of Dr. Reynolds’s lab assistants. Neither of them had previous criminal records so they checked out clean. Maybe this is their first time, or maybe they’ve always been clever in the past. They grabbed Michael this morning.”

Accessing her onboard computer, Christie opened the security post checkout sheets. Two men, Wesley Baird and Ray Dooley, had been checked through at 6:53 a.m. that morning. Another brief cross-check showed they’d put in for the morning off weeks ago.

She called up video from the guardpost, coordinated it with the lab files and discovered the two men had left in Baird’s custom van. The van offered plenty of room to hide a ten-year-old boy.

“Don’t notify your team, Special Agent Chace,” the man said. “The compound is under surveillance. The Bronze Tigers have already broken into your communications link.”

“What about yours?”

“They can’t get to me,” the man said. “I’m one line of data-stream in a place loaded with them. Plus, I’m coming at you straight off a satellite bounceback rather than through the on-site systems or your government communication crap.”

“That’s what you say.”

“If I say wrong, Dalton and the boy are already both dead.”

“What happened?”

In terse details, the man relayed how Dalton had come home that morning only to find Baird and Dooley waiting on him. The two men had already penetrated Dr. Reynolds’s security and taken the scientist and Michael into custody. Michael had been sedated. Once Baird and Dooley had explained how the arrangement with the Seek-n-Fire prototype was going to shake out, they’d tranquilized Dr. Reynolds and Dalton. They’d waited till the shipment had arrived, then staged the show for Christie’s benefit. Dalton had explained her involvement in the situation and how she would have to be finessed.

“Have you had contact with Dalton?” she asked when he finished.

“Of course not. There was no way. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

“Dalton had you set up as a backup play.”

“Yeah. From the moment he met you. You complicated things, Special Agent Chace. Presented too many
variables on the field. Dalton would have been able to keep Michael and Dr. Reynolds safe if you and your team hadn’t arrived.”

“You don’t know that.”

“He foxed you and the Bronze Tigers,” the man said. “I’d say he was covering his bases pretty well.”

“So why did you contact me? Just to warn me away? Because if you or Dalton think you’re going to be able to take on the Bronze Tigers, by yourselves, then you’re—”

“Dalton told me to contact you. He’s depending on you for the save.” The man hesitated. “He said you impressed the hell out of him the other night at the warehouse.”

By losing Gennady and nearly getting all of my team killed?
Christie forced away the recrimination that had constantly lurked inside her mind since that night. The guilt jerked, twitched and occasionally wriggled like a live thing.