The Operator

Michael inclined his head in thought. “Okay.” He took a surveillance camera from his pocket, one suitable for tucking atop a blind or under a TV. “But if your friends show up, I’m killing them all,” he said as he toggled on the tiny battery with a pen tip.

Peri grimaced. Harmony wasn’t getting anywhere near the accelerator currently tucked into the gearshift of her Mantis. “What about Silas?”

“Your credit isn’t that good. I can get you Harmony. That’s it. Yes or no.”

Peri grasped the chain link, trying to think around the drugs he’d pumped into her. She had little time to figure out how to get Silas in the mix to even the odds, but she wasn’t giving Michael anything unless Silas had a chance. “You give me no choice,” she finally said.

He shifted the chair back another foot, eyed her, then pulled it back some more. “Good.”

Her pulse quickened as he set the camera up on the clutter and strode to the door, his pace fast with intent. It screamed a protest as he opened it, but then the door slammed shut and the light clicked off, leaving her in thick darkness broken by the muffled sound of Michael giving orders.

Peri let go of the fencing. Slowly a crack of light showed from under the door as her eyes adjusted. Slumping, she sat where she was, pulling Helen’s coat tight around her again.

Evocane shot—check. Implant the idea I’m Michael’s ticket to remembering his drafts—check. Ascertain where Silas is . . . unknown but currently alive. He was alive. Her first hour of captivity had gone as well as she could have hoped.

Somehow, though, as she thought of Silas and Harmony, it didn’t feel like a win.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Somewhere between searching for Peri’s cell tower pings and scanning blurry plates from the tollbooth records, it had gotten dark. Bill pushed back from his desk, eyes smarting from the bright glow of his laptop. Past the big plate glass windows, Boston was just beginning to glitter against the bay. He cracked his neck, thick fingers pushing his notes and maps aside so he could think.

The afternoon spent looking for shadows of Peri on the I-95 corridor had been met with minimal success. It was as if she had dropped off the face of the earth, even his request for a ping on her radioactive tag culminating in nothing. He couldn’t believe she’d gone into hiding. Not to mention giving up on her revenge against Jack. It wasn’t like her and would mean she’d not only bucked the deep-set conditioning he’d installed that she never be alone, but she’d divorced herself from her ingrained loyalty to those she worked with as well. It was the loyalty that made her the perfect, easy-to-manipulate agent, but it was her need for revenge that convinced him she hadn’t given up and simply gone ghost.

“Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way,” he murmured, reaching for the intercom. “Sean? Are you here?”

“Yes, sir,” Sean answered back, his tone weary but still anxious to serve. “Would you like me to order something in?”

Priceless, Bill thought. “Might not be a bad idea. Whatever you want is fine. Could you run a check on Dr. Silas Denier for me as well? Same depth that you gave me for Peri. I may be going about this wrong.”

“Yes, sir. Michael is here to see you.”

Michael? Bill’s eyes flicked first to the early evening, then the papers on his desk. Michael never came to him. It was always the other way around. Except when Helen is involved.

Focus blurring, Bill calmed himself. Perhaps it was the endgame. “Send him in.”

He bent to his papers, shuffling them into order and pretending indifference as Sean opened the door. “Michael!” he called cheerfully as the tall, swarthy man edged in around Sean’s distrustful stance. “Come in. I’ve been getting a bead on Peri. This was easier when I had an entire team.”

“Did Peri get something other than Evocane?” Michael said point-blank, still standing just inside the door. “Either when she stole the original supply or with what we gave her in the arena?”

Truly surprised, Bill looked up, noticing he’d shut the door behind him. “No,” he said carefully. “My intent had been that she accelerate herself. Giving her fake Evocane would be counterproductive. Why?”

Silent, Michael sat in one of the overstuffed chairs. An ankle went atop a knee, his focus becoming distant.

This is not like Michael, Bill thought, and then a wash of heat took him as he realized that the reason he couldn’t find Peri was that Michael and Helen had her already. They had her, and hadn’t told him. They were cutting him out. Fortunately for him, Michael couldn’t read her, even with the drugs they’d probably been pumping into her. She’d said or done something to get the man confused, and he’d come to Bill to figure it out.

It was time.

Bill’s pulse quickened. With one swipe of his hand, he pushed the papers on his desk into the wastebin. “I’ve got Peri’s phone pinging towers all the way to Cleveland, and then nothing. Damn dead zones.”

Michael said nothing, fingers steepled and covering his lips in thought. His hands dropped and he took a breath. “Did you know how easy it was to duplicate Evocane?”

“It isn’t.” Bill hid his confusion, aiming for irritation instead. “Did Helen tell you that? Getting it to balance with the accelerator is almost impossible. She only thinks it’s easy.”

He could hear whispers of Peri’s plan in Michael’s questions, the way he was puzzling through it. Second-guessing Peri was usually a losing proposition. It was better to give her a goal and let her work it the way she wanted, but his life was in the mix this time. Perhaps she wanted Michael to believe she had a supply of it and was willing to share the accelerator she’d stolen in return for her life. But even Peri had to realize that Michael could achieve the same ends by simply killing her, riding out Helen’s wrath for the ultimate goal.