The Operator

Standing against the wall and away from the door, he puffed out his cheeks in thought, glad he’d taken the time to shave on the plane. He was of the same mind as Peri that a poorly dressed thief was a lowbrow thief, and that was not the impression he wanted to give the WEFT force headed his way—even if he was in a tight spot financially.

Helen’s money had set him up in a shadow of what he was accustomed to. His office was tatty and his hired muscle was only street-rated, easily surprised and shocked into immobility. He missed his combat-ready force. There was a growing need in him to walk away, to start small and grow. But for that, he needed money, money that wasn’t tied to a woman who thought science was her biddable bitch. Good thing he knew how to find it. This one task would allow him to cut his ties with Helen as well as start Peri on the path to bring her home. He did value efficiency.

The images of St. Louis’s industrial park were hard to decipher in the dusk, but a glint of light caught his attention, and he zoomed the borrowed high-Q drone’s eye onto the building. Satisfaction rumbled through him as he found the WEFT force. Two cars and a van. No movement on the grounds. They were likely already inside.

“Find them?” Michael asked as he swiped through his phone. “I got word forty seconds ago that they were in the building.”

Stifling a surge of pique, Bill closed the link and looked up at the five men in combat gear waiting for direction. Michael was behind Everblue’s CEO’s desk, feet on the imported wood as they waited for the download to finish. The scratches from the dish shards across his face were almost healed, but the cut Peri had dug into the man with her knife was red-rimmed and raw-looking under his eye. Bill knew it bothered Michael just by the fact he had refused to cover it. “Feet off the desk,” Bill said, shoving them off.

“You’d get there faster if you embraced new technology.” Michael resettled himself, but his feet were on the floor, and Bill’s tension eased.

“How much longer?” Bill asked, and Michael tilted his phone to check. A curious sensation tripped up Bill’s spine. The sale of the carbon scrubber would set him up in an autonomous building with tighter security and the influence he was accustomed to, but it was the chance that Peri might show that had him here.

“Still scooping it up.” Michael set his phone down.

“It would go faster if you would stop checking your email every five minutes.”

“It’s not my email, it’s a first-person shooter game.” Michael eyed him. “Why am I here? You’re not letting me do anything.”

“You’re here so you don’t fuck everything up,” Bill said, vowing to stop swearing when Michael chuckled. “You’re like a five-year-old helping Mommy in the kitchen,” Bill muttered, and Michael’s mirth vanished. “It would be easier if you were somewhere else, but then I’d have two messes to clean up instead of one.”

Frustrated, Bill motioned for three of the five men to do a sweep. They moved out with a relieved quickness, not liking Michael’s cold unpredictability any more than Bill did. He was starting to believe the smart man had realized he wanted Peri not as a test subject but working, and that he had no intention of accelerating Michael. It didn’t matter. As long as Michael believed that playing along would further his goal, he wouldn’t fuck up Bill’s plans beyond repair.

Bill touched his dart gun, loaded with Evocane. He’d rather be with Jack perusing the building, but he didn’t dare risk Peri killing Michael if their paths should cross. Not yet, kiddo. Timing is everything.

“Bill!” Jack shouted, his voice excited as it came over the live feed through his phone. “She’s in the lunchroom!”

Tension jerked him straight, almost painful. His Peri was here. He’d known she’d come.

Michael rose, stretching to his full six-foot-four height. “About time.”

“Sit,” Bill barked, not caring whether Michael saw how excited he was. “Finish gathering the data. That’s what you’re here for. That knee of yours she stabbed makes you slow.”

Silent, Michael eased himself back down, and Bill checked his Glock, shoving it into a holster and taking his dart gun in hand.

“You two, stay with him,” Bill said, seeing Michael’s dissatisfaction. “He doesn’t move from this room until the data is uploaded,” Bill added, and the remaining security reluctantly dropped back.

Eager, Bill slipped into the hall and jogged to the kitchen, muscles moving easily and enjoying the rush. He liked the thrill of the field. Missed it. The thought to be Peri’s anchor when this was settled crossed his mind, immediately dismissed with a smile. She was too much the queen bitch, and he couldn’t imagine the two of them in the same apartment, much less the same bed. He’d much rather think of her as a daughter to be disciplined and shaped than as a lover to be discarded at will.

He turned the corner, twisting to a sliding halt at the burst of gunfire behind him at the CEO’s office. Damn it, Michael. What now? Peri was on the other side of the building. Jack had said so. But then a feminine scream of anger split the dark hallway.

Peri, he thought, anger blinding him to everything else as he ran back down the hall to burst into the CEO’s office. Two men in CIA combat gear were down, presumably dead in their blood-splattered puddles of red. Three more knelt with Glocks to their heads. Michael stood over a fourth, his knife at a long, feminine throat, his hand pulling her hair back to expose her neck.