Final Shadows, page 14
Tasha drew a shaky breath, then slowly opened her eyes and looked at him. She was clearly still worried, anxious, her eyes a little wet, darkened and uncertain.
“That was Elizabeth in those last moments, wasn’t it?”
Tasha nodded hesitantly. “It—it felt like her. The way it felt that night, when she came to me.”
“And told you everything.”
“John, I wanted to tell you—”
He leaned over and kissed her. Not briefly.
When she could, and a bit dazedly, Tasha said, “Your door. It’s open. Wide open.”
“You really thought it wouldn’t be?” He smiled at her. “I don’t need to handle any of this alone, Tasha. I may still be getting used to it, but our connection means everything to me. And the rage and grief I felt over Elizabeth’s death have been slowly draining away since the first time I touched you. It’s gone now.”
* * *
• • •
“All settled?” Murphy asked briskly as she returned to the room and reclaimed her chair.
“I ought to shoot you,” Brodie told her.
She eyed him, taking note of his calm but relaxed face, his faint smile—and the somewhat blissful smile Tasha wore.
“You two need to get a room?”
Tasha blinked, then frowned at her. Ignoring the question, she said, “You got in my head again. You explained about that planned political future for Wolfe, all the stuff you told Duran.”
“Yeah, sorry to do that without asking. But it does seem to come awfully easy with you. More than bread crumbs left by a conduit. I’ll have to think about that awhile.”
“Right now, there are other things you need to think about. Because you’re going to talk to us.” Brodie’s voice was still uncharacteristically mild. “For one thing, you’ve been having secret meetings with Duran. How long has that gone on?”
“You don’t need to know.”
Very gently, Brodie said, “Yes, Murphy. I do need to know. You need to tell me.”
She eyed him steadily for a moment, then sighed. “The boss said you’d have to know, and probably now. I’d choose otherwise but, hey, just another foot soldier.”
“I don’t think so,” Brodie said. “I don’t think you’ve ever been just that, Murphy. You did a hell of a job wearing that hat, but you came into this to be something else, didn’t you? Something a lot higher up the chain of command than just another foot soldier.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, right.”
Murphy sighed again. “Brodie, wherever I am in the organization, I came into this to fight just like you do, any way I can. And my background, like yours, has been examined under a microscope, and both the boss and, apparently, some panel made up of very smart people on our side who don’t know each other but get to weigh in on these things, all decided I was good to go. I also, like you, report straight to the boss, and she always knows what I’m doing. Always.”
Tasha didn’t really mean to, but since their connection was wide open on both sides and Brodie was thinking about it, she knew for the first time who “the boss” was in all this.
“Wow,” she murmured, eyes wide.
“Forget you know that,” Brodie told her, but with a sidelong smile.
“It’s forgotten.” She wondered if it could be, but then Murphy spoke again and answered the question for her. Sort of.
“I really hope none of Duran’s psychics can read you, because open or closed, this connection with Brodie seems to have opened a window or two in your shield,” Murphy told her in a wry tone. And then she frowned, adding, “Astrid. Astrid is going to continue to be a problem.”
“Bread crumbs?” Tasha said.
“Yeah, she’s left too many pathways into too many of our people, and she is a powerful psychic. It’s not just that, though. Brodie said earlier that she’s a sociopath, and I agree. Possibly a psychopath or even worse. She’s dangerous. And though Duran believes he can control her, I’m not so sure she doesn’t have an agenda of her own.”
“Duran,” Brodie said. “You meeting up with him was sanctioned?”
“Well, of course it was.”
He stared at her, waiting.
“Brodie, I’m not going to just spill my guts about him. Ask a specific question, or let’s change the subject.”
“How long have you been meeting him?”
“Nearly three years.”
“That long? Jesus Christ, Murphy.”
She considered him with a faint frown, then said, “Okay. Let me put things in perspective for you. The tip I got about looking into Tasha’s parentage? That came from Duran.”
It was Tasha who said slowly, “But . . . that led us straight to the eugenics program.”
“Yeah,” Murphy said. “It did.”
“He couldn’t have known that’s where we’d end up. It doesn’t make sense,” Brodie said slowly.
“It makes sense if you accept and understand one very simple fact.”
“Which is?”
“Duran doesn’t agree with his superiors. About a lot of things. I’m not sure he ever did. But it took him a while to work his way up through the ranks and get himself into a position of authority, and he still has to be careful in how and when he . . . interferes in their plans. Very careful. He still has to do ruthless things sometimes. Still has to follow orders and toe the company line.”
“Company?” Brodie’s voice was quick.
“Yeah, you weren’t far off with that idea that they could be using a Fortune 500 company as a front. Because it is expensive, this thing of theirs. And it goes back a lot further than thirty years. So they’ve had time to build some very convincing fronts for their operations. Some very big companies, most of them merged in recent years into just two or three behemoths, often on the cutting edge of technology, or finance, or whatever. Company names we’d recognize doing fairly blameless things—at least in terms of Wall Street—and earning a hell of a lot of money for their shareholders. Shareholders who are, basically, all their own people, from their scientists to their foot soldiers.”
“That’s how they fund their operations? Completely?”
“Well, that’s as much as I’ve been able to get out of Duran. Trust me when I say he definitely does not spill his guts. I’ve learned a lot from him over the last three years, but it’s been in bits and pieces the boss and I’ve been putting together like a jigsaw puzzle. Duran and I have these tense little discussions. We exchange information.”
Brodie opened his mouth, but Murphy went on calmly before he could ask the obvious question.
“No, I don’t tell him anything about our operations that he doesn’t already know.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“I can be absolutely positive. But how I can really is not something you’re cleared to know. Sorry.”
TWELVE
“Goddammit, Murphy.”
“Hey, you know protocol and why we’re set up the way we are. They’re good reasons. None of us should know . . . more than we should know.”
“Can you read him?” Brodie was still frowning.
“Not his mind, at least so far, and I can’t tell if he’s psychic. But I can tell you that his mother was psychic, and that she did something extraordinary. Something that protects him to this day.”
It was Tasha who guessed. “She built a shield for him?”
Murphy nodded. “When he was very young. No psychic I’ve ever encountered has been able to explain to me how it was even possible, but according to Duran she somehow constructed a completely organic shield for him, one that exists almost independently of him, not something he controls or even has to think about. In fact, he’s certain she began building it when he was hardly more than a toddler. And she added layers to it over a period of several years, until not only was his mind protected from the probing of any psychic, even his personality was hidden. She knew people like his own father were hurting psychics, and even though she couldn’t tell if he’d inherited any of her psychic ability, she still wanted to protect him. So she did.”
“His father?”
“Born into the company, so to speak. That’s one reason he was able to rise through the ranks the way he did, on the fast track. And his mother is another of the reasons his loyalties are . . . divided.”
Tasha asked, “Are his parents involved in his life?”
“His father never really was, from what I can tell. No idea why, at least not when Duran was a kid; he was apparently killed in some kind of field operation when Duran was in his teens.”
“And his mother?”
Murphy frowned and answered slowly. “When we agreed to meet the first time, after sort of running into each other a few times in field operations, I told him I needed to know why he thought I could trust him at all, why I should believe he was willing to help our side in even the smallest ways. He told me that while he was away at college, his mother was supposedly killed in a car accident. He believed that at the time, but after years in the field, he began to suspect that either because they mistrusted her or needed her abilities, his mother had been yet another psychic taken. He was certain she was dead by then, but a lot less certain she died in a car accident. And he provided enough details so the boss was able to corroborate what he’d told me.”
Murphy added calmly, “And, yes, we know the name he was born with and where he went to school—Ivy League, by the way, very impressive. Top of his class. Duran is the name he took when he formally joined up and—in what is apparently their protocol—more or less detached himself from the life he’d had until then. Duran’s life began when he graduated from college; the life of the man he was before then simply stopped at that time. Which is why we’ve never been able to run background checks on any of the field operatives we’ve run into, using the names we’ve heard and what photos we’ve been able to take.”
Brodie was frowning, but said almost absently, “Yeah, that makes sense. I guess you’ve pushed him as hard as you could for intel we could use.”
“That better not be a question. Of course I have.”
“Maybe it’s time you pushed harder. If Bishop’s people really are closing in on the abducted psychics, we need every bit of intel we can get our hands on. Because wherever they’re being held is bound to hold a lot more secrets than missing psychics. Secrets that could help us win this war.”
Murphy studied him for a moment. “Okay, I’ll see if I can needle him into revealing a bit more the next time we meet. Sometimes that works very well.”
“I’m not surprised,” Brodie retorted.
* * *
• • •
When the others returned to the condo just over an hour after they’d left them alone, they found Brodie calm but fairly expressionless and with eyes thoughtful rather than hard—and he was still holding Tasha’s hand, which seemed to indicate that whatever the news finally related to Brodie, it had clearly not affected their relationship in any negative way.
“No news from your psychics yet, I take it?” he asked Bishop.
“No, not yet. I notified a few more to head west; there’s a lot of wilderness they have to cover, and even scanning broad areas is going to take some time.” He sounded like a man with infinite patience, but it didn’t take a telepath to know that Bishop was more than driven to locate his missing psychics, especially since teenager Emma Garrick had been taken.
Murphy sent him a quick but searching look, but didn’t comment on that. Instead she provided a brief need-to-know summary of what they had missed.
“Duran’s people showed the first signs of political ambition we’ve been absolutely sure of, running one of his born psychics for a major state office—with the plan, though he never admitted this part—to pair him with Tasha. Which partly explains his very intense interest in Tasha. I had enough serious dirt on his candidate to force him to pull the guy out of the race—and get rid of him.”
“Car accident?” Miranda asked mildly, remembering a newspaper headline she’d noticed weeks back.
Murphy nodded. “I have a hunch he knew the guy wasn’t going to work out long before I told him, because Duran was the one who had, earlier, tipped me off to check into Tasha’s parentage. Hell, I probably did him a favor giving him a good reason to off that particular candidate.
“As for the breeding operation, I’d been getting the feeling he was ready to start winding that up and wouldn’t mind a push from us. Maybe because this possible Supreme he thought he had was one of their ultimate goals, or maybe just because whatever his medical people and scientists had to do in order to turn those women into Stepford moms bothered him almost as much as it bothers us.”
“Supreme?” Bishop asked.
“Sorry, forgot we hadn’t discussed that. The ultimate psychic. One born with unlimited potential and absolute control. It was just a whisper for a long time, but we’ve confirmed that was at least one reason for the abductions. And experimentations. Looking for that ultimate psychic.”
“Have they found or created that psychic?”
“I honestly don’t know, and I haven’t been able to persuade Duran to either confirm or deny. But it’s possible.”
Bishop said, “On a need-to-know basis, is Duran secretly playing for our team, or just a source whose information you triple-check before you act on it?”
She chewed a bite of her burrito thoughtfully before answering, saying finally, “He has divided loyalties, but understandable reasons for that. I think he’d stop this if he could, but it’s way too big for that now. So . . . he minimizes damage when he can, and offers the occasional tip or snippet of information. And lets me push him around from time to time if I’ve got a good enough reason.”
“Lets you?” Bishop smiled faintly, then turned to Tucker and added, “If you don’t already have it, I can get you into a data bank that’ll give you access to real-time satellite photography able to pinpoint Wi-Fi signals or pings off cell towers. Anywhere in the country. I can also offer software that will allow you to use that data to pinpoint any security systems hardwired or wireless—and allow you to hack into those systems remotely.”
“Is that legal?” Sarah asked dryly.
“No,” Bishop answered simply. “I have to get a warrant or get permission to obtain in any way private security system information outside the scene of a crime. But once the software is downloaded into Tucker’s system, there’ll be no sign he’s in possession of it, and no matter how much he uses it, there’ll be no detectable sign it’s been . . . unofficially used.”
“Suits me,” Tucker said.
Sarah murmured, “Why does that not surprise me?” And smiled when her husband grinned at her.
Bishop said, “It should show us pretty quickly if any of the neighbors have security cameras that might have caught at least a few frames of what went on at the Charlotte house before the fire.”
“I would love to add that to my toolbox,” Tucker said agreeably, and they both headed for his large desk.
Miranda reclaimed her chair as Sarah went off to check on Annabel again and the others worked on breakfast.
When Sarah came back only a few short moments later, she was laughing softly. “Annabel is still asleep, and I’d swear Pendragon opened his eyes just long enough to glare at me and make the point I wasn’t wanted. That’s one strange cat.”
“Didn’t you say he’s turned up in more than one odd place in all this?” Miranda asked as Sarah sat in another chair close by.
“I’ll say. He first turned up in Richmond not too long before I met Tucker. I asked around, but nobody admitted he was theirs despite his collar and tag. So I fed him and he stuck around, coming and going on his own schedule. Then everything sort of hit the fan, and Tucker and I were on the move, heading north, stopping at different places along the way. And then Pendragon turned up for just a brief minute or two in the middle of a sort of rescue operation when one of Duran’s goons tried something definitely unsanctioned. And that was way up north, in Maine.” She frowned briefly. “I never could figure out how he got out of that old church, since it was burning. But he’s done stranger things, like turning up here in Charleston and bringing Annabel to us.”
Miranda, who knew as well as her husband the questions not to ask, merely said, “I remember Annabel said he slept with her at night out on the streets when she didn’t want to go back to that hellhole foster home. That he kept her warm.”
Sarah nodded. “And whispered to her, she said. Told her he would take her to a place where she’d be safe and where people would love her. Which is what he did.”
Miranda shook her head. “First Richmond, then Maine, and now here. I know cats can wander pretty far, but that strikes me as extreme. And very . . . specific. There is definitely something unusual about that cat.”
Sarah said, “I agree he’s a cat of a different sort. I’ve never encountered one quite like him. And he’s stuck close to Annabel since he brought her to us. She hasn’t said much about it, but I’ll swear those two really do talk to each other.”
Miranda smiled. “You’re going to adopt her, aren’t you?”
“If she’ll have us, yes. A judge and Social Services gave us temporary custody and guardianship once they saw that damned foster home and how the other kids were treated. I just wish they’d been able to jail that couple and get the other kids into safe places sooner.”
“Some things have to happen just the way they happen,” Miranda said. “We’ve learned that the hard way.”
Sarah nodded. “Yeah, after everything that’s happened since my abilities were triggered in that car accident, I really believe that’s true. It seemed like a curse at first, even a death sentence, but . . . I met Tucker. And we found psychics good and bad, and people who weren’t psychic but wanted to help, and were part of this, people like Brodie, and others.”
