Body Thief, page 20
“Oh God,” Cam said with a gasp. “That’s the middle of the afternoon. The place will be packed with patients.”
Griffin checked his watch. It was one P.M. now. “That gives us two hours to clear out that building without spooking our bombers. And then stop them.”
“And then what?” Ernest asked. “They’ll just move onto the next place, and the next. This won’t end until they’ve made their point.”
Griffin knew he was right. They’d need to take out the person or people responsible for sending the orders. “Can you tell where the communications are coming from? If they have a headquarters?”
Ernest shook his head. “Not yet, but I’ll keep digging.”
“Dig in Harding’s direction,” Cam said.
“Oh, trust me, I have,” Ernest said, looking disgusted. “Can’t connect him to any of this.”
“Then someone else is giving those orders,” Griffin noted. He slapped Ernest on the back. “Keep your head down.”
Ernest grinned at him. “I’m not the one who’s going to get shot at.”
Griffin watched Cam go over to her father, who was napping in one of the hotel beds. She sat on the bed next to him and covered him up with the blanket. Concern was etched across her face, and Griffin felt another pang of guilt for not doing more to find her brother. But she’d made up her own mind. Hell, she’d pretty much dragged him into this. Still, he didn’t want her to lose her father, and time was not their friend.
He leaned closer to Ernest. “Do you have any micro GPS chips?”
Ernest looked at him like he was nuts. “I have a case of them. How many do you need?”
“I’ll take a couple. The range is good?”
“As good as you need,” Ernest said. “What are you planning to do with them?”
Griffin glanced at Cam. “Let’s just say I’m going to try to speed up our progress a bit.”
“That might be a little more difficult than we thought,” Ernest said in a tone that Griffin didn’t like at all. “Harding has put a contract out on all of us. We’re traitors, wanted dead or alive. Personally, I like alive.”
It didn’t surprise Griffin that Harding would take the first opportunity to get rid of them. “How long are we safe here?”
Ernest shrugged. “Maybe another night or two, but we’ll need to move.” He leaned into Griffin and added in a whisper, “Dewey needs medical attention.”
“I know,” Griffin said. Not only that, moving Dewey in his current condition wasn’t good for any of them. “No matter what, you stay with him.”
Ernest nodded. “Sure. Do I get a gun now?”
“You sure do,” he replied.
Cam and Griffin stood across the street from the clinic and watched patients come and go in the middle of the afternoon. Old folks, children, mothers, babies. Her anger grew with every passing minute. XCEL would let these people die to prove a point. To damn Shifters everywhere.
Over her fucking dead body.
“What happens if they use a Salt Round on you?” Griffin asked.
She scanned the two-story building. “I’ve adapted a strategy to eject it. It won’t work next time.”
“Good.”
She turned to look at him, and her body temperature jumped a few degrees. He looked especially sexy today. He’d be better naked though. She had to corral her thoughts after a brief detour. “Is the three P.M. time for the explosion or for the mission to begin?”
“Ernest couldn’t tell.” He led her across the street. “But he said there are apartments upstairs. That has to be their target. Otherwise, someone would notice.”
“The second-floor windows are covered with blinds. I can’t see inside,” she told him.
“Then we’ll have to check it out the old-fashioned way.”
They walked through the front doors of the clinic. As she feared, the place was wall-to-wall patients. They occupied the chairs that lined the walls and stood where there was no seating available. One beleaguered receptionist sat behind a glass partition.
Griffin walked up to her and discreetly showed his badge. The woman’s eyes widened as they talked, their words lost in the noise of the clinic. Then she glanced at Cam and nodded. She pulled a set of keys from her drawer and handed them over. He thanked her, and they headed to the back of the building, past a long row of doorways and busy nurses.
Griffin unlocked a door that opened to a flight of stairs. After Cam closed the door behind her, she said, “What did you tell her?”
“First, I asked her about the apartments. Two are occupied, the one in front is vacant. Then, I asked if anyone unusual had been up here lately.”
He pulled out his Glock as they hit the second-floor landing.
“And?”
“Three men with the gas company showed up ten minutes ago to work on the vacant apartment, and they’re still here.”
Three men who knew exactly what they were doing and willing to kill innocent people. Cam was mad enough to handle them all herself. “Did you warn her?”
He nodded. “Told her they were criminals, armed and dangerous, and to clear the clinic as quickly and quietly as possible.”
“Good,” Cam said. “What about tenants?”
“She didn’t know if they were here or not. Not her job.”
“Then I guess that makes it our job,” Cam said. “Think they’ll use the same strategy as last time and set the explosives on a timer?”
“Definitely,” Griffin said, moving ahead of her. “No heroes in this bunch. They won’t risk getting caught in the blast.”
“Well, then today is not going to be their day,” she said.
Griffin eyed her. “I don’t want to get caught in the blast either.”
“It’s not like we haven’t been blown up before,” she murmured.
“Which just means our odds are worse now.”
He had a point. They quickly checked the two occupied apartments. There were no sounds or movements, and she didn’t hear any signs of people, which was good.
Then they headed toward the front apartment. Old floorboards creaked under their feet, and they had to move more slowly as they neared the apartment door. Cam tuned in to the sounds behind the door.
They moved closer, and Cam harnessed her senses. Three sets of distinct footsteps. All humans. She smelled gasoline—an accelerant. They wanted to make damn sure the blast would keep burning. Probably made for better TV coverage. The good news was that they were still inside, which meant the bombs hadn’t been activated yet.
She whispered, “If we wait them out, it’ll be too late.”
He nodded agreement. “Ready?”
“Oh yeah,” she whispered and shifted into Primary form. She formed her hands into claws. “I’m going first.”
Griffin just grinned and then stepped back and kicked the door in. Cam was inside in a flash. Two of the men were huddled over a large box in the center of the room. The other one was the first to shoot at her, and she recognized his face. He was the one who’d hit her with the Salt Round.
Sucked to be him.
She reached one of the men kneeling over the box and kneed him in the head on her way to the man who’d nearly cost her her life. He took a few steps backward, firing as he went. The payload peppered the walls and passed through her harmlessly until she grabbed him by the face. He screamed for all he was worth.
“You, I don’t like,” she said.
With a mighty growl, she tossed him against the wall, breaking Sheetrock and shaking the apartment windows. He dropped to a still heap on the floor. She took a second to shove a micro GPS unit down his throat before he woke up.
Then she turned around to find that Griffin was grappling with the other agent up against the wall. The man had a gun in his hand that Griffin was trying to shake loose.
“Check the timer,” he yelled to her.
As if she knew what a timer looked like. She scanned the steel box and saw a small digital display. It was set for 15:00 and wasn’t changing. “It’s set but not running.”
Then she walked over and ripped the pistol from the agent’s hand as he glared at her. Griffin pushed him against the wall with his forearm crushing the man’s throat. “Who do you work for?”
The man wasn’t talking, and Griffin wasn’t happy about that. He pressed the guy’s throat harder. “We know you’re XCEL.”
The man’s eyes widened in surprise, but he still wouldn’t give it up.
“Want me to try?” she asked Griffin. “I haven’t killed anyone all day.”
That got a reaction out of the man. He gasped for air, flicked his gaze behind her, and then smiled. “Shifter bitch, die.”
Then she felt a bullet hit her in the back. It tried to bury itself in her, but her body reacted, preserving itself and expelling the bullet. She turned to find the guy she’d flung against the wall holding his gun on her. His eyes were the size of saucers. His little toy didn’t work this time, and he knew it.
Cam advanced on him as he backed up in terror. Unfortunately, she needed the bastard. On the other hand, that didn’t mean she couldn’t have some fun first.
She grabbed him around the throat. He dropped the weapon and tried to kick her. “You are really pissing me off,” she hissed, and then flung him out the front window. Glass shattered, followed by a distinct thud outside. Fortunately, he was still screaming, so that was a good sign.
Griffin had knocked his man unconscious and was feeding him the GPS when she walked back to him.
He said, “I hope you tagged him before you tossed his ass out the window.”
“Hey, I’m a professional.” She shifted back to human form.
“I was a little worried for a minute.”
She grabbed the third man passed out by the bomb and tagged him with a GPS. “I hope these things work, because otherwise, we wasted a perfectly good opportunity to take these ass-holes out of commission permanently.”
Griffin stood beside her. “I’m going to call in an anonymous tip and have the local law enforcement pick these guys up for trespassing.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And what about the big bomb in the middle of the room?”
He said, “The big bomb comes with us.”
Aristotle smiled as he listened to Red go on about how they’d prevented the attack on the clinic. He’d never seen the boy so excited.
“She threw one of the guys right out the front window,” Red said as he continued his animated story. “This is awesome! They stopped the XCEL attack. We didn’t even have to provide the location. They know what’s going on. What could be better than this?”
If they joined our team, Aristotle thought. But he’d have to be careful. Maybe this was yet another ploy by Harding to locate his operation. One wrong move and everything he’d built would be gone, and along with it, the last gasp for his race.
“And another thing,” Red added, his face flushed with renewed hope. “They broke the old man out of the detention center. Right under Harding’s nose.”
Aristotle leaned back in his chair. That didn’t sound like anything Harding would approve of, even as a ploy. Why would he bother to go to such trouble?
“They broke their relationship with XCEL?” Aristotle asked.
“Oh, definitely. There’s an XCEL contract out on them,” Red said. “Plus they haven’t been back to Griffin’s apartment in the last twenty-four hours. And one of the other XCEL agents is also MIA.”
This was no ploy. XCEL didn’t put out contracts they didn’t intend to fulfill. And if Mercer and Camille broke off their relationship, they must know that XCEL was involved.
That would make Harding very pissed off. As much as Aristotle enjoyed that thought, he also knew the danger it brought to the only outsiders who might be able to help him.
He pulled his heavy sweater around him. “Did you find a place to meet?”
“Yes.”
“Set up a meeting with the two of them, myself, and you.”
“I will,” Red said quickly. “Aren’t you happy about this?”
Aristotle smiled. Disappointment had tempered his enthusiasm long ago. “I am.”
“You don’t look like it.” Then Red frowned. “Are you sick?”
He’d been sick for years. Today was worse than yesterday, and tomorrow would be worse than today. But that was old age. No one to blame, and no sense in being angry about it.
“Set up the meeting.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Harding was taking out his fury on the phone with his partner. “How could this happen, Braxton? How did they know where the attack was going to be and when? How?”
“Our files must have been hacked,” he said, his voice frustratingly calm. “We’ll need to double encrypt the orders next time.”
“Screw encryption!” Harding yelled, and then glanced up at his office door. He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “You handle this personally from now on. You deliver the orders, forget technology.”
“Well,” Braxton said, unhurried, “I suspect that the hacker works for you. The breach is your fault, not mine. You handle the orders.”
“I can’t do that,” Harding hissed. “That’s why I have you.”
“Afraid to get your hands dirty?” Braxton asked.
Harding squeezed the life out of his cell phone. “If I do, then there will be no one on this end to change policy, will there? We made a pact. No matter how bad it got, we would each do our part.”
Braxton sighed. “I’ll deal with it.”
“You better. I want another attack as soon as possible, a successful one.” Harding stabbed his desk with one finger. “I want death and destruction. Are we clear?”
“Always a joy working with you.”Then Braxton disconnected.
Harding ended the call and set down the cell phone before he broke it. For long moments he sat, fists clenched, working to cool his temper. He’d known there would be problems, but he couldn’t allow one rogue agent and a malicious shapeshifter to destroy that. They would win, and he would lose.
Harding stood up to fend off the anger that was edging out his virtuous plan. He was so close, he could taste it. He was the righteous one here. He was the only one who could save humanity.
It was all at risk now because of one dead man walking. He pondered his options and settled on the one with the best outcome. If XCEL couldn’t find Mercer, Harding knew exactly who could. He dialed a number he hadn’t used in a long time. John Parker picked up on the third ring.
“Well, well. If it isn’t my old buddy, Director Harding,” he said over a lot of background noise.
Harding felt his blood pressure rise just talking to a Shifter. “I have a job for you. How fast can you be in Jersey?”
“When you ask so nicely, how can I refuse?” Parker replied with a distinct slur. He was drinking in a bar with all the other lowlifes.
Harding tamped down his aversion. “We had an agreement, Parker. I get your ass out of trouble, and I own you. Forever.”
“Deal with the devil, that was,” Parker said with a laugh. “What do you want?”
“Mercer’s head on a platter,” Harding said. “Yesterday.”
The background noise got a lot quieter. “Serious?”
“ Yesterday,” Harding repeated.
There was a long pause. “I’ll be there when I can.”
“You brought a bomb into our hotel? Are you crazy?” Ernest sputtered.
Griffin shoved the box under his hotel bed. “Would you rather I leave it in your car in the parking garage below us?”
“No! I mean—” Ernest stopped and shook his head. “Never mind. Why am I even arguing? My car, hotel. Doesn’t matter. It’ll still kill me. Although, I’ve always wanted to die in my sleep.”
“You might get that wish,” Griffin said, and walked over to the door between the adjoining rooms. He peered in and saw Cam talking to her father. His skin was a faint shade of blue, his eyes sunken, and his movements few.
“He’s worse.” Griffin quietly closed the door and turned to Ernest.
“He’s dying,” Ernest said.
“She has a brother,” Griffin said. “He’s somewhere in the US. XCEL was supposed to be looking for him as part of her cooperation.”
Ernest’s expression turned into confusion. “Harding approved that?”
Griffin replied, “I didn’t ask Harding. I didn’t tell anyone. Except you.”
He handed Ernest a thumb drive that contained the information that Cam had given him about Thaniel. Ernest closed his eyes as he took it. “You didn’t tell Cam?”
He had his reasons, none of which mattered anymore. Maybe XCEL would have found Thaniel by now, maybe not. Either way, it was probably too late. “No. How long will it take to locate him?”
Ernest pursed his lips. “I don’t know. A couple hours, or a couple weeks. Depends on whether or not her brother wants to be found. He’s a Shifter, for Christ’s sake. He could be anywhere, anyone.”
Griffin glanced at the door. “Don’t tell her.”
Ernest made a face and shook his head. “She deserves to know the truth, Griff.”
“You want your life back?” Griffin asked. “Then don’t tell her. I’ll do it later.”
Ernest blew out a long breath as his shoulders hunched. “I hate this.”
“Sorry,” Griffin said. “You can start looking for her brother, but first priority is stopping the attacks. Do you have a line on the next one?”
Ernest rubbed his eyes. “They’re onto us. Moved the files, set up a bunch of dead—”
“Ernest, yes or no,” Griffin said, his patience wearing thin.
“Not yet,” he said. “Give me an hour.”
Griffin’s cell phone rang. He checked the incoming number and didn’t recognize it. “Hello?”
“We hear you’re looking for us,” the familiar voice said.
His pulse jumped. “Who is this?”
“Meeting, tomorrow morning at eight A.M. Same place you met your informant.”
The Shifter informant. He was working for the Shifters. “I’ll be there.”
