"You've got to tell me what's going on, Jess," Logan said, shifting in his chair, leaning forward. "We've been friends too long for you to shut me out."
Jess nodded. "Give me a few days to sort through all this. We're not even close to finding the traitor yet, so there's no way we could have spooked anyone. Just let me figure things out."
"Don't wait too long," Logan cautioned. "In our business, things go to hell very fast." Idly, he picked up a folder sitting beneath a lamp on the desk and turned it over and over in his hands. Jess leaned forward to take it and immediately Logan flipped it open. "What is this?"
Jess held out his hand. "Nothing important."
Logan inhaled sharply. "Don't bullshit me. This is your medical file. Bionics?" He was silent a moment flipping through the thick pages. "Lily sent you this, didn't she? For God's sake, Jess, she's Whitney's daughter. We've already got some bastard trying to kill us all, we've had our brains opened wide and our DNA altered, isn't that enough for you? Tell me you didn't agree to do this."
Jess remained silent.
"Bionics." Logan murmured the word aloud. "Another experiment?"
Jess shrugged, trying to look casual. "The latest technology. Eric Lambert told me about it first when he was here checking on me. He said Lily Whitney has already advanced it."
"And convinced you to be her guinea pig? You don't think that what her father did to us was enough?" Logan took a breath. "Do you really trust her, Jess? I know she's married to Ryland and he's one of ours, but..."
"She lives in that house, knowing every minute of every day that Whitney has to be able to see and hear what she's doing so she can keep track of him. She lives in hell, Logan. Yeah, I trust her. She's helped every single GhostWalker in some way, from the exercises she teaches us to help shield our brains from outside disturbances, to making each of us financially independent. Without her, we wouldn't have half the data on Whitney that we have. She uses the computers to spy on him."
"How do you know she's not a double agent?"
Jess shook his head. "We're all getting so paranoid. Look at what we're doing to the admiral. We've known the old man for years, but we're looking into every aspect of his life. Now you don't think we can trust Lily? If there's one person here who has suffered the most, who has given up everything, it's her. She knows he can find her, maybe even get to her, but she sticks herself out there so we can keep track of him. Without those computers we're dead in the water. He'll go under and we'll never find him."
"You're betting your life on her," Logan growled. "She's very much like her father."
"That isn't fair. She's brilliant like her father, otherwise she's nothing like him." He pushed aside the little voice in his head reminding him of the iguana and lizard DNA as well as the adult stem cell regeneration drug he'd been administered. It would sound far too close to Lily's father's experiments.
It was Peter Whitney, a billionaire with an extraordinary mind, who had managed to talk them all into his psychic experiments, not telling them--or anyone else--that it wasn't the first time he'd tried it on human beings. He had first experimented on orphans, infants, small children he'd had complete power over--including Lily, the child he'd adopted. As time went on they discovered he had also genetically altered them all. And he had continued his experiments, so no one knew how many women or men had been affected. Lily was trying to find out.
"I worked with her a lot while I was in the hospital recouping," Jess admitted. "She's committed to helping the GhostWalkers, all of them. She wants to find the other women and track down any other teams he may have worked on, so they can eventually live semi-normal lives."
"None of us are ever going to be able to do that," Logan said. "You know it as well as I do. And letting her experiment on you with bionics..."
"What do I have to lose?"
"Your life."
"You just said none of us were ever going to have one," Jess pointed out. "In any case, it's too late. I've committed to the program."
There was a long silence. Logan leapt out of his chair and paced across the room, swearing under his breath.
"It's that woman upstairs, isn't it, Jess? She's making you crazy, man." Logan turned to face Jess. "I'm not going to let this happen. I mean it. We've been friends too long. If she doesn't want you because you're in a chair..."
"That's not it and you know it. I wanted to try this. Once Eric mentioned the bionics program, I studied it, and when I took it to Lily, she asked me to let her see if she could improve things a little. With my enhancements, she wanted to add a few things that might work better for me." Things that would regenerate cells so his legs would actually work, things like iguana DNA and cells from his bone marrow. Who really knew what was in that bone marrow, since Peter Whitney had already added to the strange DNA that was now his?
"It's still an experiment."
"I didn't walk into it blind. You know me better than that. I won't stop until I find out who the mole is, and I'm going to walk again."
Logan shook his head. "You're not giving me much choice here, Jess."
"I'm aware of that. Let's get back to work. We've got a couple of hours to go through the rest of these reports. Maybe something will jump out at us."
Logan took another look at the file on bionics and then tossed it on the desk with another shake of his head. "Stubborn son of a bitch."
"You don't know the half of it." Jess flashed a small grin and went back to work.
Subject Jess Calhoun. Called in another GhostWalker tonight, Logan Maxwell. Calhoun is definitely still working with the SEAL GhostWalker team. At this time I have no further data on what he might be up to. Could not get the opportunity to plant the devices, as the virus has not reacted as we'd hoped. Wynter's system is quite resistant. Will try again and up the dose. Need your input and help with finding the security flaws. So far, cannot penetrate without detection. Please advise. Both subjects appear to have the same vulnerability. If their adversary is not enhanced, neither appears to have any alarm or radar going off. Your observations were correct, and I believe you should take steps to correct that in any future models.
The man clicked off his small recorder and leaned back against the plush leather seat as he switched on the radio. Immediately the car was flooded with the voice of the Night Siren. Sensuous. Like silk sheets. He felt it penetrate right through him, stroking his skin and hardening his groin. He adjusted his legs and closed his eyes, listening, knowing she was talking to him. He could feel her fingers, her tongue and mouth. So erotic. So much promise.
He shouldn't have dispatched the whore so soon. She wasn't anything like that voice, but she had a good mouth on her. He unzipped his trousers and began to stroke himself to the sound of Saber Wynter's sexy voice.
CHAPTER 3
"For all my night owls out there, this is a special love song from the Night Siren to you." Saber sent her soft, whispery voice out over the airwaves, punched in the music, and stared up at the clock for the hundredth time.
Her head was shrieking at her, she had a sore throat, and she had wiped beads of sweat from her forehead more than once. She couldn't even come up with decent dialogue for tonight's program. The sexy Night Siren of the airwaves was as sick as she could possibly be. She had been at work exactly two hours and she was ready to surrender.
Saber rubbed her temples, trying to soothe the awful pounding. She had fallen asleep at six in the morning and, unusual for her, had slept all day. The sore throat and headache had been with her from the moment she'd opened her eyes.
"Jesse spent the day doing incantations," she muttered resentfully. He had looked the epitome of health as she went off to work, but he had been distant. Well, that wasn't exactly true. Jesse was never distant, but she felt he was closed off to her, and he was never that. She sighed and laid her head down on the desk, using her arms for a pillow. She was too sick to figure anything out.
Brian Hutton, her soundman, waved to her from the other side of the glass, indicating
the telephone. When he mouthed Larry's name, Saber wrinkled her nose in distaste and shook her head. Just the idea of the louse increased the awful pounding in her temples. She was going to have to go home, crawl in bed, and hope she could fall asleep with the lights on.
She flicked a switch. "Brian, I'm not going to make it tonight," she said with genuine regret. She had never missed a day of work, had never even been late. It meant something to her to be able to go to work, however brief her stay always was. She liked having a clean record, knew they would think well of her after she left.
"You look like hell," Brian informed her.
"Oh, thanks. I needed to hear that. Would you cover for me so I could go home and get some sleep?"
"Sure, Saber," he agreed sympathetically. "It's just as well, the crazies are calling in tonight."