“Or just find a way to keep them from tracking us,” Jack added.
Mel shifted from one foot and then to the other, glanced around.The chairs weren’t great, but she was tired, too, enough so she’d almost crawled into the top bunk back in the hangar.She’d always considered bunk beds kind of magical until her time with the Navy SEALS.That was the problem with growing up.
And she had the memory of two very different childhoods bumping around inside her head—none of which had involved bunkbeds.It was harder to figure out which was the one she lived in when she was too tired to sort through those memories.And technically, she had lived both.
“So,” Mel said, giving herself a shake and sitting up straight, “let’s pretend we’re all Alice and ask some questions.”
“Can I just be Alice?”Alice asked.
Mel could tell she was at a tricky stage.She was about to breach the outside of the device.Mel couldn’t look away.No one spoke until they could see Alice’s shoulders relax some.
“I’m in,” she said.“No sign of toxins or other contaminants.”
“And it didn’t blow up,” Mel added, hopefully.
“Not yet,” Alice said.
“You think it still could?”Ty tried to sound cool and collected.He failed.
“If I’d designed it, it would,” Alice said, “but we all know I have a dark side.”
“That’s why you fit in here so well,” Mel said with a grin.“So you just keep being Alice and we’ll try to be you, and you can tell us where we’re wrong or what we’ve missed.Okay?”
“Sure,” Alice said equably.“I’m a woman.I can multi-task.”
Alice had adjusted very well to the twenty-first century.
“So what are the possible problems if Rita is a trap?”Mel asked.“And how can we use that for our benefit?”
Both men came over and sat on either side of her.Ty didn’t take his eyes off Alice, but Mel could tell he was thinking.
“I think being Alice might be above my pay grade,” Ty said, finally.
“There you are,” Alice spoke absently, as if she didn’t know she’d said it out loud.One of the robotic arms retracted and Alice turned a knob that would increase the magnification.What she saw showed on a screen above their heads.
“What did you find?”Jack asked, rising and moving closer to the screen, his head titled back.
“The booby-trap.I’m not exactly sure what it does, but I’m pretty sure this is it.”
Mel could tell Jack wanted to ask, but he was a smart man.He didn’t.Alice could be very analytical, but in action?She went with her gut.She’d deny it, but Mel had seen it.She’d look at something and just know.
It was one of many good reasons the opposition had wanted her.Had?Mel pursed her lips.She’d bet money she didn’t have that they still wanted to find her.And now Rita had one tiny link to Alice.
Could they afford to use her to get to them?
Could they afford not to?
After Ty left, Con had pushed the cot next to the door so that all he had to do was swing his legs down and grab the knob—no, he’d have to unlock it, then he could go in.And he had to shut it behind him.Rita wasn’t supposed to see theRay.
It was covered in sheets of canvas, but the outline was visible.They’d pulled theStinkerin, partially blocking the view from this door.But she couldn’t see the plane.He liked her a lot, he even trusted her a lot, but he knew that was a bad idea.
Now he lay on the cot, his hands behind his head, wishing he could go to sleep.He knew he hadn’t done this, he hadn’t brought Rita here.And the other members of the team knew it.
They still didn’t like it.
He didn’t like it.
It wasn’t just that it was dangerous to them to have someone from the future know this place, know their names and faces.But they were being hunted.It was like bringing Rita to the fox’s hole with the baying hounds closing in.
