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Mike’s features sharpened and two spots of color formed high on his cheekbones.
“Mike, what’s wrong?” She could barely form the words in her suddenly dry mouth.
He closed his hand over hers and the blue pills. “If Correll really is behind this action against you, then he’s involved with a terrorist organization—the worst—and the danger to the White House is back on the table.”
Chapter Nine
Claire’s eyes widened and something in their violet depths flickered. Did she understand that bad news for the country meant good news for her?
Of course she did. There wasn’t much Claire Chadwick didn’t understand except maybe that her obsession with getting justice for her husband and then her mother had put her life on hold and, even worse, in danger.
He could detect the movement of her Adam’s apple in her slender throat as she swallowed. “These blue pills mean something to you?”
He squeezed her hand before releasing it and them. “You heard me mention Tempest on the phone just now, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” She crumpled the foil in her fist and stuffed it back into the cigarette box with the tips of her fingers. “It didn’t mean anything to me then and it doesn’t mean anything to me now.”
“It’s a covert ops organization, like Prospero, deep undercover. In the past few months we’ve become aware that they’ve been using their power to destabilize the world.”
“What have they been doing?” She trapped her hands between her knees and hunched forward.
“Assassinations.”
“Just like Director Haywood.” Tilting her head to one side, she gathered her hair in her hand and twisted it into a knot. “What do the blue pills mean?”
“Tempest has agents, just like we do. But unlike Prospero, Tempest has been experimenting with its agents—drugging them, brainwashing them.”
She ran a thumb between her eyebrows. “That man at the bus station in Philly was one of these agents?”
“Looks like it.” He flicked the cigarette box with his long fingers. “I’ll send these in for analysis, but the coincidence is too great.”
“So, since Spencer sent this man after me, this superagent, that proves he’s in league with Tempest, doesn’t it?”
“If your stepfather is behind the death of the director and ordered that man to abduct you.”
“We’re back to that.”
“We have no proof Spencer Correll is involved in anything—including your mother’s accident.”
“Unless we get a match on those videos.”
“And this latest discovery just might light a fire under that investigation.” Mike grabbed his phone again and called Jack, pressing the speaker button.
“Nothing’s changed, Mike.”
“It has here, and you’re still on speaker.”
“What’s up?” Jack’s voice lost its bored edge, and Mike nodded to Claire.
“I emptied the pockets of the man who tried to abduct Claire from the Philly bus station, and I just made a crucial discovery.” He reached for the cigarette pack as if he needed concrete verification. “He had some blue pills on him, and they look exactly like the T-101 pills Max Duvall showed us.”
Jack whistled through the phone. “If Tempest is in DC and was responsible for the director’s murder, they might still be plotting something bigger for the White House, just like McCabe said.”
“And Correll just might be the guy on the inside of it all.”
“If we can tie him to Tempest and this setup of Claire.”
“The videos, Jack.” Mike tossed the cigarette pack back on the table. “ID the guy in the videos.”
“We’re on it. In the meantime, send us those pills for analysis.”
Mike ended the call and cupped the phone between his hands. “If there’s anything else you can think of, Claire, now’s the time.”
“Maybe Hamid knows something.”
“You can’t just give him a call on his cell phone. If he’s off the grid, he probably dumped his phone already.”
She slumped back in the love seat and stretched her long legs in front of her, tapping her boots together. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
