“The article,” Pelham says again, patient as ever.“Has it been filed?”
“Yes,” I gasp, because that much they already know and it costs me nothing to confirm it.“It’s with my editor.”
“Does your editor have the evidence?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head emphatically.“Just the article.”
This is true.The evidence is with Cole.I hold that fact behind my teeth like a stone.
“Who else knows what was on the drive?”
“No one,” I gasp, once again trying to push up on my toes merely to make it look like I’m in some sort of control.“Just me.”
A pause, more silence.He’s weighing the truth of my words, but I don’t know if they hit the mark.I can’t tell if he believes me because I can’t see his face.I can’t see anything and I’m shaking from the current and from the cold and from the helpless terror of hanging hooded in the dark while a man who has already killed decides whether I’m telling the truth.
“That’s not quite right, is it,” he murmurs, and I know from the tone that we’ve arrived at the part of the conversation I can’t navigate my way through with half-truths.
The device touches my lower back, where he strokes it up my spine.Cold sweat breaks out all over.
I think about Cole’s hands.The specific weight of them.The way he saidI’ve got youin the dark of the apartment three nights ago when I woke up from a nightmare and he pulled me back against his chest without a word and held on.
I’ve got you.
Find me, I think.Please find me.I can hold on if you find me.
The prongs touch the base of my neck, glide around to my throat and down in between my breasts.I brace again and wait for the pain.
CHAPTER 23
Cole
Weparkthetrucka half mile back on a logging road that doesn’t show up on consumer mapping apps, which is exactly why Josie flagged it when she was routing our approach.The access road to the property is the only vehicle entry point and we’re not using it.
The dark of night in the city is different from dark in the Cascades.There’s no ambient light because even if the moon broke through cloud cover, the fir and hemlock trees are so thick, nothing filters through.The temperature has dropped ten degrees since we left Seattle, and somewhere in the dark ahead of us, Tessa is running out of time.
I don’t think about that.I can’t afford to.
We pull the thermal dispersal suits from the equipment bag and step out into the dark to put them on.They go on under our tactical gear—thin enough that they layer without bulk, with a small toggle mechanism on the left forearm.In my hands they feel like nothing, which is exactly the point.You’d never know what they were capable of by looking at them.
Dozer’s voice comes through the earpiece the moment I pull mine on, clear as if he’s standing next to me rather than sitting in his climate-controlled office in Miami.He looped in with us about ten minutes ago.
“Okay, children, listen up,” he says, and even now, even with everything pressing down on me, the deep cadence of his voice is stabilizing.“What you’re wearing is the single-most sophisticated piece of field equipment currently in existence that no government on earth has access to yet, so try not to get it shot up.”
“No promises,” Reid mutters, working his arms into the suit.
James “Dozer” Burney is the reason these suits exist.He’s a former NASA scientist who spent years developing intelligent software for the International Space Station before Kynan McGrath poached him with an offer he couldn’t refuse.He built BOB with Bebe Grimshaw, but the thermal dispersal suits are entirely Dozer’s.He holds a PhD from Stanford and has an IQ that makes the rest of us feel slow.But he’s not all brains as he was a former all-pro linebacker, which means he can kick ass with the best of us.He runs R&D out of a small Jameson office in Miami now, which means tonight he’s with us the only way he can be.
Through the earpiece.
“The membrane is woven into the outer layer,” he continues.“Toggle activates a dispersal field that redistributes your body heat laterally across the surface rather than letting it bloom outward.To a thermal scope you’ll read as ambient temperature… nothing more than background noise.”A pause.“You’ve got a two-hour window before bleed-through starts, so don’t dawdle.”
“NowthatI can promise,” Reid mutters, checking his toggle.
“How confident are you in it?”I ask Dozer as I pull on my gloves.
His voice is deep, rumbling with confidence.“I’d stake my reputation on it.”
“I’m asking about our lives, Dozer.”
