Page 34 of The Ghost

“Trackers?” I asked.

“Not trackers,” he corrected. “Digital keys.”

“Explain,” I commanded.

“Ashcroft is positioning weapons around the world, creating a network. When he’s ready, they will all be deployed simultaneously,” Regg spilled his guts, giving me all the details in the hopes that I would be persuaded to spare his life. “Each of the agents had a separate key. But Clark has the master. He needs her if he’s going to detonate them all.”

“If each agent had a separate key, why did you kill them?” I questioned, trying to put all the pieces together into a coherent whole.

“If an agent plays along, and is on the right side of history, we let them live. But if they don’t, we just take the key back and do away with the host,” Regg replied, giving me a sinister little smile that did nothing for his cause.

“But Clark hasn’t seen Ashcroft for years,” I argued.

“How long do you think he’s been planning this?” Regg gasped. “He’s been at this for more than two decades. The dude is crazy.”

“He may be crazy, but at least he’s not a traitor,” I concluded. “He never pretended to be anything else.”

“You don’t know him,” Regg said, shaking a finger at him.

“And I don’t intend to,” I replied.

“Take me with you,” Regg requested. He could see my intentions clear as day and wanted to forestall the inevitable. “I could be a valuable source of information.”

“I don’t think so,” I cut him off. “You made a fatal mistake when you tried to kill me and Clark.”

“I was just following orders,” he complained.

“They were the wrong orders to follow,” I answered, firing two quick shots directly into his brain.

I was done with the conversation. I was done with Regg and all his fanaticism. He’d picked his team and made his bed, and I wasn’t going to encourage that kind of behavior. I knew all along that I wasn’t going to bring him back alive. I would make up some excuse for George and Lukas, telling them that my hand had been forced. It would be days before they realized what happened, and by then it would be too late.

I had the location of the New Dawn fortress, and an insight into Ashcroft’s plan. It was time to return to Clark and let her know what I’d found out. I hoped that we would be able to extract the key from her shoulder and get her out from under Ashcroft’s thumb.

As long as we had the key, we still had the upper hand. It was that fact, along with my love for Clark, that kept me going. I retrieved the phone from where it lay on the ground, pressed Regg’s thumb print to the home button to unlock the device, and scrolled until I found what I needed. Then I put the phone in my pocket and walked out the door.

Chapter 16

Theo

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I RETRACED MY STEPS to the jet and got clearance from the Dark Sparrow base in Norway to take off. I informed Lukas that I was on my way back, and he gave me permission to land. It was a bit tricky to guide the jet down on the smaller runway hidden by trees that the central base used in case of emergencies. But I was nothing if not professional, and I made it back quickly.

I hurried through the post-flight routine, getting out of my suit and making sure the jet was handed off to the engineers. I hurried through the base, wanting to find Clark. I needed to tell her about the digital key and make sure she got it removed as soon as possible. But there was one thing I needed to do first.

I couldn’t allow New Dawn to conduct any more business on my watch. The one thing Regg hadn’t shared was the timeline. I knew that Ashcroft had all the hardware in place, the nuclear bombs and the digital keys he needed from slain operatives. But how soon he was going to push the button was another thing entirely. Of course, he couldn’t do it without Clark, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t very close to unleashing Armageddon.

I paused at the elevator, debating which way to go. If I hit the ‘down’ button, that would take me to the crew quarters, where I would look for Clark. If I hit ‘up,’ that would take me to the command center, where I was likely to find Lukas.

I couldn’t choose. Either way, it was imperative that I find Clark and get that thing out of her. Knowing what I did about New Dawn’s strategy, I was reasonably certain that they couldn’t destroy the world without it. Yet if I wasted even a second getting the coordinates up the chain of command, I might blow our opportunity for a raid.

Finally, my rational mind won out. I would just have to trust that Clark was okay and delay our reunion by a few minutes. I could drop off the phone, give Lukas my assessment of the situation, and then hightail it down to our bunk.

Riding up, I hoped I was making the right choice. Knowing what it was that my girlfriend held in her body made me nervous. What if the thing was radioactive and causing her some kind of harm? Didn’t I owe it to her to minimize the time she had to spend with that chip implanted?

I strode out of the elevator to find both Clark and Lukas in the command center. I went straight to her, all professionalism aside. She opened her arms and welcomed me in. I took a step back after we embraced and checked the skin beneath her shirt. It was smooth and unblemished, not even a spot of scar tissue to mark the intrusive object.

I frowned. “Did you get your shoulder checked out?”