Page 48 of 72 Hours

“None of them? The guys should all be at the hospital by now.”

I met his puzzled eyes with my own. “None of them.”

“Dammit, Tanner, we have to think this through. Who’s behind it all? It’s not Simon—of course it’s not—but a lot of our clues still remain. He’s been the least targeted and holds the most information. He has access to all the systems and is involved in most of Judith’s decision making at some stage or another. His involvement was feasible enough for me to consider it, even while I didn’t want to believe it. He holds so many keys....”

“Or his section does.”

“Not him specifically, then?”

“No,” I said slowly. I’d been doing some more thinking while Niall was out and about on his troubleshooter missions around the site. Hell of a lot more thinking. “Consider someone with a similar access to equipment and services, but who doesn’t have Simon’s security clearance or his intelligence. Someone who’d have to dig a little deeper and a little more messily to try to find out more information about the Project Team, but could do it if he were determined.”

Niall’s body stilled, and his voice sharpened. “Someone who wanted to keep tabs on us all but didn’t need to gather much information about Simon himself.”

I nodded. “Yeah—because Simon was the one person our suspect could watch from the inside.”

Niall’s expression darkened. He sat like a coiled spring, staring ahead of him. I remembered this concentration of his so well. He was careless of how he looked; I wanted to reach over and brush the wisps of cobweb from his hair.

“Someone who made us fish for these red herrings, Tanner, who led us to suspect our own colleague, set traps for us and kept us on the wrong foot for days, while trying to isolate and attack the team members.”

“With variable success,” I said, dryly. “You might say someone a little naïve, not very experienced in our ways. But with a determination that’s still fucking dangerous.”

Niall ran a hand over his eyes and sighed. “And I let him go.”

There was a short silence.

“He was good, Niall. I believed him too. He looked too scared, too pathetic to be the real danger. I knew there was something out of place, but I didn’t follow up on my instincts. Anyway, we didn’t find the right gun on him—”

“Because he hid it under the trailers before Dylan caught him. Along with the bomb. I meant it, if I’d only looked further instead of being so damned concerned about you getting shot....”

I shook my head. “He was damned cool. I reckon the bomb was already set before he shot me. We never found any evidence on him of any explosive stuff. Maybe he didn’t plan to shoot anyone, it was just extra insurance for him. Or a distraction, so we never suspected anything else. I don’t know. Lucky the little bastard was a poor shot, like you said.” I took a deep breath, calming my anger.

“No one sent him here officially,” Niall said miserably. “That should have alerted me from the start. But it was his nervous behaviour that made me start to wonder about Simon, to tell you the truth.”

“I think that’s what you were meant to do,” I said gently. “He’s been clumsy, but he’s not a complete fool. Damned good actor, at the very least. We both fell for it. He seemed to be a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, that was all.”

“Fuck it.” Niall groaned. “The dog knew more than I did.”

I shrugged, but I had to smile. “You’re right. Dylan didn’t like Greg from the start, even when they first brought you here. God knows how Greg got him off the site yesterday morning, leaving the coast clear for his sabotage. But then Junk brought Dylan back, nearly catching Greg in the act, I’d guess, but just that little bit too late for us to realise it. And Dylan’s been dog-nosing around the trailer ever since.”

“Maybe he saw Greg hide the gun. Hell, he was still keeping watch, even as we let Greg run back off home to the Team. Remember? Junk said the kid couldn’t get off the site without help.” He must have felt me tense up beside him, because he turned to me at last. “Do you think he has Sheri?”

“I know he does,” I said grimly. “She’s his hostage.”

“Any idea where?”

“I think she’s probably being held back at the hideout that Brad found.” Niall frowned, but I continued. “Yeah, Brad said it looked like it’d been cleared out. But that’d be all the more reason to go back to it, thinking we’d dismissed it, thinking the trail was cold.”

“One of those double bluffs I joked about earlier.” Niall sounded really pissed.

“Uh-huh. At our expense, this time.”

He put out a hand to me, then, patting my arm. It was a consoling, comradely gesture, and one I never thought I’d feel again. I wished I had time to appreciate it. “She’s special to you, Tanner, I know. Will we go get her?”

“Damn straight we will! I don’t know what this guy has against us, but as soon as I can get hold of Brad and find out where this fucking place is—”

The cell phone rang again.

I glared at it. “That phone hasn’t brought us any good news for a while.”