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“This isn’t Anton — he’d just use our chips, not send a hit squad. This is something else.” Timo turns back to me. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
I lift off my motorcycle helmet and watch their reactions. They stare in silent shock. It’s been eight months since I died. Maybe they knew Eyal and the others got away before Anton shot me, but they definitely thought I was dead.
“That’s impossible,” Lincoln says, shaking his head.
Timo laughs. It starts off soft, like he heard a reasonably good joke, but it turns to tears. He slumps in his seat as much as his bindings will allow, shaking his head.
“How?” he cries.
“I had some help, and I had some luck,” I say.
“Ingram, you have to help us,” Timo says. “We want Anton dead as much as you, but he has us chipped. If he dies, so do we. We can get you weapons, vehicles, anything. If you can knock him unconscious long enough, he won’t be able to give kill commands.”
“Is that all?” I ask. There’s no guarantee that would work. What if the implants are set to detonate if Anton’s vitals show an unexpected sleep pattern? They have no way of knowing for sure. “If it’s that easy, why do you need me?”
“Because you’re a dead man!” Lincoln replies, nodding along now. “He’ll never see you coming. He’s not watching your finances, or tapping your calls.”
All valid points. But, I didn’t come here to strike a deal with these men. And his plan has a big flaw.
“You don’t think Anton has redundancies?” I say. “Are you stupid?”
Timo and Lincoln glance at each other.
This is why Jamison wanted me to take over the Masters: men past a certain age just don’t have enough imagination when it comes to tech.
“Lucky for you, I have a better plan,” I continue, taking out my phone. I load up the camera and begin shooting. “But first, tell me everything you know about what Anton’s doing to Kate.”
“Put that away and delete that,” Lincoln growls.
“Talk,” I reply. “Or I’ll leave you two here to starve to death.”
“Oh, fuck it,” says Timo. “He’s turned her into a fucking ventriloquist dummy. You’ve seen her show, right?”
“Yeah,” I snap. I force myself to watch it — to know what they’re putting her through. It makes me livid, but it’s been the least I could do, especially while my injury healed.
“Anton forces her to do all that. If she gets out of line, he’ll kill her friends. And when she’s not at the studio taping, she’s kept in a prison cell in her old apartment. Except on weekends and holidays; then they keep her at the Enclave.”
Excellent. That’s the intel I really needed; most of it, anyway.
“What are they doing to her?” I ask, though I truly don’t want the answer.
“They don’t rape her, if that’s what you’re getting at,” answers Lincoln. “They just humiliate her — treat her like shit.”
That’s a relief. I had held out hope that based on Kate’s composure on television she wasn’t being badly abused, but she must have scars at this point. If she’s damaged past the point of no return, I don’t know what I’ll do to Anton — the pain I’ll inflict hasn’t been felt in the history of mankind. I will invent new ways for him to suffer.
I shut off the recording, then open a channel to Eyal.
“We’re ready,” I say to him. “Show in the specialist.”
After a minute, they arrive. Gray-haired and wrinkled, but healthy, fit and sharp, the specialist could pass for a woman twenty years younger. She wears loose, green scrubs and a surgical mask, leaving only her steely eyes exposed.
“Who the hell is this?” asks Timo.
“Gentlemen, meet Dr. Talia Grenoble,” I say. “Ex-wife of Peter Grenoble, the medical examiner that set a young Simon Wilson on his way to a new life. She’s here to honor her ex-husband and lend her medical expertise.”
As Peter warned me a lifetime ago, she wasn’t easy to find. When I went looking for her, I didn’t even know she was a doctor — but I felt someone ought to tell her why Peter made the choices he did, that he sought to protect her all those years ago, even if it drove her away.
Tell me what I can do to destroy Simon Wilson, she said to me.
