She rolled her eyes. “I don’t have a clue how I got into this.” She flashed a small smile at Logan. “Raoul is right, there are definite perks.”
“So the doctor wants the men to hook up with the women,” Logan said. “What’s the big deal?”
Lily frowned. “He made us all into weapons. Together, as a couple, we seem to be far more powerful, complementing or even amplifying the enhancements. Where before, a team could be sent in and the odds of success went up tenfold, imagine how much better if only two people could be sent in to clean up a mess, especially if the couple were as powerful as, or more so than, an entire team.”
Logan switched his gaze to Gator and Flame Fontenot and Nicolas and Dahlia Trevane. “Do you think it’s true? The two of you could handle a mission without the entire team and do just as well?”
The couples looked at one another, then nodded. “There’s no doubt, Logan, depending on what needed to be done,” Gator answered. “Flame and I manipulate sound, and without using Kadan-or someone else-as a shield to stop the corridor, it would get tricky, but we could definitely get the job done. Our abilities are amplified when we’re together. Both Flame and I are physically enhanced as well as psychically.”
“We are too,” Dahlia said, taking Nico’s hand. “And like Gator and Flame, we work very well together.”
Logan sighed. “This physical enhancement you’ve all mentioned… ”
“And you know perfectly well your entire team is enhanced,” Lily broke in.
Logan ran his finger around the collar of his shirt. “It’s just gene doping. Inserting our own DNA into our cells to pump them up, right?”
“That would be what most doctors are doing these days, but Dr. Whitney took it a step further,” Ryland said. “He developed a chromosome in order to insert DNA and enhance the entire body both physically as well as psychically.”
“Now I’m not understanding,” Logan admitted, frowning.
Lily tapped her pencil on the table again, the only sign that her earlier nervousness remained. “Actually, chromosomes come in pairs. Technically, he developed an extra pair of chromosomes. And that gave him eighty thousand extra genes to play with, which can encode a lot of capability. Whatever psychic attributes you already have, the experiments increased, but more were added when he inserted the extra chromosome for physical enhancement. For instance: there is a huge evolutionary distance between man and mosquito, but in spite of that, at a molecular level, both are equipped with the same chemosensory system.”
Logan whistled softly. “Whoa there. That’s a darned big jump from computers to chromosomes and mosquitoes. I’m guessing there’s a reason for that.”
“I found a file on Dr. Whitney’s computer relating to Jack Norton and one of the women he first experimented on. Apparently Jack and Ken Norton had, prior to undergoing physical and psychic enhancement, tremendous talent already in both areas. Both have extensive military training and are highly skilled.”
“They’re legendary as snipers,” Nicolas volunteered.
“Apparently Dr. Whitney believes so as well. He has been attempting for some time to manipulate Jack Norton into meeting a woman named Briony Jenkins. I want you to note Briony is a type of plant just as Lily, Dahlia, and Iris are.” She sent a faint apologetic smile to Flame for using the name Dr. Whitney had given her. “You know how he liked to dehumanize us. No real names and no birth dates.”
“Briony is one of our lost sisters,” Flame said softly, her fingers tightening around Gator’s. “I don’t remember her. Even when I try.” She rubbed her temples, frowning, trying to ease the headache that always accompanied working at remembering the girls Dr. Whitney had experimented on.
“In this case, Flame,” Lily explained, “I don’t think we’ve forgotten her just because he tried to erase our memories, it’s because she was very young when he sent her off. He actually did adopt her out.”
Flame leaned forward. “What? It’s not one of his elaborate stories to cover what he really did with her? He pretended Dahlia was adopted and he locked her up in a sanitarium. He certainly wrote a wonderful tale about my adoption when all the time I was locked in a laboratory being given cancer. Are you absolutely certain Briony was really adopted by someone?” There was a hitch in Flame’s voice.
Beneath the cover of the table, Gator wrapped his arm around her waist to give her comfort.
Lily inspected her hands before speaking. “My father was a man who believed in having as many controls as possible. I wasn’t enhanced physically, so I’m the control for that experiment. Briony was enhanced both physically and psychically, and he chose the parents he wanted for her, a circus family living in Europe. The father was a United States citizen and the mother was Italian. They already had four boys and wanted a daughter desperately. They were also in need of a lot of cash to buy in as partners for the circus.”
Lily looked around the room. “Flame and Dahlia were raised in a closed environment. Briony was raised with a family, although her training was directly overseen by my father. Detailed reports were sent weekly of Briony’s physical and psychic training. It was rigorous, although certainly she didn’t suffer from the training, but there were huge problems. Her family believed her to be autistic because she couldn’t function around people. She isn’t an anchor, and the toll on her not being able to filter out sound and emotion from those around her must have made her life hell. It’s obvious from his notes, Whitney wanted to see if, after being raised in a loving environment, Briony would have the same abilities as Flame and Dahlia. He feels a child raised by loving parents may lack determination. He deliberately sent a child, who wasn’t capable of living in close proximity to others without suffering severe pain, into a very crowded and public environment to see if she was tough enough. Whitney has many notations saying she surprised him with her abilities in the face of continual pain. From what I’ve read, in spite of numerous physical problems, she performs with her family, is extremely intelligent, and every bit as well trained as any GhostWalker. And he provided his own doctor for her care and designed her education, which her parents agreed to follow to the letter.”
Lily’s eyes glistened with tears for a moment. “I think he had her parents murdered when they objected to his sending her to Colombia. Jack Norton was in Colombia at the time. The parents were beginning to object to Whitney’s continual interference in their lives now that she was grown, and he wrote that they were in the way. Later he wrote: problem solved.”
Flame pressed her fingers against her mouth, her hand visibly shaking. “We have to find her, Lily. What does Whitney want from her?”
“He wants a baby. He wants the child to be a product of Jack Norton and Briony Jenkins. He’s spent millions maneuvering behind the scenes in order to bring them together. Right at this very moment, she’s in Kinshasa. She and her brothers were paid an exorbitant fee in order to get them to perform in a music festival there.”
There was another small silence. Logan broke it. “You’re saying Whitney was behind the senator’s plane going down in the Congo? That he tipped off General Ekabela that Ken Norton was leading a rescue mission?”
“
“Kinshasa is no small place,” Kadan pointed out.
“Briony’s brother is a former Navy SEAL and served with Jack. They have a history. Jack saved his life. I’d say the setup is more than perfect. Jack is going to go straight to him if he’s escaped.”
Kadan shook his head. “I can’t see Ekabela letting him get away no matter how much money Whitney pays him. Ekabela has wanted Jack for a long time. He knows Jack is capable of taking him out and would if the order came down. The general is going to kill him.”
“Certainly Whitney expects him to try. Whitney created the ultimate weapons. What’s the use if he can’t see them perform?” Ryland asked.
Logan swore softly under his breath. “Can we get to Jack?”
“We’ve tried. We hit two different camps where he was reputed to have been held. They were long gone. In the last one, it looked as if a fight had taken place. There were bodies and a lot of blood, but no Ekabela and no Jack.”
“What about Briony Jenkins? Can you get to her?”
“We need a way to extract Jack. If we warn her… ”
“So you’re using her as bait.” Flame’s head snapped up, her eyes stormy. “Is that what we are to you, Kadan? Is that what
