by the love he saw in her eyes right before she turned and ran into an open field filled with smoke.
He needed to get to her to clean the laceration in her side. The last thing she needed was an infection, and with the wound open she could easily get one. Mostly he wanted to find a place to take shelter and let her rest. He had told her the babies would be fine, but he wasn’t so certain. He hadn’t had a chance to read the entire book on pregnancy, and he was worried.
Briony parted the brambles and stepped out cautiously. Black smoke drifted by and curled around the tops of bushes and scrub trees. Ken moved up in front of her, his gun ready, eyes quartering the area around them with methodical patience. Behind them, Jack did the same thing.
“Follow Ken, baby. He’ll lead you through the brush. Not too far from here we’ve got a small camp set up. You can rest there until nightfall.”
“You don’t think they’ll come after us?”
“That’s the idea. They’ll think we’re trapped here, and sooner or later they’ll make their move.”
“I need to find Luther, Jack. He can lead us back to Mari.”
“You’re absolutely certain you have a sister? Whitney might be just as capable of planting memories as taking them away.”
Briony reached for him, mind to mind, trying to make him feel what she felt-the emptiness, the joy of discovery, the sound of two voices mingling together. Jack and Ken had used telepathy-so had Briony and Mari.
“Try it. Try now,” Jack suggested. He took her arm as they walked into a shallow stream. “The rocks are brutal, here, Briony. Watch your step.”
Briony concentrated on remembering her sister-how it felt to be with her, to see her and interact with her, to be close to her. She felt the rocks sharp and slippery beneath her feet and the cold water seeping into her shoes, but her mind was already stretching, reaching for Mari.
Silence. Emptiness. Briony pressed a hand to her aching heart. “I can’t reach her, Jack.”
“Then we know she isn’t somewhere close by,” he answered.
His usual calm steadied her. “She’s probably here in the States, though, right?”
“It won’t be hard to trace Luther. If he flew in or out of the country at any point, we should be able to find a starting point. If he attacked you in Italy, he had to fly home and report to someone.”
“I don’t think Whitney is in the States. I would get sick and Mom would call a number and Dr. Sparks would be there in a day. Sometimes within hours. Kadan told me Whitney has several private jets able to land at military bases around the world. If he has that kind of clout, he could easily smuggle someone out of one country and into another,” Briony protested. “If these jets are used to bring prisoners from one place to another without the world knowing, Whitney could certainly get Luther in and out of the United States with no problem.” She placed both hands protectively over her stomach. “He could take me out of the country.”
“Not a chance, little darlin’,” Ken said. “The United States was Whitney’s stomping ground. He has friends in high places, and he certainly uses CIA tactics to run covert operations. He’s embedded deep here, and yes, he may have places overseas, but he’s going to want to stay right where he knows he has help-and that’s the United States.”
“How can we trust anyone?” Briony asked. “In the file Kadan gave me, there was an entire section on corporations that were fronts, and jets and military bases around the world, and hidden laboratories. You know he’s got to have help. He isn’t alone in this. He’s creating an army of supersoldiers for someone.”
Jack helped her over a particularly large set of rocks, up onto the embankment. “Don’t sound so scared, Briony. He isn’t going to get you.”
“He has my sister.”
“We’ll find her. I’ve got a few friends I trust,” Jack said, glancing at Ken over her head.
Ken cleared his throat. “We’re going on the assumption your sister-if she really exists-wants out. Whitney’s managed to get quite a few men working for him and they appear fanatical. Is it possible she wants to be exactly where she is?”
“Luther said it wasn’t necessary for the woman to agree. I think Whitney wants to see how far she’ll go to fight him-and how far his supersoldier walking sperm banks will go to keep her.” She touched her cheek. “Luther went from being gentle with me, talking reasonable, to flashes of jealousy and anger. No, I don’t think she wants to be there, Ken. I think she’s being held prisoner and they’re hurting her to get her cooperation. I want to find her.”
“We’ll find her, Briony,” Jack assured her.
They followed a faint deer path into a thick grove of trees. The branches overhead intertwined to form a thick canopy, providing shade and a refuge against the helicopter searching methodically above them. Jack went directly over to several thick ferns and pushed the leaves back, feeling along the ground until he found a rope.
The trapdoor opened to reveal a pit wide enough to accommodate supplies. He pulled out a heavy crate and set it to one side. Beneath it was a second one.
“Good grief. Are you planning on staying awhile?”
“We like comfort,” Ken explained. “All the amenities of home. It’s called being prepared, little sister. Better to stash a few supplies here and there then get caught with your pants down.”
Jack spread out a groundsheet and tossed a sleeping bag on it, gesturing for Briony to sit down. “Everything but the baby book. Next time, we’ll think to include things like that in all our caches, so if we lose one, we’ll have another.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“He’s not,” Ken said. “He’s always got books to read. I’m a music man myself.”
She sat in the shade watching the two men set up a lethal field around the small camp. They seemed to have thought of everything. They had several small tabs to use should they need warmth, as well as supplies to eat. Mostly, she noticed, they had ammunition, guns, and explosives.
“Lay back, baby. Let me take care of that wound on your hip,” Jack instructed. He heated up water using one of the field tabs. Crouching beside her, he pushed up her shirt and indicated she shove down her jeans enough to give him room to work.
“It doesn’t hurt as bad now that we’re not running,” she told him.
“You’re covered in blood.”
“I was running. It was bound to bleed a lot. I didn’t stick anything important,” she said. “I was very careful.”
He removed the blood-soaked gauze and peered closely at the small stitches. “Not a bad job, but a little uneven. You did better on me.”
“Not a bad job?” She squeaked the words, glaring at him. “I sewed it up myself, thank you very much.”
Ken burst out laughing. “He said the same thing to me once.”
Briony winced as Jack cleaned the wound again with the hot water and antiseptic. It burned and stung enough to bring tears to her eyes. “Where were you? How’d you get hurt?”
“Afghanistan,” Ken said. “There’s a ten-thousand-foot ridge known as the Whale’s Back on the west side of a valley, and on the east the Shah-e-Kot mountains rise above, with the enemy sitting up around ten to twelve thousand feet, using everything from small arms, to mortar and heavy machine guns. The infantry was caught in the valley humping over bare ground with heavy gear and no cover. The enemy had all the advantages, sending heavy fire from very defensible positions, inflicting heavy causalities on the infantrymen.”
“When you say infantry, aren’t you talking a lot of troops?”
Ken shrugged. “I think a couple of battalions. They were chasing the resistance into the mountains in an attempt to mop up after the battle. We were sent in to provide additional defense for the troops.”
“Ow!” Briony slapped at Jack’s hand as he poured liquid over the wound. It burned even worse than the first brew he’d used.
“Stop being a baby,” Jack murmured. “You sound just like Ken.”
“I take it the situation got bad,” Briony prompted, gritting her teeth. Her side hurt worse than when she was running. The talk distracted her, and in any case, she liked catching glimpses into their world.
Jack pressed fresh gauze to the wound. “It went to hell very fast. The two battalions were taking heavy
