She suppressed a small hysterical laugh. That was a gentle way of saying it. 'Whitney wouldn't put it that way. He creates a situation and sits back and observes. He isn't messy enough to force us. He leaves that to the men.' She pressed her lips together and turned away from him. How could she be giving up information? Personal, vital, information. She had to be drugged.
'Whitney is a first-class bastard.' Ken moved, a rippling of muscle, a gliding of silent steps across the room until he was once more beside her and she could breathe him into her lungs. His palm was cool on her forehead as he brushed back strands of her hair. 'He faked his own death and has gone underground. Someone high up is helping him. After Jack met Briony-'
'How? This all seems too big of a coincidence for me to swallow. You just happened to be the shooter when we were supposed to protect the senator. You miss when you've probably never missed in your life.'
'I didn't miss.'
'You missed.'
A ghost of a smile pulled at his mouth. His even white teeth flashed. The effect was breathtaking. Her stomach somersaulted. Even her broken fingers tingled-fingers he had crushed. She remembered the swift attack, so fast he seemed a blur of movement. Even as she'd tried to fulfill her promises to the other women, she had admired his efficiency.
'Tell me,' she urged.
'It started with Senator Freeman. He was flying over the Congo, over rebel territory, and his plane went down. Mysteriously. General Ekabela. who was renowned for torturing prisoners, didn't touch the senator, the pilot, or anyone traveling on that plane. At the very least, the pilot should have been killed.' He waited a moment, letting the implications of that sink in. 'Jack was supposed to lead a rescue mission and pull the senator out. The orders came down, but Jack was still in Colombia. He'd run into a snag there, so I took his place.'
'You led a team into rebel territory to get the senator and his people out, but things didn't go well.' Her gaze drifted over the terrible scars.
'They were waiting for us. We were ambushed and I was cut off from my unit. They were definitely after me, singling me out and sending in so many soldiers I didn't have a chance. My men got the prisoners out and I was captured.'
Again, she was struck by the complete lack of inflection in his voice. He showed no emotion, when she felt the emotion like a raging volcano churning beneath the tranquil surface. She couldn't imagine what the pain had been like-or the fear.
'How long did he have you?'
'An eternity. I knew Jack would come for me. Later I found out three rescue attempts had been made, but the rebels moved me constantly from camp to camp. By the time Jack found me, I was in pretty bad shape. I don't remember anything but seeing his face. There wasn't a whole lot of me left.'
'Ekabela had you cut like that?'
'Sliced into little pieces and then he skinned my back. Peeled it right off, like those deer on the senator's porch.'
'So you had every reason to want Senator Freeman dead.' She made the statement quietly, watching his face for a reaction.
'I still want him dead.'
Chapter 3
'Well at least you aren't lying to me.' Mari held her breath, afraid to move. She'd gone from suspicion to belief and now she had to backtrack. Why would anyone be stupid enough to send in a skilled sniper to protect the senator when he clearly had a reason to see him dead? It made no sense.
Ken shrugged his broad shoulders. 'Why would I deny it? I thought about killing him and saving everyone the trouble. So did Jack. But it smelled too much like a setup to me. If someone managed to kill him. we were right there, patsies to take the fall. Why would anyone order us to protect that man?'
'It doesn't make sense.' she agreed, noncommittal.
'Out of curiosity, how can you be trained as a sniper when you're not an anchor? Briony can't use a gun against anyone without terrible repercussions.'
'I have an anchor. He draws the aftermath of violence away from me.'
'Your spotter.'
She nodded, watching his face. Shadows flickered in his silver eyes, turning them charcoal gray, giving them a smoldering appearance, as if any moment they might shoot flames.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He wasn't quite made out of stone, as he would have her believe.
'Is your spotter paired with you?'
Was there an edge to his voice? Not really, but there was a heightened alertness in him. 'No, he's a friend. Was any of my unit killed back there?'
'I didn't ask. I can have Jack find out for you. It was odd that the moment you were shot, everyone in your unit backed off the senator and fell back to try to protect you. Why would they do that?'
Sean had to have been injured. He had been closest to her and should have gotten to her position before the enemy. She sent up a silent prayer that he was still alive. He was a good soldier and the closest thing to a male friend she had. 'I can't answer that.'
'I seem to be giving you a lot of information, but you aren't giving me anything in return.'
She was giving more than she should have, and both of them knew it. 'If it was just my life I was risking, I might tell you what you want to know. I don't have any loyalty to Whitney, or I wouldn't have gone AWOL and tried to get to the senator.'
'You're protecting the others, the women, aren't you?' Now there was an edge to his voice, the ice cracking just a bit, enough to let out a wave of heat. 'He's going to hurt them if you don't return.'
She said nothing, her heart pounding. Was she that transparent? Whitney would kill one of them. He'd started with seven, all raised together in that miserable compound, a life of duty and discipline where few things from the outside world were permitted and everything was recorded. They'd learned to move in the shadows and time the cameras to avoid detection. They'd learned to talk late at night, congregating in the bathroom with water running and signing their conversations, until Marigold had discovered she could build a telepathic bridge and they could all communicate that way. Those women were her family. She'd accepted her life and had pride in her abilities, until Whitney had changed everything.
Cami had protested and tried to escape. She'd been caught and Whitney had ordered a name drawn. One of the other women, Ivy, had been taken away, and a few minutes later they heard shots. There was blood on the walls, but no one had seen the body. They tried to tell themselves he hadn't really killed her, but no one tried to escape after that.
'That's why you tried to kill yourself. If you were dead, he wouldn't have a reason to punish the others. And your unit knew he might kill one of the other women, a woman they might be paired with.' He swore softly under his breath. 'Someone has to kill that son of a bitch and fast. Why would you think the senator would help you? He's friends with Whitney. He's been helping him.'
She raised an eyebrow. 'You don't know anything about the senator.'
Ken studied her face. He'd given her a lot of shocks very fast. She was doped up, her eyes unfocused, and the news of her sister had thrown her completely off guard. The revelations about Whitney garnered him a little trust. He knew his guesses about the threats to the other women had been right on. Whitney didn't care about his human subjects-they were all expendable. He frowned. Maybe not the women. He could make more supersoldiers. but it would be difficult to find women he had data on almost from birth. 'Tell me about Senator Freeman.'
'He isn't friends with Whitney. They don't like each other. I think they went to school together, but the senator's father and Jacob Abrams are best friends. The two of them have tried to keep Whitney from doing so many experiments. They've talked to him countless times. I've heard them. They told him he had to stop, that he was jeopardizing everything.
'Senator Freeman violently objects to the things Whitney has done,' she continued. 'In front of Whitney, he
