“I don’t know what’s going on, Jaimie, but I’m not leaving here until I know you’re safe. That warehouse may or may not be stocked with weapons. We’ll get inside and find out. We’re ghosts, that’s what we do. But not now, not tonight. Tonight your safety is the priority. We’ll have to figure out what’s going on.”
“He’s going to stay, isn’t he?”
Javier cursed inwardly. “Yeah, babe, he’s going to stay. He’d never take a chance with your life either.”
She sighed and shook her head. “You hungry?” Her head came up suddenly and she half turned toward the stairway.
Javier followed her gaze, keeping his voice as casual as ever. “I’m always hungry. You know that.”
Javier set down his coffee cup, caught Jaimie’s arm, and tugged even as she was moving away from the refrigerator, her eyes wide in understanding.
He gave her the signal to stay put right there and drew out a gun to hand her. Jaimie shook her head. He gave her his sternest scowl. It did no good.
The cold, grim tone made him hesitate. Mack wasn’t going to help his cause by getting angry. The last time Jaimie had a gun in her possession, things hadn’t ended up going very well.
She didn’t argue. She took the gun from Javier and laid it in her lap. She kept her face averted. Javier felt as if he’d slapped her. Tattling wasn’t fun. Jaimie stayed very still, drawing her knees up, trying desperately not to allow images into her mind. This wasn’t her life. She had left it all behind. She’d tried to tell Mack what was happening, but the adrenaline rush was too addictive for a man like him to do without. Who could ever compete with that? He didn’t care that the experiments had altered them genetically as well as enhanced their psychic abilities. Their GhostWalker team had brought them all back together. That was what Mack and Kane saw. A chance to be together again, to look out for one another, to use their considerable talents in a positive way and prevent the others-men like Javier who needed action-from doing anything that would land them in prison. Mack hadn’t seen how aggressive all the men were becoming. He hadn’t noticed a lot of things he should have noticed. He was swept up in the training and forgot the things Jaimie was good at.
She saw people differently. She felt things-knew things-and she knew they were being lied to. She saw through the patriotic talk and the propaganda, but Mack couldn’t hear her. He’d already been so far into the experiments and training that there was no reasoning with him. He knew she didn’t like urban warfare. She didn’t ever want to have to make a judgment call and risk killing an innocent. All Mack saw was a chance to use his incredible psychic talents to save the world. Because Jaimie was wired that way, and she never stopped digging, she managed to piece together a little information on the existing GhostWalker teams. There were four that she’d uncovered. The first and oldest was comprised mainly of men with army backgrounds, Rangers and Green Berets, although there was an FBI agent with extensive military training on it as well. The men had undergone a tremendous number of experiments as well as training. A few of them were anchors, men who would draw the overload of psychic energy from the others so they could function properly. They usually worked together as a team, the anchor staying close to those who couldn’t work without one.
The newspapers had reported that Dr. Peter Whitney, the brains behind the GhostWalker experiments, had been murdered, yet she’d had contact with him after that time. Brian Hutton had worked in a unit that had guarded a facility where he’d been working, and several others, Kane among them, had done so as well. She had a high security clearance and had continued to help analyze information. During that time she’d kept tabs on her family to ensure they were all doing fine and no one was double-crossing them as she suspected had happened to Team One. She rubbed her temples, trying to stop the headache already pounding there in spite of Javier’s presence. Team Three-Mack’s team-was comprised of all anchors, very rare in the world of GhostWalkers, and she knew they often had to work alone on their assignments, impossible for someone overcome by psychic overload. She had been the exception. She still wondered why they’d made the exception for her, as she wasn’t an anchor and couldn’t work alone. She believed Mack and Kane had something to do with the decision, but she couldn’t be certain. She’d never been able to access her own records. For all her skills, she hadn’t been able to get to her file-and that bothered her more than anything.
Something was going on and the men didn’t seem to question it as she had. Team Two was comprised of mainly SEALs. There had been a few shady things happening within that team as well. Jaimie scrubbed her hand over her face. Two of those men had been lured into the Congo and tortured, barely escaping with their lives. Someone was trying to destroy the teams. To her mind, the third team, Mack’s team, was the most vulnerable.
As urban warfare specialists, Team Three was sent over and over into situations that would fray the nerves of the most skilled combatants. Urban warfare was a dangerous art, a unique combat that only the most gifted and steady men could really handle for long periods of time and, sadly, it was becoming a necessity. She feared for the team’s vulnerability. If someone in their own government was working against them, it wouldn’t be that difficult to put them in harm’s way.
As for the fourth team, comprised of mainly the elite Air Force Pararescue Special Forces, they were ghosts in the wind, as was their commander. She had uncovered little about that team beyond their confirmed existence.
The tapping of a finger on the counter caught her attention. She looked up.
She nodded. But she wasn’t. Her stomach was in knots and she wanted to throw up. This was not coincidence. She’d worked hard to get out of that life, to build a future, not only for herself but for the others. They would need it later, when all was said and done-if they survived. Psychics had a difficult time without a controlled environment. She meant to build up a surplus of money and a safe haven for her family. Instinctively, like she knew so many other things, she knew everything she’d worked for was being threatened.
Mack’s voice whispered in Javier’s ear this time, using the radio so Paul was a part of the orders. “Come up behind them, Kane.”
Gideon’s voice interrupted. “We’ve got a sleeper, boss. Third window, second story. I caught a flash.”
“You certain?”
“Don’t insult me. He had to have seen Javier take out his men.”
There was a small silence as Mack examined the two dead men. “These men are military,” Mack’s voice nearly growled. “What the hell’s going on?”
Javier’s heart jumped. “You telling me I killed a couple of our own?”
“We’re getting pictures and fingerprints. No IDs on them, but they’re military. They came prepared to take her,” Mack assured. “They have an injector that looks like a tranq, but we won’t know until we test it. Ties. Firepower. They aren’t innocent, so don’t sweat it.”
Easier said than done. Javier shook his head and tried a few deep breaths to settle his churning gut. His every instinct had told him they were the enemy, but military? The same side? “What the hell are we into here, boss?”
Jaimie shook her head. She couldn’t hear what Javier was saying, but she could read lips. They were all questioning what they were involved in. She’d made a mistake thinking the government would let her go. Once a GhostWalker, always a GhostWalker. She thought working as an analyst would satisfy them, but obviously she’d been wrong. Whatever was happening, the power orchestrating behind the scenes was determined to draw her back in, and planned on using Mack and her family to do it.
A spurt of resentment had her kicking out at the wall in defiance. She’d told Mack. How like him to just go his own way with all of them following him, no one bothering to think about the how and why of anything. Now they were all in this mess. She’d done her best to convince them, but would any of them listen to her? She had a brain. A
