Ken slipped into the scraggly hedges surrounding the small community of houses just as a guard came around the side of the house and stopped, the heels of his boots within a foot of Ken's elbow. Ken's breath caught in his lungs--he stayed absolutely still, allowing ants and beetles to crawl over him. A lizard tickled his arm as it raced up it in little starts and stops, until it perched on his shoulder, pumping up and down, scenting the air.
The guard took three steps forward and halted again, turning fast as if he was trying to spot something--or someone. Ken's brows drew together. Had he made a sound? The whisper of clothes along the ground? He took care that his skin reflected the foliage around him. His specially designed clothes reflected the colors of his surroundings.
What had tipped off the guard? Ken slid his hand inch by inch along his jacket until he reached the knife strapped to the front. His fingers wrapped around the hilt, but he left it in the scabbard. He could draw and throw almost before others could squeeze a trigger. The move had been practiced hundreds of hours over the last few years, and he was every bit as accurate at throwing as he was with a rifle.
I've got him.
Jack's voice was without emotion, a statement of fact. If the guard twitched wrong, he was a dead man, and then all hell would break loose fast.
I'll take him out and hide the body. Ken was beginning to sweat. He could hear the man breathing, smell his fear, see the nerves as he searched the hillsides carefully. He's got to be enhanced, Jack. He's using either vision or hearing, but he hasn't locked on to you. They couldn't afford for the guard to raise the alarm. Something was making him nervous, but Ken couldn't figure it out. There was no telltale tree cancer where a part of Jack's weapon might be showing along the side of the tree trunk. No shiny objects. Jack had the same ability to camouflage his skin, the same reflective clothing. He disappeared into his surroundings until he was invisible. Ken knew exactly where Jack was, yet he couldn't spot him, and if he couldn't with his eagle sight, he was damned certain the guard couldn't either.
He's psychic. He's not feeling our energy when we're talking, but he's catching something else, he warned his brother. Don't move a muscle.
They both watched as the guard quartered the area with a slow, careful search. He didn't reach for his field glasses, and that told both of them he had enhanced sight. Ken tried to draw into himself, careful to keep his breath smooth and even and silent. All the while he kept his attention on the guard, not daring to risk another look at his brother. If the guard spotted Jack, Ken would have to kill him swiftly and in utter silence, before the man had a chance to either raise the alarm or turn a weapon on Jack.
Without warning Mari's fear filled his mind. It poured into him as if he were wide open with no careful shields built to protect him. His body shook with the overload. Air left his lungs in a rush, his mouth went dry, and his heart seemed to stop, then began to pound so loud he was afraid the guard would overhear. Sweat broke out on his brow--none of it was good when he was feet from an enhanced soldier.
He drew air into his lungs, pushed past Mari's fear, and stayed focused on his enemy. He was so close to the man, he knew he could get to his feet and wrap his arm around the soldier and plunge the knife in a kill zone, all in a few seconds, but the man would still have time to react. Physical enhancement made them abnormally strong, and GhostWalkers were taught to fight to their last breath. The guard might just be tough enough to have time to raise an alarm. Desperation was beginning to settle in. Ken forced his body under control and remained waiting, but all the while a growing terror for Mari's safety spread.
She'll be all right. You've got to trust her.
Jack's calm voice helped to keep Ken from rising up and taking a chance on disposing of the guard just so he could get to Mari as fast as possible. He waited, willing the man to move on. If he used mind control to get the man off of him, the outpouring of energy might very will tip off every other psychic in the compound. He breathed deep and felt for her. Mari. Her fear was for someone else. He could live with that.
The guard relaxed after another long, slow look around, and ambled off around the corner of the small house. Ken waited another three minutes to make certain the man wasn't doubling back.
You're clear, Jack said.
Ken crawled forward, sliding through the neat flower garden, a rather strange and prissy bed of color out in the middle of nowhere. The windows of the house were painted black, and where there was a small bit of streaking, he could see heavy drapes blocking any view of the interior.
The doctor doesn't want anyone prying into his business. Why else would his windows be all blacked out?
He's probably paranoid. Wouldn't you be, living here with Whitney for a boss?
Ken didn't answer. The window appeared to be clear of an alarm, but he wasn't buying it. The doctor had something to hide, and he was going to find out what. He listened for the low hum of an electronic alarm. His fingers swept the sill, searching for hidden trip wires. Oh, yeah, the place was locked down tight.
Ken placed his hand just over the glass. It was much more difficult detecting currents of energy with his body so scarred, particularly his hands. Sometimes he failed to feel things the way he should. He waited, counting the seconds, concentrating, willing himself to sense the current if it was there. If he didn't find one, he would put it down to the lack of ability in his fingertips and proceed on the premise that one was there, but if he could just spot the current running through the foil wire in the glass, things would go a lot faster.
Ken cursed the scars that left him with so little feeling. He couldn't detect the faint current, but when he listened, he was fairly certain that the doctor had an outside perimeter alarm. But the doc wouldn't just rely on that. He'd have something more sophisticated inside. A sensor system would detect infrared energy. The sensor was sensitive to the temperature of the human body. In front of each door was a harmless-looking floor mat, one Ken was certain had a pressure trigger.
The doc is protecting something. I'm going to look for the control box. He has to have one hidden around here somewhere.
Maybe this isn't such a good idea, Jack said uneasily. You go in there and you're probably going to kill the bastard, and how do we hide that?
Of course he was going to kill the doctor. The man had touched Mari. He had humiliated and embarrassed her and he'd enjoyed it. Maybe Ken shouldn't have shared her thoughts, but it was too late, the information had been exchanged and he'd let it happen. He hated himself for that. She deserved so much better. He should have gone in, guns blazing, and pulled her out, but he hadn't. He'd stood by and let them torment her. What the hell kind of man was he?
Ken. Are you even listening to me? We've got a team coming in. We're going to pull the women out of there.
What the hell would you do if it was Briony? Ken demanded.
There was a small silence. You know what I'd do.
Then shut the hell up and keep them off my back.
Ken found the control box neatly tucked away under the eaves up near the attic. He'd spotted a small cable hidden along a pipe and followed it up until he spotted the box. The controls had to be set from someone leaning out the attic window or from the roof itself. The doctor thought he was clever, but unless the roof was wired as well, it simply made things easier.
I'm going up.
You're clear now, but you have two guards circling around toward your position.
Ken went up the side of the house as silently as possible, sliding onto the roof as one of the guards strode into view. The second guard joined him, and they spoke briefly before they each went their separate ways. Ken remained still as the footsteps faded.
You're clear.
The control box was hooked up to several alarm circuits but had its own power supply. It wasn't all that difficult to disarm it and deactivate the numerous alarms the doctor had set.
Ken gained entrance through the grate in the attic. At once he could hear classical music blaring through
the house. The scent of candles, sweat, and semen assailed him the moment he entered. Although the doctor had his music up loud, Ken kept his weight evenly distributed as he crept across the floor to the stairs, to prevent any creaks from alerting the man to the danger threatening him. He removed the small door leading below and peered down. The house was dark, with only a few candles flickering, casting eerie shadows on the walls. Ken's jaw tightened and adrenaline surged once again. The lights from the candles illuminated the wallpaper, throwing faces and female body parts into sharp relief.
Ken inverted as he dropped through the floor, and then righted himself, landing on his feet as silently as a cat. Floor-to-ceiling collages on every wall were of naked women stretched out on tables in a disgusting depiction of medical art. He recognized Mari, all ages, from young girl, teen, to woman. The light spilled across her face, and he could see every emotion in the various pictures, from fear to defiance and anger.
The entire room was dedicated to Mari. There were pictures of her back striped with cane marks, of her legs and bare buttocks, all naked. There were close-ups of her mouth, eyes, breasts, and vaginal area. He stopped at the edge of the wall where the doctor had been busy putting up the latest pictures. Close-ups of the inside of Mari's thighs revealed strawberries and faint teeth marks, marks Ken had put there when he was making love to her. The pictures were raw, almost sexual in nature, an obscene portrayal of what had been the most important moments of his life.
Holding Mari in his arms, taking her with wild abandon, her body willing and receptive in spite of his roughness, in spite of his scars and appearance, had given him back his life. She had given him hope, and the doctor had reduced what they had together to something vile for a sick mind. Bile rose in his throat and he fought a churning stomach as he looked into Mari's eyes. This time he saw humiliation and degradation. She hated what Whitney and the doctor had done with their lovemaking every bit as much as Ken did.
Rage had gone from shaking him to ice-cold, and that was always a bad sign. He moved to the next room and found the walls similarly covered, this time with a woman with an abundance of dark hair and light eyes. Floor to ceiling, in every room of the cottage, the walls held pictures of the same seven naked women. He recognized one as Violet, the senator's wife. Ken had never felt so dirty or sick.
He found the doctor in his bedroom, lying on his bed naked, staring up at the ceiling and the collage of all seven women. The music was loud and the man hummed as he writhed on the bed. He never saw Ken at all, only felt the sting of the knife cutting into his flesh.
"I'd be very still if I were you," Ken hissed.
The doctor froze, lying rigid in his bed with the razor-sharp edge of the knife pressed against his throat. "What do you want?"
"You're a sick son of a bitch," Ken said. "Does Whitney know what a sick fuck you really are?"
"He said it was all right, that I could have my girls with me all the time." The man's voice was high-pitched and whiny. "He knows. Ask him. He'll tell you. He comes in sometimes to see what I've done with them."
"Where are the original pictures kept?"
"Whitney has them all. He has places we can't go and keeps the pictures and files with him." The voice turned sly. "He only shares with me."
"Where does Whitney stay?"
"If I tell you, he'll kill me."
"I'm going to kill you right now if you don't tell me."
"He has rooms that no one can get into on the fourth level, down near the tunnels." He looked up at the staring faces of the women. "Aren't they beautiful? They like me to touch them and take their pictures."
Ken's stomach lurched, threatening to spill the contents. He slid the knife away and caught the man's head in both hands, wrenching hard, hearing the satisfying crack. Whatever legitimacy Whitney had once had, this house and this man were a testament to his growing lunacy.
I'm going to torch the house.
Damn it, Ken, don't do anything crazy.
It's got to come down. I'll make certain it looks like the doc had a little accident with the gas, but this house has to burn. Because no one else was ever going to see what this perverted excuse for a man had done to those women. He was going to blow the son of a bitch into the sky, and when they investigated, they would find the doctor with his candles and matches and a loose gas hose.
He couldn't look at the walls as he worked, feeling slimy surrounded by the images of the women Whitney had experimented on and allowed a very sick man to abuse. Who had stood up for Mari as a child? As a teenager? Jack and he had been in and out of a lot of foster homes and their father had been a rotten, jealous drunk who thrived on beating them, but they'd had their mother and then each other and finally a kind woman who had stood up for them when no one else would. His heart ached for Mari. He was going to be sick if he didn't get the hell out of there, his stomach churning and knotting in revulsion as he set the scene, careful to leave nothing that would indicate anything but an accident.
A slow leak no one caught, the house filled with gas, and the doctor, cavorting with his music and candles, naked in front of his obscene shrines, blown to pieces along with his house, quite tragically.
Get the hell under cover, Jack. They're going to comb the countryside when this thing goes off.
I'll cover you.
I'm going in. I need to get to her.
Damn it, no. Jack snarled it. I mean it, Ken. Get your ass back here. You're not that dumb.
I'm exactly that dumb. The thought of Mari locked down on that examining table, pinned like an insect while a sick pervert photographed her and touched her was more than he could bear. He had to get to her and hold her in his arms. It might be the biggest mistake he'd ever made, but he was going to her. She wouldn't be alone tonight.
Jack swore, a blistering round of curses that Ken ignored. He went out of the house and reset the alarms, leaving everything exactly the way he'd found it. Instead of making his way back up to the top of the bluff to join his brother, he began to crawl through the grass to reach the largest building. There was a way in, a duct, a conduit, a tunnel--anything left behind in the cement he could use. There was always a way.
He used sound, a lesser talent he had and one he wasn't the best at using, but he could bounce it off the cement walls searching for a hollow spot. The cement was thin on top of a spot near the south-facing wall. There were boxes and wooden pallets and crates of all sizes piled around. Obviously the supplies were dropped off nearby and unloaded. He restacked the larger crates and boxes loosely around him to help provide a small shelter while he worked.
It took a half hour to break through the thin layer, and another few minutes to dump the concrete into the hollow space he found inside. He knew there were often wide areas reinforced with rebar that were left open in between the walls of larger, mainly military compounds, and once inside, no one would hear or detect him as he moved around, hopefully making his way to the lower levels.
I'm in. He found a crate and slid it over the opening to hide the hole. It would have to do and probably wouldn't be noticeable with so many crates piled around the area. Just as he slipped inside, pulling the crate over him, the doctor's house blew, exploding outward, sending debris raining down and red orange flames billowing with black smoke high into the air.
Men burst out of the guardhouse and began racing in all directions, silhouetted by the raging fire. An alarm began to sound, breaking the silence of the night along with the roaring of the inferno. Ken paused to watch the house burn. Glass showered down and black spots appeared on the walls, then were consumed by the hungry flames. There was intense satisfaction in knowing no one could get near the place, even as they began to try to tame it with water. It was too late. He'd opened every door to ensure the gas had filled the house and it would look like Dr. Pervert had tried to light one of his many candles, accidentally setting off a bomb and blowing himself across the room, where he struck just right to break his neck.
Dogs burst out of cages somew
here, from a hidden tunnel to his left. They had known there were dogs, but they hadn't known the animals were kept inside. From his vantage point he could see the door swinging open to allow the dogs to escape into the space between the double fences. Whitney was taking no chances that his women might take advantage of the chaos and try to escape.
If they have one tunnel, they'll have more, Jack observed.
Are you clear? Sooner or later they'll get around to sending the dogs to look for someone, just to be on the safe side. I don't think Whitney takes much for granted.
I'm fine, Jack assured. You know he has to have a couple of escape routes. When this place is taken down, he doesn't intend to be on it. You know he prepared for that. He must have a dozen more laboratories just like this one.
I figured as much.
There was a small silence while they listened to flames roaring in anger, threatening the foliage and nearby trees.
That's a hell of a beautiful fire, Jack commented.
I want the walls burned, inside and out. He had floor-to-ceiling pictures of them all, Jack. Even when they were children. Whitney not only knew, but encouraged him. It was one of the sickest things I've ever seen.
Damn good thing the son of a bitch is dead then.
Ken took one last look at the raging flames, wishing it would take the sick feeling from his stomach, but his belly still rebelled, and he had to fight not to vomit every time he recalled the floor-to-ceiling wall of Mari's pictures. Her life chronicled by a perverted deviant. He wanted to smash something.
It was unlike him to give in to his violent emotions. When he went out on an assignment, it was always business. He was completely devoid of all feeling, uncaring of anything but getting the job done. When someone tried to kill him, he rarely took it personal; it was part of who and what he was. But this . . .
You're falling in love with that girl.
Go to hell, Jack. It isn't that. She needs protection.
So do the other women. Are you feeling the same way about them?
How can I fall in love with someone I just met?
You're shallow. I've always told you that, but you never listened to me.
It isn't love. She just--He broke off abruptly. It wasn't love. He didn't dare love. Love could turn into something really ugly with a man like him. He wanted her--wanted to take care of her and see that she had a better life.